Just to Prove I Have All My Ducks in a Row

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Eight!

This is my eighth photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge and yes, I know: my numerical ability is interesting.

Basically, when I pulled together a set of photos for the challenge, I had way too many. I whittled them down to a number approaching seven, but when it came to the final cut, I just couldn't make my mind up. Here, therefore, is number eight; the dandelion clock, symbolising the passing of time and the end of the photo challenge.

The challenge has involved posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So as this is my eighth and final posting in the challenge (honest), there is no sacrificial nominee. Just enjoy this picture and the preceding seven photos.

From "Two Dragons Dancing" By J.S.Watts

                               Their children,

Riding the fierce rivers of chronology,

Are scattered like dandelion clocks.

"Two Dragons Dancing" appears in the poetry collection Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts (Lapwing Publications, 2011)

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Seven

This is my seventh photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

This photograph was taken just this week as a direct result of the seven day nature photograph challenge. Yes it's grapes, British grapes. My neighbour has a vine which cascades from his garden over the wall into the area where I park my car. The grapes look wonderful, but they are inedible (unless you like really, really, bitter things) so they literally wither on the vine. I like the colours in the photograph, the contrast of the natural (the grapes) and the man-made (wall) and the fact that the vine leaves are reddening to match the wall.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my final nomination is musician and photographer Guido Rincon from the folk group Carnac (only if he wants to do it, of course and assuming he hasn't already been challenged).

From "Tales of Autumn in Languedoc" By J.S.Watts

There is just time enough to bask,

For a slight once-upon-a -time moment,

In the heady rush of gold and brown

Coursing through trees and vines

Like a honeyed but deadly kiss.

The vineyards soon will blush, then redden

To darker more serious contusions.

Then comes the time of darkening.

"Tales of Autumn in Languedoc" appears in the poetry collection Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts (Lapwing Publications, 2011)

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Six

This is my sixth photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

This is another "guess what?" photo and yes I really ought to know what this ground loving plant is. It covers the field behind my house and I've walked over it thousands of times. The field and its overgrown vegetation even gets a mention or two (fictionalised, of course) in my novel, Witchlight. I love the way the leaf edges of the plant look silvery in certain light, especially in the spring, when this photo was taken. If anybody is able to tell me what it is called, I'd be grateful.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my sixth nomination is Karen Harvey (only if she wants to do it, of course and assuming she hasn't already been challenged).

Excerpt from Witchlight by J.S.Watts

"Twenty seconds after the cat vacated its spot in the darkest and most secluded part of the field, a blob of pale turquoise light appeared a metre or so above the grass, expanded in volume and brightness, and then disappeared with a barely audible poof! leaving in its place a short, dapper man in well-washed blue jeans and an extremely bright and ever-so-slightly twinkly turquoise shirt. He patted himself down, smoothed his already immaculate auburn hair, and walked across the closely cropped combination of grass, thistles, and nettles towards the back of the houses overlooking the field. His intended destination was the somewhat rampant looking garden at the back of number sixty-six Basingfield Lane in which Holly Jepps, the owner, was currently attempting to tame some long-untended grass."

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Five

This is my fifth photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

The photograph was taken one September. I really ought to know what these flowers/seed pods are, but I'll admit that I don't. For a while I thought some kind of birch. In autumn they are quite common in the countryside around where I live. I've tried looking them up, so I would appear more knowledgeable in this post, but I totally failed to work out what they are. If anybody is able to tell me, I'd be grateful.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my fifth nomination is the writer and photographer Benjamin Jones (only if he wants to do it, of course and assuming he hasn't already been challenged).

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Four

This is my fourth photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

There is an old bridleway near to my house. In early spring it is escorted on its journey by flocks of daffodils, in late spring dog-roses arch over it and in autumn blackberries line its flanks. In late summer, it is green and sheltered and, to me, looks like something John Constable would have painted.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my fourth nomination is the writer and artist Lindum Greene (only if she wants to do it, of course and assuming she hasn't already been challenged).

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Three

This is my third photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

I do not consider myself a bird watcher (I am not sufficiently knowledgeable), but I do watch birds and photograph them and I write about them. I probably have more poems about birds than good photographs of them, because they rarely stay still long enough to be photographed in proximity, whereas, in a poem, I can hold them steady.

Where I live is blessed with many birds, from the LBJ variety to magnificent buzzards. I have photographs of many types, but, it turns out, few of pigeons because, well, pigeons are just pigeons and I tend to take them for granted (I'm a Londoner by birth. London has many, many pigeons). So, to even the balance, here is a pair of Wood Pigeons in flight on a sunny early autumn day.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my third nomination is the writer and photographer Dave Lewis (only if he wants to do it, of course and assuming he hasn't already been challenged).

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day Two

This is my second photograph in the seven day nature photograph challenge.

This is a late autumn photo and these are Rowan Tree berries. I just love the vibrancy of the orange against the black, like little Halloweeen pumpkins.

The challenge (which started on Facebook) involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person on each of those days. So my second nomination is artist Theodora Philcox (only if she wants to do it, of course and assuming she hasn't already been challenged).

Seven Day Nature Photograph Challenge - Day One

Over on that place called Facebook, I have been challenged by the amazingly talented photographer and writer Sara Crowe to a seven day nature photographic challenge. I have decided to complicate things by extending the challenge to my photographic blog. I shall therefore be posting a version of what I post on my personal Facebook page (not my writer's page) to this blog: one photograph a day for the next seven days.

This, my first photograph, was chosen with Sara in mind as I took the photo of the fungi on a nature reserve off the N.E. Lincolnshire coast, which is one of the areas Sara photographs so atmospherically.

The challenge involves posting one nature photograph a day for seven days and nominating one other person to do the same on each of those days. So my first nomination is Patrick Widdess , who is also both a writer and photographer (only if he wants to do it, of course, and assuming he hasn't already been challenged).

From "Musing on Mushrooms" by J.S.Watts

Your overcoat is as pale as death

But your petticoat's dark.

You push yourselves forward much

For those who claim meekness.

"Musing on Mushrooms" appears in the poetry collection Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts (Lapwing Publications, 2011)

Randomised

All photos were taken at the end of October or beginning of November. I like them or they interest me. There is no theme beyond that.

Misty Morning Walk

The following photographs may not be outstanding, artistically speaking, but they are amazing from a personal point of view.

Professional photographers always encourage you to get up early: to catch the light, see the world before others do and capture the dawn mist as it burns away into morning.

Anyone who knows me knows I don't do mornings. I struggle to get up at any time, but especially first thing. I write late at night and into the early hours before going to bed, but I don't get up early to write. I am therefore unlikely to attempt early mornings for my photography.

Except this morning I woke up not too late and the morning mist was still out there and only just beginning to lift. So I threw on some clothes, grabbed my camera and went out to welcome in the morning.