Mineral or Vegetable?

Brief break from my zoo pictures with a quick return to the snowy days of February. Fret not: more animals coming soon!

Snowy Gates

Not as wonky as my previous offering, happily! If you look closely you can see the nubbins of snowmen that appeared to have been decapitated by the time I got there.

Wonky Architecture in the Snow

There's a reason why I hardly ever post pictures of architecture or buildings or even landscapes on this blogs, and it's because I struggle like a small child to take pictures that are even vaguely level. The even sadder thing is that my camera actually does have a "grid" function that you can turn on, superimposing a grid onto the screen, and then you can line up the picture with the lines on the screen and not take photos that look like they've been captured by a seasick photographer on the high seas. Alas, I have only ever turned the grid function on by mistake, and I have no idea how to do it on purpose. Consequently I fear that my photographs will continue to be as ludicrously wonky as this one.

Another snowy architecture photo. I do like the colours in the photo, especially the weirdly green trees, covered in lichen. If only my hands weren't so ludicrously wobbly!

Dark Archway

If only it had been really sunny I think this could have been a good photo. We've had copious amounts of snow here for the past week, and as I missed the first day of snow, when it's all pristine as nice, due to being a hundred and fifty miles away, I was determined to catch up with the photographic opportunities as soon as possible. I went on a mad rampage of snowy photography on a very overcast day, and then today, when it is still snowy but also very sunny… I forgot to take my camera as I left the house. Facepalm! It's even more inexcusable because I got some nice pictures of snowy rooftops from my window this morning, after last night deposited another inch or so of fresh snow across the landscape. Ho hum!

I am going to the zoo at the weekend, so look out for some blurry pictures of exotic animals coming your way very soon...

On the Hedge Of Glory

Regular service is resumed! I apologise profusely for the break, I hadn't realised it was almost a week since my last post. That is most disgraceful of me. I need to head outside in the sunshine again and get snapping some new wintery pictures! Although the only real hint that this photo of a hedge was taken in the depths of January is the profusion of brown twiglet leaves (this is a technical botanical term).

Hedges do not normally strike me as something particularly photo-worthy, I have to admit, but sometimes you just have to strike out in a fresh direction and risk looking like a hedge-obsessed madwoman. For the sake of art!

The Moon in the Afternoon

A picture of the moon in the afternoon: does what it says on the tin. I was actually impressed that my camera was good enough to take more than a blurry picture of the moon really - you can see the seas and everything. If only it had been a full moon, my day would have been made!

Metal Implant

I have no idea what this random yet very specifically shaped piece of metal was doing on the top of a wooden post near my house, but I rather liked the colours it's made as it gently rusts away. It's hard to find nice flowers to photograph in the winter, but I guess that doesn't mean there's nothing at all of interest around and about.

White Bobble

Some kind of cool white berry type thing that I discovered on a recent walk in the wintertime. The wind was blowing like the blazes while I was trying to take this damn picture, but I got there in the end. If only I knew what kind of plant it was, I would share said information!

Incidentally, this is my one hundredth post on this blog! That is quite a few. How exciting :D

Brightness

After all those drab rainy pictures, it's back to chirpy flowers! Although for how much longer, I can't say. I'm afraid my large backlog of photos is already starting to run low after only a month or two of blogging... eek. Hopefully this will provide the impetus required to go out and take lots more lovely pictures and not the impetus require to go "ah well, nevermind" and completely abandon this blog. That would be sad. But it's definitely trickier to enjoy photography in the winter. For one thing, the light's not as good; the flowers have all disappeared and (horror of horrors) sometimes it's pretty damp and chilly to be standing around taking forty pictures of the same tree to get it just right. And I refuse to post pictures which I don't actually like!

So I guess I better take advantage of whatever sunshine sees fit to grace our shores this September, and get snapping...

Incidentally in Ghana I noticed that they use the word "snap" in the same way we use the word "photo"; a photo is a snap, while to take a photo is to snap. I thought it was a cute usage of the word (although briefly confusing when people ask if you want to snap them...)