Today’s post is a bit of a flash back in time to late May, when our lovely friend Anna came to stay. Anna and I have known each other for more years than I care to admit and her enthusiasm is just as inspiring now as it was when we were kids. Not only that though, but she just happens to be an amazing professional photographer.  So what do you do when you’ve got a talented photographer staying – family portraits? stunning landscapes? No you get the moth trap out! Anna’s just sent me some of the photos she took while she was here – hence me harking back to May with this post. If you can’t make the most of your talented friends and use them as a guest blog, well it would seem such a waste!

It’s not every guest that is keen to get up at 5am to inspect the moth trap (to date Anna is the only one who’s shown any inclination to do so!), but that’s what we did, with fingers crossed for some decent moths. Luckily we got a fine assortment to show for our efforts. Anna’s kindly given me permission to share some of her photos, so most of these are hers apart from a couple of dodgy ones of mine for comparison!

Anna teaches digital photography, so I was really lucky that she gave me some top tips to improve my own measly photographic skills. I’d like to think we swapped mothy knowledge with photographic knowledge, but I definitely got the better half of the deal as I learnt far more than she did I’m sure.

First up the amazing Figure of 80 moth, which pretty much does what it says on the tin – it has the number 80 clearly marked on its wings.  I think this was only the second time we’ve had one of these in the garden so it was a real treat.

Another nice find was this Swallow Prominent – not so clear how this one got its name though!

The stars of any mothy shows are usually the hawkmoths, so I was really pleased we got a Poplar one.

When photographing big moths like this, it can be really difficult to get enough depth of field. Clearly not a problem when you know what you’re doing though. The colours and definition all seem so much better than anything I ever manage.

Not content with moths we then headed out to the Wyre Forest in search of butterflies – the Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary to be precise. You can read my original post from the day here  https://toolazytoweed.uk/2017/05/31/butterfly-no-41/  Here are two of Anna’s shots of said SPBFs.

The colours that Anna’s managed to capture are brilliant. My efforts from the day look very washed out in comparison:

We were also lucky enough to see the other species – the Pearl Bordered Fritillary. Again here’s one of Anna’s vibrant photos, with my duller effort below it.

It’s amazing seeing Anna’s photos compared to our own. It really does highlight the difference between using your camera properly and being stuck on auto as I am for so much of the time. The vibrancy of Anna’s photos says it all.

You can see more of Anna’s fantastic (and award winning) photography on her website http://www.annahenly.co.uk/ or if you live in Scotland why not sign up for one of her classes on https://www.goingdigital.co.uk/photography-courses-in/scotland and get yourself off “auto” too.