#30DaysWild - Week 2 — Laura Richardson

Day 8 - Crowtos

Today I caught up with my local crows! This is an on-going photography project to document the day-to-day lives of the crows that live on Weymouth seafront. It’s a lot of fun as they are brilliant birds to watch.

I’ve started to experiment with a wide-angle lens, and setting the shutter off using an app on my phone. Still a bit more practise needed and maybe a bit of confidence building on the part of the crows.

Day 9 - A bit of beach

Honestly, I didn’t get a lot of nature time today. It’s been one of those weeks where it feels like it should be Friday tomorrow, but it’s only Tuesday afternoon! For 5 minutes though, I was able to stop and admire the glorious sand and sea.

Day 10 - Butterfly appreciation

Mostly an errand day, I was happy to be distracted on my walk to the shops by this stunning Marbled White! I’m not sure if it was the incoming rain or maybe because it was a newly emerged one (I’ve never seen one that looks so fresh!) but it let me get really close to it with my phone camera. A gorgeous sight!

Day 11 - The hills are alive

Rather than a coastal walk, today’s walk had a change of scenery - hills for days!

Day 12 - Got lost on purpose

This was honestly the loveliest evening I’ve had for a long time. The rain finally stopped for the day at about 3pm, and the light that it left was absolutely stunning. There seemed no end to the wildlife that was appearing out of the soaked fields and verges. Meadow brown butterflies fluttered around everywhere in the long grass, while Red admiral’s fought each other along the more sheltered paths.

White-throats sat on bushes singing their hearts out and since there are currently so few cars and people around this, and all other bird song, could be heard for miles. I found my feet taking me down paths and through forests and fields that I’ve never been to before. I love getting lost! It’s one of my favourite things, that moment when you get to walk around a corner or over a hill and think “I’ve never seen this before”.

The absolute highlight of the walk, was when I nearly stepped on 3 baby Wrens!! Smaller than mice, and only just able to fly, they were mere inches from my feet and very slow to react. I had an amazing view of them for about 5 minutes until their parent came back and started shouting at me. I left swiftly so I didn’t interrupt their dinner.

Day 13 - Capturing shadows

I first discovered Cyanotype over 10 years ago while studying Photograph at A-Level. The images I created with this process are still some of my favourite to date, so I was super excited to finally own some of the chemical that creates this beautiful process. With a lot of sun and a bit of time, I tested out a few ideas that have been in my head for a while.

Cyanotypes Laura Richardson (1 of 8).jpg — The first part of the process is to mix the cyanotype chemicals and apply them to the surface. I enjoy not being neat with this! Once it’s dried out (in a dark place) it can be put in the sun to expose. The shadows of any objects put on top will be captured. All that’s then left to do is to rinse the paper off, and leave it to dry one last time.

Cyanotypes Laura Richardson (4 of 8).jpg — For this one I put the paper inset from inside a photo frame on top of the paper before adding various types of grasses.

These have over-exposed slightly, but I still like the overall effect, like they are ghost plants emerging from the depth of the paper! Here are some close ups cropped in from the scans. It’s amazing the detail it can pick up!