Time for my obligatory seagull picture.

Here you can see a couple of seagulls going in for the kill — on some bread. Would they have it any other way?

I’ve increased the contrast and played around with saturation a bit. Call me crazy, but I decided not to crop the picture.

This is for all the people who wasted their lives on Sonic Adventure trying to find Big the Cat’s best friend, Froggy.  Here he is.

For the curious this is yet another of the amphibians to get themselves stuck in Huntersdale’s basement.  But instead of the legions of toads, we have a frog this time!  It was a fair bit larger than the toads, although the bubble wrap in the background of this photo gives you the sense that he wasn’t that large after all — and just how small the toads are!

I’ve decided to be a little bit creative for once, opting to make the image duotone, and fiddling with noise, contrast and vignetting a bit. No cropping, mind.

For the duotone part, I first made the photo black and white, then applied a slight yellow tint to the highlights and a slight blue/grey tint to the shadows.  I really like how those two colours blend together.

Hope you enjoy!

Here’s just a couple of the many toads that have recently hatched near Huntersdale at Royal Holloway, rescued from a dark, dry basement down a set of stairs much too steep for them to climb back up!

I’m finally getting around to sorting out many of the photos I’ve taken over the last year, partly thanks to getting a new laptop, but probably mostly because I’m motivating myself to do so!

This guy likes nothing more than a bit of bread on the Thames.  In fact, the expression tells me he almost expects it…

I’ve been trying out a few post-processing techniques, so there have been some tweaks to contrast, balance and saturation, plus a bit of noise reduction has been applied.

Update 16:41: Re-uploaded the photo as I’d stripped the EXIF data by accident.

This is less a super-amazing photo I’m proud of, and more just here for the duckling factor.

Can you argue with that?  Really?

Anyway, here’s a photo of some ducklings (naw) climbing over a sleeper on the River Thames trying to get back to their mother.  You’ll be glad to know that they all made it!

That reminds me, I should get around to completing No More Heroes…

For once, the photo has been edited with increased contrast, saturation, and a big crop!  Fancy that.

Nature’s accumulated too many costs recently, so it’s consolidating many of its species in an attempt to rein in expenditure.  First up is this BeetleSpider, with the legs and spinnerets of a spider, plus the body of a beetle!

…  Otherwise known as a Walnut Orb Spider, commonly found outdoors in the UK.  Not that I can remember seeing one!

As always, unedited except for a resize for your internet viewing pleasure.  I probably should have changed the white balance, but you can call me Crazy.

Another of my friends chilling down at the river.

Where there’s food, there’s fighting.

Where there’s bread, there’s dread.

Are those wings sticking out of your body or are you just happy to see me?

Here’s a picture of a beast Dragonfly waving to all the passers-by in my Nan’s back garden.  You can tell it isn’t a Damselfly because this one can’t fold it wings back along its body – they have to stick out sideways.  It’s also huge.

Thus what I said.

Maybe I’m going a bit far.

Alright, the title is a bit of a misnomer; this seagull was captured just above the waters of the River Thames.

Now I know what I said before about not liking taking nature photos so much, but these are the kinds of photos I like.

They’re dynamic; they capture scenes that we are unable to see with the naked eye.  These really fast exposure shots can quite often look really good in my opinion and, if you’re lucky, you can immortalise an instant forever.

I probably also enjoy taking these kinds of photos because of the difficulty involved.  In general the more difficult it is to get a shot, the more fun I have!

Is it the same with you?

Like the first photo I uploaded to this site, Boldly Growing, this was taken at Mottisfont Abbey National Trust garden.  However instead of out in the gorgeous gardens, I was inside a rather ‘cosy’ (read: cramped) used-book shop located on the site.

I happened to spy this rather odd looking insect having a rest from its fatigue (read: injury), and also that it was resting on the front of a set of scores that were being sold.

So I tried to make it look as artistic (read: stock) as possible.

What do you think?

Also the scores are copyrighted 1900.  Nice.

Here’s a picture I took a little while back of my aunt’s dog, George.  He’s a lively bugger (my aunt’s finger getting broken is proof), but this photo captures the moment where I actually managed to get up close to him without him trying to take my head off.

And I was lying down.

Good one.

Did you know I’m really not into this “nature” stuff very much?  It’s just that there’s so much of it around I can’t really avoid it…

Take this for example.  Captured near the coast in North Devon, this rather saucy number demonstrates that creatures really will do it anywhere, even on camera.

What impressed me most is that they could fly whilst back to back like this!  Crazy.

I have a weird attraction to this photo…  It’s probably because instead of the bee bee-ing posed on the plant as you would normally see in a photo such as this, it’s heading straight past me!

If that bee were better bee-haved I might have gotten a picture of it on the plant.  Wait, I have taken pictures of bees on plants!  I bee-lieve I’ll upload one sometime.

I’ll stop now.

That’s the name of the cat.

Seriously!

She’s the cat of one of our neighbours, but sometimes she comes over to pose and play.  Quite the model, huh?

She always looks grumpy to me, though…

Here’s a rather funky photo I took at Mottisfont Abbey National Trust garden.  I love the shape of this flower — I don’t think I’d seen anything quite like it until that day.  Doesn’t it look like some kind of space-faring organism?  I’ve probably seen something that looks like it in Star Trek…

It also seems to remind me of an enemy from Metroid…  Although since I can’t remember the enemy or the real name of this plant, I’m just going to call it a Blooper for now.

Edit 2009-06-20: Boldly Growing is totally a better name.