Today is the day that I have been anticipating for a long time; the day my new camera arrives, I’m so excited! I was up early and ready to go just the postman it seems wasn’t quite so eager to get here. Just down the road a lorry tipping cement is parked, meaning every time a car slows down to go around it, my head lifts expectantly at the sound hoping that it might the be post van stopping.
I’ve taken up a key position near the window so that I can spot the van as it pulls up, rush to open the door and gently take the box. The floor is paced, make-up done, for a practice shoot later with the camera, in the longest most methodical time ever. Tick, tick, tick sounds the second hand of the clock and no sign of a red van.
At 11am a van pulls up, it’s here! I open the parcel and inside the box looking up at me is a Panasonic Lumix G2, not the latest version, as I need an external microphone jack. I find the manual, 143 pages long, on the front it says, ‘Read the entire manual before using the camera.’ Hmmm. In the first couple of pages it tells me the battery is sent uncharged, so immediately I plug in the charger and start another countdown, two hours until I can play with the camera, so er, I read the manual; just the parts that I’m going to need to start work with the camera!
With the battery charged and me slightly more knowledgeable, I get into the car and return to a rural area I found recently. I’m trying the camera out on all kinds of things, traditional wide landscape shots, close ups of blackberry flowers, a field of wheat. Just fabulous! The manual zoom on the camera is a very clever thing. As I touch the focus ring the image zooms by 5 times so I can get the horizon pin sharp, as soon as I let go of the focus ring the view returns to a wide shot. I like this, though the first time it happened I wondered what on earth was going on. Read More→
Living in the beautiful rural county of Yorkshire it was perhaps natural for Ruth to have an affinity with the countryside and its wildlife. Creativity is Ruth’s driving force finding an outlet in television & radio she worked for many years as producer for BBC & ITV.
However a love of photography and for being surrounded by nature called her to go back to her photography training and bring pleasure and joy to people through her connection with our planet.
Staying in the moment when taking her images allows her to experience the natural magnificence unfolding before her eyes. It is this moment of mediation, of gratitude, that she evocatively conveys through her images.