Category: England

Images through a Lens Ball

By cpadmin

On a visit to RHS Hyde Hall I captured some images through a lens ball. Simply put a lens ball is a crystal ball.  Refraction means that images shot through the lens appear upside down. Refraction occurs when light passes through an object of denser mass, such as water or in this case glass. The resulting image has two characteristics. Most of the image is the right way up. In contrast the element of the image within the lens ball is upside down.

The whole point of using a lens ball for me is that Photoshop allows you to isolate the circle of the lens ball within the image. You can then spin the image round so that both the main image and the contents of the lens ball are the “right” way round! You then see a microcosm of the image through the lens ball.

The images from Hyde Hall

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    Before. Looking over the lake at Hyde Hall (Before being spun round)
  • lens ball photography
    After. The same image “spun”
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    The upper pond at Hyde Hall

The first image shows the lake at Hyde Hall as the image came from the camera and the second image shows the refraction “spun” 180 degrees. The third image shows the upper pond at Hyde Hall

More lens ball images captured at Hyde Hall and on the River Crouch appear on our website https://www.compassphotography.co.uk/latest-images/

Five star trip Godmanchester

By cpadmin

Five star trip Godmanchester. Had a five star trip this week. I went to five places en-route to and around Huntingdon. This post shows three of the images captured at one of the ports of call, Godmanchester. Click here to see the page on our website with ten images from that day.

  • Godmanchester
  • Godmanchester
  • Godmanchester
Three images of Godmanchester

First up was the United States Eighth Army Airforce Cemetery near Cambridge. It’s a very moving place, with rows and rows of white crosses. There is also a wall of remembrance and a visitor centre chronicling the events from 1942 to 1945

Next up was Paxton Pits near St Ives (Cambs). This old quarry is now a Nature Reserve with “a rich mosaic of wildlife habitats, with beautiful lakes, riverside, meadow, reed bed, scrub and woodland”. There are lots of places to wander and look at the bird life. Check out Paxton Pits

Moving on, Godmanchester was a place I had not been to before. The waterside and river Great Ouse are extremely photogenic. There is a white latticework bridge and boathouses along the side of the river. The causeway seems to be an area where people congregate. One of the images catches the white bridge (known as the Chinese Bridge) and the spire of the church hiding behind. A panoramic image shows the causeway. A shot of the two storey boathouse also manages to catch the church in the background.

Brampton Mill was the fourth port of call on the tour and I finally ended up at the National Trust property Houghton Mill, also on the Great Ouse. All in all a great day out with four of the five places visited on the Great Ouse.

Alternative sunflowers

By cpadmin

Alternative sunflowers. 2020 has been a good year for sunflowers in my garden. Most of the ones I have grown have dwarf varieties, Little Leo and Teddy Bear. I could not get out to buy packets of tall sunflower seeds due to lockdown. Both varieties grow approximately three feet high. Little Leo is a classic sunflower with long yellow petals, just like the sun’s rays. Teddy bear has a pompom head. It works by starting the flowers as a fringe on the outside and working towards the centre to complete the pompom.

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    A pompom sunflower “Teddy Bear”
  • Alternative sunflowers
    Sunflower pot through the lens ball

The weather also brought some great opportunities for photographing the sunflowers. one of my birthday presents was a lens ball. I decided to experiment with it and the sunflowers were the first subject. A lens ball is a glass sphere which can be used to capture images. The process of refraction turns the image upside down. You have to use software to correct that afterwards. Two images are attached. One showing the “Teddy bear” variety. The lens ball captures the second image. I hope you like the images of alternative sunflowers. This web page has more images of my sunflowers.

I do have some tall sunflowers, these are self-set ones!

Brythnoth from Heybridge

By cpadmin

Brythnoth from Heybridge. Two of many images captured on a walk from Heybridge Basin round the river Blackwater to face Maldon. I wanted to capture images at high tide. It was the hottest day of the year so far. The expanse of water at high tide is truly remarkable.

  • Brythnoth from Heybridge
    Brythnoth with the promenade snaking round
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    Brythnoth and the Promenade Park

It is possible to get a view right across the promenade park to the boat yard and then to the Thames barges moored at Hythe Quay. One of the images shows the statue of Brythnoth on the left and the promenade snaking round in an “S” shape until it reaches the boat yard. It is amazing to recognise that things are not where you would expect them to be. Taking a view from the other side of the water is educational.

By removing the water and the foot of the image and the sky at the top of the picture panoramic images have been created. The technique emphasises the breadth of what is there to see. It’s an aspect missed with the normal proportions of an image. These images include one of Brythnoth on the extreme left and the full expanse of the Promenade Park across the long thin image.

Brythnoth from Heybridge. For more information on the statue of Brythnoth check out this website

More of the images from that walk can be seen on our website. https://www.compassphotography.co.uk/maldon-from-heybridge/

Big Cats at Colchester

By cpadmin

Big cats at Colchester

Big cats at Colchester. This week we had a day at Colchester Zoo. We booked tickets on line and turn up for our time slot. This post shows three images from the many that were captured on the day at Colchester Zoo. A page on our website has a slide show of twelve images

The male lion sat lion sat majestically, surveying his domain. What else would you do if you were him? The lionesses were stretched out asleep. The tiger stretched on the roof of a hide in an aloof way. People wandering past seemed of no interest! He yawned as if we bored him!

Our penultimate visit was to the cheetahs. The expression on this cats face seemed to say “what a fine specimen I am”. And he was a fine specimen too

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    What a fine specimen I am!
  • Day at Colchester Zoo
    The majesty of being a Lion
  • Big cats at Colchester
    One of the tigers yawning as we passed by

The flamingos were difficult to photograph, they kept moving. In the image of them shown in the slide show they are nosing an egg around. Sometimes one of them would sit on it. You could title this image “bottoms up”. Have a look for it on our website page.

The website page is https://www.compassphotography.co.uk/a-day-at-colchester-zoo/

Looking straight down

By cpadmin

Looking straight down from the top of the Moot Hall. The roof of the Moot Hall is open to the elements. From the roof you can see the Blackwater Estuary as far as Bradwell and the Promenade Park in the east. To the south you can pick up tower blocks on Southend seafront. From the other sides fascinating images of the town itself can be captured. You can see where building really are. Not where you think they are!

Maldon High Street as you have never seen it before is the image looking straight down over the front retaining wall here. Perspective is added by the brick which appear to be horizontal.

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    Maldon High Street
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    The prison yard at the Moot Hall

The bricks are actually on the vertical wall and lead the eye down to the clock, which is seen from a strange angle. Moving further down we see the balcony and its flower boxes which are on the first floor, level with the Court Room.

At the top of the image is street level and people crossing the road!

The back of the viewing platform offers a nice view towards Heybridge. Looking right over the edge is a view all the way down to the prison yard and its primitive sanitation. The high walls are visible and the green floor of the yard shows that the sun doesn’t get there often.

The Moot Hall will soon be open for visitors again, check out their website. Click this link to see our gallery of images from the top of the Moot Hall. See more of our images by visiting our website www.compassphotography.co.uk

Photoshoot at Moot Hall

By cpadmin

I did a photoshoot at Moot Hall in Maldon recently. The Trustees and the manager of the Moot Hall in Maldon monument wanted to update their website and publicity material, therefore they needed some new photographs. Three of the images from the day are shown below.

The ground floor of the building opens into the Committee room. Sales and local events are held here. Off the committee room is a beautiful red brick spiral staircase. This staircase has been blocked at the first floor level at some time in past centuries. It is still very photogenic!

On the first floor we find the Court Room. The court room tried people and even had them transported to Australia for stealing a handkerchief! There are more stairs to climb to reach the court room is the council chamber. For the photoshoot the Mayor and her mace bearer came. For the photoshoot both people put on their formal robes and processed in with the mace.

More of the images captured from the photoshoot at the Moot Hall can be seen on our website

Have a look at the Moot Hall Website here

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    The committee room
  • Moot Hall photoshoot
    The stairs lit with candles
  • Moot Hall Photoshoot
    The mayor and mace bearer

Success in photography competitions

By cpadmin

Crantock Poppies

Sucess in photography competitions
National Trust Poppies at Crantock

We have had success in photography competitions with two images recently. The poppy field captured at Crantock near Newquay was one of the images that did well. We were there in June last year and the whole hillside was covered with poppies. Most were red, some were yellow. The National Trust field sloped down towards the sea and the hills on the other side of the valley. The sun was out that day and it was summer at its best. This image was entered in a competition called wildflower landscapes, it came 11th out of 1374 entries, in the top 1%! Use this link to visit the National Trust website for Crantock Beach

White Statue

success in photography competitions
Man escaping at Marks Hall

The second images is more of a strange one. It has had success in photography competitions entitled “strange but true”, “off the wall” and objects on grass. The image shows a sculpture at Marks Hall Gardens last autumn. The white sculpture shows the top half of man supposedly climbing out of something. His arms are levering himself up and he is concentrating on what he is doing. It makes quite an impression. This image came 9th out of 1004 in its best position. Use this link to visit the website of Marks Hall

To look at more of the images go to www.compassphotography.co.uk

Virtual exhibition continues

By cpadmin

The virtual exhibition continues at Rayleigh Windmill. Four more of Mike’s images have been posted on the Facebook page of the windmill. They are images that have been created during lockdown. The lockdown made me take more images in the garden, probably ones I would not have sought out if we had been free to roam Click on this link to see the images. Here is one of the images

All creatures macro and small
Unfurled tulip with added greenfly

Visit our website to see more images

Poppies after the rain

By cpadmin

Poppies after the rain

Poppies after the rain shows three images of a group of ten large deep red poppies has broken bud in the garden. The poppies flowered a few days ago. Yesterday was showery and between the showers I nipped out to collect images of the poppies. Just after a rain shower water droplets are still visible on the petals. The black veins are visible on some of the petals.

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    Seven flowers after the rain shower
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    Close up poppy after the rain
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    After the rain

Our website includes nine image of the clump of ten poppies. These include close ups, images with the sun shining through the petals and a macro of the spider like centre of the largest poppy. View more of the poppy images captured recently by visiting the page “Poppies and poppies” on our website.