Or to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, ‘Looking Though the Glass’ !

I was delighted to see the other evening while enjoying my glass of Tío Pepe – other dry sherries are available! – that the image of the tv screen beyond was inverted in the liquid in the glass, with some interesting results (all to do with how light is refracted through glass – vague recollections are coming back to me from school about refraction and wavelengths and prisms) but, being more of an artist than a scientist, I am more interested in the effect than the cause!

I wasn’t expecting to see these images and they were whizzing past on different tv programmes so I captured a few on the spur of the moment with my phone – next time I will set this experiment up properly – it’s good to have a few indoor photography assignments up your sleeve as the cold weather approaches! and there are a few ways to improve these shots. Here are some of my favourites from this first impromptu experiment.

featured, flora and fauna, Light and Dark, Nature, Photographic Images, reflections, stained glass windows, sunlight

‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ (sung with gusto!)

24/07/2020 Sue Fernández Leave a comment

All things bright and beautiful, All creature great and small,

All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.

Those words take me right back to my infant school assembly! Everyone knows this hymn, even today – and most of us can say we know the words by heart – to the first two verses anyway!!

I’ve been trying to think of inspirational themes for my photography outings – much more successful with a theme!! Now it so happens that the theme for the 2021 BBC Countryfile Calendar Competition is ‘Bright and Beautiful’ so I think I might just give that a whirl.

Of course it’s light and dark that create all those great photographic effects: the photographer who can capture light falling in a special way on a scene or lighting up a person’s face (to minimize those wrinkles!) holds the key to success – candle light, the glow of an open fire, reflections bouncing back off office windows, sunlight streaming through stained glass – Christmas lights! – all lovely, but Nature’s light has the most appeal – glorious sunsets, or dappled sunlight through the trees in a forest, light caught in water droplets on a leaf or clear blue skies over snow capped mountains. I’m going in search of some of those now but in the meantime here are some I prepared earlier !

Food, Gardening

The Cucumber Assassin

06/06/2020 Sue Fernández Leave a comment

How hard can it be to grow a few edibles in the garden?

Well, harder than I thought. Take your cucumber – tricky little devil. On my second attempt now – the first batch just, well, collapsed and died! Not through over watering as I first thought – I think it was because I neglected them – nay! abandoned them! on the cold conservatory windowsill when the temperature plummeted for one night to almost zero!

So here they are – the second batch – basking in the almost tropical heat of the kitchen windowsill. I’m afraid to move them now!

They are actually outdoor cukes and below are the ones I planted directly outside: not died off – yet! – happy in their 5 star accommodation – cosseted, in fact, I’d say!

So their fate lies with my limited (but rapidly expanding!) horticultural knowledge and the fickle English climate.

I know! Stick to courgettes! But I want to grow one of these!