For the past 7 months I have posted a monthly article on this blog with photos taken during the previous month. I have decided to pull the plug on the series.

Don’t get me wrong. It was fun: taking the pictures, learning how to use iPhoto first and iMovie later, creating my first video, uploading it to YouTube, and receiving comments from the viewers on this blog and on FaceBook.

So, why stop?

At the start, I had hoped I would be able to document my progress fighting this debilitating disease called ME/CFS. Alas, my condition got worse.
This hasn’t stopped me from taking pictures, but I more and more found the monthly schedule too restrictive. I am still taking pictures and I intend to put them on my blog when I have enough photos on a certain topic. Some topics that I have in mind will only take a day or two under the right conditions, others will require a year or more.

Some of the topics I have in mind:

• Kitesurfing at Ostend Beach
• Kitefestival at Ostend
• the four seasons in nature reserves
• close-ups of plants and insects
• birds (per family or per biotope)
• assignments from books on photography
• …

Maybe I could even make documentaries with voice-over. As you can see, I don’t lack ideas, I just find that the monthly format has become too restrictive.

What was May 2010 like? Some rain, a lot of sunshine, but also very cold. All pictures, photos and videos, were taken within 15 minutes cycling distance from my home.

Green Frog

As you will see in this video and in the other posts in the Pictures of the Months series I am fascinated by nature.
If you want me to take pictures on other topics in my hometown Ostend, just leave a comment.

Pictures for May 2010:

• birds (what did you expect)
• flowers
• Ostend at Anchor, a maritime event
• froggery

To create this slide-show I used the following hardware and software:

Hardware:

• Canon Powershot S3 IS and the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E with the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x for long distance shots and the Canon Close-up Lens 500D for close-ups.
• Canon Legria FS20
• Manfrotto tripod

Software

• iPhoto ’09
• iMovie ’09

Below you will find two videos: the first one is with English subtitles and the second with Dutch subtitles.

May 2010 in Pictures (English)

Mei 2010 in Beeld (Nederlands)

What do you think? Is 4-5 topics per slide-show enough or too much? I intend to keep the duration of the slide-shows below 5 minutes, or is this already too long? Do you have any suggestions for other topics? Leave a comment.

This just won’t do. The intention for this series was to show how I expand my horizons; from being city-bound by a debilitating disease to slowly being able to visit neighboring cities, towns and nature reserves on my own. Alas, subsequent infections in March left me nearly neighborhood-bound.

Hedge Accentor

I intend to continue this series for at least the remainder of 2010, but maybe I should change the formula. Instead of just taking some photos of landscapes and birds, maybe I should try to look at Ostend from a tourist’s point of view, of someone who has never seen Ostend before. Maybe I should include some movies instead of just a slide show with photos.
Let’s see what April brings. But for now back to March.

In my previous article February 2010 in Pictures I complained that there was still no sign of Spring. Well, the Black-Tailed Godwits have arrived, 3 weeks late, and birds have started singing, so I guess Spring has finally arrived.

The photos taken in March will bring you some more birds and pictures from the motorway into and out of Ostend. The motorway was very quiet as it was already close to 4.30 pm. Could this be an indicator for the state of the economy in Ostend?
The last photo is from roadworks near my home. They have been at it for a year now and it’s about time they start wrapping it up. It will be an improvement for cyclists.

I must confess that I have been outside of Ostend in March; my father drove me to Neder-Over Heembeek near Brussels to a clinic for tests. On all occasions I forgot to take my camera with me. In April I will go house-sitting in a neighboring town for 4 days and I will try not to forget my camera.

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

Again I wasn’t able to expand my roaming range due to the weather. We had another 2 cold spells with snow and temperatures below freezing, and a lot of dark, cloudy, windy, rainy days. Again not a lot of good photo opportunities, but I managed to take some good bird pictures.

Red Knot (l) and Dunlin (r)

This Winter is one of the most severe ones in Belgium for years. We had more days with temperatures below freezing than previous years. How many more will probably be announced when the Winter is officially over. However, it wasn’t a really bad Winter, but the mild Winters of the past years even decade left us unprepared for a real one.

There is plenty of evidence that this Winter was severe that made the headlines in the news: days with snow, days with temperatures below freezing, traffic jams, people spending more on heating, …, but there are other signs as well:

• Blue Tits and Great Tits are usually very shy, but this month I could stand in the garden and take pictures of them hanging on a fat ball.
• The past 2 months I took several pictures of birds gathering on chimneys for some warmth.
• For the first time in probably a decade I saw a Fieldfare in my garden. They usually forage in groups on the fields, but in severe Winters they overcome their shyness for humans and end up, individually, looking for food in gardens.
• For me Spring starts on a nice sunny day in February with temperatures around 10°C and when I hear the first Black-tailed Godwits in the creeks of Ostend. This usually happens around mid February, but I haven’t seen or heard any Black-tailed Godwits yet. Hopefully they will arrive next week. I am really longing for Spring.

Now you know what to expect in the slide show: garden birds and some more Winter pictures, but there is more:

• They are building a new pier in Ostend and they will provide an observation post for birdwatchers. About time. It has been more than 5 years since the previous one became inaccessible.
• Photos of three different species of Stints on the beach of Ostend. Yes, more birds.
• Some landscape pictures of the creeks of Ostend, my favorite place to go birdwatching. The observation post is only 6 minutes from my home by bike. The pictures were taken during the only sunny moments (3 hours) last week. It would have been perfect and the start of Spring if only I would have spotted some Black-tailed Godwits. Did I mention before that I live in a flat country?

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

The third article in the series of pictures from the past month. I wasn’t able to expand my roaming range in January; I am still more or less bound by the city-bounds of my hometown Ostend. Nothing spectacular happened in January. We had two cold spells with frost and snow, making it impossible for me to go out with my bike, and a lot of cloudy days without good photo opportunities.

Red-breasted Merganser

The pictures of this month contain a lot more bird photos than the previous months. You have been warned. As for the photo on the right; the punk look comes natural to the Red-breasted Merganser.
When we moved into this house, some 35 years ago and started feeding the birds in the garden during winter, only 3 species were attracted by a fat ball: Great Tits, Blue Tits and Greenfinches. A decade or more later House Sparrows and Starlings had acquired a taste for the fat balls too. This winter, for the very first time, I also saw a Blackbird and a Robin on the fat balls. I was able to catch the Robin in the act of feeding off the fat ball. It wasn’t easy, hiding behind a plant in the kitchen, taking the shot through the kitchen window. Interspecies copycat behavior among birds in a winter garden. Sounds like a good title for another article.

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.
I would love to have better equipment, like the Canon EOS 50D with the Canon EF 500/4.0 L USM IS lens and maybe even an additional 1.5x or 2x converter. Alas, that is way over my budget and I wouldn’t feel comfortable biking around, carrying a backpack stuffed with over 5 kg of camera equipment worth over 6000 EURO. But I can always dream.

I am using the PictoBrowser plugin for WordPress to access my photos on Flickr. Let me know if you experience any problems viewing the photos.

The second article in the series of pictures from the past month. That makes it official, it’s now a tradition.

I wasn’t able to expand my Lebensraum in December. I went back to the gym for the first time in over half a year and I still haven’t found a sustainable pace. As you will notice we had a lot of snow in December. That is very nice for taking pictures, but snow, frost and a bicycle don’t go well together. During that time I was mostly restricted to the neighborhood. Despite all the snow, we didn’t have a white Christmas. The heavy rain on Christmas Eve made it all disappear.

Nothing spectacular happened in December, apart from the fact that I was so fortunate to photograph 2 birds of prey.

All photos are taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

I am using the PictoBrowser plugin for WordPress to access my photos on Flickr. Let me know if you experience any problems viewing the photos.

This is a first for me; starting a kind of photo diary of the past month. Some of you who follow my blogs will know that I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). If you want to know more about this disabilitating disease, visit my blog ‘Life with ME/CFS‘. This disease can affect people in different ways; some people can still have a more or less normal life and go to work, while others are bedridden. Some ME/CFS patients are bedbound, some are homebound and I am more or less citybound. On an average day I can go anywhere in my hometown Ostend using my bicycle.

With this photo diary I will document some of the things I saw in my hometown during the past month. I hope that during 2010 I will be able to expand my roaming range and offer you something more than the same photos over and over again. As you will probably notice I am a nature lover, and more specifically a birdwatcher. I am also curious where this series will lead to. Will I stick to just plain photos of my surroundings or will I start experimenting with photography? Like many things right now I have no idea where they will lead to. Will exercising improve or worsen my condition? Will the appointment I have with a professor for my disease prove to be beneficial or not? Is there a future for me in writing, most likely technical writing, or not? Will I be able to go back to a job in ICT? Sitting in a coach wont provide me with any answers. So I have plotted several journeys and I will see where they will take me. I sure hope one of the destinations is a sunny beach with hula girls and drinks with umbrellas.

All photos are taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

I start this photo-diary using the PictoBrowser plugin for WordPress to access my photos on Flickr. Let me know if you experience any problems viewing the photos.