Botanical Gardens in summer.

Recalling my earlier blog of 8th August 2008, this was the photo of the famous avenue of plane trees in our botanical gardens, planted in 1908. This month I went back to try out an old Pentax film camera, and the avenue of venereable tress are in full leaf:


The trees meet overhead, filtering the sunlight to form a shady green tunnel. Next autumn the leaves will dry and fall again, forming a thick thick carpet of rustling leaves, a favourite place for small kids to play, and for photographers and big kids to visit and enjoy. The avenue is a popular place for outdoor weddings -- a temporary altar and archway are set up, and the guests accomodated on chairs. There is a restaurant nearby for the reception, or why not just have a picnic; I'm sure the bride's father would be happy with that.

For all the years I've lived in my home town, this cycle of seasonal growth and leafshedding has gone on, I can't tell you how many uncountable times I've wandered through this garden, the fun and games of childhood, birdwatching in adolescence, and just enjoying and photgraphing it in later life. It's a good place to meet and have coffee or lunch in the shade.


I continued round the gardens looking for suitable subjects, some close-ups to try the depth of field and focus. The agapanthus look a little pale, but it was an overcast day, and perhaps I should have inreased the saturation on the scans. using this old camera takes me back at least forty years, when I acquired a Zeiss and did very similar tests.


The old monkey-puzzle tree is a little fuzzy, I've had to reduce the resolution for web display. As the day was very overcast, I took the exposure reading from the base of the tree, and tilted the camera up again.