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Trooping Funnel

Trooping Funnel (Infundibulicybe geotropa)

Other names: monk’s head; giant funnel, rickstone funnel cap

When to see: September-December

This common mushroom, with a typical mushroom smell, is found in mixed woodland, often in clearings. They are often found standing in ‘troops’ (straight lines/ranks or arcs) or in rings.

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My Golden Dene

Snow-covered golden Dene

It’s taken a long time for the snow to leave the floor of Breamish Valley. We’ve had icy conditions since 3 January this year and snow on the Cheviots pretty much from the beginning of the New Year too. But, with the slight rise in temperature over the last couple of days, the snow has now more or less melted from the valley floor. However, some snow is still clinging to the backdrop of the Cheviot Hills.

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Chocolate Shadows

Chocolate shadows?

What colour are shadows, actually?

When I was a kid, and the only cameras available used actual film – no such thing as digital cameras then, oh no – you had to shoot in bright light. Well, not strictly true – but if you didn’t have the means to buy an expensive camera and an expensive film that could be used in low light, well, you simply had to shoot in bright light. That’s why so many of us have old black and white photos in our family collections that appear to be over-exposed, burned out or with far too much contrast between the blacks and the whites. Too much contrast and you loose the detail: those subtle textures and structures that lurk in the shadows.

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Everything Looks in Black and White

Worse in black and white?

I fell in love with the music of Paul Simon (formerly one half of the folk-rock duo ‘Simon and Garfunkel’) in 1974, when my sister gave me one of his albums: Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’. I then went out and bought the third of his studio albums: the 1973-released, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. On this album there is a song entitled ‘Kodachrome’. This is named after Kodak’s 35mm format camera film. A main characteristic of this film was that it gave an unnatural colour saturation to the images; so, a photo taken on a dull, overcast day, would look as if it had been taken on a sunny day. Hence the following lines from the chorus:

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