Tiny spiky pink flower covered in raindrops

This is a weed growing amongst the plants in my flower beds - I've no idea what it is. I'll be pulling it out with the dandelions etc when it finally stops raining, but in the mean time it looks brilliant covered in tiny raindrops!

I've posted 2 versions of the photo here for you to decide which you like best - the only difference is the depth of field.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200; 1/10s at f/16 / 1/80s at f/6.3; 90mm; tripod & cable release.

Mating craneflies

My son spotted these 2 flies on these blades of grass at Hardcastle Crags today - he was initially drawn to the raindrops on the grass. We didn't realise at the time that they were actually mating!

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/8, 1/60s, -1 step exp bias (keep forgetting to turn it off!), hand held.

Spider beneath a dew-covered web.

Another one from around this time last year. This was a lucky find high up in the woods at Hardcastle Crags. I had my tripod and macro lens with me so set about taking photos of the lovely dew droplets on the web. It wasn't until I reviewed the pictures at home that I realised the spider was there. It's well camouflaged amongst the greens and browns of the foliage, so I desaturated the rest of the image to make it easier to spot.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/22, 1/2s, 90mm, tripod & cable release.

Raindrops on a fallen oak leaf.

Here's another macro shot from last week's walk round Hardcastle Crags.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/100s, 90mm, hand held.

Little feather covered in raindrops.

I spotted this feather on the path at Hardcastle Crags today. I'd gone up there this morning in drizzle and low cloud, hoping for some misty tree shots, but by the time I got out of the car, the mist had lifted. On the plus side, I got lots of macro shots of things covered in raindrops!

Camera/lens settings: ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/100s, 90mm, hand held.

Dandelion clock (5)

Another view of a dandelion clock, photographed in my garden in May 2014. I like the shallow depth of field in this shot and converting it to monochrome further simplifies it.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/250s, 90mm, hand held.

Peony in full bloom.

I took this photo in my garden last year (this year's peonies didn't do so well). The flowers are huge, but their petals are so intricate - quite a contradiction.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/8, 1/125s, 29mm, hand held.

Water droplets on a CD surface (4).

Here's another from my outdoor macro shoot in June last year. For this one, I sprayed a few droplets onto the CD, then tipped it to one side, so that they ran into streaks of smaller droplets. There's a mini 'rainbow' in each one, offset against the bigger one on the CD surface.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/16, 1/40s, 90mm, tripod & cable release.

Sweets refracted in water droplets (2)

I've been looking through my macro photos and realised it's quite a while since I did any indoor experimenting. Here's one from last year. I posted a version of this on the 20th Feb last year - that one had a much greater depth of field, so that the sweets in the background could be clearly made out. In this one, you have to look into the water droplets to clearly see the sweets.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/8, 1/200s, 90mm, LED ring light, tripod, cable release.

Just-washed strawberries.

I was about to do some flower photography in the garden today, so had my camera and macro lens out ready. Before starting that, I washed these strawberries ready for tea, then put them down to drain in a sunny patch of the kitchen counter. They looked so lovely I decided to get a few shots of them.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/14, 1/200s, (-1.3step exp bias), 90mm, hand held.

Ladybird and its reflection on a windowpane

This ladybird was walking up one of our windows this weekend, so I grabbed my macro lens and took a few photos of it. I soon realised how difficult it was to get the right bits of it (its eyes) in focus whilst using a wide aperture, so switched to a higher f-stop and used flash instead.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/11, 1/200s, 90mm, hand held.

Peacock feather (2)

A different angle on the peacock feather that I photographed at home in December last year (see 10th Dec's blog post). I bought 3 of these lovely feathers from a farm shop near Carnforth for a £1 each (the peacock was strutting around in the yard!).

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/3.5, 1s, 90mm, tripod

Water droplets on a CD surface (3)

Another composition from my macro session with a CD and water droplets in June last year. This one's a more unusual crop as I really liked the form and colours in the droplets themselves, but also liked the abstract effect of the colours and light on the CD surface next to them. All these shots were taken on the patio table in my garden, so used natural light.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/11, 1/800s, 90mm, tripod.

Pink carnation.

I got a lovely mixed bunch of flowers from my husband last week for Valentine's Day and decided to photograph some of them individually today. I think carnations are underrated, due to their abundance in supermarkets and garages - they're actually a lovely flower as, hopefully, this photo shows.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/11, 0.8s, 90mm Tamron macro lens, tripod, natural light & reflector.

Abstract view of the centre of a dandelion clock.

I took this in May 2014 in my garden. I've done quite a few different views of dandelion clocks - they're great to experiment with. This is the most abstract so far. I like how the cropped in view takes away perspective, but it looked a bit dull in monochrome so I played about with split toning. I suppose choice of colour is down to personal taste - this one works for me. I used very similar shades of green for both highlights and shadows, but much higher saturation for the highlights. I think it makes the outer edges look like exploding fireworks. It would be interesting to try mixing together lots of different colours in the same image - no doubt it's possible in Photoshop, but I haven't got the patience!

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/5, 1/250s, 90mm, hand held.

Leaves and stems of a Sedum plant surrounded by pink flowers.

I took this one in September last year. Most of my images were of the pretty, intricate flowers and the insects that landed on them. I also really like the shape and form of the leaves and stems of Sedum plants though, so decided to do some shots with them as the main focus.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/9, 1/200s, 90mm, hand held.

Peacock feather

I bought three of these gorgeous feathers for £1 each at a farm shop near Carnforth, Lancashire, in September (we'd just seen the peacock itself on the farm!). There used to be peacocks on Todmorden park when I was little and I remember that if you were lucky you'd sometimes find one of their feathers on the ground.

I finally got round to photographing one yesterday and they're as good a subject as I'd hoped. The individual fronds look like tinsel when magnified and the colours are spectacular.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/18, 25s, 90mm, tripod (lit by the room's normal ceiling light bulb)

Abstract colourful bokeh

The subject in this photo is the glass plant-pot butterfly from my earlier post on 14th October. I wanted to replicate the effect of screwing your eyes up so that you can just see blurred sparkles, so I played with the camera focus.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/1000s, 90mm, hand held.

Water droplet on orange gerbera (2)

Another shot from the macro session I did at home in February this year, using my favourite flower - a gerbera.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 200, f/11, 1/60s, 90mm, tripod & LED ring light.

Glass butterfly in the sunshine

A macro shot tonight - this is one of those little glass butterflies that you put around the base of plants as decoration and/or protection from frost etc. This is one of several scattered around the base of my blueberry bush - they shine beautifully in the sunshine.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/1000s, 90mm, hand held.