Accent or companion plantings, Kusamono, are used in the formal display of bonsai where they serve a supporting role in the composition.

This January a new Lego mini figure series was released so I picked up a few from our local Lego shop.   As the weather has been bad and I’ve not managed to get out with the camera much I’ve thought I would do some Lego photography of the mini figures doing weird things.

Choose your side wisely

The above figures are from some Starwars Lego sets, thought it would make a funny photo.

Walk this way

The cowboy mini figure is from this years new Lego mini figure collection.

Lego Facebook – Why not Follow my Facebook Photography page here

Endor Property Developers

Keeping healthy

I’ve been watching a lot of Spartacus recently, great show.  Thought I would try a few Roman, Gladiator Lego mini figure photos.

The Lego Roman and Minotaur is from this years mini figure set, the Gladiator is from last years.

You have to watch Spartacus to get this.

Lastly the Lego Alien

We set off late so only got to Minsmere about an 2 hours before sunset, we parked up and went straight to the visitors centre.  Map in hand we walked to one of the hides and sat down, within 5mins we saw a Hen Harrier

Hen Harrier – Once predating free-range fowl, earning its present name, its effect on the number of grouse available to shoot is the cause of modern conflict and threatens its survival in some parts of the UK, particularly on the driven grouse moors of England and Scotland.

If you click the photo you might just be able to see the Hen Harrier.

Starling Murmuration – During autumn, dark clouds begin to form in the sky above fields, woodlands and reedbeds. But these are no ordinary clouds. They are one of the UK’s most incredible wildlife spectacles.

As it started to get darker we began to see the starling roost begin, quite a big gathering of starlings to watch flying around the sky in tight formation. Once the starling action had calmed down we set off to the pub.

We got up nice and early in the morning for first light, it was well worth rolling out of bed at 6:30. Beautiful clear skies to photography.

For All the landscape photos I used a Nikon 7000 with Sigma 10-20mm lens, sitting on a bean bag.

Over the few hours we spent at Minsmere we spotted more Hen & Marsh harriers, water rails, red deer (see below), starling roost any many more different birds.

Red deer spotted in the morning crossing the marsh land.

Minsmere is an amazing place to visit, it doesn’t disappoint when it comes to the amount of wildlife and habitats it offers. To find out more take a look here http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/minsmere/ you can also Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RSPBMinsmere

We plan to visit Minsmere again in September 2012 – Keep you posted.

Playing around with the processing, not to everyone’s taste but I like them.

Cow 1

Cow 2

Cow 3

Let me know what you think?

Sunset at Curbar Gap

We watched the sunset then it was back in the car to try and find our accommodation for the night.

In the morning we had breakfast then travelled down the road to Bakewell to do some photography near the river.

I captured this shot and processed it to make it look old, matching the old village bridge.

After some more photos it was off to sample the famous Bakewell tart (they like to call it bakewell pudding)

Very nice weekend, not a great deal of photos to show for it, but a good time for all of us.

The camera is very is to setup, just add 8 AA batteries, set the camera to the mode you would like to use.  Then just switch the camera to on and place the camera where you want it.

I’ve only used the photo mode so far but plan to try the video mode soon.
So far the camera has captured a few birds, the local cat, pheasant and a fox.
The camera has 3 sensitivity modes, on normal it seems to work fine.

When setting the camera I would suggest you think about the position very carefully, think about the sun position throughout the day, you don’t want the sun facing directly into the lens. Something else to think about how low the camera should be, I would say 1m is a good height.

Below are a few examples of the photos the camera has captured so far.

Below are a couple time lapse vids I made from the trophy camera photos over about 1 week of use.

I enjoy Macro , close up photography so mushrooms are great to photograph with all the detail they have.  I have always wanted to photograph a Fly Agaric, but every time I found one someone had kicked it over or it had been eaten by a slug.   We visited a local woods and found quite a few Fly Agaric’s in good condition.

Fly Agaric – Berserker Mushroom

Modern scholars believe certain examples of berserker rage to have been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita.

I also managed to grab a photo of a Death Cap, Amanita phalloides
A very appropriate common name for this species. Eating one of these will very likely be fatal if hospital treatment is not sought. Even then, survival is far from certain. There is no antidote.

it is estimated that 30 grams (1 oz), or half a cap, of this mushroom is enough to kill a human.

Another find was this Cauliflower mushroom (below)

Perfectly lit by the light coming though the trees of the Forest of Dean

Another interesting mushroom to photograph are the Shaggy ink Caps. (photographed just off a golf course, we looked a bit weird photographing these monsters while golfers walked onto the next hole.)

The Shaggy Ink caps start to melt once they have become full size, they produce a black slime like tar that melts slowly off the mushroom. In the photo below you can see some of the slime blowing in the wind.

Mushroom photos from 2011

Hope you enjoyed my mushroom photos from 2011, Please leave a comment

I moved on ahead to try and get closer without spooking them too much.

The light was poor and I was shooting hand-held so the shots could have been better but I was happy to see the boar nether mind get a photo.  Some people visit the wood searching for boar for the week and don’t come across any.  We had been in the woods about 30mins and found some and photographed them.

We left the Boar to do their business and carried on with our walk. We did a circular route around that part of the forest and covered about 2 miles, well that’s what endomondo GPS tracking seemed to think, It seemed like more than 2 miles to me

Well after the walk we went back to our hotel to get ready for some Nepalese food , the food was great, so nice and fresh tasting. A few beers then off to bed as we planned to get up early the next day.

The next morning we woke up and the weather was grim, rain again , we had a relaxing breakfast and waited for the rain to pass.  couple hours later the weather was good so we set off to a different part of the forest for a fungi foray the OH had planned.

We saw loads of cool mushrooms and a few rare ones, see next blog post mushroom photos.

while walking around the forest we came across a family of Wild boar this time. They walked about 10m away from us just passing not bothered at all.

Harsh light and poor composition , but still a good experience.

Its was time to go home after this, excellent weekend. We had managed to see boar on both days and the weather was kind to us.

Below are some photos from the trip

We went down to the beach as soon as we arrived to checkout Bamburgh castle.

It was getting late and a storm seemed to be approaching from the East.  I setup my tripod and started to compose a shot of the approaching storm.

The storm seemed to pass by us standing on the hill, all but a few spots of rain got us. The light was beautiful.  We packed up and set off for some grub.

We planned to get a boat over to the Farne Islands the following day.