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Morning Dog Walk: The Esteva Is Flowering!?

I take a camera along on my Dog Walks to bring you some of the sightings that I see on my morning walks, these photos are rarely going to be great quality as its hard enough keeping an energetic Dog entertained and get close enough to anything. They also help me identify where species are so that I can plan to return.

I haven’t published any Dog Walk Blogs for a while and this is down to the fact that we now have 3 dogs, yes we have another rescued dog called Snowy (photos of him soon), which makes takin a camera a bit difficult, particulary as 2 of them are still being trained.

Anyway, this morning we stumbled across this line flower on one of the Esteva (Gum Rock Rose) plants. This is very strange as they normally flower in April. This is just a single flower but strange nonetheless. Maybe it’s down to lack of rain throughout the year and the sudden wetness has caused it to flower.


Shot and edited using Lightroom on my Samsung Galaxy S9+Continue reading >>

Back-lit Flora

I was late taking Wally out this morning after a late night in the studio. I have had a lot of Real Estate work (FotoSul) over the last few days and I’d rather process the photos at night!

It was 10am before we headed out and many of the bird life, apart from the Bee-Eaters were quiet due to the already above 30 deg heat. The sun at 10am is strong and high at this time of year, so I used it to capture from back-lit shots of some of the plant life. Here are 4 that I captured. Each photo is taken with -2EV (Exposure Compensation) dialled in. The dark background is provided by some distant trees blocking the sunlight.

First up, one of Emma’s favourite plants, the Allium.

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Back-lit Allium
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The Springtime Flora In The Algarve Hills

I don’t normally photograph plants and flowers but the overcast and rainy day gave my favourite light for flowers as I think it adds a nice mood and really helps with the “highlights” not being too bright.

The hills are covered in flowering Esteva (known in English as Gum Rock Rose) and I love the way the rain drops sit on the petals. The Esteva plant smells amazing due to the resin in the plants, but of course this resin in flammable which doesn’t help with the summer fires. It used to be used in the production of perfume, but these days it’s mainly used for starting fires in the winter as it makes great kindling. I also use it to start my BBQ!

Rain Drops on an Esteva (Gum Rock Rose) FlowerContinue reading >>

Backlit Thistle Seeds In The Warm December Sun

If you live in the Algarve, you’ll know that after quite a damp November, December has so far been amazing with temperatures reaching low 20s during day. This morning whilst out walking Wally I came across an area of Thistles where the angle of the sun was perfectly backlighting the bright white seeds. It created a magical photograph, the Bokeh (the term meaning pleasing out of focus areas) circles are created by light reflecting from other nearby Thistles.

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Backlit Thistle In Seed
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Mushrooms A-Plenty

The area we live, just outside the village of São Marcos da Serra in the North Algarve Hills is known for its diversity of Mushrooms. They are popping out of the ground at an alarming rate now that there is moisture in the ground after many months of almost desert dry soil.

It’s such a good area that there is a lady in the village that exports them. She is the place to go to find if they are edible or not. If you don’t visit her for advice and eat the wrong mushroom, she’ll most likely still get to meet you as she also runs the funeral home in the village.

Here is a species I’ve not seen before, I don’t know what it’s called but I’ve called it the Hamburger Mushroom because from above it looks like a hamburger roll. Below is one with my foot for a gauge on its size.


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