I have been back in Royal Wootton Bassett, at my parents over the past few days. I have a renewed sense of optimism after such a horrible few months, with big changes happening for myself and my family that are currently in motion as I write this blog post. Starting this blog though is with the clearance of my Grandparents house, which was sold recently, and hands over to the new owners on the 28th of this month (July). I was there to help with this, and thought I would document the clear out as best I could. I had for some reason only bought my 100mm Macro, and my 8-15mm fisheye lens with me which was a very odd combination, but I made do with these for the duration of my time back at my parents. There is so much in my grandparents house, (they keep everything) that its hard to know where to start, so we began with my grandad's beloved garage. The images below shows the sort of things we were finding when we were there.

One thing we did find among the birds nests, wood, metal and plastic, was a small, rusty old tin. Within this tin sat several service medals dating back to the 1st World War. It was very lucky we had even found the box, so I kept hold of these medals with the view to clean them up and get them back to looking like they would have done, all those years ago (all were black with grime and dirt). My gran then gave me a box full of old coins, (some dating back to the 1700's) that my grandad used to find (dig up) when working years ago. He would keep them in a tin so they had not seen the light of day in a long time. Again I took these and began to restore them to see how they would have looked. I was able to identify several of the coins as the muck and grime began to come away, revealing their faces, writing and dates. 

The images above are examples of the coins and medals, after they had been cleaned by myself. I have an idea to photograph them properly in my studio when I am back there, so once they are fully restored I will take them and photograph them all there. (blog post of this im sure to follow)

I took a walk along the ridgeway on one of the days I was back, to talk over various things, and to enjoy the countryside, which I think everyone in wiltshire also did it seemed (it was a sunday after all). I have been in quite a dark place lately so the ominous skies that gathered around us as we walked, captured my mood over this time perfectly. I had not gone up there to take pictures really, and only had my 8-15mm on me, (why I didn't bring my 35mm is anyone's guess) but I decided to take a few shots anyway, to try and encapsulate the foreboding skies, as it swirled and gathered around us. 

I have come to several decisions over the past few days in regards to my future, and where I would like to be, even this time next year, so although the images above are quite bleak looking, my mind is much clearer about what I want to do, and where I want to be going forward. The fog of the past few months that has settled over me, leaving me uncertain, uneasy and confused is beginning to lift, and I am starting to see the so called 'light' at the end of the tunnel which is a massive thing for me at the moment.

The evening of the flying ants:

On one evening while back at my parents, I could see a swarm of flying insects, streaming out into the afternoon/early evening sky. I went over to investigate, and saw it was thousands upon thousands of flying ants, taking to the air for their first, and only flight. Luckily for me the random lens selection I had taken with me included the 100mm Macro, so I went and grabbed it to try and document this fleeting, summer event as it happened. I positioned myself right in front of the nests as the exploded outwards with black ants, trying to get as close as possible to the action, and attempt to capture the ants at the point of their take off.  

The images below are what I managed to get before all the winged ants had left and taken flight. I did not have a tripod, so the images are hand held, which is not ideal but you have to go with what you have. I used a 1000th of a second shutter speed to freeze the action while trying to keep the ISO as low as possible by using a high F stop of F/2.8. The reason for keeping the ISO low is that I knew I would be cropping into some of the images, so grain would be more noticeable if the ISO was higher. 

The only real issue I had when photographing the swarm, was the high F stop (F/2.8) meant that the area of focus was tiny. This meant a lot of the images were just too soft on the ant to be useable. If I had a tripod, I would have been able to use a lower F stop, increasing the field of focus. 

Finally, I would like to give a massive shout out to IGLU Cruise, who I have decided to part ways with after 5 years of working with them. An amazing company to work for, and some amazing people to work with too. It was a tough decision, but the time had come. I will miss almost all of the people there, who have come to be my friends. 

Now lets get on and start the next chapter shall we...

FIN