Autumn light at Ham Pond - # 90/10

Ham Common pond in the evening light. The reeds are catching the setting sun and the natural brown of Autumn turns to gold. (The red car is now, unfortunately, a permanent fixture in any worthwhile of the pond, darn the ruddy thing!!! I shall have to start experimenting with the cloning and removing tools.)

Bullrushes - # 87/10

Ham Common Pond - Autumn.

The Mandarins are back - # 86/10

We are still lurking around Ham Common Pond, because it's close and very attractive at this time.  This pair of Mandarins recently appeared.  A pair (most likely the same pair) have appeared for about three years running, but never stayed to make a nest. They obviously like the area but something isn't "just right".

See how the male is so magnificent and the female is relatively hard to see and so dull and well camoflaged.

I did not have a telephoto lens mounted, so the quality is a bit scratchy. I've cropped this and heavilly enlarged the fragment using Genuine Fractals.  The original was taken at 70mm (35mm equivalent) at f6.3 ISO800 1/30th sec on an Olympus 14-35mm f2.0.

Four trees with two figures - # 85/10

These days I'm forced to find "a good photo" in the near vicinity and work with what's available when I'm available. That makes you look harder and try to see things in a certain way, or style.

So, everything here is as carefully crafted as I could make it: the perspective, the grouping, the tones, the scene, the shadows, the exposure etc.  But to begin with I saw it and thought "That looks nice. I wonder what I can do with it".  For you it might not work, but for me it's approaching the quality of what I call a "gut wrenching" B&W.  It's not quite there, but near enough and it's all I've got time for at the moment.

After school - # 84/10

Relaxing on the way home from school, enjoying the last superb days of October before November comes.

First sight of Autumn 3 - # 75/10

The heavy rains of a wet Summer have eroded the bank leaving interesting root patterns. Man must now work hard to repair the damage Nature has done.

Nicer than yesterday's - # 74/10

On reflection, this is the one I should have chosen yesterday.  Same impressions, but a better expression?

First sight of Autumn 2 - # 73/10

Walking across Ham Common I was attracted to the appearance of the water under the willows, the reflections, the shadows and the knarly exposed roots on the eroded bank. The willow leaves have not yet turned brown.  The green reflection in the water was startling. The camera has captured it quite well.

The other sentinel - # 09/114

Another! This time the goose is replaced by a little boy. How things can change within a matter of minutes.

I never tire of this scene. The shape of the white cottage and the way the brick house peeps through the trees fascinate me. We can probably say that the pond on Ham Common, after hundreds of years, has never looked more attractive than it does today. These qualities are in fact man-made, thanks to the love and care of various people and years of scientific and accademic effort to understand the improvement of wetlands, install drainage pipes, manage plants and handle so many other "urban issues". It's a great outcome after a lot of effort. A couple of hundred years ago it was more or less a village dump.

The Sentinel - # 09/113

Much dithering over colour or B&W, but I think the colour does it better. The tones seemed to be too much "dark or light" with not enough of that nice gentle grey in the middle.

Here is another variation of the view across the pond at Ham Common, looking due south. The Egyptian goose is guarding his brood of no less than 9 goslings. Mrs (or Mr?) Goose seems to have disappeared. I hope that it has not fallen victim to a passing car, or perhaps a fox. Yesterday's little chapel sits immediately behind the camera. Just swivel the camera round and you get yet another nice photo.

(Sorry about the weird sky, but that's how it is these days).

Clear signs of Spring 2 - # 09/44

A boy duck closely following a girl duck is a clear sign of Spring.

Clear signs of Spring - # 09/43

...........just as the title says. The pond at Ham Common.

Version 2 - # 09/41

I'm still dithering, so here's the colour version of yesterday's. Which do you prefer?

Sunlight across Ham Pond March 2009 - # 09/40

We've moved away from Surbiton/Kingston back up to Richmond.

Some of you will recognise the Pond on Ham Common with Gordon House behind.

Here's another attempt to capture the brilliant reflection of the sunlight across the water. I dithered over whether to use colour or b&w. Sorry about the cars at the back - but that's the curse of urban living.

You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it. It's full size, so that you can roam around a bit.

(For the technically minded, I confess to a tweak using an "oh, so soft and slight" touch with the very useful Neutral Density Graduated Filter tool in Lightroom 2.3. The shaft of sunlight was OK "in camera" but I felt it needed softening slightly).

Camera: Olympus E3. Lens 14-35mm 1:2

Four new cygnets on Ham Pond - # 08/121

As promised yesterday - here are the four of them. I'll try to track them through the season, and if really lucky catch them when Daddy is giving flying lessons. He starts by teaching them to lay out a runway and calculate distance.

Mother and child - # -8/120

Great news from Ham Pond! Some time ago I told you the story of the demise of the resident swan family because of the uncontrolled dog. This year the new resident swan (who arrived after a season with no swans at all occupying the pond) found a mate, and four new cygnets hatched out about 3 days ago. I saw the new babies shortly after hatching, but had no camera. Here is my very first, carefully selected, shot (I'll show all four tomorrow).

Camera: Olympus E3

Rough Nature - the whole story - # 08/65

Two years ago a dog killed the whole family of swans living on the pond. Last year a new swan took over the empty pond and this year found a mate. Canada geese arrived as usual in winter. This Spring the swans have mated and the Cob is now very aggressively defending "his" pond.

Most of the other Canadas have gone but these two remained. Naturally the powerful aggressive swan is keeping them off the small nesting island. Hour by hour he confronts the geese and refuses to let them onto the water.

I captured the goose as she started to lay and egg on the bank. The swan is keeping the two geese off the water. You can see the egg just starting to emerge. Yesterday you saw it two thirds out.

Hot News !!!!!! - # 08/64

Look closely...you can see the egg is two thirds out. Taken this very morning!

Mummy, I think I'm developing a chillblain- # 330

Ham Pond. Very cold, brilliant sunshine, confused Canada geese. Sun due South.

The substance of all illusions - # 250

(...a bit late today having spent part of my "blog time" mending a bicycle tyre). Thanks to all who commented and helped to develop a nice little discussion yesterday around my "illusions" created with mud, sky, pebbles and water. I had planned to end with this - and you all brought the conversation nicely around to it. This is what they are made of: bits of this and that, and sometimes tatty. But when you pick them up and dream they can be powerful. (I hope that's not trite. I think my old English master might have looked down his nose at me.)

I think I am happier struggling with the camera to make a "photograph", rather than playing at "graphic art". But I have enjoyed the week.......I wish you an (early) Happy Weekend.