14th October photo - a deer at Attingham

In need of some photo inspiration today I took a trip to my local NT property Attingham Park and I was in luck as the deer were out walking in the park today. Mostly you can just see them in the distance, but today they had moved close to the public walks and look what I got!

I am really pleased with this shot - it is really Autumnal with the leaves on the ground and the misty background.

13th October photo - Halloween cakes

I know its not yet Halloween but I wanted to practice making some Halloween cakes in preparation for the big day. I am quite please with how these have turned out. I have never made orange icing before - but it was surprisingly easy! getting the consistancy of the icing just right was harder - it was either too runny or too firm and did not spread enough. The piping was the fiddly bit - I could not keep the circles quite round - but I suppose the un-eveness makes them a bit more spooky. They were polished off very quickly and I know what I am doing on Hallow's eve now!

I quite like this top photo best as the near cakes are quite sharp and the distant ones more blurred - so this one is my POTD

Remembering the rule of 3's from scrapbooking - yep this one is better than the photo of the 2 cakes.

The warming filter does not help this photo at all - but I am still experimenting with it - I really think it has been a good investment so far.

12th October photo - pumpkins

I went out for a nice long solitary walk today to clear my head and look what I came across!

This lovely pile of pumpkins - all nice & Octobery and ready for Halloween!

11th October photo - apples

I quite like apples but sometimes I can go months without eating any - mainly when they are so old and stale having been stored by the supermarkets for months on end. But at the moment the new season of Cox's apples are out and they are fresh, crunchy and tasty and I can't stop eating them! So today's photo is my favourite apple.

I took a few other shots but I prefer the cut in half apple best.

10th October photo - misty morning

We woke to a lovely Autumnal mist this morning - it was too good an opportunity to miss - so instead of lounging in my PJ's all day as I had planned - I jumped up and ran down to the river by my house, armed with my tripod & cameras. And soon discovered a problem - misty mornings are lovely to look at but very hard to take photos of - especially when the sun is facing right at you!

This is my first shot - when I shot on auto it came out all dark so I had use some manual controls to get this one - its just ok.

I tried this one showing the mist covering Haughmond Hill - but something is missing. When I focused in more tightly - all I got was the white mist and nothing else.

So in desperation I jumped in the car and drove to Atcham - but by this time the mist was lifting and I got this photo - with the mist in the very distant background so not what I wanted - better colours this time though.
Again you can't even see the mist in this photo from the old bridge - so I gave up and took a photo of the bridge instead!

Not sure which one to use as photo of the day as none are brill or really show what I wanted to show. I have got a new photography book on landscape photography - better start reading it and try again if we have any more misty mornings.

9th October photo - Llyn Brenig

Today I had a fab day's geocaching in Wales. I didn't want to bore you with any more lake pictures as my POTD, so I tried to take some photos of nature instead. I have chosen this photo of some reeds at Alwen reservoir as my POTD because I like the contrast of the dark blue water with the light reeds.

I did take some pics of mushrooms but they have not come out very well. I tried to use my 50mm lens - which does not have auto focus on my Nikon D40 - so I had to manually focus it - I thought they were in focus - but in fact they are all blurred! I really must go and get my eyes tested. So Karen we are spared a copy cat blog photo this time!

I started the day at Llyn Brenig - this is one part of a 5 part series of caches around Welsh lakes this is my second one. It involved quite a long walk around the lake. This is the visitor centre there.

Then I moved on to Alwen reservoir and walked the 7 1/2 miles around the edge of it - it was a lovely walk. The dam was a real old fashioned one - it was nice - but hard to photograph.

As I don't seem to be able to do a blog post without a lake photo these days - here are a couple taken on my walk.

This is the bridge where I took the reed photo of the day.

8th October photo - Lake Bala again!

Today I returned to Lake Bala again - it is not a hardship as it is so beautiful. Sue Oliver joined me today - we had not been out together since February this year - so it was nice to catch up.

We were doing a series of 5 caches around the lake - which would give us the clues for the final cache - but frustratingly we could not find one! I think it must be missing as all the others were easy to find. Hope it will be replaced soon so that I can go and find the last piece of the jigsaw.

Not sure which one will be my POTD - either this one of the tree overlooking the lake or this one below of me & Sue.

Or even this one with Arenig Fawr in the background.

It was a lovely sunny day and even though I used my new polarising filter the photos still look a little washed out and don't reflect what we were seeing.

We climbed up a nice hill for one cache only to find a golf course on the neighbouring hill! What a great spot if you like golf.