The summer went by

I could not find the time for photography or updating this blog during the summer. From the beginning of June until the end of July my days were spent either at work or trying to complete the "project" in our backyard. I fixed our basement wall and then built a new terrace behind the house. Most of my time was spent shoveling sand, first digging a deep, large hole next to the wall and then filling it:
I will not calculate how much sand I had to move back and forth, but there sure was a lot of it. Now the basement wall is done as it should be, the drainige etc are up to modern standards.

The terrace turned out nice, it is good to sit down and enjoy the evening, or to have a barbeque. And if you're wondering, no, the terrace was not built sloping down. The camera was not straight when the picture was taken. I decided not to start straightening the image with photoshop, it's good enough as it is.
When the terrace was done, I made good on my promise to my eldest daughter and took her on a photography outing to the boonies. Here are a few pictures from that day:
Nea took this picture of a small spider that decided to hitch a ride on my sleeve:
I've promised to take Nea to see and photograph migrating cranes, so the next update will be coming much faster than this one did.

Walk about

I headed out to the swamp in the morning. My gear considerations last night turned out well. I took along my 50mm lens, the extension set, tripod, a couple of memorycards and a water bottle in my backpack. I attached the 400mm lens to the camera and carried it in my hands or hanging from "speedclips" on the straps of my backpack. I used all the gear I had with me and did not once feel that I would have needed something from the stuff I left at home.

My long break from photography backfired on me as soon as I had gotten thru the woods and onto the swamp. A sparrowhawk took off from a nearby tree and I spun my camera around for the picture. As I tried to get the bird into my sights thru the viewfinder, I wondered why the camera refused to focus. Then I realized that I had not turned the power switch with my thumb as I swung the camera in the right direction. I managed to flick the switch and followed the hawks flight, only to realize that my camerasettings were way off. I managed to keep the focus on the bird as I rolled my shutterspeed. Just as the shutterspeed was coming close to being right, the hawk disappeared amongst the trees. So much for taking that picture. I usually put the right settings in my camera as soon as I head out and keep adjusting them as I move along and the conditions change, in preparation for situations exactly like this one. Before, when I spent more time with my camera in the boonies, I did this without really giving it much thought. I also had no problems flicking the powerswitch with my thumb while lifting my camera to take a shot. Today I managed to mess up on both counts. I really must be out of practice.

I walked about at the swamp, taking pictures of plants and insects. The days pictures:

Did you know that the plant in the third picture is carnivorous?

Lastly, a more personal bit of information. There are not many things in nature that I don't like. Some of the animals or phenomenon that I have come across have been such that I have felt the need to be respectful or cautious, which ever way one wants to see it. There is however one animal that I really cannot stand,THE DEER FLY! I can't think of any other critter as annoying as that. I picked well over ten of them from my neck again today.

Rasberries and bugs II

I had received more orders for the morning, so I went to the supermarket. After getting the shopping done, I headed out to pick rasberries. As allways, I had my camera with me. I left my backpack and camera at the edge of the rasberrybush, close enough to be grabbed on short notice if something interesting came into view. I took a few insect pictures. Here's one:
I had also promised another nature photographer a picture of my WK. This is what it looks like:
There were loads of rasberries. A couple of hours in the bush, and I had gathered just short of a bucketfull. There would have been plenty more to pick, but I ran out of time since I had to head of towards home to pick up the girls from daycare and get myself ready for nightshift at work. If there will be many more years like this one with wild berries, our family will need to invest in another freezer.

Berries

I had to drop by at work to take care of something in the morning. I got the job done and was heading back home at around 10 a.m. At 10:30 I was on my way to the wilderness. I picked a bucketfull of blueberries and half a bucket of cloudberries. For my photoproject I took a few pictures while I was picking berries:

My butterflyspot didn't let me down:
A slightly different shot of a pine cone:
This butterfly seemed to love my backpack:
The osprey came to check me as I walked towards the nesting tree:
There appeared to be some birds in the nest:
Cloudberries:

All in all, a nice day and a good trip.