Waterworld 2

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Rachael

Walton Bridge

Last month I posted some photographs of the floods along my local stretch of the River Thames, between Weybridge and Hampton.

Hampton riverside

As many will know, the Thames has burst its banks again, only more so.

Walton Bridge from Thames Meadow

I took these photos today and yesterday. If you are not familiar with the area, these images will not have as much impact but, for locals, the inundated landscape is a weird and frightening sight, strangely beautiful at times, but bringing suffering to so many.

Fire Brigade rescuing people from flooded homes

The people I saw being evacuated were outwardly cheerful, putting a brave face on a horrible situation.

Walton Quay

Sadly, more rain is forecast for tonight and the rest of the week – I fear the worst is yet to come.

The Thames claims Walton Lane

Friday afternoon in the city

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Rachael

Muffling up for the journey home

Yesterday, I popped up to London to capture a few moments in the end-of-week commute.

No room on the bus

I enjoy street photography, although I am still very much a newbie at it.

Messages for the messenger

Street seems to suit a grittier style than my more usual genres. I still find myself tempted to tweak and beautify. I find it difficult to shake off the need to have detail in the highlights and the darks, which means my street shots often lack the striking contrasts seen in the work of established street photographers, like Christophe Agou.

The evening headline

Some of my favourite street images by other photographers work as sets or photo essays rather than as stand alone images. There is definitely a different art to the photo essay, and it’s one I’d like to learn. The images I made yesterday hardly count against the work of the great, but it’s a start.

Welcome to the weekend

For a superb collection of street images, see the work of Christophe Agou. I particularly like his Life Below series.

The lost weekend

Study in Pink

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Rachael

Time for some girliness.

Study in yellow

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Rachael

f/4, 1/250, ISO 1000, 100mm

A shot from October that I had overlooked. Lacewings appear delicate but are formidable predators of aphids. According to my Collins Complete Guide to British Insects, ‘the larvae of some species camouflage themselves with the dead skins of their prey’ (p.106). I thought it was pretty, toning with the autumn colour of my dogwood tree. Lacewings look amazing in flight; a photographic challenge for this year perhaps…

Cropped for those who like their bugs up close and personal

That boat shed

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Rachael

Possibly the most photographed boat shed in the world. But, still, it had to be done.

Collembola and friends

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Rachael

This little critter is a globular springtail (Dicyrtomina saundersi). At about 2mm long, it’s a tiny member of the garden wildlife fraternity. You can’t see it clearly in this image but it has a hairy behind, illustrated in the otherwise terrible shot below.

Before macro photography took its hold on me, I didn’t know these little beasts existed. They aren’t even insects. And there are loads of them, everywhere. The shot below is of a raft of assorted springtails that I found floating in a pink bucket outside the back door. I think there are 32 individuals here. Thanks to the springtail experts on Flickr, I can identify many of them:
Sminthurinus niger
Sminthurinus aureus
Dicyrtomina saundersi
Dicyrtomina ornata
Dicyrtoma fusca
Tomocerus minor
assorted Isotomidae.
There are also a couple of psocids (bark flies), which I have photographed before.

I discovered that buckets of water are often fatal because springtails, so named because of the way they leap, are unable to choose the direction of their spring. If they end up in deep water they can become trapped by meniscus effect and die. Of course, I rescued my models (how could I not after they posed so nicely) and released them onto some leaf litter.
Now that my eye is learning to spot ever smaller garden beasts, I also found this little alien, a plant hopper nymph. Odd little thing, again no more than 2mm.

But if you google planthopper nymph, and select images, you will quickly see that this little fella doesn’t even merit an honourable mention in the roll call of strangeness.

For these images I have used my macro lens and cropped in but to get decent detail with something this small, I really need to get closer than 1:1. Canon do a nifty lens that gets you as much as 5x magnification, although I gather it is a tricky thing to use. I don’t have one but I do have my trusty, and inexpensive Raynox, so for the next garden safari, I will bring it along.

Back to Australia tomorrow.

Weather front

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Rachael

50, f/11, 1.3″, 20 mm
Circ. polariser, .6 ND hard grad. and .9 pro glass (I think!)

Another shot from Tuesday’s day out along the Wey Navigation. Was it worth it, capturing this towering weather front, in return for three days of foul weather and counting? Definitely.

A return to bugs tomorrow – this warning is for you, Gunta. 😉

Epic light and changeable weather

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Rachael

The last couple of days have been really foul here – loads more rain that our already saturated landscape really didn’t need, and unremitting grey skies. But on Tuesday, as the weather front rolled slowly in over the Surrey countryside, Jen and I were treated to some seriously epic skies.

Fortuitously, we had chosen for our weekly photoshoot the Wey Navigation towpath between Cartbridge and Triggs Lock. The Navigation is bounded here by water meadows, open spaces and big skies. We were like the proverbial children in the sweet shop (kids in a candy store in American!). It will take me a while to get through all the images I made but here are the first few out of the digital darkroom. Little editing required thanks to my circ. polariser and ND grad. filters. Colours as they appeared on the day.

Of barges, trains and automobiles

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Rachael

Recently I have started to retrace my steps along the Wey Navigation towpath with a view to getting some more up to date pictures for a possible book project. Most of the Navigation runs through pretty countryside but there is one spot, between New Haw and Pyrford, where it runs close to, and is indeed crossed by, the M25, Britain’s busiest motorway. It is not the most picturesque of landscapes but still full of interest for the photographer. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make images here.

Although not conventionally beautiful, this is a very significant spot in the history of transport. Here, within a few paces of its passage under the motorway, the Wey Navigation meets the Basingstoke Canal. The Navigation is not a canal strictly speaking but a river made navigable, and it predates the canal age by some hundred years. Thus the Basingstoke Canal (opened in 1793) represents a later evolution of British transport, although it was never as successful as the Navigation and fell into disuse first. A sign here points to Thames Lock (3 miles), Guildford and Godalming (12 miles) and Greywell Tunnel (31 miles via the Basingstoke Canal).

Immediately after its junction with the canal, the Navigation passes under a bridge that carries the main London to Southampton railway line (1838). The railways of course were a further development and largely responsible for supplanting the canals as the principal means of goods transport.

Then there’s the motorway, the next stage in the development of transport. An iron footbridge next to the railway bridge adds a further layer, albeit rather older and more environmentally sound!

I have had a few funny looks from people during my visits here, and on a couple of occasions people have stopped to ask me what on earth I am photographing. Yet, rather amusingly, I am clearly not the first photog to see potential in this location, although I don’t think I would ever go to such lengths to advertise my Flickr photo stream!

Some people will do anything to get people to look at their photos

In some of my shots I have tried for a desaturated, moody look, to suit the industrial feel of the place.

But sometimes I just can’t resist going for colour. When the late afternoon sun peeps under the motorway, it almost looks pretty.

The next shot does not properly belong here as I took it at Weybridge Station, while waiting to meet my daughter. But it was taken on the same afternoon as some of the earlier pictures, just a few minutes later, and it has got a train in it…

Of all the photographs I have taken here so far, strangely my favourite has no train. I like the simplicity of the brick bridge against the sky. It seemed to demand a contrasty black and white conversion.