14th June 2013 - The Botanical Gardens

It's been fluctuating between rain and blue skies all day. When the rain cleared up, Jason and I took advantage of the sunshine and walked down to the botanical gardens. Of course, shortly after we left it started drizzling again, so we took a look around the pavilions first.

I took him to the bear pit and as we were leaving it a squirrel jumped out and started running around us. We'd brought some nuts with us so we stopped to feed it and take photos. I decided to use my 50mm as the clouds and trees made it quite dark and I wanted a fairly high shutter speed seeing as the squirrel didn't want to sit still.

I decided it would be better if I was shooting at the squirrels eye level and seeing as the ground was fairly dry since we were under the cover of some trees, I decided to lie on the floor. I looked pretty stupid - Jason took some photos of me. I think it was worth it. I got a couple of decent shots. Though as soon as I laid down, the squirrel decided to disappear for ages and when he did appear, he didn't come very near me.

The sun came out again so Jason and I took made the most of it and walked further into the garden. He attempted to use the Brenizer method to take a portrait of me, but we still haven't quite mastered it and it didn't quite work. After a little while we decided to go back home. We walked back through the garden where I saw another squirrel trying to eat a plastic bag so we stopped so I could take it off him and took some photos at the same time.

1st June 2013 - Return To The Botanical Gardens - The Start Of One Hundred Days Of Summer

I've been umming and ahhing all week about whether to start a one hundred days of summer project, and if so, when to start it. It seems that most other people doing it are starting today, so I've taken the plunge and decided to go for it. We'll see if I stick it out.

I finally came to the decision to go for it at 6pm; thankfully I'd put my camera on charge a few hours earlier, just in case. I went down to the Botanical Gardens again and wandered around for a while, taking photos of various flowers and enjoying the evening sunshine.

One hundred days of summer - day one.

And here are a few more shots from today:

31st May 2013 - The Botanical Gardens

Today marked the first day of summer for me. After a horrific two weeks of exams and miserable weather, I woke up, not to the sound of my alarm, but instead the sunlight coming through my window. I was not expecting my first day of summer to actually look like summer! That's not how it works!

It was a beautiful day, so I grabbed my camera and headed down to Sheffield's Botanical Gardens. I love the Botanical Gardens, it's really pretty and the squirrels there are really tame. I love my squirrels.

I thought I'd use my 50mm to get some nice depth of field. It's the first time I've really used it for flowers since I got it in November, what with spring coming right about when I had the highest workload at uni. For a first go, it's not so bad, but I think I need to not get over-excited that I can go down to f1.8 and use a larger aperture.

I don't think the out of focus flowers in the foreground work as I wanted them to, but I still kind of like this.

This is an example of where I should have used a larger aperture. I also had problems focusing, but I haven't worked out whether this is due to my eyesight or a problem with the camera.

Probably should have used a slightly larger aperture here as well.

 This is what I mean about the squirrels being tame. I mean, I was using a 50-250mm lens at full zoom, but I was still incredibly close to him. I've also had one sit on my shoulder in the past!

Took this while waiting for this little kid to go away - he kept chasing off the squirrels. It's so lovely to be outside bare-legged at last; silly British weather.

Again here, I should have used a bigger aperture. It didn't help that my camera didn't seem to be focusing properly either though. I also think I should crop this, but I couldn't get it right.