These lovely flowers only live for about a day or so, but they really brighten up the front of our house.

twins, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

I went out for a sudden walk this evening. Just was on the phone to her mother, the boys were watching Scooby Doo and I was at a bit of a loose end. Foolishly, I slapped the Tamron 90mm Macro lens onto the camera, but then walked down Gladstone Lane and tried to take some wide angle landscape shots – this didn’t work out. I’ll have to get back down there with the ‘standard’ 18-200mm lens.

On the way home I found this pair in the hedgerow, so I played about with manual and auto focus for about 5 minutes until I got this. The DOF is a bit shallow which could be good or bad, it has it’s good points. I love the fact that the petals cling together in twos, as did the flowers themselves.

All in all, a nice change of pace from over the past few months. Work can only make you so happy.

sparkle, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

I spent  a while playing with a bunch of flowers that I’d bought Judy. The pink Gerbera was striking, so I spent some time trying to capture that with my Tamron 90mm macro lens.  The sun was streaming in the window, so there’s a few blown highlights on the waterdrops, but I’m pretty happy with it.

droplet, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

An experiment in water drops on flowers using a Tamron 90mm macro lens.

hometime, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

My favourite part of the day – going home. This is the Swansea train getting ready to leave Paddington Station.

petals, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

Another flower picture, I know – this is boring. I bought a bunch of flowers yesterday, mainly for Jude to brighten up the house, but it also gives me some practice of taking macro pictures. It took about 50 shots on a Sunday morning to get one that I really liked. There’s a very fine line at F6.3

take me to your leader, originally uploaded by Pete Connolly.

This is probably the best hand held picture I’ve taken so far. I used the Tamron 90mm macro lens with a very wide aperture, so the depth of field was tiny. I’m surprised I managed to get it without shaking the shot, but this was attempt no. 20 or so and it worked out nicely.  The previous ones were all over the place.

It’s a rhododendron flower, for the curious.

fallen flower, originally uploaded by pete_c.

This time, she’s brought a friend for tea.

Taken in my garden this evening