Thursday 29 July 2010: TANGERINE DREAM

The progress of my walk today, was thwarted as, not having ventured very far from the house I encountered an old friend of my mother's. Although it was pleasant to see her and to catch up on her news the woman could win gold medals for talking. After forty five minutes of continued listening and head nodding I was allowed to go on my way.

There were lots of blip opportunites today and these included a Convolvulus flower, a snail with a green shell (he almost won the day) and a Jacob's sheep. However, as I was gazing through a gate, communing with the aforementioned sheep, the insect, pictured above, alighted on my hand. One of this chap's relatives had continuously evaded me last Sunday as it flitted from one Cow Parsley flower to another. So, never one to pass up a golden opportunity I hastily, using just one hand (a feat in itself), adjusted the settings of my camera and took the above shot.

I had not been back in the house long when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find my cousin (who lives about 50 miles away) on my doorstep. He had been attending a book launch at a local stately home and had called in on his way home.

It transpired that the book, by an ex school inspector for the Yorkshire area, contains photographs of the Yorkshire Dales and some of them have been taken by my cousin who, before retiring, was a professional photographer for the largest regional newspaper in Yorkshire.

As a consequence of the conversation, matters naturally turned to photography and after he had shown me his camera , his lenses and his filters I ended up having a 'masterclass' from him on which of my camera settings I should have used on some of my previous shots. Afterwards, I felt brave enough to show him my blip of the day and I was thrilled when he declared it to be "virtually perfect" and that he wouldn't, if he had been taking the shot himself, have done anything too differently.

So, all in all, things must be moving in the right blipping direction.

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