The RHS Tatton Flower Show - by Cheshire Photographer, Jane Burkinshaw

Take one look at my garden planted haphazardly with plants that are probably ill-suited to the soil type, aspect or location and you’ll know I’m not a skilled gardener. Those flowers that thrive do so in spite of my efforts. I don’t even particularly like gardening, limiting myself to bunging in some bedding plants, pulling up a few weeds and doing a bit of dead heading, whilst sipping a glass of wine on a summer’s evening. I do, however, love sitting out in the garden, admiring my efforts and am often found swinging gently in the hammock, enjoying a latte or aforementioned glass of wine, depending on how low the sun is in the sky!

Whilst gardening isn't a great passion of mine, photography is, particularly close ups of plants and flowers. I’ve visited many of Cheshire’s beautiful gardens and lost myself for several hours, engrossed in my favourite activity.

One of the many glorious show gardens - I love the quirky ones!

Going to the RHS Tatton Flower Show is an un-missable opportunity for me to indulge in my love for flower photography, enjoyment of other people’s hard work in creating beautiful outside spaces and, of course, some retail therapy. And did I mention drinking Pimms in the sunshine and nattering with Debbie, my sister-in-law? A day at Tatton isn’t always this idyllic – we’ve stood like drowned rats in the entrance to the floral marquee and fought vicious battles with pensioners over free tables and chairs in the sheltered eating areas.

But this year’s visit on Friday 26^th July was absolutely perfect, with wall-to-wall sunshine guaranteed. The newly invented Ladies’ Day inspired us to switch jeans and crocs for sandals and frocks (neither of us do posh hats, we haven’t got the right kind of heads) and we set off on our grand day out in the Cheshire countryside.

Propping each other up!

Ladies day for young and old

One of the things I really love about our annual visit, aside from the awe inspiring gardens and floral displays, is that it is a wonderful place for endulging in people watching. I have a hypothesis that you can break down the visitors to Tatton into four main types (forgive me, these are a bit tongue in cheek):

The stalwart RHS members who take their gardening extremely seriously, as evidenced by their sensible walking shoes, rucksacks, picnic lunches, thermos flasks and those walking sticks that become little stools.

The Cheshire Set – posh summer frocks and big handbags, 3 course luncheon reservations in the formal dining room and jugs of Pimms in the afternoon. Ladies Day gave them the excuse for even posher frocks and big hats this year.

Weekend gardeners – that’s us! We’re there to enjoy a day out admiring the show gardens, pick up a few plants that are unlikely to see another season and buy some totally useless garden gadget. I’ve been known to arrive home with a rake that no one could use and a very expensive blender that is only ever employed to make smoothies these days.

And finally the photographers (me in spirit) who are focused (!) solely on capturing shots of the abundance of beautiful plants and gardens. Almost every visitor to Tatton has a camera in some guise but I’m talking about the true enthusiast or pro with cameras and bags hanging off both shoulders.

I would love to visit the flower show twice each year, once as a browser, shopper and sipper of Pimms and then again a second time armed only with my camera and a zoom lens. I’ve managed to combine both needs each year on one visit but I have to strike a compromise to ensure that Debbie wants to come along with me the following year!

This year I stood near the exit just before the show closed - in the lovely low slanting sunlight of early evening – and enjoyed watching people leave, dragging behind them trollies full of bobbing flowers, carrying long pieces of twisted metal trellis, occasionally smart designer carrier bags (the posh ones with string handles) and some just with a single plastic bag containing a few much sought after plant specimens. I think everyone leaves at the end of the day with a smile on their face (aching, possibly soggy feet aside), for there’s something very uplifting about being surrounded for a day by nature’s bounty. With bees buzzing around flower heads wherever you turn and butterflies flitting from one bloom to another it feels like a little bit of paradise, pure escapism for a day.

But not everyone loves Tatton!

This blog was  originally published on the Cheshire Life website. I've included more pics here.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

50/50 project #6/50 What friends are for (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 6. What are friends for

50 days with a 50mm lens
Technical stuff: Canon 350d, 1/4000, f/1.8, ISO 100, Aperture Priority

This was taken at the Tatton Flower Show - Ladies' Day - and I wanted a shot that would really capture the spirit of the day. Friends on a grand day out, taking the opportunity to get dressed up and enjoying the beautiful weather. It was very busy and seats were scarce, as were walls or places to sit and lean against. These good friends (or sisters?) solved this problem by sitting back to back and leaning against each other!

For more pictures taken with the 50mm lens check out my Facebook page.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Christmas is all over and done with for another year - half built lego models lie abandoned on the living room floor, the tree is looking a bit tired and the wine rack is somewhat depleted. I want to restore some order to my rather chaotic house and get out of this weird limbo created by all the bank holidays. I've had my fill of long lie ins and watching schmaltzy movies in the afternoon and now I want to charge forward into 2011, spring clean the house, attack my business with renewed vigour and get fit and healthy. But we're not off to a good start as I've spent the last few days crawling from bed to sofa and back again, with this flu bug that seems to have attacked the nation. This is the first time my aching eyes and sore head have been able to cope with a computer screen. I've been looking at all the pictures I've taken since the children broke up from school and its hard to believe it was less than two weeks ago. Everywhere looked so completely different - a crisp, white winter wonderland - absolutely perfect for that final run up to Christmas. What better way to start the holidays than with some sledging albeit on rubber garden trugs!

I even managed to escape for a morning to Tatton Park and found that I just about had the gardens to myself. It was quite special to roam around the snowy paths, with only the sounds of birds calling, squirrels (I hope) rustling in the bushes and the occasional soft thump of snow falling from overladen branches. I enjoyed a sneaky cup of coffee overlooking the Japanese Garden - the aroma of good  coffee steaming in the cold air and a beautiful view all to myself - perfect!

By some amazing stroke of look we all were fit and well over Christmas and enjoyed Christmas lunch and presents at Gran's. Baby Joe provided great entertainment for us all, but especially kept our kids occupied. with burying him under all the wrapping paper. It was lovely to have Boxing Day at home for a change - the calm before the storm that was my brother and his family arriving for two days. The panto at Crewe Lyceum was surprisingly good - although Sam was mortified that Nic and I were such enthusiastic audience members! A visit to Legoland (Trafford Centre) rounded it off perfectly for the children - the male adults seemed to enjoy that  a lot too!

New Year's Eve was spent at a James Bond themed party - I turned up later as one of Dr No's dead victims - determined not to miss the midnight celebrations.

Now all there is to do is kick this flu bug into touch and leap into action ... but I think I need a snooze on the sofa now after all this hard work...

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Get out there now!

This is one of my favourite times of year as a photographer. Crisp, clear days, a pure quality of light and an abundance of colours and fascinating subjects. If you are familiar with my photographic style you'll know that I don't usually go in for landscape photography as such, but prefer to find some detail in the landscape - whether that's a close up shot of a leaf, bark, plant etc or a feature within the landscape. I have a wonderful book by David Ward called "The Landscape Within", which has been the inspiration for many of my own shots.

Several years ago I did an assignment on Autumn as part of my A' Level in Photography. At that time I was still using a compact camera, so all the shots shown here are shot on that - a Panasonic Lumix - lovely cameras. Autumn leaves are the obvious autumnal shot and I went off to Tatton Park and Biddulph Grange in search of fiery acers. The red image on the left didn't require any special

techniques - it was just a case of framing the right shot and zooming in a little to blur the background.

 The small shot on the left is quite unusual - the sun had caught the outer branches and leaves of an acer, whilst the trees and bushes in the background were relatively dark as they were in deep shade. When I looked at this shot on the computer I decided to further deepen the shadows and brighten and saturate the leaves. Unusually for me I then applied an effect called cut out which simplifies the colour palette and emphasised the contrast between the leaves and the background (and my Photoshop skills were almost non-existent in those days!).

Although technical ability does play a part in creating a good shot (it makes it easier to achieve what you want), I strongly believe that it's having the all important eye and being constantly on the look out for an interesting composition that is the crucial factor. The shot of leaves under water remains one of my favourite images of Autumn and once I'd spotted it, it was only a matter of framing the shot and pressing the shutter (most likely all done on AUTO in those days!).

I mentioned the amazing clarity and quality of the light at this time of year - it must be something to do with atmospherics and temperature, but you can't beat a cold, clear autumnal day as far as I'm concerned. And as the sun sets earlier you are more likely to be out and about and able to get some great shots. The golden light makes for extremely flattering portraits - this is one of Abbie that I particularly like.

David Ward in "The Landscape Within" seeks out details which are different to the usual landscape shot. I tried to do the same with this shot of the Tyne Bridge at sunset. After firing off lots of shots of the entire bridge I zoomed in and focused on the idea of commuters on their way home, lifted by the wonderful sunset on the river.

As Autumn moves into Winter we'll get the first frosts (possibly sooner than we think as a cold spell is now forecast) and early in the morning the most mundane of objects is transformed by an icy coat. I love this shot of barbed wire and cobwebs and almost want to shiver as I look at the frosty fields beyond.

So dig out those scarves, hats and fingerless gloves and get out there now!!!

(And don't get me started on fungi - I spent a whole day photographing over 50 types of mushrooms - separate blog to follow!)

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!