Vesna Armstrong Photography

We stayed just a few minute walk away from the lovely Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the Lake District, the home of the poet William Wordsworth so it was impossible not to pay a vist even though I had been there before. It was getting late in the afternoon, I was on my way home from Coniston and the Cottage was closing in half an hour but I thought I'll just pop in quickly and concentrate on taking some of photos of the back garden, I discovered to my delight that photography is now allowed inside the cottage as well but on this occasion I only had time for a few quick mobile phone shots. There is always next time and it is good to know you have still something left to photograph. The view from the back garden. The only flat part of the garden is the path skirting it. The rest is all sloped ground with wonderful views of the cottage and beyond over the Grasmere lake and distant fells. William and Dorothy Wordsworth spent a lot of time together walking around the garden or just read...

I adore wildflowers and these tiny spring beauties are no exception. I wanted to do something different with them rather than the usual close up with a lot of blur around so I decided to accentuate their sprawling stems and make the little flowers look scattered. I used a few deep textures to achieve the low key effect (cannot help being a huge fan of dark images). The light streaming in from the window to the left was quite pleasing and enabled me to slight tweak the blue of the flowers in post processing to help them stand out better.

I recently came back from a wonderful trip to Grasmere in the beloved Lake District. Still thinking about it very fondly and reliving the memories every day. There was a lot of rain but nice weather too and I got back with lots of pics to play with. Indeed at the moment I have many pics I'd like to share and hence my second post of the day. I like posting photos of the season we are currently in so my first set of images from the Lakes has spring as a theme. Yewdale Beck at the pretty village of Coniston. It was a mainly rainy day but it brightened up in the afternoon so we decided to drive to Coniston for a cup of coffee and a quick look around. The sun was going in and out from behind the still menacing clouds. It was windy and cold too so we hung about only long enough for me to capture this pretty scene. The moody light only lasted seconds and I was pleased to have caught it. I used "smudging" on the water in postprocessing for a more painterly look and as usual ...

Back in October last year I decided I was going to post sets of around five photos of Otley as I finish processing them. Well it has taken me a long time to do a new post like that but here it is at last. The first two images are taken last month and the rest are all from last year's summer. I found this scene at the bottom of East Chevin road as I came out of the car boot sale one Sunday and headed back to the car park. I thought the sight was sheer magic. I stood there for a long time soaking the beauty. A couple of other people came and went too. As usual I took a series of frames as the light was changing and, of course, the chickens were moving. The chicken framed in the gate was transferred from another, very similar, frame because I preferred the rest of the composition in this image. It's fun having a practice working with layers in Photoshop from time to time! The Memorial Garden, Not very pleased with the composition here but I love all the spring flowers a...