Chick Flicks (well almost!)

I have been going though my smallholding photographs and reviewing, deleting and cataloging my photographs of chickens - I did not realise I had so many.

We keep a small number of chickens on our smallholding, mostly pure and rare breeds. Typically we have about 20-30 birds of different breeds. My wife enjoys breeding them and selling them at small local auctions - she does not make much money, the costs are not even covered. But it is an interesting hobby and we have met some nice people through it.

These pictures have I have split up mostly by breed or 'activity' So we have photographs of breeds such as Welsummer, Silver Laced Wyandotte and Light Sussex - amongst others. I also show activities such as drinking, scratching for food and 'inside the shed'.

These are now showing in the Chicken section of the smallholding gallery. One picture is also featured as the 'Picture of the Week'. Just before I started writing this post I had a enquiry to purchase a copy!

Below I give a few examples of the photographs from the gallery:-

3 Chickens drinking:



A Maran hen:


Two Light Sussex hens:

Groynes - I still can't get it right

Today was a bright clear still, albeit cold and frosty, day. I prepared myself by bringing my digital SLR to work. So I went for a stroll along the promenade at Aberystwyth to see what photos I could take.

I ended up at the north end of the beach taking some pictures of a groyne there. I have seen some superb pictures of groynes on beaches, but I just cannot seem to get it right. I tried wide-angle shots, telephoto and in-between. I have tried close up to the groyne and further away. But nothing seems to work.

Below I show the best of today's photographs. Can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?

Christmas Cactus Flower

We have two varieties of Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera) growing quite well in a cool well-lit room (the nearest we have to a conservatory). They started flowering well before Christmas and are still going strong. However, they will not last much longer.

So I decided it was about time I tried to take some photographs of the blooms. I broke off a flower with some stalk from each plant and took them inside to photograph.

I tried various lighting techniques using a single and then two flashguns. Both were diffused through commercial diffusing screens. Different permutations of lighting, flash power, angle of lighting and aperture (for depth of field) were used.

Below I show some of the examples of the results. I was slightly disappointed. The shiny surface of the petals reflected too much light, the colours were not lively enough and the sharpness was not quite what I felt should have been obtained.

What do you think?

Crashing Waves at Aberystwyth

We have had some quite stormy weather over the past couple of weeks - in fact it is blowing a gale with the rain lashing down as I write. This has whipped up the seas a little so we get some nice choppy waves breaking onto the beach at Aberystwyth in Mid-Wales (where I work).

The seas are not huge breakers, but are about 6 feet high and have been of sufficient strength the cause damage to the sea wall and promenade.

One day last week was quite rough (a colleague got blown over when visiting a client), so I ventured out with my small digital compact camera to see what I could record. It was nearly high tide with the waves were coming up to the sea wall in places making some nice spray effects.

The pictures below are a sequence I was taking showing the waves crashing into the sea wall. I was standing at the top of the wall by some steps that lead down to the beach. A big wave also hit the wall where I stood sending spray over me (luckily I was shielding the camera with my hand). Buy sheer luck I caught this on camera - the results are below:


1) This first picture shows the waves hitting the sea wall.



2) A fraction of a second later it is spraying up over the prom.


3) This is where I get covered in the spray.


4) The spray disperses

A Winter's day at Cors Caron

A couple of week ago, just after Christmas, we went for a walk over Cors Caron Nature Reserve (Tregaron Bog) to get a bit of exercise and fresh air. As usual I took a camera with me; this time my DSLR.

Although it was overcast and very dull, it was still quite cold - a few days before we had quite sharp frosts for a couple of days. The light levels were quite low and there was little contrast in the scenery. I did not take a tripod, nor monopod, but relied on the 'image stabilisation' to help me get sharp, shake-free photographs.

I tried to capture the dull, almost sombre, atmosphere of the place. There was very little detail in the cloud, as can be seen from the photographs below.

In the first picture, I have tried to capture the stillness of the scene which can be shown in the almost perfect reflections of the trees on the water. In fact there were still traces of ice in the surface of the water which seemed to enhance the clear reflective quality of the water. You can also see that most of the bog is covered in a dull yellow-brown grass.


This second photograph was taken a little further on and shows the reflections of some old stumps in the partially frozen water. In the centre, partial obscured by the trees, is the new bird hide that I mentioned a few weeks ago. In the distance are the rolling green hills and white farmhouses characteristic of this part of Wales.

Photographs of Ivy for artists

I had a request on a forum to add some photographs of Ivy leaves - this was from a portrait artist who wanted to use them within her artwork. I have within the main website a gallery "Backgrounds for artists". This provides a number of images for artists (working in traditional, non-digital methods) to use in their artwork with very few restrictions.

Over the weekend, the weather was atrocious with a lot of rain, strong winds and dull light due to the heavy cloud - not exactly ideal conditions! However, I was lucky in that for a short period one afternoon there was a break in the weather and the sun shone weakly through a layer of clouds. The wind dropped, but there was still slight breeze - enough to move the leaves.

Below I show two of the pictures that I managed to take - they are not intended to be artistic in any way, just a record shot showing sufficient detail of the Ivy to enable the artists to use it as a reference in their artwork. Ideally, I would have liked a larger depth of field, but this would have meant a longer shutter speed, but the breeze rustling the leaves stopped me doing this. As is often the case, I had to compromise...

Waves in Mwnt Cove

Last weekend, just before New Year, we decided to take our daughter to a small cove on the Ceredigion Coast. This cove is a place called Mwnt, and can only be accessed along narrow lanes. To get to the beach you have to go down a number of steps as it is surrounded by low cliffs.

Although the weather was quite heavily overcast, with some rain coming down with the gusty wind, it was quite pleasant to visit - we were not the only ones, there were about 6 cars in the small car-park.

Due to the strong winds from the previous few days, the seas were quite lively with waves between 3 and 6 feet. What was interesting was that every few minutes, a set of larger waves came along making more spectacular splashes against the rocks.

What I also noticed, was that waves were reflected off the cliffs on the southern side so that they travelled across the cove perpendicular to the incoming waves. At certain times, every couple of minutes, these collided with the incoming waves and broke to produce a spiral of surf. The two waves breaking upon each other corkscrewed the surf generating a spiral of white water. Each one only lasted a second or two, but the effect was quite fascinating to watch.

With the dull conditions, it was difficult to photograph, but below I show a selection - the full set can be seen in my gallery http://www.pmstudios.co.uk/Miscellaneous/Seashore/misc.html - look for the two Mwnt albums.

This first picture shows the waves crashing on the northern cliffs of the cove:



This second photograph shows the spiral surf effect:



The final picture is a panoramic of the southern cliffs with another spiral surf: