Butterflies

This was taken about a year ago. I thought I'd put it on the blog ages ago, but I guess I only put it on Flickr.

Kath and I, and our youngest son Jacob went down to the creek which runs into the Bristol Channel a couple of miles from our house. We had a fun time exploring and I took my camera hoping to get some photos of land/seascapes or of the boats, in various states of repairs, which are moored (or sometimes abandoned) there.

I didn't really get anything interesting though, but the bushes around the place were full of butterflies. I got some nice shots of Jacob walking between two bushes with butterflies flying all around his head. For this one I used a long lens and a wide aperture to get the shallow depth of field.

Canal in Varreddes

During the summer break from school, we stayed in a place called Varreddes in France. The idea was that we would be close enough to take the kids to Disneyland Paris, which is what we did on five of the six days that we were there. I am not a fan of Disneyland. I don't want to sound like a misery, but I regard it as a place for children - which I am not - and I don't really like visiting places which are built simply to be visited. I trudged around the place failing to have a good time and trying not to spoil it for everyone else.

Still, the good thing about being into photography is that, even when you are somewhere you'd rather not be, you can take your camera and still have a good time. This canal was just outside the camp we were staying in. There were enormous freshwater fish swimming in it. As my father-in-law said to me, it's strange to think of this place being occupied by the Nazis only seventy years ago.