Bluebells
· Sunday April 6, 2008
I think it is universally accepted that Spring is a busy time; it is especially so for me this year because I’m trying to finish my PhD on time (ie. pass my viva in October). At the moment, however, things are slightly quieter than normal around Southampton because the undergraduate students are all away on their (month-long!) Easter holidays.
What this means is that neither the walking club nor my choir are meeting regularly, so in theory I have plenty of time to get lots of research done :) Things are actually going pretty well work-wise, and I’m hopeful that I can finish all of the simulations of the cochlea I’ve planned for. If you’d like to see some nonlinear time-domain simulations I’ve generated, check out this page though beware the files are somewhat big and take a while to load.
In any case, I’m guessing you came here to read about something related to photography, not to listen to me go on about work, haha. Well as I was returning from a conference in Manchester early last week, I decided to pick up the latest copy of Outdoor Photographer. It made for decent reading with some nice photos, and they also included a section of favourite photographic locations around the South of England. The spot they included for Hampshire, the county where I live, was the Micheldever woods. In the spring, there are areas of this forest which are thickly carpeted by bluebells.
Yesterday, I packed up my gear and hopped on a train out to Micheldever train station. The Micheldever woods are too far to reach on foot from the train station, though there is a smaller forest called the Black Wood nearby, so I headed that way instead.
It was a lovely day (to start), and the sun was playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds. I was slightly disappointed, if only because everything was just starting to bud. So instead of wide forest views, I unpacked my macro lens and did some close-up and more abstract work.
Oily
I’m always impressed by the optical quality of Canon’s 100mm macro lens. If anything comes out unsharp, I can’t blame the equipment. The main problem yesterday was there was an intermittent breeze which, coupled with the alternatingly strong and cloud-obscured sunlight, made conditions a little trickier.
I was a bit frustrated at first, because there were no bluebells in sight at all, just lots of dead leaves on the forest floor. There were other flowers about, though, and I caught the one below while the sun was shining brightly with the lens wide open.
Hover
When I found my first patch of bluebells, I was a bit relieved to have succeeded in finding them at all, haha. Unfortunately, there were very few flowers that had bloomed as of yet, so again, I focused more on individual specimens.
Reach
I’m hoping to return again in a few weeks, when presumably there will be more of a ‘carpet.’
Tendrils
Fingers crossed that the snowstorm I woke up to today(!) will not have damaged these beautiful flowers…
— Emery Ku
Thoughts?
Commenting is closed for this article.
