On Saturday I agreed to go for a walk in the park without a camera – actually I suggested it – I was becoming aware that photography was taking over our social life. Apparently I spent the whole walk "doing [my] photographer thing" and mentally framing up shots, so I'm not sure whether that worked… We went to the Virginia Water end of Windsor Great Park… the original plan was to walk anticlockwise around the lake, but in the end we didn't make it all the way round, and cut back through the Valley Gardens instead.
There were some great displays of daffodils. Most of the trees are still bare, but the magnolias are beginning to bloom. Inspired by a photo that Hanan posted to Flickr, I decided to go out on a solo photography trip yesterday, and retrod the same steps we'd taken on Saturday, but in reverse. I've uploaded some shots, but there are many more to come over the course of the week. Here is a subset of the photos uploaded so far:
In total I must have done about six hours of walking this weekend, which can only have been good for me.
Incidentally, I just upgraded to a Flickr Pro account, which means that I now have unlimited storage and can create more sets, so look out for more in the near future.
Virginia Water / Windsor Great Park is one of our favourite places to go and spend time relaxing and walking (if you've spent any time exploring my Flickr photostream, you'll see the high concentration of pictures from that area). Unfortunately, the Crown Estate seems to feel that instead of leaving the whole area open and free, the Valley Gardens area in particular (where the daffodil shots were taken) needs to be fenced off, and a charge made for entry. The fence is going to spoil the views, and the charge is largely a cynical way for them to make more money. Not only that, but there is talk of a land train being run in the park. This is a fantastic open area and we really object to the plans… see the Valley Gardens Action Group website for more information.
No way, I couldn’t leave my camera at home. My fiancee would be shocked if I didn’t have my camera bag over my shoulder on a trip to the beach, to town, shopping, everywhere.. 🙂
I need a compact camera as well, I think. All I could do on Saturday was think, the weather is great, if the sky isn’t as blue as this tomorrow, I’ll never get these great shots. That would have defeated the object too, of course… unless I’d given Ola the compact to play with…
Beautiful. I love spring.
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