Some white-sprayed thyme roots from a short animated clip I made. My first in HD, in fact. This part of the plant was not featured, but rather the wider and stouter top half, which ironically looked more like what I wanted to show - roots!
Oil and water-based liquids repel each other in very pretty ways sometimes. It's even better when they are brightly coloured, but vegetable oil and balsamic vinegar will do here. At least it looks appetising, after a fashion.
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I've been waiting a week or so to get a shot like this of my amaryllis, flowering for a second time (after a year of leafy recovery.)
I came across no less than five seven-spot ladybirds having some quiet time on a dwarf spruce.
These playing cards have seen a lot of use, judging by their less-than-pristine condition. But that adds character! A photo of perfectly uniform white cards would seem sterile in comparison, and dirt equals detail as far as I'm concerned.
This image was another "Oh look it's nearly midnight" shots where I quickly wrack my brain for visual inspiration before the next day begins.
This is a 100% crop from some animation I have been doing today; the detail of some wispy stalks in a mat of moss.
A little fragment of brick found on the beach at Torbay. Its accompanying stony mortar almost makes it resemble two-thirds of a biscuit sandwich, albeit one washed smooth by decades of sand and surf.
This tiny nasturtium was the first seed-sown plant to appear this year. It's the current leader of its class in the springtime growth race.
Standing with my tripod and zoom lens by a gate in some local woods, I took a few decent images of birds today: A chaffinch, some great tits and a blue tit. This squirrel appeared and decided to watch me, probably waiting for the satisfaction of seeing me step in the nearby dog turd (which never happened.)
Oops, I missed the 20th technically; I was out until very late and didn't do the photo earlier. This was taken on the 21st, but it still feels like the 20th to me. Photo no. 80 will now be an extra taken later on the same day.
This is when you leave a potato in an eggbox on the windowsill, and a sprout from underneath the potato decides it's too dark where it is and starts to make its way upwards.
These water drops have formed on the inside of a windowsill propagator. I have managed to get a wide range of grey tones all across this photo, but the background was white. The flash was bounced down, but it didn't hit much of the background. I like the result.
I picked a shabby-looking bay leaf and noticed how interesting the patterns of dying-off cells look; each tiny area between the veins is like a tile in a mosaic.
Yesterday I noticed this money spider on it web inside one of our compost bins. I only managed to get a side view today, but what I got I captured in some very fine detail.
While not completely dessiccated, these bits of turnip are suitably dry and shrivelled to count as crisps in this picture.
Check out the 70s Doctor Who style monster costume warty bits on the lichen. Rather freakish but interesting.
Two hydrangea flowers, frozen, dried and worn bare by the winter. They have become fused together, and so create a kind of skeletal tent - complete with poles and smoke vents. The entrance must be underneath; I didn't check, but I can easily imagine a ladybird taking shelter under here.
It's Stock Photo Friday! Yep, they are what they look like. Although it has to be said that the photo was taken at a lower magnification than it may seem; these seeds are the big variety - many of them are 2cm long.
Some polo mints are placed on a rubber mouse mat inside a thin freezer bag; this bag is then tied around a drinking straw at the opening with adhesive tape. I make sure the flash reflectors and other cards are in place, turn off my desk lamp, stop the lens down, take the straw in my mouth and press the shutter button. While the two-second timer runs, I place a white card on the opposite side to the foil flash reflector (in this case in front of my face) and suck hard on the straw. The shutter fires and I'm left with this picture.
Leave a decrepit old brick outside in the winter and ice cracks it up handily. It's a good example of how stiff, bare soil gets loosened by frosts. I can just brush the breadcrumb-like bits off when I'm done; there may be little left of this brick in a few years if we keep having winters like the last one.
This mummified sea creature looks as if it may have had a challenging life with its gimpy arm, but I'm sure it managed, for a while at least. It may have been one that was regrowing.
Fiddling around composing bean sprouts on a piece of kitchen foil can come up with strange and unexpected results.
Not the year 066, I mean 2010. As far as I know, we haven't made contact yet, or built a great big spacecraft to travel to Saturn to check out all the weird happenings there...
Today I felt that I should take a pictue of the wooden pen on my desk, as I do quite like the top of it.
A similar crocus plant as before, a bit further down the garden. This morning saw some frost, so there was a relatively rare opportunity to get some shots of frosty spring blooms.
Settings: f/6.7, 1/180 sec, ISO 100, lens and flash settings as yesterday; just foil, no reflectors.
I've been sticking a lot of small objects onto blocks of plasticine this week. Tonight here is a collection of short, dried lavender stalks from last year.
I kept his root from a large coriander plant I grew in 2008. It smelt quite strong, and I thought it might be useful in cooking. It didn't keep its aroma though, and just hangs around now because it looks quite interesting. It would have been nicer to have had more than one of these on show, but it's still good singly.
Today I decided that Spring had arrived; the profusion of emerging crocuses with the mild, sunny weather convinced me. But while these beautiful flowers bloom early and quickly, they wither just as quickly.
