Went to a nature photo club meetup.

I joined a nature photo club some while ago. I’ve been paying membership fees for a couple of years, and skimming the members’ magazine, but never actually joined in any of the activities. Each issue of the magazine felt less and less relevant and I was in the process of cancelling my membership. Someone wrote back and asked why, and reminded me of their upcoming event, and I thought, why not give it another, proper try. So I attended the next event – an outing to Sandemar nature reserve.

The group consisted of 90% men of mature age, and one woman roughly my age. (And one guy’s wife, but since she wasn’t there to photograph, she doesn’t really count.) Everyone came equipped with big telephoto lenses, aiming to photograph birds. And then there was me, with my micro 4/3 SLR and a macro lens.

Sandemar nature reserve is on the coast, and is a popular nesting area for water birds. The day was very windy and the birds weren’t co-operating much, so in the end I think I came home with more photos I was happy with than most of the rest of them. I photographed tiny flowers (because the smaller and lower they were, the less they blew around in the wind) and lichens, because those were very good at staying still.

After the meetup was officially over, three of us continued to the other end of the nature reserve, where there are bogs. There was some interesting flora there, but I was a tired by that time so the photos of those didn’t come out very well.