Amazingness

Bright blue skies; glorious sunshine; a slight breeze; yellow, orange, red and green leaves; unseasonably warm weather…it’s just so gorgeous out there! Enjoy your weekend!

On Saturday, I ran a fun, free photography workshop for the Viewfinder Photography Gallery. Our aim was to find faces in objects and photograph them in the best way possible to show the face and expression. This is one that I found. I love how crusty lichen has grown big bushy eyebrows above both his [...]

Inside this spiky shell is a sweet chestnut. This one won’t yet be ripe for eating, but those that fall from the trees in a few weeks time (late October), can be cooked up and turned into some tasty snacks. They can easily be roasted, but be careful! If you don’t first slice a big [...]

It’s that time of the year again when blustery winds help relieve trees of their drying, dying leaves… …which means there are lots of beautifully coloured and shapely leaves drifting around curbsides, and hanging about on pavements, ready and waiting to be rustled up again with some happy kicking.

For a while I was simply enjoying this line of green; mosses and grasses and a variety of other little plants, neatly nestling all in a row at the top of the stairs. I walked away briefly to check out some lichen growing on a wall, and when I came back I noticed the shadows [...]

I don’t know, but I’m lichen* it. *The standard pronunciation of lichen = [lie-k'n]

Taking a spur of the moment detour on my way home today, I cycled up the ramp on to the high concrete walkways of the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle – a large and infamous housing estate, currently standing empty, all boarded up, awaiting demolition. I’ve been wanting to explore it for ages, as [...]

Like an angler fish, dangling a brightly-lit lure into the darkness, is there a monster hiding behind these two friendly little leaves, waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting and curious visitor? Would I have got my fingers chomped if I’d given these leaves a little feel? I can only imagine!

Proof that light travels in straight lines.

The radially symmetrical growth of this plant really grabbed my attention – all those bright red stems growing straight outwards to form a perfect circle of green leaves. However, despite being amazing, radial symmetry isn’t actually an unusual characteristic for growing things to demonstrate, especially plants. Animals, on the other hand, are more often bilaterally [...]