Nature through the eyes of my camera

 Mandala art originated in India. The Buddhist monks spread Mandalas along the Silk Road in the form of Rangoli designs. It spread throughout Asia and was soon adopted by other cultures like Tibet, China and Japan.  (The Silk Road is India's ancient network of land and sea trade routes that connect East and West).  The word Mandala is Sanskrit (language) for 'circle', and symbolizes the universe, with designs around a central point. By the 20th century Mandalas had been introduced into western culture as tools for self-exploration and for achieving inner balance. I found Mandala art through Pinterest and thought I would like to 'give it a go'. I already had some acrylic paints and I found sound thick card pieces that I had saved. In January I started by making some circle shapes. I enjoyed dotting my circles and so went on to make some coasters using various designs. I preferred using black backgrounds as I felt this showed the colours I was using better. Each desig...

 I am going to work with a group of like minded photographers on the theme of 'Connection'. Each of us will produce a piece of work about our connection to Suffolk. This will include eight photographs and a written piece about our subject. Our group will be led by Gill Moon, a professional photographer and publisher. Each participant was chosen from a number of photographers who had shown an interest in the project. Our first meeting was a zoom session where we were all introduced to each other and Gill explained her thought process about a topic on Connections. We all chipped in with our ideas and another meeting was made for February when we would meet in Woodbridge and talk through our own ideas for the project. My connection to Suffolk was going to be about insects and if there was a place for them in todays society. My first idea was to photograph insect/insects with an iconic building in the background such as the Orwell Bridge or Felixstowe docks.  I did a rekey of plac...

Having finished my Bronze Voyage award I wasn't sure if I would continue with the silver award. After a few months break, at the start of 2025 I decided I would attempt the next award. I knew I would need to take more time than I did with my bronze and go at a slower pace. Having decided what I could do for each section I made a start. Service I decided that my service would be split into two sections. Both would be with service to the community in mind. My first piece of work was with the Layham Local History Group where I photographed over 60 images of local artifacts that had been found in the local area by local detectorists. The items ranged from coins, brooches, horse buckles, bells to musket shot and cutlery. All the items were photographed, downloaded onto the computer, enlarged and tidied up. These were then printed and handed over to the history society who used them in an exhibition before saving them to the Layham history archives. The second piece of service will be he...

  Day 1 Arriving at Morwenstow Having travelled some of the way in pouring rain, it had stopped by 10.00am and it was then a bright, windy day. We had a spacious bungalow with lovely views. Once we had unpacked and had a coffee we drove to Bude, which was only a few miles away to pick up a few groceries, then went down to the beach. There was a junior surfing competition going on. We watched for a while before walking along the beach. There were some very interesting rock formations.   Further along the beach there was an open air swimming pool which had been carved in amongst the rocks. We walked along part of the coastal path then descended onto Middle beach where the rock formations were more prominent.  We headed back the way we had come from and stopped at the 'Life's a Beach' for lunch. We spent the rest of the day back at our holiday bungalow. Day 2 Marsland Cliffs No rush today. We are going to walk to Marsland Bay having decided it was too far to walk to Welco...