I Hate The Snow

It's cold, and wet, and icy; just lots of things I don't like.

It's actually snowed here in Shanghai a couple of times over the winter, and settled. Fortunately, where I live it's pretty quiet so when it settled it was largely undisturbed. Also, as it's right outside my front door, I don't have to spend too much time outside wishing I was inside.

You get the idea... Since it's a rather busy city, I figured the snow wouldn't have settled so much on the streets so I didn't bother to have a look.

I got quite a few pictures of these chairs. But I really like the fact that I was using a fairly quick shutter speed to get the snow falling a little more clearly.

Same goes for this one really.

This is literally outside my front door.

I was carrying about two different cameras. As I have vaguely mentioned in a previous post, I use an OM-2 as well as an OM-1. The main reason being so I can switch between taking colour photos and black and white. It means I can get a lot more photos, and try out different things with different lenses with out having to sit and think too much about it. What with the snow I figured black and white would be just as good as colour, because there aren't a whole lot of flowers and colourful things about this time of year, but luckily I was a little prepared.

There was only about 2 inches of snow, if that.

This is actually from when it snowed in December, I went out later in the day and it was obviously a lot darker. There was more snow that time around.

I take better photos in black and white

It's a strange thing to say. But I really do think photos look better in black and white. You can add a mood to them in pretty unexpected ways. I find myself saying I take better photos in black and white.

These are all from Sandringham House (the house itself is the last photo), where the Queen spends her Christmases. They are all plant life pictures that would make more sense being in colour. But I like the way they turned out.

This one below would probably work better in colour. But it's a cool looking flower. And as it's got a pure white look about it against the varying greys makes it stand out better than expected.

There is a lot of open space around Sandringham. This is just long grass but there are no people. And it's quite nice unspoiled.

There is this nice bank of trees that line up quite nicely. I have clearly stolen all my ideas here.

In contrast to the single flower that came out white, above, the near black look of these is quite a nice juxtaposition.

And this is what Sandringham looks like...

...and a last bit of colour from Peckover House

I used a whole role of film from these gardens. I could put the majority of them up. But I will settle for 12 altogether.

They line the plants up in pretty cool ways, so you can look down the rows and get varying amounts of colour. I think there is too much green in the background and I could have been at a lower angle. But screw it.

Returning to the theme of solitary plants...

(One is the loneliest number...)

I don't know why this was there. But a wheelbarrow full of soil and plants would make a different kind of garden fixture.

I like the look of these things. I never would have thought I would take an objective interest in the shapes and forms of plants.

Here's a half decent example of the varying flora and fauna...

...as is this. It really is a great place to see. It's also shielded off nicely from Wisbech, even though it's in the centre of it. A good place to get away, quietly.

A little more colour

Carrying on with the colour theme, these are all from Peckover House and Gardens in Wisbech. The house has a pretty interesting history. It's an old Georgian house built buy the Peckover family who were Quakers, and had made their money in Banking. The house itself is nice to look around. It's not entirely open so you can't see it all, and it's been mocked up to look how it would have done more than 150 years ago. It's a pretty small place though, and they don't get a lot of money for the upkeep apparently. The funding for National Trust places have to battle it out with each other, the story goes.

The gardens really are the main attraction. I never thought I would take much interest in gardens in a photographic sense. At the same time, it's also pretty nice to sit down and relax. They do excellent cakes too.

If I were to line up two of the best (or at least favourite) photos I've taken, two of them are here below. The first is the one immediately below here. If I was interested in making them look a little better, I would probably crop the top of this a little. But it works.


This next one is pretty neat. It was just a solitary red flower amongst others. The high contrast film probably helps. I like how deep the red is.


This one is definitely one of my favourites. It's white on more white.


The next couple are just two that I like a lot. Whilst not consciously aware of it when I take photos, there is something about solitariness that I think makes for interesting scenes. You can kind of see that in most shots that I have taken. I like focusing on one thing amongst many, that stands out. Or even focusing on something unremarkable and making it stand out. It's not a unique idea, but it works for me in a big way.


Feel free to tell me what any of these flowers are. I'd be quite curious.

A little bit of colour

I prefer taking photos in black and white. I don't know why. I think I can picture the result much better with black and white. And yes, I know it's counter intuitive. I have deferred to black and white film more often than not when choosing from the rolls that I have before me.

Anyway. I live near some pretty interesting National Trust places. They have some nice gardens and what not. I know near enough nothing about plants and horticulture in general. But I have managed to take some decent shots of some colourful gardens.

The following few (six) are all from Oxburgh Hall. You can tell I was trying to be a bit of a poncy artiste in a couple of them.

I just like the orange in the one above. I have been using 400ASA film exclusively up until now. Not sure why, but apparently you get good contrasts. I think this is a good example of that.

Here is my attempt at using a high shutter speed. It was a fairly windy day, and you can kind of see the grass blowing. But I liked that solitary flower in the middle.

There were quite a few different parts of the gardens to take photos of. They mixed all the different colours really well. Good to take a photo of really.

When you walk in to Oxburgh Hall, past the ticket entrance, you get a really nice view of the building with a little garden patch out the front (sort of, it has a moat between the house and gardens). But here (above) you can see the house in the background (again, sort of).

Out of all of them, I tried the hardest on this. It didn't come out how I wanted it to. But it kind of has the right idea. You can see the different rows of colours which I liked.

Much the same as the yellow flower above, the wind was blowing harder in this one and pushed the flower further down when I took the picture. But I'm glad it didn't take it out of focus.