Essex Records Office - well a little part of it.

My day job is working in an office in Chelmsford Essex. One thing I love to do now, especially as the weather is improving is to go for a walk with my new camera (a Canon Powershot G5X). I originally purchased this camera to use for Street Photography, but have found out that it is a cracking general all purpose camera. I have been to the Peak District in Derbyshire recently and will post some images from there soon. However, for now is an image of the Essex Records Office. Well a small segment of it.

This image is showing the roof details and one of the supports. Converted to black and white, which I think best shows architectural buildings.

It's only farm equipment.....

Well the weather in the UK has been grim to say the least. I know other countries too are suffering with there own problems with the weather.

So while it's not raining it's probably best to go outside and enjoy walking in the countryside. After I finished work today (which luckly for me is 1pm on a Friday) we decided to go for a walk, instead of going to th gym. Afterall the weather forecast for the weekend is pretty dire to say the least.

We went for a walk over a place called Abotts Hall, which is the headquarters of the Essex Wildlife Trust. Camera in tow we found some old farm equipment, so took this little shot. It's actually a HDR image, hopefully I haven't done to much processing of the shot.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the photo.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Emotions

I often ponder what people think and feel when they look at my photographs. The photograph below I have tried to make the viewer have a reaction.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Dingies

I live on an island called Mersea Island, in the UK. Is is the most easterly inhabited island in UK. There are about 7 thousand residents. Being an island there are lots of people who love to go out on the water. This gives me many photographic opportunities around the place. And to tell you the truth I don't really care about going out or owning a boat, but thanks to all the people who do own boats!

This is a shot of all the little dingies (tenders) that people have brought out of the water for winter. A perfect foreground subject to that lovely brooding sky..... the sky kind of reminds me something from a Sci-Fi film.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the shot, and the original can be seen here: http://www.mhdigital.co.uk/Landscapes/Essex/i-bHb49t8/A

 

Posted with Blogsy

Golden boat

Golden boat, originally uploaded by Markonmersea.

Taken at West Mersea in Essex. Being on an Island we get the best of both worlds, Sunrises and Sunsets. I have yet to get up earlier enough to do a sunrise shot. But over the winter, getting a great sunset is much easier.

Sanderling

.

Another trip down to East Mersea to photograph the shore and wading birds. I would love to get a real good close up of these little birds, but they are just to skittish.

I just love watching them fly in their flocks all synchronised, very beautiful.

Seed Heads

seed-head, originally uploaded by Markonmersea.

Well, not sure at all what these are from, but I thought they were most eye catching. Again taken at Mark's Hall in Essex.

It's a great place in the autumn for the nature photographer.

There are Fallow Deer around the area too, only saw a very small glimpse of one yesterday, before it ran off through the woods.

Mark's Hall has a good visitor centre/Coffee shop, which sell some nice home made cakes :-)

Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting, originally uploaded by Markonmersea.

Went back to East Mersea today in the afternoon. The light was pretty much perfect. These little Reed Buntings are so hard to capture, as most of the time they are in the bushes, so you cannot see them.

It is only when you walk past them that they fly up, most of the time they fly off in the distance, but this one decided to fly up and land on the top of the bushes. Managed to get off a good couple of shots.

Shutter Speed: 1/160Sec.
Aperture Value: F8.0
Metering Modes: Spot
Exposure Compensation: -1/3
ISO Speed: 200
Lens: Sigma 150-500mm
Focal Length: 500.0 mm

Plucky Pheasant

This was a quick grab shot at Fingringhoe Wick.  The Pheasant was in a little wildlife enclosure and I guess was looking for some food.

Was amazed how close we got to it, but I am guessing that it is pretty used to seeing the "Public"

The feathers on the bird are very beautiful.

Thanks for looking.

Damselfly

This is a shot of a common blue Damselfly, taken at Fingringhoe Wick wildlife centre.  There we so many flying around it was hard to focus on them.  This one was on his own for a little while.

The only thing I am dissapointed with is that I jut missed the end of the tail, but I am still happy with the sharpness of the shot.

Wall Brown Butterfly

Went for a great walk today over a place call Chest Wood, which is a village called Layer de la Haye in Essex.  There was hardly anyone around, and there was plenty of wildlife around.  

This shot is of a butterfly called a Wall Brown, it is a Satyr, and can often be observed sunbathing with its wings spread open.  It took only a little while for it to settle so I could get a good shot of it.

Also, over in the woods, we saw plenty of birds flying around and even a woodpecker.

Hope you like the shot.

Some more Spring Shots

These 2 shots are from Fingringhoe Nature reserve, which we visited on Sunday.

Comma Butterfly

Well over the weekend it looked like Spring finally arrived to Essex. We went to Finginghoe Nature reserve and could see all kinds of life springing up.

The trees were getting their leaves, and there were lots of Bees and butterflies around.

One I managed to capture was a "Comma". These are very common and not so scared of a big lump like me coming towards them. I was kneeling on a bramble whislt taking this shot, but us photographers have to think of the shot before our pain. :-)

There were also lots of Peacock butterflies around, but they were not having any photographer coming close to them.

It was nice to see the carpark of the nature reserve almost full. There were lots of bird watchers and photographers over there. Some of the photographers have very big lenses, I guess they were trying to get shots of the many birds.

Well I hope you like the shots.

Remember Remember

We went down to the beach this evening to watch the fireworks.  Some people have got lots of money to spend on them.  So it was a great free show for us.  This is the best fireworks picture I have ever taken!!

Miserable Monday Weather

Today was a damp miserable weather day in Essex.  We went to visit the arboretum at Mark's Hall, only to find it closed.  However, we decided to go on the woodland walk which skirts around the gardens.  This shot shows the walk back to where we parked the car.  There were so many beautiful colours around today.