Christmas greetings

To get us in the mood for the festive season here are some photographs from the Conservatory at Bellagio's Casino in Las Vegas. Each season every year there is a different theme - and one year the waft of cranberries and cinnamon mingled with the decorations. The bear is made out of chrysanthemum heads and the house is dotted with pine cones.

Thistles for St Andrew's Day

Here are some photographs of Scotland's national flower to celebrate their saint's day.

Can you see a head in these?

Two similar concepts of making heads out of stone - Mexican Hat, Utah and Lanzarote! However one is much larger than the rest!

White and blue

From ancient Cyprus to modern Lanzarote - two white monuments against an azure blue sky!

Neon lights

These are as far apart as you can get in contrast from a building and a jellyfish in Florida!

Happy Hallowe'en

A couple of multi-coloured pumpkins to keep the ghouls away - from Hanbury Hall near Droitwich.

Autumn leaves

To get us into the Autumnal mood here are a couple of leaves photographed at Nagshead RSPB Nature Reserve outside Coleford in the Forest of Dean. It was late afternoon and still the grass was damp. The leaf at the top had blown into a hide while the second one was lying covered in dew.

Stoney Littleton Long Barrow, Frome, Somerset

Twilight is a good time to get atmospheric shots, especially around ancient monuments in Britain.

Reflections

At Cwmcelyn Ponds, Blaina, Blaenau Gwent there was plenty of opportunity to photograph reflections.

Evening at Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire

This is a perfect place to come at the end of a busy summer's day to walk around a lake and admire a ruined castle.

Cypriot sunset

Now the nights are drawing in I thought these photographs of a Cypriot sunset may be cheerful.

Bird watching birds

I liked the idea of birds watching birds here! Some photographs from St. Dogmael's and Tenby - I think my favourite is the pigeon watching the sparrow who's watching the boats coming back from Caldy Island!

Sunflowers

The sun caught the petals on these sunflowers to cast different light on both!

Everyone's gone surfin'

Here are some miniature photographs taken on Tenby and Newport, Pembrokeshire, beaches of surfboards, sunshades and swimmers!

Flower power

I'm getting more used to using Program functions on my camera (just to show I don't always use Autofocus!) Here are some close ups of bees and other insects on flowers. If you look very closely at the white flower you just may see a greenfly!

Pi

We spent a day recently at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales outside Carmarthen and by accident caught these people in and around the Pi statue!

Homage to the NASA space shuttles

In March 2009 Paul and I were fortunate to see our second shuttle launch from the Hall of Astronauts Museum, Titusville, Florida which was about 20 miles from the launch site. We saw Columbia first a few years previously, but I was so shocked at the time I didn't take many photos so when the chance came to see another launch I managed to film Discovery taking off. Here are a few photographs taken of the smoke trail behind Discovery just as the sun was setting so the cloud is reflected in the sky. A well and truly amazing sight!

Birds on a wire

Two birds hanging around - one in Lanzarote at Cesar Manrique's house and the other in Kidwelly Castle, South Wales!

That elusive butterfly

I managed to zoom in pretty close to see this butterfly - unfortunately it moved too quickly for me to capture the eyes on its wings which were orange! I think the first photograph has captured a supercilious expression, if butterflies can do that!