2 Streams from Snowdonia!

This first one was taken in the shadow of Snowdon itself, handheld in very windy conditions, I liked the compositiob, just a shame the day was soo grey of sky!
This one was taken just below Devils Kitchen, in the valley below the Glyders! I used a tripod for this one, (it was less windy)! The composition is again what drew me in to the picture, although its not helped by the grey sky! I'm hoping to revisit the spot again in better conditions in the not too distant future!

Macro flower

Ok, last few for today, again trying to use the macro end of my Canon 28-90mm f4.0-5.6 USM!
The first one gives some sense of the size of the flower, about 2" across!
A closer one concentrating on the detail of the stamen and seed in the center.
Cropped and blown up from the last one, showing the finer details! This is about as close as I can get with my current lens, perhaps when I get some other lenses I may be able to improve!

Comments, critique, hints and tips always welcome!

Bug life on the plot - pics of insects using the macro end of my Canon 28-90mm f4-5.6 USM

As the title says, an attempt to use the macro function of my Canon lens to take some close ups of the various insects that a brief spell of sunshine brought out on Saturday 6th Sept 08!

Hover fly
Red Admiral
Ditto!
Fly
Another fly
Amorous Crickets!
Not too bad methinks for a non dedicated Macro lens, one day I'll have the Canon 100mm Macro lens, and then we'll see whether I can do any better!

B+W Photocomp - image 2!

Every day on my drive to work I go past Dunham Massey, a NT stately home, which is surrounded by a wonderful country park and outside of that lots of very expensive houses. In contrast to the beautiful houses, the fences are a lot more rustic and weatheres, so on my way home (and dodging the showers) I tred to get some piccies of the grain and detail, hence these 2 piccies!

Contry Show, Tatton Park 23-08-2008

A few from the country show at Tatton, the most photogenic thing there were the Raptors, especially this little Falcon!


' Feed me, feed me now!'
'I really can't be bothered with all this, just let me go bak to sleep, ok?'

More newer piccies!

3 more, this time taken on the 20th August 2008.
Mum and 6 baby hedgehogs, sheltering in a compost heap on the plot! Unfortunately the light was BAAAAD, and I didnt feel comfortable disturbing them with flash, so a bit of camera shake has resulted in the slight blurring!
Dunham Park gatehouse. A local NT site near us, the gothic gatehouse is one of 2 shots I took to enter into a B+W photoshoot comp (for fun) on the EOS forum! In the upstairs window was a white rose, it screamed out for a piccy, but without a polarizer (to reduce the reflections on the glass) this was the best I could do!

Some recent pics!

These were taken on the 6th August, on an overcast day! Just practicing and attempting to gain a bit of skills in Photoshop, the version of which I have is an old one (6.0), but does allow me to do a bit of tweaking!

This piccy of Lee was crying out for a B+W conversion, but I didnt want to loose his gorgeous brown eyes, so a bit of PS magic and here we go!
Globe Artichoke

Chrysanthemum