Caz Photo Blog

Overall, June wasn’t a bad month for pictures. I did take quite a few at home, exactly half of the month’s photos. But I also managed to get out and about locally as well as a little further afield.

First off, some “near misses” from the month:

[Evening Foxglove was a close contender for Day #162, taken near Ardleigh Reservoir]

[Red Symmetry was taken in the formal gardens at Danbury Park on Day #167]

[Table Shadows was a strong scene found in Docklands on Day #160]

I also enjoyed a trip to look around the gardens at Hylands House. There was a wedding reception going on in the main house, a very grand affair. The main house is a wonderfully restored example of classic Georgian architecture. Plus the sun was out with fluffy clouds scudding about in the sky.

The wedding party was spilling out into the grounds around the house, first for photos out the front, and later enjoying cocktails with jazz on the terrace and lawn behind. All terribly civilised. Heaven knows how much it all cost!

Whilst all that was playing out at the house, I took a good look around the formal gardens. I’ve been to the park before, but not actually looked at the gardens until now.

The formally laid out beds were great for macro shots - and I found these two lovely bees buzzing gently around some of the flowers [right].

I also enjoyed the new display garden which was built to commemmorate the 2007 World Scout Jamboree which was held in the park last summer. It was in this garden’s entrance gazebo that I found my picture of the day for Day #166.

As well as local outings, I managed to get to visit the seaside during June. Firstly, I went to Whitstable on the north Kent coast. I last went a few years ago and it poured with rain. This time around, it was sunny, but there was plenty of wind.

The beach is stony, and there is the odd boat pulled up on the shingle. This one looked rather sad sitting there on its own.

The tides are strong in the area, and so the groynes are substantial and held together with large bolts. You can see there is quite a difference in the level of the shingle from one side to the other.

Despite the harsh conditions, there are still splashes of colour in the front gardens facing the sea. Homeowners have troughs filled with hardy plants which don’t mind the salt atmosphere.

I liked this garden on the sea front. The yellow poppies stood out really well from the grey clapboard of the house. And the plaited rope wound around the railings.

A final walk along the prom and I found a colourful mural on the side of a beach hut:

This is another picture of the kite surfer making use of the free wind power, a slightly different than the one I used for Day #171.

At the end of June I went to visit the newly build beach huts on West Mersea. I had heard they wre worth a look, and wasn’t disappointed by their pastel shades and neat presentation. Here is a selection of those which nearly made it on Day #182.

I don’t often do much processing on my images, but sometimes they really do suit a radical treatment. I did a few a while back in Cooking Up Some Interest. Then the other day, I wanted to illustrate my day, which had gone pretty pear-shaped, but the straight shot really wasn’t cutting it:

The pear looked a bit sad and the lines on the chopping board were distracting from the main point of the picture. So I tried fiddling with some filers. I chose Photoshop CS3’s “Cutout” filter from the Filter Gallery. This gave me:

Better, although it still needed a bit of tidying up. So I set to work with the clone brush to rid the background of all the distracting bits, ending up with the final, much more pear-shaped image:

This is the one which appeared as Day #178 on my Photo-a-Day blog.

I’ve recently found myself on the South Bank a couple of times, both armed with a camera for some good shots.

The first was after the recent @media conference, when I had the pleasure of spending some time with some of the other delegates and a couple of the speakers on the Friday evening. We enjoyed some noodles by the water, and then wandered about round Hungerford Bridge for a while as the dusk settled and the lights came on along the Thames.

[Right - Westminster Illuminations - as the light fades, the shape of the Palace of Westminster is outlined by spotlights]

I managed some other good shots along the river bank - and it was a warm, balmy evening. A great pleasure to be out and about enjoying the sights.

A week or so later, and I was back again, this time after a rather nice lunch with friends in Borough Market. Having had a generous three courses, I felt I needed a walk! So I meandered from London Bridge along to Southwark for a few more shots. The riverbank was very busy with folks out on a Sunday stroll, and the water was busy with boats of all shapes and sizes.

[Left, you can see one of the speedboats zipping about on the water near St. Paul's Cathedral]

I took the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf for a look around on the way back. I haven’t been there for photography for a good while, and was surprised to see how it has changed in a couple of years.

The Jubilee Line station is quite interesting in itself - I love the canopy over the escalator hall, and with the right lighting, it makes an excellent silhouette image [right].

Making my way over to West India Quay, I noticed some attractive boats moored by the dockside. Together with the old cranes, they contrasted well with the modern glass and steel architecture of the new buildings surrounding them [left].

You have already seen some of my shots from Sardinia, where I spent a lovely week at the beginning of May. There were so many images to see on the island, it was hard to choose just one image each day for my Picture of the Day. So here are some near misses…

[Waving Ears - attractive low evening lighting helped to lift this scene on Day #128]

[Chiaramonti, altitude 430m, a strong contender for Day #129]

Having come home, I was just about in time to catch some bluebells in a local wood. Many of the flowers had past their best already, but I did manage to find enough for a carpet of them as a wider shot of the woodland.

[Bluebell Clump, in Swan Wood nearly made it on Day #131]

How has the month gone?

Well, aside from my holiday where I took rather a lot of images, I had a bit of a fallow period in the middle of the month - mainly due to the terrible weather we had for a few days. The I had another dip at the end of the month. Still, we all have ups and downs. A definite up came on Day #144 when I won my camera club’s Mono Print Of The Year award for a black and white version of Day #71’s picture. So I was rather pleased by that!