Now You See Me ... Now You Don't

Danbo, playing hide and seek.

I'm sorry for going AWOL again. I have a significant issue with which to deal. I promise I'll be back regularly once I've got it sorted out ... will tell you all about it then. x

Hats!

One of the categories in my 112 in 2012 project at Flickr is 'Headwear', so I've been looking out for shots of people in hats.

This guy was performing on stage at the Jubilee celebrations in June.

This is the Deputy Head of my son's school, rallying her team at their Sport's Evening, 

 ... and this is one of the parents of the one of the lads in my son's football team.

Tom Monkey

The latest monkey to be born Chez Nous.  Made as a gift for my daughter's friend.

His new owner has named him Tom.

Senecio

Shot taken in my mum's garden a few weeks ago. Now the plant is in full bloom, and covered with bright yellow daisy-type flowers.

Lavender

Hello folks,

I haven't been around for a month, as I have been going through a small but perfectly formed crisis in confidence in my photography. It suddenly felt like a bit of a waste of time as I found myself disliking almost everything I shot. I didn't feel happy uploading stuff that seemed so very underwhelming, so I took a step back for a while.

These shots of lavender were taken in a garden in the very pretty village of Westcot in Oxfordshire. Three beautiful gardens were open to raise funds for the Air Ambulance. They were all very pretty, and horticulturally inspiring. 

It's a shame you can't all smell it through your screen(s) - it gave off the most wonderful scent.

Wild Poppies

At the weekend I met up with one of my Flickr contacts - Mr Woolyboy (he has some amazing landscapes on his photo stream) to show him some Oxfordshire countryside from The Ridgeway.  Whilst he, very professionally, used two cameras and a tripod, I wandered around, knelt on the ground, tramped amongst stinging nettles and leaned over barbed wire fences taking shots here, there and everywhere.  It was really interesting to see how a landscape photographer 'works', and gave me some insight into why my landscapes aren't too impressive!

I would love to find and photograph a 'real' poppy field. No luck so far, but I liked the way these few poppies had managed to seed themselves and grow amongst the ripening wheat (or is it corn?) on the farmland adjacent to where we were.  One of my 'leaning over a barbed wire fence' shots!