Red Leaves
Bright Frosty Morning
On a bright and frosty December morning on my way to work, I was able to enjoy some prime time taking photos in the wintry wonderland of St. John’s College Backs. I’ve taken many photos of the St. John’s Backs in the snow, but this is the first time I was able to catch a slightly wintry view in bright sunshine, rather than overcast snow-clouds.
Frosty leaves
Ripples formed in the Cam as melting frost dripped from branches overhead
Frosty grass on the banks of the River Cam
Close-up of frost on a stone bridge
As the sun melted the frost on tree branches, water droplets formed pretty refractions of St. John’s New Court
A 71 megapixel panorama of St. John’s Backs on this bright frosty morning
More photographs from this wintry set are available on CantabPhotos
Colour & Form – Costa Rica
My travels to Costa Rica provided me with plenty of natural photographic subject matter, which I have collected into two more prints for my Colour & Form series. This second shows a variety of colours and textures seen within Costa Rica.
Colour & Form – Foliage (Costa Rica)
My travels to Costa Rica provided me with plenty of natural photographic subject matter, which I have collected into two more prints for my Colour & Form series. The first shows a variety of foliage within the rainforest.
Costa Rica – Flowers
After the collection of frog photos in one image, I created the same style of print with flower photographs from Costa Rica.
Costa Rica – Week 2
Have been without internet for the last few days, and with good reason. Went to the Caribbean coast for 5 days, to a great area in and around Puerto Viejo, which is half Spanish (Costa Rican), and half Reggae/Jamaican. Very laid-back and rural. The reason I had not internet is that our “hotel” was a tree house. Yup, all wooden, no outer walls, and built around a tree. OK, so there were some mod-cons (quite surprising), but when it rained (torrentially) it sounded like a jet plane on the tarp covering (not great when it keeps you awake two nights running), and there were 360 degree views of the rainforest all around. Which meant it was very easy to see lots of wildlife – we had an opossum rummaging around in a cupboard (very nonchalantly), lots of crabs in holes between us and the beach, lots of weird spiders, lizards, insects and pretty flowers. And thankfully, surprisingly few mosquitoes.
I took advantage of being on the coast and did my Advanced PADI Scuba course – 5 dives, including a mandatory deep dive and navigation dive, and I then chose Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Naturalist (took a few photos), and a Night Dive, which turned out to be an incredible exercise in dealing with the worst conditions you could not wish to encounter (3 feet of visibility in a pea soup, very strong currents, and 10 feet of space to get through a gap, with the reef everywhere I swam. Still, was good experience, if not entirely pleasant! And I now love green glow sticks for an entirely new reason: survival!!!
Anyway, not going to ramble on too much – the photos should show it all, but brief background to some of these pics: went on a walk through the Cahuita Reserve, saw Capuchin monkeys up close, a good view of a sloth (and more ;), and a couple of snakes.
For the last 3 days we’re staying in the centre of the country again, at the most amazing hotel – it is in a big area with a butterfly observatory, serpentarium, 5 huge waterfalls, ranarium and hummingbird garden. So I’ve been taking photos pretty much constantly ;)
This is my favourite photo of the whole trip, can’t believe I got to see this frog and get this shot!!! Will probably be the cover photo for my book :)
Flame of the Forest
Lizard in Heliconia
Eyelash Pitviper
Sloth and baby
Ever tried taking a photo of a bat at night…?
…or a hummingbird?
Blue-jeans poison dart frog
Clearwing butterfly
Red-Eyed Tree Frog
The Resplendent Quetzal, a rare and magnificent sight
Flying Tree Frog
Costa Rica – Day 1
I had the great fortune of going on holiday to Costa Rica for two and a half weeks. Here are some notes I wrote while I was out there, along with a few photos from each day.
Yesterday was travel day – 10am flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Orlando (for compulsary USA fingerprinting and photo, even though we got straight onto another flight), then Orlando to San Jose in Costa Rica.
After a decent night’s sleep and shower – we took a taxi to Arenal, an active volcano in the middle of the jungle. On the way, we saw a troupe of Coati (aka Pizote) by the side of the road. Very cute, and not at all afraid of cars or people.
The volcano was impressive, but the peak was shrouded in cloud. Hopefully it will clear, and the flowing lava will be visible – apparently it’s most impressive at night…. The hotel is a set of houses, dotted around in the middle of the jungle. Went for a pleasant hike through the jungle near the hotel, up and down steep hills, and saw leaf-cutter ants aplenty:
The sights were complemented by bird-calls and jungle sounds aplenty. I was in my element, and snapping away! Had a swim when we got back, the pool overlooking the volcano, with jungle birds calling nearby. We’re here for the next 4 days, doing some interesting activities like walks through the tree-top canopy, river safari, canyoning and white-water rafting.
Crocus Photos
Spring is almost here! Despite the freezing cold (it was -5 degrees earlier this week, it’s hard to believe that the frosty photos below were only taken 2 days before these summery photos), the croci are doing their best to cheer things up. Here are a few pics I snapped today and last weekend.
Frosty Morning Photos
Despite the croci appearing and spring being just around the corner, temperatures dipped to -5 degrees this morning. I managed to snap a few plants in my work car park with my compact digital.
