On Patrol

The Captain wasn't quite sure what was happening. He had heard stories from his men, that there was some strange purple coloured plant that was trying to take over the ground in his area of command.

He hadn't seen any. But hadn't dismissed it, as he trusted his fellow meerkats and the fact that they always told the truth.

So he decided to have a look himself. He got up and had a look around. Yes, it was true, the purple weed had surrounded him. There was no escape.

 Fortunately the assistant at my local B&Q store, picked him up and put hime back on the shelf with his mates.

A Prickly Customer

Following on from yesterday's rose photo, here's another plant that has thorns; the thistle.

This one isn't in Scotland, but growing in Highfields Park, and it has just about done with its flowing for the year.

I took this with another vintage lens that I have, and it's produced some quite nice bokeh.

Mellow Yellow

A close up of the sunflower that we have growing in the garden, that I took with one of the art filters on my Olympus EM-1, just to give it a bit of an unusual look. Maybe so it looked like another plant altogether.

Hopefully there will be quite a lot of sunflower seeds to be collected and possibly eaten when its time to harvest them in a couple of months time.

Still Life

A quiet day at home today, so to reflect that, here's a photo of a flower belonging to an onion plant that is growing in a pot in the garden.

The stem is quite tall, so not sure whether I should have pulled them out a while ago. Still it makes for a nice plant, and they were only old onions anyway, so we've not lost anything.

Curious?

Today, being the first of the month, it's City Daily Photo theme day.

The theme this month is Curiosity. I'm not sure whether my photo fits in with the theme, but I only just remembered that it was time, and I didn't want to miss the party.

So is everyone baffled about what my close up is of? Can it be some matches, sweets. A toy perhaps?

No, it's none of these things. It's actually a close-up of the stamen from some ivy. I took it with one of my legacy lenses. Hence the soft focussing and a little bit of flare.

I hope you like it and plan to visit some more daily photo sites, to see what they have on offer.

Are You Going To Strawberry Fair?

A wild strawberry growing in the garden.

I wonder who will get to eat this first, me or a bird?

Not A Blue Berry

Another shot from the garden plants. This time its some ripening blueberries on the bush that we bought from the garden centre earlier in the year.

We are looking forward to tasting our own homegrown organic blueberries when they fully ripen in the autumn.

Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly

A single head of lavender that smells wonderful.

War Of The Worlds

They're coming to get you. Slowly at first, creeping along, so you don't notice them. Then all of a sudden, bam they've got you.

I bet you're scared now, at what these mysterious things are that I've managed to get a photo of.

Well you don't have to be, as they are only spores on some moss that I saw growing on a wall near the canal. I just happened to shoot it with my new 60mm macro lens that I got at the Photography Show.

Sadly the shot isn't super sharp. A mixture of the wind blowing the plant and my lack of knowledge of shooting with a specialist lens. Hopefully this will improve and I'll be able to take life size photos of insects, beetles etc.

Berry Nice

Gail & I are off work this week; taking it easy and doing a bit of sorting out of the many books, videos, CDs and nic naks that we have cluttering up the house.

This means that I don't get the opportunity of wandering around the city centre in my lunch hour looking for something to photograph.

So today's photo comes from our back garden, and the berries of our large pyrocanthia, or firethorn bush.

I expect to see some birds eating these in the next week or so. Probably pigeons, as we don't seem to get many sparrows in the garden these days. I don't think its completely down to the arrival of Oscar & Marmalade, as they don't chase birds, but probably more to do with the environmental changes or the weather.

2500th Photo - New Life

It's a very special day in the world of Nottingham Daily Photo, as today marks the 2500th post.

Yes that's right 2500 photos, one practically everyday since March 2006. Not every one has been taken in Nottingham, as there's been Dubai, Sydney, Greece, Turkey, Scotland and Wales. Not forgetting the umpteen places in England that I've visited for work and on pleasure.

I do hope you all enjoy my photos and writing, and get to learn something about my life, what I get up to and places that I visit. And of course, lets not forget my lovely wife Gail, who has put up with me, my photography and any blog. How many times has she heard me say "I won't be long, I've just got to do my blog".

Thank you Gail for being so understanding.

I was hoping to take a special birthday shot today, but unfortunately nothing came my way. I sadly missed out on seeing Su Pollard at the Theatre Royal. who She was there today to promote this year's pantomime, as she is in it, together with David Hasslehoff.

So instead, here's a photo that a little special to me. This young plant is at the start of its life to become a Sharon or Persimmon tree. So what's special about that you may be asking? Well I have managed to grow it from a seed, that I picked out of a fruit that I was eating back in February.

I think its quite rare to find a seed in a Sharon fruit anyway. Looking on Google, I read that the seed should be wrapped in a damp tissue and placed in a fridge for three months. So that's exactly what I did.

I took it out the other week and placed it in this little plant pot near the kitchen window. I couldn't believe it when I saw a little tiny shoot appear through the compost. Now look at it. I will probably have to transplant it into a bigger pot soon, now that the shoot is heading very slowly towards the sky. I'll let you know how it goes.

Close-Up Magic

As well as learning some top photography tips yesterday, we also got the opportunity of playing with some Olympus cameras and lenses.

I took this photo with their 60mm f2.8 macro lens, which I have been thinking about buying and wanting to try. It's quite a dinky little lens, and in micro 4/3d's terms, it is equal to a 120mm lens. So besides taking close up's of flowers and insects, it also makes for a very good portrait or general walkabout lens.

I realise that this is not the best advert for the lens, as I don't really do macro work, so I don't think that I got the focussing right, and also I had left a couple of the settings as I had used them in the darkened bar, so they might not have been suitable for the outside world.