Amelia's photos

Weekend guests caught up with me, so The Sunday Challenge, Wall, is rather late unfortunately. We live in a village with plenty of soft red sandstone, and many walls are constructed using it. It erodes easily in places, and the PiP shows one stone.

Hope you all have had a very HFF. Sorry for the late posting, we have house guests this weekend.

Seed head of Clematis viorna. I don't know exactly which variety as I was given the plant as a small seedling six years ago. You may be able to see the fine threads of a spider web here too. The seed head is still gold and green, so I changed the original photo to black and white, and highlighted the details using Silver Efex.

The noise of the thunderclaps was frightening, so I ran to the car, and escaped a soaking.

Approach of a thunderstorm.

The Sunday Challenge this week was a photo using flash. My Canon has a built in flash which I never use, so this was quite a challenge. Almost every evening, from dusk onwards we have a visiting hedgehog, sometimes two, that scrabbles around underneath the bird feeders for nuts and seeds, and hopefully a few slugs too. It is very dark underneath the feeders, and I couldn't have an outside light on so much of the time I was guessing where the hedgehog was. The first photos I tried using my normal Canon lens were hopeless as the heghog was under a planter and by the time I got there he had rolled into a ball. New measures were called for. The following evening before it was too dark, I placed some bird food in a more open area, fitted a somewhat clunky Tamron 70-300 lens on the camera and sat down to wait. I had to position myself about 4 metres away from the possible sighting to stand a chance of getting the hedgehog in position, and a tripod would have been too cumbersome. This is the result straight from the camera - the flash is lighting up the gravel which was a pity. I think that after this the poor hedgehog was so traumatised, he just turned and waddled quickly down the path. I hope he appears again though. Next time I'll just sit quietly in the dark and watch.icement into the open.

The Sunday Challenge this week was a photo using flash. My Canon has a built in flash which I never use, so this was quite a challenge. Almost every evening, from dusk onwards we have a visiting hedgehog, sometimes two, that scrabbles around underneath the bird feeders for nuts and seeds, and hopefully a few slugs too. It is very dark underneath the feeders, and I couldn't have an outside light on so much of the time I was guessing where the hedgehog was. The first photos I tried using my normal Canon lens were hopeless as the heghog was under a planter and by the time I got there he had rolled into a ball. New measures were called for. The following evening before it was too dark, I placed some bird food in a more open area, fitted a somewhat clunky Tamron 70-300 lens on the camera and sat down to wait. I had to position myself about 4 metres away from the possible sighting to stand a chance of getting the hedgehog in position, and a tripod would have been too cumbersome. This is the result straight from the camera - the flash is lighting up the gravel which was a pity. I think that after this the poor hedgehog was so traumatised, he just turned and waddled quickly down the path. I hope he appears again though. Next time I'll just sit quietly in the dark and watch. PiP 1 First attempt PiP 2 Enticement into the open. PIP 3 Cropped and brightened

Two evenings ago the skies above Ruyton XI Towns were fantastic. here the sun was just beginning to set over our tree shrouded horizon. It didn't bode well for Friday - rain all day.

Although the combined fleets of France and Spain had been defeated at The Battle of Trafalgar, the threat of a French invasion was a very real one to Suffolk’s inhabitants. Napoleon was lord of all Europe and the burghers of Aldeburgh lay quaking in their beds at night. Although the Royal Navy retained mastery of the world’s oceans, the fear of invasion was unswayable and so builders were summoned and the Martellos were born. This Martello Tower is essentially four towers joined together and dominates a narrow spit of land just a short walk along the coast between the sea and the river Alde. Made of more than a million bricks, it was built between 1808 and 1812 to keep Napoleon out.