The sixth in a year-long series of posts participating in The Changing Seasons project hosted by Cardinal Guzman. All photos were taken in May 2015. These images also appear in my Wordpress blog, where you can comment directly if you do not wish to use Disqus
May was hectic, leaving little camera time and the weather was distinctly patchy. I didn't get out and about much and almost all of my photos were taken in the immediate vicinity of my home.
I had just two short walks with my camera in addition to my weekly Monday Outlook photographs, plus a few lamb shots taken at a neighbours farm.
The weather was occasionally good but mainly poor, remaining wet and cold and windy overall. When the weather was good, it was very good and we were able to go walking at Cata without coats on.
Mainly due to the continuing strong winds, the ground dried sufficiently to plough. Compare this shot with March's
PloughedFinally dry enough to plough
Bright skies and stiff breezes make for good shooting for finished knitted projects!
Lady LismoreBeautiful May skies make wonderful backdrops for completed knitted items
And continued rain keeps the wetlands topped up.
Wet,wet,wetLooking towards home across the wetlands between our house and our neigbour
The grass finally began to grow but not sufficiently and the farmers were unable to turn the cattle out on to the fields as usual. Wild flowers began to appear, the daisies coming first, followed by the dandelions in less abundance than usual (me and my hayfever were very grateful).
Lambs appeared in greater numbers in the fields. The cattle were eventually turned out towards the end of the month but not because the grass was ready. The farmers have run out of winter fodder and had no choice. As the grass is not growing well yet we are in for a short season, meaning that hay and silage will be in short supply for next year. It is a worrying time.
It is always good to see the lambs and the coos appear, they change the landscape completely
However, Beautiful Decay is always with us whatever the season and I can never resist it.
Shed roofI love a ruin
MailboxSeen on a walk
Previous posts in this series: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
The fifth in a year-long series of posts participating in The Changing Seasons project hosted by Cardinal Guzman. All photos were taken in May 2015.
April brought its challenges mainly in the form of a virulent chest bug. I spent much of the month indoors, trying to breathe. The weather was remarkable at times and we had several ultra-still days. Very lovely but at the time I was experimenting with long exposures and water-smoothing, so flat water was not really what I needed.
I managed to get out every Monday for my weekly Outlook shots and a couple of evening walks to the pub furnished some more images, especially the sunny evening when we took time out to stroll along the pier.
The daffodils emerged and the lambs finally arrived!
There was blue sky at times, and everywhere reminders of the past season amongst the signs of the new.
Cardinal Guzman has issued a challenge and I am hoping to rise to the task: The Changing Seasons.
Find a location near your home, take somewhere between 5-20 photos and post them in a gallery in your blog. Continue to do this every month. For my project I’ve chosen the general area “downtown Oslo”, but if you like to, you can choose a more specific area like a park or a building. It doesn’t even have to be a city. If you live on the countryside, there’s probably plenty of locations to choose from nearby: a field with some trees, a beach, a mountain, or just a simple dirt road? It can be whatever. Just keep the project going throughout the year. Try to shoot every month, so that in the end of the year, you’ll have a nice and diverse set of photos in your portfolio. The idea is to capture all the changes: the seasons, the weather, different times of the day, some night photography perhaps?
Also, the idea is to build your portfolio and train your eye. I shot the photos in my gallery in December and next month I’ll post a gallery with photos I’ll take this month
Rules:
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month (between the 07th-15th), post 5-20 photos in a gallery. (I’ll post mine on the 7th).
Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
I shall be taking the whole island as my subject, otherwise things would become boring indeed - there's not a lot to see around here and very little changes by season: either the dandelions are out, or they're not. I know it's not quite that bad but we do really miss seasonal markers here. If I get oot an' aboot I might just spot some daffs but there are none in my own garden.
As I am a bit behind in discovering this challenge, I'll run it for 13 months. These snaps from December are actually the only outside shots that I managed to grab at all and of course they were not taken specifically for this challenge. They do in fact break the rules. I'm sure nobody really minds and I'll try to get a set next December if we're not all hiding from the wind and gales once more.
January's set will also come up short as we are already at the 14th and I have only just found the challenge.
I'm not picking a specific day in the month to post - I'm just not that organised, I'm afraid.
Here is December - all shots grabbed from outside our house:
Not a lot to say, really. It was wet and it was windy. The geese are visiting as always. We had just the one frost if I remember correctly. One feature of the season that I badly wanted to capture but did not manage was the robin that took up residence in the garden. Robins are not uncommon here but not all that common either and one can go two or three years without sighting one.
On the subject of birds - this winter saw some learning behaviour on the part of our resident Rooks, who now queue up on a Monday morning to rip my rubbish bags to shreds as soon as I put them out. I have had to take counter measures and now swathe my refuse in a sheet so the birds don't spot and recognise the shiny black plastic signal to a source of edible detritus.
