Richmond Park was transformed into a wintery white realm on Sunday morning, as snow (yes!!) fell on the capital and the South East. Mostly taken with the X-T1 and 16-55mm and 55-200mm. I arrived about an hour before sunrise, but it was much too dark to photograph anything without a tripod. Then, the much-anticipated sunrise was nothing too spectacular as the skies were overcast. Well, that happens. Persistence! From previous shoots, I noticed that the 55-200mm sometimes struggled to produce sharp and ‘clean’ images in low light so I had contemplated bringing the 50-140mm along, but I didn’t fancy being…
© 2012-2021 Jacqueline Lau
Category: Photography
The new year’s upon us, and I can’t think of a better way to (attempt to) (re)start this blog than with a set of photos from London’s New Year’s Day Parade. Now in its 30th year, it’s got an extremely State-side vibe, what with marching bands and cheerleaders! Reportedly 8,5000 performers took part, with close to 30 bands from American high schools. Despite having shot street parades many times before, I’d never been caught in a situation where poor crowd control made for blocked visibility. I was told that they’d be forming up the barriers and stopping all road crossings,…
St James’s Park Cherry blossom
Fuji X-T1 with 56mm f/1.2 and 55-200mm.
South Bank, 13 December 2014. Taken with the Fuji X-T1 + 56mm f/1.2 and X100S. Full set on Flickr: Christmas Markets London Dec 14
It was hiding on the underside of the sea hibiscus, two of its tarsi clipped to the edge of the heart-shaped leaf, betraying its presence. Gingerly, I flipped the leaf over and my heart skipped a beat, for my initial hunch was right: a tiny walking leaf! It tended to stagger from side to side before settling down, possibly mimicking the movement of a leaf in the wind. We also observed it chewing on the browning edges of a dying sea hibiscus leaf, a behaviour which raises some questions: don’t most herbivores prefer young to mature leaves? Is this species…
Or… love of the forests at night. Last evening was a rewarding session at a new location (‘somewhere in MacRitchie’), new night macro set-up (X-T1 with 55-200 + Raynox + that tiny EF-X8 flashgun and a mounted torch), newish shooting companions (almost but not quite the ‘Magnificent Seven’). I usually stick to a few usual places for night macro; exploration of new localities are rare but welcomed. Each patch, I find, has its own charms and hosts its own community of little forest denizens that may be less commonly sighted elsewhere – even if the ‘elsewhere’ is simply another track…