I have become a bit more animated

Displacement activity

Anything to distract from what's happening on the news right now!

Phone photography

I have been using the Phonescope attachment I bought  from the RSPB.

Both the sundew and butterwort are about to flower at the moment. Each is sending a long stalk into the air to attract insects. Meanwhile, lower down, the plants continue to catch flies in their leaves and so getting the best of both worlds.

Butterwort flower bud

Sundew flower bud

There is lots of new growth in the sundew. It is lovely to see the light catch on the leaf edges as the leaves unfurl.

sundew leaf

sundew leaf

The cucumber plant is growing apace and tendrils are beginning to appear. It won't be long now before I can take some time lapse of them coiling round the bamboo support.

cucumber tendril

It is amazing how much detail can be seen. The hooks on the hind wing of the honey bee are clearly visible.

honey bee wing showing hooks

Finally, a "guess what"!

A sunny day, at last!

We have had weeks and weeks of rain and storm, so when the sun shone at the weekend we made the most of it with a walk to Williamson Park and the Ashton Memorial.

The butterfly house was open, not many butterflies were around, though there were plenty of cocoons ready to burst into butterfly.

Using some of the photographs I took I have been trying out some techniques in Photoshop.

Getting animated

More drawing, and then some animation.

Doodling in retirement

Hoverflies and bike ride

The weather over the last few days has been wonderful.

The other afternoon I sat in the garden for ages watching hoverflies and bees visiting the Michaelmas daisies and Cystus (I think the pink flowers are Cystus....) I set up the camera on the tripod, focused on a flower head and waited for something to land and then fired the remote control to take images every second.

This one was taken using the rapid fire burst option on the camera

Yesterday I went on a bike ride to Glasson Dock - what with it having been dry for a while, together with the wonderful blue skies I elected to go via the canal and come back the way I usually take via the river.

The path along the canal is not a designated cycle path and at times it felt a bit precarious. A narrow way has been worn by walkers, but trying to keep the bike wheels on it felt a bit like tightrope cycling.

The sun was glorious, though blinding at times, I was glad there were few people around, otherwise a dip in the canal would have been likely.

Trying to catch the sunbeams

It was a great day for reflections.

(For the record: total distance 14.14 miles; average speed 6.2 mph (lots of photography stops and bike pushing in the really dodgy bits; maximum speed 12.8 mph)

Going round in circles

Latest project - compasses, both from the photographic and the stop motion aspects.

Here are a couple of short videos.

Displacement activities - rotifer in the bird bath

More distractions

The weather here has been very inclement for the time of year, so when it was raining (yet again) at the weekend I succumbed to book shop browsing and came across "The 1000 dot-to-dot book cityscape".

One thousand dots per picture, luckily each hundred dots is a different colour so hunting the numbers is made marginally easier.

The first one is Amsterdam.

Colouring in

We were at The Pencil Museum in Keswick a couple of weeks ago. It's a place I have been wanting to go to for ages. The reality didn't quite match the expectation in that it was very small and if there hadn't have been a video of the pencil making process the trip round it would have been very short.

I spent quite a time in the shop and came away with a colouring in book as well as a "Daily Sketch journal". While I don't do sketching, I thought it would be a good way of  putting down daily ideas for photo projects and also to record hints and help I glean along the way.

As for the colouring in .. I haven't done any colouring in since being a child. I am enjoying the process of the colouring in together with using it as a means of experimenting with time lapse.  In addition, it is making me very aware of the benefits of Slowing Down, (I realise this does just pertain to keeping within the lines!)

This is the result of  first attempts in both processes. The video merges 4 smaller ones and really could do with slowing down. It isn't obvious but each of the videos was taken with different time lapse intervals.

This second video combines time lapse of the colouring in together with some animation I have done using Photoshop. I have just discovered Photoshop's animation workspace which makes things a lot easier than the long winded process I had been using.

Bike ride to Glasson Dock

Distance: 13.93 miles
Average speed: 7.1 mph
Maximum speed: 16.1 mph

After yesterday's stormy winds it was good to see some blue sky and sun. So, shorts were donned and I headed off for Glasson Dock.

The bluebells are out.

Arriving at the cafe in time for a toasted scone and a coffee. The weather was good enough to enjoy the snackette outside.

I decided to do a circular route and came back via the canal.

The track is not really a designated cycle track and is very bumpy and in places VERY muddy. I ground to a halt in some mud which was deep enough to go over my ankle and I had to recover my shoe. A little later on, I did a slow motion fall from my bike as I hit more mud, luckily falling away from the canal.

I spotted at least five swans on nests along the canal.

Bike ride to Carnforth

Distance: 19.21 miles
Average speed: 7.9 mph
Maximum speed: 14.3 mph

I had intended to do this yesterday but the back tyre was flat again, a replacement inner tube was required. I managed to get that sorted out at Halfords so made the trip today.

Looking over from the aqueduct, building work on the bypass can be seen.

From the other side of the aqueduct, Lancaster castle in the background.

One of the many bridges along the route, these really slow things down as it is almost impossible to see whether anyone is coming in the opposite direction.

More work on the bypass.


Finally into Carnforth and a visit to the station for a much needed sit down, cup of tea and sandwich.

 Luckily I had no Brief Encounter with any grit in my eye!

Back home along the same route.

The Ashton memorial comes into sight.