This is a photo I took with my compact camera on a visit to Ryton Gardens.  I liked the sunshine-yellow of the flowers and think they are as important as the hoverfly.  The hoverfly is sharp as is the flower on which it is sitting.  I also like the fact that it is sitting on a group of three in the foreground, with the flowers repeated in the background.  The settings that the camera chose were ISO80, 1/320 secs at f/4.0 at 6mm.

This pallet had been abandoned near the box sections left over from the building of Spaghetti Junction, and had probably been there for some time – it doesn’t exactly look in A1 condition.

I liked the fact that the flowers were growing through it, regardless of their environment.  I used my 50mm lens in order to blur the background sufficiently.  However, the mistake I made was to use too large an aperture, which meant that although the purple flowers are nice and sharp, the white flower is distractingly blurred.  Settings were ISO200 1/32osecs at f/4.0 – plenty of room to close up the aperture.

Other than that it is a photo that turned out as planned, the graffiti in the background is visible enough to show the context of the reclamation by nature, but is soft enough that it does not distract.

The woods (Woodland Trust’s Everdon Stubbs) are full of bluebells and stitchwort, but this one flower stood out, probably because of the way that the sun was lighting it.

I have cropped the picture in so there are fewer distractions and think that the tall thin crop reflects the elegance of the flower.  I like the way the sun catches the petals, but also the simplicity that comes from just having green and white (plus a tiny hint of yellow) in the photo.

I had my macro lens back on (although only briefly) and the settings were 1/800 secs (on aperture priority) at f/5.0 (to blur the background) at ISO200.

I took the picture with my compact camera, but cropped in close as the centre seemed to be fairly sharp.  I like the brightness of the petals, and the slight clash with the yellow parts of the centre.

Taken at 1/160secs, f/4.0mm, 6mm, ISO80.

I therefore took advantage and went for a walk in the sunshine this lunchtime.  I took lots of pictures (even more than I took on my way to work), but when looking at them in Lightroom, this one caught my eye.  It is of a seed head from a greater willowherb plant – these are the pink flowers that spring up on all the roadsides.  However, I had not noticed before how intricate the seed head is when it has just opened.  They look a little like spider webs, with the fine parachute held between the prongs of the seed case.

I just wanted to share my new discovery with you – it is amazing what you find when you start taking pictures.

The photo was taken with my S90 at ISO80, 1/320 secs at 6mm, f/4.0.

I wanted the focus of this to be the centre of the flower, but rather than zooming right in I also wanted to show the petals to get that extra colour.

For a change there is nothing I would alter about this picture – it has come out just how I wanted it to.

Taken with my EOS400D, Canon 100mm macro lens at ISO200, 1/160secs at f/5.0.

The composition of the main flower is just right, it sits in the right place in the frame, the hoverfly is sharp enough as is the centre of the flower.  The background is blurred enough that I don’t think the green interferes with the photo.  No, that is all OK, the thing that is not right is the other flower.  I am happy that it is blurred and its position in the picture, almost a reflection of the main flower.  What makes me unhappy is that it is chopped off at the bottom.  OK, I was the person that chopped it off at the bottom, but it was better than the alternative which was an array of incredibly distracting foliage!

This was taken handheld on my EOS400D with Macro lens, at ISO200, 1/125secs at f/10.

I hadn’t gone with the intention of taking the shot again, indeed I had forgotten about it.  But, once there, the photos were just asking to be taken – who could resist such vibrant, clashing colours.

Camera settings were 1/160secs at f/10, ISO200 on my 100mm macro lens.

I then noticed the ants, and thought they might be interesting to photograph.  Something as small as an ant is quite difficult to photograph in detail and get sharp.  This was the best of the photos.

However, the reason I like this photo is not because of the subject particularly, but because of the overall look of the shot.  It looks as though I have played with it a lot in Lightroom, but other than upping the exposure by a stop and cropping followed by a touch of sharpening, I haven’t done much with it, the effect appeared in-camera, and I do not know how.

The camera settings were ISO200, 1/125secs with f/9.0.  This shouldn’t be enough to blur the background that much, and I don’t remember it being that shade of green.  For once I had my camera on shutter priority (due to the fact I was hunting butterflies), so maybe the light changed too quickly for the camera. Who knows?

From a composition point of view I was a little disappointed at first, it was not easy to crop as there are always bits going out of the frame making it look incomplete, and I couldn’t remove the bottom flower without the main subject being positioned in such a way as to make the picture appear unbalanced.  However, it is growing on me, and I think it works.  As ever, it could probably be improved if it was sharper, but maybe this adds to the effect.

This photo was one I took on my way to work initially as part of a nature notes feature that I write on my other blog. It was a lovely May morning, but there had been a ground frost.  I had wanted a photo of a buttercup to show that they were about and taking over from dandelions in the effort to win most yellow flowers at a roadside.

However, when I opened up the photo in Lightroom I was surprised at the effect the frost had had on the flowers.  They look as thought there are holes in the petals, and, indeed, there is even some frost inside the flower itself.  I am still struggling somewhat with the focus on my new S90, but this time it did well.

I also have a photo of a dandelion on Flickr taken on the same morning (I think) which I am also pleased with, although I have cropped in more to show the detail on that one.

This photo is not perfect – more depth of field would have been good to get the definition sharper on the rear petals, and the background is not as blurred as it would have been with my macro lens, but then, the camera cost less than my macro lens, so I am not complaining.

The settings on the camera (I admit, it is taking me longer to put this camera in any kind of manual mode than it took with my SLR!) were ISO80, 1/125 secs at f/4.0, 6mm.