Welcome all, to the slightly late March blog… which is being uploaded in April so one could argue that this is an April blog- lucky you, getting two blogs in one month! *jumps for joy*
First and foremost, I believe a ‘Happy Easter’ message is needed- HAPPY EASTER! I hope you had a good Easter/bank holiday. And that you all had a relaxing time, full of peace, joy, happiness and not to mention CHOCOLATE!
Easter always brings joy to me ever since I was a little kid. Easter Sunday is the day when my parents, like most others, would without fail put on an Easter egg hunt in the garden – Come rain or shine!
Once the egg hunt was over, it was myself and my siblings job of putting on an Easter egg hunt for my parents… harder than it sounds especially when your parents know all the best hiding places, having done Easter egg hunts for over a decade! I used to love seeing my dad’s face light up as he found an egg, it was as though he had reverted back to childhood. It always gave me a sense of happiness, warmth and love- those memories are something I will cherish forever.
Easter is a time for family, to spend moments together and have fun and to cherish the time spent together. This Easter my family and I went for a walk up on Tide Mills. The grey clouds said it all- it was cold and blustery but that didn’t stop up from having a great walk together.
These days (I can’t believe I’m saying this- the inner child in me is stomping her feet over this) I’m more interested in photographing Easter than actually eating it’s chocolate goodies! My passion for photography has soared- it has become my life. No day has gone by in the past five years where I haven’t at least photographed one thing! Easter and Spring is one of my favourite times of year for photography as there are so many fantastic photo opportunities.
As I mentioned in my previous blog, I couldn’t wait to photograph the beautiful Daffodils and bouncing, Spring Lambs. My garden didn’t unearth an abundance of Daffodils this year sadly, but what my garden did produce in the way of flowers this Spring was beautiful.
A stunning array of different flowers have sprung into bloom, ranging from the classic Daffodils to Bluebells, White Bluebells, Grape Hyacinths and my personal favourite- gorgeously shaded blue/purple Hyacinths, but certainly not forgetting the blossom, blooming in my front garden.
I’ll start you off with a couple of my favourite photographs of this classic Spring flower…
I’m sure you can all agree, they are such beautiful and photogenic flowers- you can’t help but smile when you see them!
Another one of my favourite flowers is the stunningly gorgeous Hyacinth. I absolutely adore them!
These particular flowers have sprung in the most awkward of places in my garden this year. Usually, in my garden they grow singly whereas this year, they’ve decided to grow in bunches tucked into the stems of the Daffodils. No complaints but from a photographical point of view it’s difficult when I plan on just photographing that particular flower but all the stems of other plants get in the way. So, this next photograph is of a pink Hyacinth that I took around this time of year back in 2010- This was one of my best flower photographs that I took in 2010, I am most proud of it still, three years later.
In about a month’s time from now my huge Cherry tree in the centre of my garden will be blossoming. Every year, I look forward to that- it’s my absolute favourite blossom. Beautiful and delicate. In my front garden we currently have a tree blossoming- I’m unsure what plant it is but it’s very pretty and reminds me of the Cherry blossom. In all I took around 30 pictures just of the blossom, experimenting with different angles and lighting options.
I especially love this photograph due to the fact that some of the blossom has bloomed yet there are still some tiny, little buds waiting to blossom. In a strange way, it makes me think the cycle of flowering is extended purposely so the viewer can experience the flowering longer than if all the flowers bloomed at the same time. It’s wonderful. I decided to use a shallow depth of field with this photograph so I could isolate the front blossom from the surrounding buds, in effect putting emphasis on the fully blossomed flower.
All this flower photography I’m forgetting the other significant part of Spring… LAMBS!
I adore going to see the Lambs at this time of year along the South Downs. As fun as they are to photograph it’s quite difficult to photograph a lamb without getting its mother in the frame. Situated right up against the fence, my legs stuck in brambles, grass in one hand, camera in the other, a lot of patience and finally I managed to get a couple of shots of the lambs on their own.
I had forgotten how cute they are! It was worth the pain of the brambles! That’s photography for you!
I’m very excited as next week I’m participating in a woodland day with Circle of Life Rediscovery! I am so excited to be going back to the woods again with the CLR. I will definitely take my camera along to document the day, look out for my next blog for some photographs from the day! New woods= New exploration!!