First Orchids of the season Minchinhampton Common 15th May 2016

A wonderful sunny day with not too much breeze, almost perfect conditions to photograph Orchids.

I passed a few Early Purple Orchids on my walk but it was the large colony of relatively rare 

Green Winged Orchids I wanted to see. This year there seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of plants flowering including white varieties and some light pink examples too.

Please click on the images once or twice to view at full quality

Early Purple Orchid for comparison 

Early Purple Orchid Flower in close-up again for comparison.

Green Winged Orchid Flower , the green stripes that give it's name clearly visible.

A light Pink example , there were a few dozen of these around.

A much rarer pure white variety, I found three plants but there may be more.

These are not albino as the green chlorophyl is still present.

Another pink plant with pollination in progress 

A little of my thumb to give an idea of scale 

A third small white example hiding amongst the daisies 

Kinka-zan Island, exploring the Temple complex October 2015

From the little harbour the track rises steeply up the small mountain through some grass fields neatly grazed by deer who were wandering in the shade of ginkgo trees.

The Temple buildings were nestled amongst trees higher up the slopes with deer wandering around all over hoping for food from the handful of tourists .

This Island was apparently the closest major piece of land to the epicentre of the 2011 earthquake and some structural damage was still visible.

Some visitors washed their money ( coins and notes ) in one of the streams, where a special basket was provided, to ensure future financial good fortune .

Japan 2015 a selection of Ricoh GR black and white images.

Many Japanese photographers have produced images and photobooks in high contrast black and white. Luckily the Ricoh GR camera has a setting that reproduces that look and it was fun trying to capture images in that style as I explored Japan.

There is a lot of detail in these images so please click them to view at full quality.

Ekoda

Shinjuku

Onagawa

Shakujii koen 

Tokyo Dome

Ekoda

Kamakura

Ekoda

Ueno

Kichijoji

Harajuku 

Zojoji

Tokyo Tower