stormy moonlight

All that big talk and a hopeful to do list in the last post means nothing when all I can manage is about 30 mins down at the patch. Had to squeeze that in at the end of the day, and it's definitely October as it gets dark really early now!

So I ticked off 2 items, planted the field beans and the crocus it will be next autumn that they make an appearance so I think I might need to get a little sign made so that I remember where I planted them, then I won't dig them up inadvertently.

I did go to the Allotment Association AGM last night it was quite interesting as they had a talk from the head gardener at Wimpole Hall about the walled garden and it's restoration. I adored the sepia photos from the 1920's which showed the herbaceous borders in their full glory.

There will be no gardening tomorrow as I am off to Stowe Gardens on a photography trip, I may have some shots to show if I'm lucky

Photography navel gazing

No pictures today.

I've spent the last few days being very reflective about my photography in general. This is for a variety of reasons. It probably coincides with a conversation that I had with another photographer on Thursday night, and how my photographs have fared in recent club competitions. Some of the images (two are in my blog flicker photo stream) have scored fairly well but are a little 'so what' for me. However, images that I have tried to make with a different feel to them have not done so well. Oh its because deep down I'm a sucker for a soft grainy image or dark silhouettes. What does this have to do with allotments and gardening you may well ask.

It has begun to dawn on me that the photographs I most widely exhibit actually appear on my blog. Yet I do not exhibit them or take them as a 'photographer' they are often just snaps taken as a record of activity, sightings and of us having fun. This feels weird now I've said it. To be honest its rare that I take my decent camera to the allotment, so am I really a photographer. Wouldn't a photographer be more diligent? Do blogs with highly composed images tell you whats been going on warts and all, they may just be feeding the aspirational gardener within. A little plan that I'm concocting to aid my demonstrations of gardening expertise is the the use of photoshop - it will be much needed to improve the look of my plot as the seasons progress and my usual disasters occur. I might just clone an area of successful cultivation in someones post, say a row of nice peas then just paste it into one of my plot photos. That really would be armchair gardening.

In truth, looking back through my blog I like the image on my last post. Its a TTV (through the viewfinder) image of snowdrops, each time I happen to view it I smile slightly. Sadly, if I had lots of those sort of images in each post it might look like I was trying to hard and it also might get stale quite quickly. It may not be sustainable to produce this sort of image all the time, especially as this is a created image using a specific technique its not an accurate representation of the snowdrops. However I do want to push my image taking further and the blog gives me a reason to take pictures. To try new techniques, but does this fit with the style of my blog. So how do you know what the right balance is.

It appears to be that I am wrestling with these two points at the moment

• Would my blog have a better impact if more of its pictures were composed in a more arty way?

• Is there anything wrong with a picture of some freshly turned earth and a 'I did this today' post?

It leads me to ask the blogging world (outside of photography blogs of course) a question what should a blog photograph be like? Lots of you post photos and compile them in certain ways, or take part in photography memes. What do you think?

Half term hangover

A half term hangover is exactly what I've got, and despite not undertaking any, much needed gardening activities during the half term week, I could not bring myself to visit the allotment today. It was so grey and depressing and frankly I'm recovering, I have another week away from work so have a little time to do a few things.

Recovering from what you may ask - just non stop activity and child entertainment.

We went to my mum and dads in Cardiff on the Saturday, the two boys and me, the journey is the bit I dread especially the stop at the service station. Keeping track of both children, obtaining a hot coffee, refueling the children and a nappy change all take about an hour of full on stress. We got there.

In wales we did a lot of the usual favorites, visited St Fagans (The museum of welsh rural life), Cardiff bay, The National Museum and Penarth with its pier. We also went swimming at the pool. Everything apart from the swimming was free and if you know my mum and dad that includes board and lodge! Thanks Mum.

My mother is well ahead with the seed sowing, on every window ledge something was germinating and her spuds were chitting. I viewed the scene with a sense of urgency to get started with my seeds, I think last year I started a little early but now I'm not so sure. Ahh, I'm always running late with my gardening.

We returned home on the Thursday, its fair to say that Huw had really missed his dad. On Friday Huw returned to Nursery and I planned a special day with Owen. We went to the Fitzwilliam museum, Owen likes the Egyptian stuff in particular and Owen also chose to draw a picture of a horse rider in armour while we were there. They had an exhibition of Japanese prints on which were just fantastic it took us ages to find the tree frog on the convolous plants in one print. We nipped into the Cambridge botanic gardens (naughty mum squeezing in some plants) its free at the moment on weekdays up until the end of February, I took some pictures of snowdrops, TTVstyle.

Friday evening I went to a private view for the local photographic society I belong to, I have a picture in the display so enjoyed a quick glass of wine and looking at everyone else's submissions

On Saturday we went on a family weekend to and stayed in Derbyshire, we took a trip on the Midland railway the boys loved the steam train. We visited Dub Freeze on the Sunday which is a rag tag of VW fanatics its full of show off vehicles and scrap metal for sale. It is amazing how much time and effort people spend "pimping their rides"! We didn't manage to get a suitable skylight for our camper van. I'm not sure if I would be keen to go again it was far too busy and not that entertaining.

I was glad it was back to school today and I did indulge in some retail therapy at the garden centre. It was a bit of a wild and impulsive purchase - a cranberry bush - I have no idea if it suitable or easy to grow. So a little bit of goggleing might be in order to find out how to care for it - any advice greatly received the garden centre guys weren't very convincing with there input.

Beetroot

A little bit of funky art for a Sunday - perhaps not to everybody's taste but it killed a little time while it was raining this afternoon to take a couple of macro shots of the one and only beetroot. Yes my first non raspberry produce from the patch (not enough for Matron's trugblog I think). Some photoshop fun has been included.

We managed a family visit to the patch today the boys picked raspberries apart from the sleeping one. I planted out some celeriac seedlings who are on their second life as they were knocked off the windowsill when very small. John scooped them back into the pot and I held out little hope for them but they are quite strong now. They still have to meet the slugs! I planted them where the butternut squash were as there is now none of nine, hopefully the slugs are full in that vicinity. We all sowed carrot and Kale seed where the broad beans had been then the rain really set in and it was time to go.

We had a choice of doing open gardens or open studios this afternoon, we took the drier option, which might explain the picture.

Pinhole - the results

These are some pinhole images of the allotment site. I am reasonably pleased with the results and will probably give it another go in the future. There are some marks on the images from a dirty scanner bed which is a little irritating.
I uploaded a picture of Huw to the worldwide pinhole day site

Pinhole

Today I went to the patch with a totally different intention, not to cultivate but to photograph because today is world pinhole day. People are encouraged to take pinhole images and upload them to the world pinhole website (there were already images from New Zealand and Australia on the site before I even took my images today). Undeterred I thought I would give it a go and if the pictures are any good I will put them on my blog as they will be of the allotment site. The thing is you can't see exactly what you are taking shots of as the viewfinder does not work as there is no lens. It can be very hit and miss, so I'm not promising anything good. I've tried shots of my flowering tulips and views across the site. The camera pinhole lens I made myself and is held together with good old gaffer tape, see the picture. The exposure times were guessed and I used a stop watch to time them.The film just needs to be developed, old technology hmmmph, its not as instant as digital.


Once I had finished the picture taking I did do a bit of weed clearing as I was waiting for Owen and his dad to return from a taster session at the leisure center open day.

Back to proper gardening next week as those potatoes must be in by the end of the week!