Living the Dream

This photo makes me laugh and cry in equal measure. Cry, because it's just a bit too darn unclear and if I'd only been standing about a foot further forward in the crowd it would have been a really awesome picture because you'd be able to see the guy's face properly instead of just a weirdly bright nose and mouth. In case you can't tell, it's a guy sitting on his friend's shoulders at a concert, facing into the stage lighting and getting overexcited. Laugh, because the band in question were S Club 3, the last survivors of S Club 7, who were actually surprisingly good, considering. Bradley, Paul and Jo brought the house down with their renditions of such classic songs as "Reach (For the Stars)" and "Bring It All Back", to an ecstatic audience of twentysomethings. Paul may now looks like a chubby builder straight off the site, but their enduring appeal would seem to live on.

Blue Morpho Butterfly



Peleides Blue Morpho Butterfly

This photograph makes me highly annoyed that my hands are so wobbly. I tried so many times to get this shot and this is sadly the best one I have, I still completely failed to centre it nicely and managed to chop the tip of the butterfly's wing right off. I need a tripod or something!

Anyway, even if it's far from perfect, I just love the colours in this picture. Blue Morpho butterflies are completely stunning anyway. I hadn't realised that there are actually three species of butterfly which are commonly referred to as the "blue morpho" - morpho rhetenor, morpho menelaus, and morpho peleides. This one is a peleides blue morpho, also known as the Common Morpho, also known as The Emperor. Of course, controversy is rife in lepidopteric circles and some believe that morpho peleides is merely a subspecies of morpho helenor.

The Common Morpho is found in Central and South America, and the amazing blue colour in its wings is created by the diffraction of light from tiny scales which cover its wings. The underside of the wings is brown and much less exciting, so when it folds up and settles on a tree trunk, it's highly camouflaged.

Diorama of Iguana

Green Iguana at London Zoo

A photo of a Green Iguana at London Zoo. Although this one is extremely and obviously green, apparently these iguanas come in a range of colours, from multicoloured to red. These iguanas are pretty awesome; they have an extra photosensory organ on the top of their heads which is known as the parietal eye. While it's nowhere as developed as their actual eyes, it can detect movement and changes in light and dark, thus helping the iguana to detect predators coming in from above - a useful feature in a tree climbing lizard. Their actual eyes are able to see into ultraviolet wavelengths, so the iguana is easily able to ensure it gets enough UV light to produce sufficient vitamin D.

It's admittedly not an amazing photograph, but it's darn tricky getting a good picture through a scratched glass tank!

Filaments and Fronds

I believe this is a picture of some Old Man's Beard a.k.a.clematis vitalba although I'm not actually sure. But the delicate little fronds and filaments make an interesting picture when they shine in the light of a setting sun.

Dew on the Grass

A photograph of dew droplets on grass stalks underfoot. I almost trod on this particular one before noticing that it was unusually dewy and deciding to take a picture. This is the reason I'm always late everywhere.

The colours of the grass in the photograph are so lush and vibrant, and I like the contrast of the greens and browns. Even in winter, good sunlight can really bring out the colours of nature.

And on the subject of dew-based photography, much though it pains me to link to a Daily Mail article, I just had to post a link to these incredible pictures of insects covered in dew droplets that look like diamonds.

I really wanted to post this link as well, to a photographyblogger article called "20 Spectacular Dew On Grass Pictures". Obviously, if you look at the link you will be struck by the hideous contrast between these amazing photos of dew and my poor offering, but I liked some of the pictures so much that I just can't force myself not to post it. I love this photo by Tico, in which all the dewdrops reflect the greenery around them, and this photo by ecstaticist - the huge glimmering globules of dew remind me of a pair of frog's eyes.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Another angel! This time, the silhouette of one of the angels on a cute little candle decoration we have; my mother bought it in Germany. You light the candle and the heat rising from it sends several little angels spinning around above it. No doubt further pictures will follow because it cries out for photography (at the same time as it sets something of a challenge....)

P.S. Happy New Year! Hurrah for my first post of 2012. I think this is a suitably chirpy start to the year.

Crystal Angel

Photograph of a crystal angel which my family was given as a Christmas present last year. We were actually kind of anxious about putting it on our tree this year because it's kind of precious and breakable, but it seems silly to have a beautiful decoration but never display it, so up she went after a suitably stable branch had been selected.

The photo makes the angel look rather massive, but it's actually teeny. And difficult to photograph...

Warped Bauble

Gold Bauble

This is a photograph of me taking a photograph of me taking a photograph of a bauble. There is quite a lot of recursion going on here, and if only I had been holding a big mirror instead of my camera, it could have gone on forever.Nevermind.

Sadly it's very far from the sharpest picture ever, owing to the rubbish quality of light in my house in December. Oh well. Roll around spring and it'll be back to lovely flower photos...

I believe that this is the first photo I've posted which actually has me in it! Obviously I am terrified of stalkers, although if you can identify me from my spotted Christmas fleece I would be fairly impressed as well as scared.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas candle

I have been most remiss at updating recently. This is largely due to Christmas. I apologise greatly. However, to make up for it, here is a lovely picture of a Christmas candle. There's nothing about the candle that makes it inherently christmassy other than the fact that I took the picture on Christmas day. And obviously any candle that is lit on Christmas day is a Christmas candle. It stands to reason.

Merry Christmas!

5 Reasons Giant Pandas Are a Boost to the Economy



Stained Glass at Buckfast Abbey

 Another picture of the impressive and rather modern stained glass at Buckfast Abbey. I do like the way the light shines through it. But that's not what I want to talk about today.

There has been a surprising amount of vitriol directed at the Edinburgh Zoo's newest arrivals; two giant pandas on loan from China until 2021, Tian Tian and Yang Guan. This is largely because it is supposedly costing the zoo $1,000,000 per year to host them, which some people see as a waste of money. However, I love pandas, and so I disagree. I have thought about this complex issue in great depth, and present my conclusions below:

5 Reasons Giant Pandas Are a Boost to the Economy

1. Pandas are black and white. Therefore, as monochrome creatures, their arrival will be saving newspapers everywhere a small fortune on printing costs. Everyone knows that coloured ink is more expensive.

2. Pandas eat nothing but bamboo. As every gardener knows, bamboo grows like the blazes and is tricky to get rid of. Horticulturalists across the nation can send their unwanted bamboo to Edinburgh Zoo, and the pandas will eat for free every night.

3. Pandas are reluctant breeders, at best. Fewer panda babies means fewer claims for child support.

4. Pandas take shelter in trees or caves, but they do not build permanent homes. This means that the chance of giant pandas precipitating another subprime mortgage crisis is virtually nil.

5. Pandas, unlike many members of our great nation, are actually supposed to be fat and lazy. This means that, unlike humans of similar size and girth, they will not demand costly gastric banding procedures on the NHS.

Beautiful Blue

Doesn't need a whole lot of explaining!

Oh yeah, except for it's upside down.

Spring Has Sprung

Close-up photo of a fern leaf, all furled up and waiting to spring out on the world!

I don't know whether it's actually true but I have heard from several sources that Sigmund Freud has pteridophobia, or a morbid fear of ferns. Seems a strange affliction, but then he was undoubtedly a strange man.

Did you know that the word "fern" applies to any of 12,000 different species of plants? Plus, they reproduce via spores.

Enough with the fern facts now, I feel.

Say What?

This curious fellow is a face in a tree :D

Apparently the phenomenon of seeing faces or shapes in objects like clouds or trees is known as pareidolia. Carl Sagan theorised that seeing faces like this is common because we're hard-wired to recognise them; but precisely because we have the ability to distinguish faces at a distance and in poor lighting, we end up seeing faces when they're not there. Hence we see faces here and here and here... even though they're not there. Unsurprisingly, when faces are distinguished they're often given a religious slant, hence all the bizarre stories about jesus appearing in a bit of marmite. Or a chapati, depending on where you're from.

People who can't recognise faces correctly suffer from prosopagnosia.

Glass Light

This is actually a shot of the very modern stained glass windows at Buckfast Abbey which I mentioned previously. As well as the very traditional main building of the church, complete with elegant windows depicting various saints, they have a large and startlingly modern chapel section right at the back. The entire east wall of this chapel is taken up with a stained glass depiction of Jesus which, to be honest, I found wildly disconcerting. It's something that I would associate more with the very commercialised wings of American evangelism rather than a community of Benedictine monks, but there you go. Personally I'd rather not be stared at by a giant Jesus with square pupils, but whatever floats your boat. Or illuminates your monastery, possibly.

Anyway, alongside freaky Jesus there were some modern abstract stained glass windows which I actually rather liked, and this is a close-up short of some of the chunks of glass. I like the texture particularly.

Guest Photographer

I did not actually take this picture! My boyfriend did. But it's such a nice shot it had to go on the blog, and I'm sure he won't mind. Plus I did hassle him about making sure he got a picture of the cool hole in the tree, so. I totally contributed. Even if he had already taken one >.>

 This particular tree lives in Killerton House, in Devon, another stop-off on my travels there.  As well as attractively hollow treetrunks, Killerton sports the Bear's Hut, a curious little cottage in the grounds. It has a roof lined with pinecones, a stained glass window and a floor made out of the knucklebones of dead deer; one of the family kept a bear in there in Victorian times, hence the name.

Yellow Tutu

Just coming to the end of its summertime life.

Transparent Rose

This photo shows how transparent individual petals can be, but all together they build up into a really rich, thick colour.

Pink Me Up

Once again both insect and flower goes unidentified. You'd think all these photographs would provide me with great motivation to learn about English wildlife and botany but alas, apparently not.