Standing in for Wormsmeat this week as he is away.

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This is a set I shot a few weeks ago, in a Monastery, that is usually closed. It was open to visit, thanks to FAI, a sort of Italian National Trust. Catione Marchese, is a small village near Parma, and I have often passed it when I have visited a client nearby.

It was shot hand held, with all the problems you encounter on a guided tour.

Heat wave

Previous week's Saturday greeted us with snow but yesterday was +25C, in some places even +28 and lots of temperature records was broken.
I used free day and warm weather for walk in town. As did many other people. Fortunately there was thin cloud veil so it was quite pleasant and sun was not too strong. I took also my OM-3 along as I had chance to use it without gloves finally, which meant bit better handling though I still managed to press some buttons inadvertedly while carrying camera. Otherwise I felt that I'm getting used to it and it does not feel so awkward any more.

On way to/from skatepark?

Perfect weather for bike riding

This is show through tram window, I saw her riding when tram passed her behind traffic light and took my camera out in hope that she catches up.

Another photograper, it seemed that he used film camera.

Finnish tourists shooting remains of Banksy exhibition which was in that building last summer

Rush hour

Hold on!

To train. Saw her with this nice hat and wanted to take shot but I had my camera packed already, when I managed to get camera out she was already passing me and I did not want to run after her, so all I got was backside shot...

Mountain Street Photography

Well this is a candid shot of two people sitting on a man made bench that’s concreted into the granite at the summit, 1262m above sea level.
So this rather private moment qualifies, for me at least, as street photography 😊
The man is just about to add their names to the summit's visitor-book.
Both are pretty tired, after following the long path to the top.

Another interesting group of ancient buildings. The wintery skies make the gate look very forbidding. Beautifully carved door-within-a-door.

Nice diagonal composition, emphasised by the wire.
It's just as far going back down! 😉

The two of other photographers are the most interesting to me.

Old and new

One of the buildings of
University of Toronto ( built between 1856 and 1859 ) has a soccer field being constructed nearby for athletic endeavors.

Very sweet and private moment they are sharing...

Great series, lots of human activities. Good weather brings people out. Good light.

Fabulous series and very well captured.

Spring Is Springing

As it's Easter, I've had the week off work and was looking forward to getting out with the camera quite a bit, only to be scuppered by the weather earlier in the week followed by a sudden bout of sickness towards the end (which I seem to be over now), the latter meaning I missed what turned out to be the best day of the week and worse still, was also a new lens day, so the lens ended up remaining in its box for a few days until I felt well enough to do something with it (pictures from that at a later date).

All that aside, I did manage to get out for a few hours between high winds and showers early in the week for a bit of a wander in Brinscall woods. We're roughly in Bluebell Season here in the UK, so I was hoping to find lush carpets of blue amongst the emerging buds of the woods returning back to life for another whizz around the sun, but the bluebells were a no show and I ended up photographing the growing greenery instead.

All images taken with the GFX100S + 45-100 + CPL on a tripod and processed from individual raw files in Capture One Pro 23.

I don't really have any titles for these, they're all just trying to capture the mood of the woods.

This has long been a favourite spot in these woods. It's taken from a reasonably steep slope that leads out of the oldest part of the woods and into the pinewood plantation higher up the hill. There used to be a fallen tree lying across the wall, which you can still see part of towards the right hand side, but a large part of it finally collapsed and fell off, so it's no longer the great subject it used to be, unfortunately.

This is a longer shot from a slightly different position. I couldn't find a good spot that captured the wall and the trees behind it without including the large branches in the foreground, so I eventually settled for trying to balance them on either side and sort of use them as a frame. You can see the remains of the fallen tree I mentioned above, lying across the wall on the lower right.

Here I've crossed the wall from the previous two photos.

A tighter view, concentrating on the contrast between the foliage and the tangle of trees behind.

This was taken further along the slope (stage left on the previous images). I've photographed these trees before and find them really expressive.

By this point I'd scrambled up the slope to the main woodland path that runs along the top of it. Before the pine plantation was installed, this would have been a busy thoroughfare to access the various farms that once stood on these woodlands (one would have been just off to my left in this shot). Up ahead is the brooding darkness of the pine plantation, always gloomy in comparison to the lower woods.

Superb series. You are the master of the forest. Those are magnificent.

One of them...

Unexpected Bonus Wildlife Round

Well, this just happened! A fox in my garden in the middle of the afternoon. I'm not sure if this is quite a common sight for those of you who live in small countryside villages or more rural areas, but in more than 30 years in this house, this is the first time I've seen one in my garden and, as an added bonus, I had my Z8 (more or less) to hand, already fitted with the right lens and the configured for photographing animals as I'd been out this morning photographing my friends dogs as a bit of a test for my new 70-180mm f/2.8 zoom, so it was good to go the moment I saw the fox (well, I had to pop the memory card and battery back in, but otherwise it was ready for action).

Note these are taken through double glazing that could do with a bit of a clean. I think they still look pretty good, but the lens is really quite excellent with just air between it and its subject, even at f/2.8.

Spring in the woods

Managed to get out this afternoon with a camera for a walk in the woods. This is part of Brigsteer Woods, National Trust managed. They've been doing a lot of coppice restoration in recnt years. Spring flowers everywhere...

Anemones and bluebells in the patches that have been coppiced.

But the nice surprise was to find lots of herb paris (Paris quadrifolia) in the damper areas at the bottom of the hill slope. A scarce British native, characteristic of ancient woodlands on limestone. I used to see odd small patches in my old Gloucestershire hunting grounds, but there were huge areas of it here 😊. All its parts have four-fold symmetry.