Dahlia Heaven

One of my favourite flowers is the Dahlia and I know Cragside house in Northumberland have a spectacular show of them in Sept/Oct every year. Having never seen them, I was determined to go along this year. So last weekend, I managed to find a spare afternoon on the Sunday and took my husband up to Cragside for a cream tea and walk around the formal gardens.

I decided to use my 50mm prime lens as I knew the results would be the best I could get with my camera. I shot my photos in raw, to give myself the best chance of recording all of the details I required and to set myself an editing challenge.

I was rather pleased with the results, so thought I would share.

I took this photo as a large jpeg, while I was getting to grips with using my prime lens in this new location. After playing around and seeing what results I could get, I swapped to raw and found the dahlias.

The dahlias did not disappoint. They had many different varieties and some of the largest dahlia flowers I had even seen. They put mine to shame, especially as I planted my tubers late this year and they did not flower at all.

I am always blown away by the intricacies of these flowers. What's not to like - loads of different colours to choose from and the flowers are always so 'perfect'.

I started off taking photos concentrating on one flower, but soon realised I preferred to include some more plant details to set the scene better. With this photo I concentrated my focus area on the flower on the left with the honey bee, while including the flower bud and half open flower on the right, to show different stages of the plant, but keeping the main focus of the photo on the left.

This was one of my favourites due to the fabulous dark colour.

Another go at showing a few more plant details. I am particularly pleased with this shot as it shows I am definitely using my prime lens to frame the photo better and thinking about what I see rather than simply shooting a load of photos and hoping I can crop a decent photo out of it later. This did have a slight crop to take out too much greenery in the background, but overall I was pleased with the results.

This photo was an attempt to show a different angle of the flowers, rather than looking straight down on the flower. It helps to show the fabulous individual petals of the overall flower, without the distraction of the centre drawing your eye away from some of the finer details.

A visit to Cragside is never complete without a view of the house. I took this from the Iron Bridge, before wandering back through the rock garden to the car park, followed by a drive around the estate roads.

I had a lovely afternoon in the sun with my husband and really enjoyed getting to grips with my prime lens. Not having a zoom may be good for my photography as it means I have to find new subjects to practice my techniques with, rather than always looking to photograph the dogs. However, I will need to sort out my zoom lens either way, as I will need one again for agility photos. The break from it will hopefully enable me to try out some new techniques and learn to use my camera to better effect. I would quite like a macro lens at some point as well, but that will have to wait until I can sort out the zoom dilemma.

Sand vs zoom lens!

A few weeks ago I had a slight accident with a collision between a wet, slobbering, sand-covered spaniel and my 55-300mm zoom lens. I thought at the time I had gotten away with it, but how wrong was I. A couple of weekends ago I took my camera along to agility training to get some more shots of Xander pup and the other dogs I had with me. When I got around to editing, I realised my poor lens has grains of sand inside and are now sitting on the glass.

This photo reveals the problem with having grains of sand all over the glass in your lens. I managed to do some editing and save a few photos, but this looked like the death of my faithful and treasured zoom lens.

Jaff, a little warm after a good training session.

Murphy posing

The many poses of Mist

The 3 merles, posing together

Xander pup, getting bigger by the minute

After speaking to someone about getting my lens cleaned, I now have a dilemma. Do I spend a small fortune getting it cleaned or spend slightly more and just replace it and learn my lesson? Decision pending, as not entirely sure what I am going to do.

Dog Walking Photos

As yesterday was a lovely sunny day (if rather windy) I decided to take my camera along on my dog walks and get some up-to-date photos of the dogs I took out yesterday. I feel very lucky to be able to combine all of my loves together - dog walking, the countryside and photography - and get paid for the privilege.

This is the gorgeous Bobby. He is a 4 month old llaso apso x poodle and is a playful ball of fluff. He stayed at mine on Wednesday until his mum came home from a long day at work, so I took the opportunity to get so new photos of him. I am looking forward to seeing what colour this boy goes, as he started a very dark brindle and seems to be lightening up since a recent first haircut.

 

My first walk yesterday was my jack russell terrier walk. As you can imagine, they keep me on my toes, but we do enjoy our walks together.

 

 

Brody, JRT, with Charlie in the background. I have been walking Brody for around a year now and he has come on so much in the year his new owners have had him. He was found as a stray, so his background is not known and he has had some issues that they have been working through. He is always eager to come out on his group walks and I enjoy spending my daily walks with him.

 

 

Charlie, JRT, enjoying a found stick. I have been walking this boy, along with his housemate, Bruno, since I set up my business 2.5 years ago. We have enjoyed many walks together and will hopefully enjoy many more.

 

 

Bruno, JRT, housemate to Charlie. This dog is a real trooper and is always smiling on our walks. He has a few health issues but still manages to enjoy his 45 minute walks, and all he asks is that I give him a hand back into my van at the end. If there is a muddy, smelly puddle to be found, you can always count on Bruno to find it and have a good wallow.

 

My second walk was to the Derwent walk, with 2 labradors and a cavalier king charles spaniel.

 

 

Merlot and Monty labradors. I have been walking Merlot for 2 years now and he has had many different walking partners, as he is an easy dog and will walk with anyone. His new best friend on my walks is 5 month old Monty, who joined my walks 2 weeks ago. He has fit himself into the group straight away and absolutely adores Merlot.

 

 

I nearly managed to get a photo of Merlot without his 'mini-me'. However, a keen eye will notice the blur at the bottom left of the photo is an eager Monty, keeping an eye on his best friend.

 

 

Monty took the opportunity to wash some of the accumulated mud off in the river. At 5 months he is already a keen swimmer, so looking forward to many more wet walks. I gain great pleasure from watching dogs enjoying themselves having a good swim, so I am hoping to enjoy many more watery walks with the labradors.

 

 

Paigey, CKCS, affectionately known as Mr P. I started with puppy visits with this little man about 6 months ago and he now enjoys his longer group walks. He is a sensitive little man and gets a bit overwhelmed at first, but once he makes friends, there is no stopping him.

 

Unfortunately, 2 of my dog walking lot were missing from my walks yesterday. Hoping to get some more nice weather next week and I will get more updated photos, so I have recent shots of all of them.



Introducing Xander

I have been rather busy in the last few weeks, with extra work and welcoming home a new puppy. I have found a spare few minutes, so thought I would formally introduce you all to Xander (Summervilles Coronation). Can you guess what weekend he was born on? I found a fantastic breeder of working cocker spaniels only an hour's drive away, who has fully health checked dogs and goes above and beyond the average breeder. So I jumped at the chance and welcomed home my gorgeous black with roan working cocker boy, who will be 15 weeks old tomorrow.

 

He is a fantastic pup and has fitted into our doggy family with very few problems. My only slight niggle would be that he does not stay still and is black, so he is most definitely a photography challenge. If I do say so myself, he is a little stunner. So here he is.

 

The lovely Xander. I combined new puppy with new prime lens and got a half decent photo. Not fantastic by any means, but I am still getting to grips with my new lens.

 

 

 

Photo taken on a socialising visit to Gibside near Gateshead. As you can see, I am having problems getting a really good photo of this boy, but hopefully will manage before his first birthday!

 

I am sure he will pop up in more blog posts, as he is now such a big part of our lives and is always under our feet, getting in the way of everything.

Jaff the Sheepdog

My husband, Graeme, had been after a working line border collie for quite some time. We already have 3 border collies, one a rescue and the other two came from a breeder in the North East, who does not work her dogs. So in March 2011, we welcomed Astra Jaff into our doggy family. He comes from a long line of working dogs and boy do we know it. He is always on the go and ready to work and up for anything we throw at him.

 

As Graeme was 40 this year, my mam gave him some money to have some sheepdog training lessons, to see how they went. They are both now well and truly hooked. I loose them both for one evening each week, and they come back with stories and more than their fair share of sheep poo!

 

So a couple of weeks ago I went along and took my camera. I know I like a challenge, but my word, trying to get a decent photo of a dog running around sheep was certainly a challenge. Probably not helped by the fact I was talking to the trainer and an observer for most of the time I was trying to take photos.

 

Sheep dog training would not be possible without these gorgeous girls.

 

 

Jaff raring to go. You may have noticed, Jaff is a tri merle collie. Not a traditional colour for a sheepdog, but he sure has all of the instincts.

 

 

Someone needs to tell Jaff they are behind him.

 

 

I naively thought he would only have a few sheep to work with. I was quite shocked when I saw this many. Spot the nosey neighbour in the top field.

 

 

The lovely Will, showing us how a professional does it

 

 

Jaff finally gets his turn.

 

 

Proving he can actually stay still (a rare sight with this boy).

 

I had a great time watching them both in their training. Will hopefully go along at another time and work on getting some better photos, where I can move around more and hopefully capture Jaff in full herding mode a bit more.

New Prime Lens

I haven't posted for a while, so thought I would make an effort to start again. I have been taking some photos recently, but instead of trying to play catch-up, I am just going to start again. I recently got some money for my birthday and wanted to use it to buy a 50mm 1.8 prime lens. After some advice and searching on the internet I finally purchased the Nikon 50mm f1.8G, as the focus works with my Nikon D3000. I could have gotten one a lot cheaper, but having to deal with manual focusing whilst concentrating on everything else was not worth saving the money over.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to try out my new lens and got out in the garden to see what it could do.



Not entirely sure what this plant is, but it seemed to take a nice photo!

The buddleja is now in full bloom

I am impressed with the bokeh effect with this lens

I was really pleased to see one of my passion flowers has finally decided to flower.
Only one flower so far, but there are a few buds waiting to open.

I am really hoping this prime lens will help me to improve my composition. Instead of zooming in on my photographic subjects, this lens will help me to move around until I get the photo I am looking for. It will also come in helpful with pet photos, as it should eliminate my need for a flash, unless it is very poor lighting.

Yorkshire Game Fair 2012

As I have recently renewed my interest in gundogs and their training (due to starting some basics with my standard poodle, Lottie) I was keen to visit the Discover Gundogs part of the Yorkshire Game Fair near Wetherby. They are always a good day out with plenty to see, so I decided I would visit on the Sunday of the show. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, which at least meant the ground was dry, which is a rarity for game fairs and country shows.

As we got near the main arena, the gundog display was coming to an end and the next display was the Birds of Prey. I always love to see these displays and was excited to have the opportunity to practice my photo skills on the birds.

It's not every day you see a vulture flying around the Yorkshire countryside.

Just as well, really. They are rather imposing and seriously ugly birds.

The second vulture did a few more fly overs.

Poser

The third vulture was a bit nicer to look at, but was very naughty. He walked around a bit and refused to fly, so had to go back in the van.

Now that's more like it. The bald eagle was a lot more photogenic.

He was a sight to behold, soaring above the arena and show ground.

Throughout the display is was bugging me why I recognised Ben who was doing the display. As it finished it finally dawned on both myself and my husband that he was the bloke we had done a birds of prey day with a few years ago. We had actually seen all of the birds on this day and it was nice to see them flying free, as they had been in their enclosures when we met them previously.

We also got to witness our first ever polo match.

3-a-side polo with a mini football, due to the constraints of the arena and the health and safety issues.

Some fierce concentration was going on.

The horses were stunning. I have been wanting to photograph some horses for a while and this gave me a fantastic opportunity. Not entirely sure what the two blobs are that must have gotten on my lens for this photo, but now have a new technique to try out, to remove them and complete this photo.

We wandered around the entire fair and managed to spend a few pennies. We had the most delicious rare breed pork pies with a chutney topping. Of course we did not disapppoint and had to try an ice cream in the baking heat. I now have a good idea of which breed of 'proper' gundog I may want in the future, so need to do my homework and see if they would suit my training requirements and be able to put up with my mad pack of hounds.

We finished the day off with the hound display. Lovely to see so many beagles all milling around and the children were so excited to be invited into the arena to meet them all.

I am hoping to attend the Northumberland Show over the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend, depending on the weather. Don't want a soggy camera if the forecast is anything to go by so will just see on the day and decide.