OK, so you cannot actually see the lake in these shots but they are all taken around the streets of Annecy which lies at the end of Lake Annecy in the French Alps. It is a wonderful little town with so much character. I had wanted to visit for many years and so when the opportunity presented itself on our roadtrip it was quite an easy choice to fit in a two night stay on the lake shore.
We arrived, having driven through the mountains from a very sunny Italy and through the Mont Blanc tunnel into cold and wet conditions. Shortly after our arrival we were treated to a fantastic summer thunderstorm with an awesome display of lightning.
As I say the town is really beautiful with amazing buildings and a small network of canals that flow into the lake. I hope that one day I will get to travel back here but next time I hope to either enjoy good summer weather or maybe in wither when there is lots of snow.
I have been exceptionally lucky this year in that I have been able to travel a great deal and that means I have had lots of great photo opportunities.
For today I have gone back to May and the streets of Prague. During my roadtrip I tried to do a little street photography and here are a couple of shots that I rather like.
The first one shows a young couple taking a few moments to rest in the shade on some steps near the castle. I think it is a lovely scene, a romantic moment and a moment of calm away from the bustle of the castle precincts.
The second shot shows one of the many trams that work their way through the city's narrow streets.
I recently finished reading a novel set in these streets and having been there and walked the streets of the old town the narrative seemed more alive to me. It really is a beautiful city.
Whenever I am outdoors I seem to get more than my fair share of mosquito bites and it really bugs me (pun intended). So when I was watching these deer at Dunham Massey I could really empathise with their plight. Look at how they must suffer with the swarms of evil bitey flies.
The young stag in the final two images seems to be suffering much more than the others and at first I couldn't think why. However I think the first image might just give us a clue.
When I saw the deer in the first shot I thought he had some fabric or an old boot lace twisted around his antlers but if you look closely you will see that that is not the case. The stag in the last two shots has the downy velvet coating still covering his antlers whereas the first one has antlers which have been scraped "clean" of the velvet and the tassles are the remnants of the soft outer layer. I think that the velvet has a fresh supply of blood and so that will be why it is so attractive to the flies and why this poor creature has such an annoying following while the other have less of a problem.
One other thing that I noticed during my walk around the park was that the young female deer were really quite skittish and shy whereas the young bucks were more relaxed. In just a few weeks however there will be a major change in the behaviour as the rut begins and the bucks will become more aggressive in an attempt to achieve dominance within the herd, it won't be quite so easy to get up close to these marvellous creatures then.
This cute little fella is an Andean Bear cub and was one of the reasons for my decision to visit Chester Zoo. I wasn't entirely sure I would get to see him but I was lucky because he was out with his mother enjoying the fine summer sunshine and exploring the enclosure. He was turning over stones and rolling around and climbing the tree. He went to the very top with ease, it was coming down, as he is in this picture that seemed to give him more of a problem. It was very entertaining and a great photo opportunity.
Having posted some pictures of bees yesterday I had a look through my folders and found these shots of bugs feeding on pollen in the gardens at Powys Castle.
These pictures were taken using the macro feature on a Tamron 70mm - 300mm lens, They were handheld and so not as sharp as I would have liked and I imagine that had I had my Canon 100mm macro lens I may have got some better shots. All the same I'm sure you will agree they're not too bad.
