18.04.18 - Skellingthorpe Old Wood

A beautiful hot sunny day, temperatures hitting 70F, and time to check out the progress of bluebells down at Skellingthorpe Old Wood. There aren't many yet, but there are plenty of other things to see

24.02.18 - Snowdrops

Winter beauty in Hartsholme Country Park

28.07.17 - Snipe Dales Country Park and Nature Reserve

This is the first time I have visited this area since the days of film cameras!

12.07.17 - Whisby Nature Park

A selection from Whisby Nature Park yesterday

27.06.17 - Quarry Wildflowers

Yesterday I posted a collage of butterflies from a butterflies and wildflower photo walk that I led round the old quarry, today I'm posting some of the wildflowers

22.06.17 - Foxglove and Foxy

The dog photo bombed my shot of the wildflowers!

29.03.17 - Old Fella

Mr Willis loves his strolls in the woods, and even at 14 there are always new places to explore and new smells to discover!

28.03.17 - Wood Anemones

I actually went to Skellingthorpe Old Wood to check if the bluebells had started to appear yet, they haven't. But the wood anemones have. They aren't at their best yet, in a couple of weeks they will form beautiful white carpets to compliment the bluebells. They are such a simple little flower, but so beautiful I think

04.03.17 - Spring

Crocuses in an English churchyard. Yesterday felt like a proper Spring day, warm and sunny, we'll see how long it lasts

04.08.15 - Lush Summer Vegetation This is from my guided photo walk last night in the Skewbridge area of town. It is an old landfill site that has been left to Mother Nature and she has well and truly re-colonised it. The last time I walked through this area it was a wide open footpath, but at the moment it is shoulder high vegetation and quite an adventure forcing your way through it all.

12.07.15 - Evening Fades Some more shots from last Friday's guided photo walk. The original idea was to explore Lincoln South Common, the open hillside in the top left image, but we spent more time at the Bomber Command Memorial that is being constructed on it's southern edge. Then we played around with the new tunnel that I featured yesterday, and finished with some light trails on the High Street as it got darker. Even with heavily overcast skies it isn't really dark until after 11pm in the UK at this time of year, and the walks finish at 10pm

25.05.15 - South Common (2) Another collage from my guided photo walk on Lincoln South Common on Saturday I'm afraid. Yesterday was a busy day and was one of those rare times when life got in the way of photography!

23.05.15 - South Common These shots are from my guided photo walk on Lincoln South Common yesterday afternoon. The Common is an ancient piece of rough open land on the hillside opposite the Cathedral, it is owned by the local Council and protected from development so it is a very valuable green space with fantastic view across the city. As well as the big views there is lots to photograph right under your feet, and the resident horses are always co-operative!

15.05.15 - Bluebells From Above I've phtographed bluebells hundreds of times, if not more, but never from directly above like this! I gave a talk at a photographic club the other night, and one of the big points I tried to make was about getting down to the level of your subject. Whether it is children or wildflowers, generally it pays to get down level with them, even if it means laying flat on the ground. Well, they say all rules are meant to be broken, and I broke mine yesterday with this shot! Luckily this still fits one of my other big rules, the one about always looking for different perspectives and not allowing yourself to get stuck in a rut :)

09.04.15 - White Wood Violets I came across these tiny little beauties on a field edge yesterday afternoon while walking the dog. It took me a while to identify them but I think they are white wood violets. They are quite rare, unlike their purple cousins that will soon be everywhere

09.06.14 - June Wildflowers I used to make one of these every month, it is a great way to mark the changing seasons, and for a few years I turned them into a calendar. They got a bit repetitive so I stopped making them, but last night got an urge to make another for old time's sake. There is an odd one out here at bottom right, which isn't strictly a wildflower but a broad bean flower in a field of the crop.

10.05.14 - Weeds? This stuff is everywhere at the moment. The white is Cow Parsley, also known as Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Chervil and Heck, and the yellow is Oilseed Rape that has re-seeded itself from nearby fields. When does a wildflower become a weed? The best definition I've heard is "a weed is a flower in the wrong place" :)

30.04.14 - Bluebells Bluebells illuminated by a tiny shaft of light through the forest canopy

14.04.14 - Bluebells There are few more beautiful sights in nature than an English bluebell wood in spring. So far there are only the odd isolated flowers locally like these, but I hope to find a classic blue carpet somewhere any day soon.

22.07.13 - The Quiet Before the Storm I spent a wonderful afternoon with a wildlife ranger friend doing some research for a series of article we hope to write. It was almost unbearably hot and humid as the weather built up to some big thunderstorms last night, but the light was beautiful. We identified at least 5 different species of damsel and dragonflies, plus 9 species of butterflies. This is a Small White on a Great Willowherb. We had thunderstorms throughout the night and it is raining heavily still this morning, but it is most welcome :)

19.05.13 - Wildflowers or Weeds? They say that a weed is only a flower in the wrong place, and I agree, some "weeds" are beautiful. I also much prefer an unruly splash of colour out in the "wild" to any cultivated garden. I hope to catch up a bit with the Dailies today, after a wonderful busy weekend with the kids when I hardly even had the computer on!

16.05.13 - Pretty in Pink I found these pretty little flowers while photographing the sunset on Wednesday, but only got round to processing them yesterday. I'd hoped to be able to identify them before I posted them, but so far they remain a mystery, does anyone have any ideas? I should know what they are, but my wildflower recognition is a bit patchy to say the least. I'm involved in photographing the Dambuster 70th anniversary commemorations today so won't be around much. LATE EDIT: They have been identified as Cuckoo Flowers :)

07.05.13 - Bluebells My first bluebell photo of the year, no doubt there will be a few more over the next couple of weeks. Sue Rist suggested that my river sunset panorama yesterday might work as a "planet", well great minds think alike, because here is what it looks like; http://johnloguk.smugmug.com/Photography/FAUX-PLANETS/4860246_T6QcWC#!i=2500396533&k=RgQZ92Q

05.05.13 - Water Violets (2) More of one of my favourite wildflowers down by the river yesterday, with a slight glamour glow filter added in Color Efex Pro. These flowers are quite rare, and I was really happy to find some of them close to home, but they will be invisible soon as nettles are growing rapidly between the path and the stream where these are.

01.05.13 - Water Violets These are one of my favourite wildflowers. Until a couple of years ago I'd not even heard of them, then I found some in a local nature reserve and discovered that they are very rare as well as beautiful. This shot isn't my best one of them, it was quite dark and I was hanging over a small stream, so I hope to get better ones over the next few weeks. I was just glad to find these quite close to home. They are very small and delicate, and have a lot more subtle colouring than comes out here. As I say, I will try again :)

31.01.13 - Signs of Life Snowdrops in an English churchyard, the first sign of the changing Seasons every year. Today ends my 5th year of Smug Dailies!

14.08.12 - August in the Fields This takes me back to the monthly nature collages that I used to make for calendars. All the shots here are from my walk across the fields on Sunday. When I make these I always debate whether to have a plain background or use another image for it. Generally it only works if the background image is itself monochrome, or close to it, and a different colour to the smaller pics. Otherwise the whole becomes a bit confused. I make these using a template in Photoshop Elements. You simply drag and drop the images into place, including the background. Once you've chosen the pics it only takes a few minutes. With hindsight I wouldn't have used the dragonfly at bottom right. On it's own it is a fine image, but the light background makes it stand out like a sore thumb against the rest. The hardest part of making these collages is choosing the images, it is rarely the nicest individual shots that go together best. You also often have to crop the original images, so that the subjects are similar sizes and fit the square templates.

23.07.12 - Mother Nature's Abstract It's been a while since I've really had the time to sit and take more artistic photographs. I feel as though I've been rushng around taking snapshots for a couple of weeks. It was nice to be able to take some time out by a small flood prevention pond in the Summer sunshine yesterday. The place was alive with wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, it really was beautiful. I took lots of straightforward shots, but I also spent a lot of time close to the ground experimenting with the light, backgrounds and depth of field. At the time everything seemed to be shimmering in the heat and light breeze, this is almost impossible to get over in a single image, one day I'll manage it, but for now this will have to do :)