Here Comes Summer

 After a mammoth load of pictures yesterday I have settled on just one photo for today; a beautiful bee hard at work gathering pollen from a buttercup. There are so many different varieties of bee that I cannot say which variety this is however as you can see it is living up to the reputation of being busy. As summer approaches and more flowers come into bloom this is the perfect time of year to spot some of our spectacular and incredibly important pollinators.

Dining Out

 Just a few street shots from Florence.

The bustling cafes around the Piazza del Duomo are in black and white, the other shot in full colour was much quieter and catering for locals and students.

Getting Around

 I can't really say why but I really like trams and one of the things that I enjoyed about my road trip back in 2018 was the number of cities that had tram systems, some of them really old such as these in Prague and Vienna, also in Gothenburg but I don't have any pictures ready to upload and others like in Copenhagen which were super modern and fully automated. Amsterdam has a mix of old and new and somehow they fit with the city which is itself a mix of old and new.

As I say, I am not really sure what the appeal is, maybe it is the mixture of sounds; the rumble along the tracks, the electric buzz or the clanging bells but whatever it is there is something special about this form of transport.

Of course driving around these cities and having to negotiate the trams can be a bit of a challenge given that there are so few cities in the UK that have tram systems. In some places there are dedicated tam lanes and in others cars and trams share the same streets and so extra vigilance is needed.

Scenes from Vrango

 At the moment I am putting together a portfolio for stock photo sites in the hope that over the course of the year ahead I will increase the income from my photography. Whether I do or not remains to be seen but it will help me to focus on quality (I might have said this already in a recent post, I can't recall, I have been asleep since then) and improving as a photographer. As I have not been out much to get new pictures I am revisiting my older files and I am pleasantly surprised by many of the images I have put together over the years. I am also really pleased with the memories that come flooding back too. So most of the pictures I will share for a while at least will be from the archives.

These pictures were shot in Sweden in the summer of 2018. As I am writing this I am listening to the album Treeless Plain by Australian band The Triffids and the song playing right now is "Hell of a Summer" (click on the song title to listen for yourself).

I was on a road trip around Europe with my youngest son and we fulfilled an ambition to visit Sweden. We drove up from Copenhagen in Denmark across the Oresund Bridge which was a fantastic experience and then up to Gothenburg which was possibly the highlight of the trip (although there were several highlights to be honest) and while there we took a trip to Vrango, one of the islands in the archipelago close by. It was a really hot day and we had great fun walking around the island and enjoying the sun and the brightly coloured buildings that were all around the village and the harbour.

I have shared a mixture of colour and black and white images and while I like all of these photos and I would often prefer the black and white images today I much prefer the colour pictures because they are far mor evocative of the overall atmosphere on the island which although it was a quiet refuge from the busy city was still vibrant and uplifting.

Hanging On To Summer

I suppose there is nothing intrinsically Canadian about the Echinacea or Cone Flower but I noticed these fine examples hanging on to the last of the summer sun in the garden. They were also attracting a number of bees collecting pollen and all in all I think they make stunning images.

Whats the Buzz

There is so much that I love about summer and I really feel for anybody who suffers with hay fever because there is so much they can miss out on. Last weekend my daughter and I went walking in the Peak District (pictures to follow soon) and she really struggled with streaming eyes and runny nose for much of the time. Luckily I don't usually suffer like that but yesterday I did and I felt rough. I cheered myself up by listening to the song The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count 

But there is a safe and sneeze free way to enjoy a little bit of the outdoors and summer colour and that is to look at my blog...

Grass pollen is a killer for some people but the first picture is pollen free, guaranteed.

I love the colours of the next three pictures and the humble bumble bee is making the most of the abundance of pollen so you don't have to.

Buttercups and Daisies

There is something reassuring about these simple flowers, they are a sure sign that summer is on it's way and although they're often considered weeds I think they are quite beautiful.

Together they have inspired poems,nursery rhymes, songs and instrumental music  and given their names to numerous florists so clearly I am not the only one taken with them and hopefully you will enjoy them too.

Come on in, the water's lovely

These pictures were taken at Hatchett Pond near Beaulieu.  As you can see it was a gloriously hot day.

I think the first of today's images is a typical English country scene, it's really tranquil and shows why this is such a popular spot.

The cows were clearly feeling the heat and were just standing in the shallows in an effort to keep cool.  The second picture today is definitely my favourite

Making Honey

At the front of my house I have a lovely lavender plant growing in an old chimney stack.  It has been growing for years and it every summer it is a mass of fragrant blossom, and blossom attracts the bees.

Taking photos of bees is not  at all easy as they rarely stay still long enough to get a really sharp image. 

Today's pictures were from my first attempt to photograph bees using my 100mm Macro lens.  I have to be honest most of the shots I took that day were rubbish but I have managed to pick a couple that I am relatively happy with.  This summer I hope to get a bit more practice.

Creeping things

Both of these pictures were taken while out with my youngest son, the lizard was in the Forest of Dean and the beetle I think was on Bickerton Hill in Cheshire.

As I was selecting today's pictures my son recalled the occasion when I was taking the photo of the lizard.  It was on a post at the side of a footpath towards Symonds Yat Rock, it was a hot day and the little critter was basking in the sun.  As we were watching it sitting there the peace was shattered by the loud voice of a large man who emerged from the bushes close by swearing and cursing at the top of his voice.  The language was very colourful and we couldn't work out who or what he was angry at.  Thankfully he marched off and left us in peace.

I like the colours of the lizard and I also love the shimmering blue of the beetle.  These images remind me that there is lots of beauty to be seen we just have to keep our eyes open.