So, here we are in June already. Having bid a fond farewell to the month of May, to all that seemingly endless sunshine of late and to the Maybugs which you may or may not have caught sight of this spring ( terrible pun & intended ) depending on where you are and whether or not the population is dormant for cockchafer ( trans : Melolontha melolontha ) in your geography.

One, only one have I spotted this year. She flew in through the open door of my office, circled ( loudly ) then left as quickly as she arrived. If you’ve not had the pleasure of witnessing a Maybug in the air, they’re large, quite dramatically large. And noisy. Or was it a drone in disguise ? .. have you ever seen ‘Eye in the Sky’ ? Anyway, enough conspiracy talk, especially now.

I’ve never photographed one on camera, a Maybug or a drone for that matter. I captured a tiddly fly perched on an osteospurnum petal last week in our garden though. Not deliberately.  A bright, tangerine orange flower, fully open and basking in the heat every bit as much as I was. Today there is no heat, just rain showers. Raindrops on roses, all the roses. And wet whiskers on kittens.

I’ve captured a fair few flowers & trees on camera over the month of May. Roses, wild & garden varieties both. Wisteria, foxgloves, California & field poppies alike in the garden.  Dog violet and woodland celandine, cow parsley, herb robert & oxeye daisy in the nearby woodland. Because they’re all inherently beautiful and also owing to the fact that portrait commissions have been particularly thin on the ground – read absent – unlike the bluebells.

Now that photographing humans is, once again, a viable option, I’m looking forward to the first of some family sessions scheduled this week for open, green & gorgeous spaces in the countryside. In addition to these, business portraits for a regular client who also happens to be in garden design and a return visit – observing social distancing throughout – to the workshop of a brilliant British, female artist. To capture her on camera along with recently finished pieces of her both impressive and sizeable ( much like the Maybugs ) work which also happens to be fashioned ( fastidiously ) from trees.

I’m excited about what June will bring. In the meantime, here are some moments from May.

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