photography – Page 133

Discovering St Leonards

One of my favourite places to take a local walk is in the burial ground of St Leonard’s in Ludlow. The grounds are now a naturalised area for people to enjoy nature and wildlife, an attractive environment that residents and visitors alike can enjoy. There are many trees including Yew trees which were grown to make bows, but as the berries are poisonous to animals (and humans), the trees had to be grown in places like churchyards where animals were excluded.

There are also some ageing Lawson’s Cypresses and self-sown Sycamores and Horse-Chestnuts. A large number of birds, butterflies and a colony of rabbits live in the grounds and there are many benches on which to sit and rest and enjoy the birdsong and the countryside views, as well as a few picnic tables and benches situated in a grass clearing.

I love to wander around the monuments and select interesting carvings, words, shapes to photograph. Often hidden by clumps of stinging nettles and moss or lichens each time I visit I see something different. Continue reading Discovering St Leonards

Bench series #33

For the month of August I’m looking for a colourful bench

(This month I want to see photos of a bench that is painted or stained or otherwise coloured in some way. Not the plain wooden variety unless there is some colour detail)

The windmill

The Crane

If you would like to join in with the Bench photo challenge then please take a look at my Bench Series page. No complicated rules, just a bench and a camera required 🙂

Create your own post and title it Bench Series: August
Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
Add the tag ‘bench series’ so everyone can find the benches easily in the WP Reader
Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new bench theme comes out on the first Sunday in September.

My Picks of the Week:

Violetsky has an unusual colourful bench this week and Tgeriatrix has more mosaics from Spain. Colline is all hot-pink in Toronto and staying in Canada Amy takes us on a delightful stroll with a bright blue bench at the end. Ruth finds some comfy ‘benches’ over in Tasmania that you might not want to sit in at the moment.

As always there are so many delightful benches to view, I hope you will check out the other links within the comment section.

Monthly Photo Challenge: The Changing Seasons #8

Whatever happened to the summer?

Month eight already? This year is zooming past sooo quickly. I have already noticed the night drawing in around 9 pm now. And summer is coming to an end. I no longer hear the dawn chorus and the swifts and their offspring appear to have gone back to Africa. And here in the Marches it has been unseasonally grey for weeks. The odd summer day breaks through, but I crave for more sunlight to get me through the winter.

The challenge asks you to change the time of day; perhaps have a go at night photography; play with your camera settings. I have decided to show some of my monthly location in black and white. Not just any black and white, but a grainy film mode on my new camera. I went out for a nature walk around the castle in the golden hour, just before the sun set. Fancy coming with me?

First have a look at those funny trees I showed you in January, the pollarded limes (Linden). Pollarding is a pruning system in which the upper branches of a tree are removed, promoting a dense head of foliage and branches. It has been common in Europe since medieval times and is practised today in urban areas worldwide, primarily to maintain trees at a predetermined height. Wikipedia

The Lime (LInden) trees (August)

Pollarded Lime trees (January)

Date: August 12 2015
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temperature: (23°C during the day, warm and calm in the evening)
Time: 19:30 – 20:30 PM

The wild flowers have grown tall and some are almost over. The Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) that dominates the castle slope are full of fluffy seed-heads. A successful coloniser this flower is known as ‘Bombweed’ in the south of England due to its increasing spread as a result of the clearing of bombed sites during both wars. Ragwort is still in flower, but the thistles are now in seed. Continue reading Monthly Photo Challenge: The Changing Seasons #8

Grey/Gray Door

Only just in time for Ailsa’s Grey theme this week, I spotted this grey door on my way home after gathering photos for the monthly seasonal challenge. Alternatively I could have simply taken a picture of the sky as it is a particularly solid pale grey lump today. Sigh…

As you can see it is very difficult to get a straight line in Ludlow. Oh, and this is my 475th post on this blog. Just thought I’d share that… 🙂

Edit: As my grey door appears to be a blue door (and I accept that it is a blue-grey, even though I know the door is more charcoal grey) I have been back to take another image with a different camera, and here it is. To be honest it is STILL not as dark a grey as it is in reality.

Post Boxes

An article by English Heritage about the familiar British post boxes that we take for granted in our streets nudged me into writing about the unusual one located in Haslemere, Surrey. Sadly it is only a replica of the famous Penfold hexagonal design which dates from 1866. The box was hexagonal in shape with the top decorated by acanthus leaves and balls and painted green.

The box again achieved a degree of modest fame in the cartoon series danger mouse. Danger mouse’s sidekick was named Penfold after JW Penfold since the duo’s secret hideout was in a postbox in Baker Street. Unfortunately the hide out was not a genuine Penfold postbox! Source: The Haslemere Society

Olympic gold medal winner Helen Glover, whose Cornish home town is Penzance, had a Royal Mail box painted gold in honour of her winning performance in the rowing pairs.

Helen Glover

And of course there are many different types of the red painted boxes all over our towns and cities – originally green to blend in with the landscape they were repainted in the famous ‘pillar box red’ by 1884 to increase visibility.

Red Penfold in Bath

Penfold Painted red

enamel-fronted boxes were inserted into the walls of Post Offices.

There are over 800 different types of post boxes. Perhaps you have an unusual one to share? If you do then please post it and link to this one in the comments or via a pingback.

This could become yet another obsession

And if you want to read more fascinating facts about post boxes then please click on the EH link above.