Tag Archives: gardens

Super quick post today, as very busy with work.

Here’s a close up shot of a fountain that is in Kew Gardens, London. It’s one of those nice artistic fountains that probably has a lot of significance in design, none of which I remember or have the time to research just now.

It’s a pretty cool looking thing though, and it must have been switched off for the winter period I think.

Have a good day all.

I bet this seat is a lovely place to hide from the sun on a blisteringly hot day, the leaves providing a natural and colourful canopy. I bet you could even spend a nice relaxing hour laying down in it and having a nap like a hobo.

In winter, not so much.

The bench is in Kew Gardens which I visited over the New Year period, making use of their free pass tickets that they give out at the end of the year.

The tree is there also

Another fun shot this Friday, this time a self portrait taken as a reflection in my shades, which are sat on a bench in Kew Gardens.

I’m going away for a week today, setting off on a train this afternoon and heading North. Tomorrow I’ll be going up to Scotland, and then spending a week driving around that beautiful country and, weather permitting, taking plenty of photos.

I’ve scheduled some posts for next week as I doubt I’ll be able to get online, and certainly won’t be in a position to write and update a blog each day – but you have the usual 5 images coming and that will at least pretend like I’m here and online for it. I hope to have a few nice landscape shots to share with you upon my return.

Alright, this isn’t really a secret garden, as it’s in the middle of Kew Gardens and I had to wait 5 minutes for visitors to disappear so that I could get this shot.

However, it does look a little like a secret garden and as if the structure in the middle is hiding away.

I never did get the files recovered from my corrupt card, so this location is still a little bit of a sore point for me in that I lost what were potentially some great shots. At the same time I’m enjoying working my way through the ones that I did take and pulling out a few which I want to process, it’s certainly refreshing on my eyes to process nature in full daylight. I’m so used to processing night time and decay that it’s a fun challenge for me.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Here’s another shot from Kew Gardens, taken in one of their greenhouses (or glasshouses, as some would say). This section looked at a few fossils, and had a waterfall and makeshift swamp area, but what stood out for me were these prehistoric footprints on one of the pathways.

I don’t think they’re real, but they are pretty cool and reminded me of Jurassic Park in a way.

I can’t believe we’re into July already, but that means this is going into the 6 month period that this photoblog has been running – I’m surprised I’ve managed to keep it up but have enjoyed it along the way, and am very pleased with my work when looking back on the previous posts.

I am nowhere near as active in the photoblog community as many others, and I’ve asked before ‘where do you find the time?’. I work a full time job, so 9am until (officially 5.30) but generally until whenever depending on work; and I’ve also started a new position within the company this month so that’s a little more work and responsibility. I try and maintain some sort of social life and am therefore out a lot during the week, and so try to keep weekends free-ish for photography. The little time I have left, awake, needs to be spent on processing and my other interests, which to be honest have been neglected this year.

What I want to say is a big fat thank you to those that take the time to comment on my work on a daily basis, and to retweet or +one or ‘like’ it, and who spread the love around. I’m terrible at thanking and responding to you guys, but do appreciate it very much. I’ve got a list of photographers at the footer of this blog that I like to check out when possible (Go check them out if you don’t already know them; the majority are photoblogs that are updated frequently), though recently I haven’t been able to do this daily and there are more than those on this list that I look at so it’s in no way exhaustive. If you’re not on the list it’s not because I don’t like you or your work, it’s because I’m busy lazy.

I would like to confirm that you are in the right place. Sure, this isn’t a night time shot, a rooftop shot or an image of a decaying building…change is good sometimes

On Sunday I spent the day in Kew Gardens in London. It’s the first time I had been, an at £15 entry I spent pretty much the whole day there. Most parks in London are free, but these Royal Botanic Gardens are primarily a scientific institution. I’m looking back on my time there through jade coloured glasses, firstly because I caught a bit too much of the sun and am a little burnt and suffering from those effects, and the second because one of my memory cards became corrupted and I haven’t been able to recover the files (yet) which means I’m missing about 350 shots (luckily mostly bracketed, so likely around 150 actual shots). 8 hours walking around – I was pretty frustrated.

Still, I walked away with a lot of images still, and attempted to sit down and process some to see what I did walk away with and what I could salvage to turn my trip into a positive memory. This image seems to have done that.

Walking down one of the paths through the park we came upon a quiet area and I noticed a few bird feeders hanging from trees to my left. I took a closer peak to see if any of them had seeds or nuts in them (all empty) and this little fella flew in and landed on this branch. I’m hopeless when it comes to trees, birds and flowers – so have no idea what this is. If I had to guess, I would say a Robin. He hopped from this branch to one of the feeders, then back to the branch, then the floor, then flew away, back to the branch, etc etc. He seemed content hopping around but I wanted to take a photo of him quickly before he flew away to good. Whenever I’m faced with animals in London, be it a fox, squirrel, dog or pigeon I can be sure that they can be statuesque for 20 minutes but as soon as I reach for the camera bag to get the correct lens they’ll leave the scene as quickly and ninja-like as possible. I therefore had to make do with what was in my hand, and as I was taking all shots handheld that day, no tripod.

The above shot is three exposures, hand held with just one hand and taken with my 10-20mm zoomed in to 17mm (I was rotating the zoom with one finger as my other hand was holding another camera for my friend so didn’t manage to get it all the way). I was pretty impressed with how close he let me get to him, and how still he remained for the three short bursts to take.