Grey Willow [Salix Cinerea]

Picture of Grey Willow [Salix Cinerea] flower seed pods and leaves. Some also refer to this tree / bush with the slightly different spelling of gray willow, as well as other names like Common sallow. Looks like its starting to disperse its seeds. Location: UK - Camera: Lumix.

Flowers: Black And White Vs Colour

While it is a personal preference, and very much depending on the scene and setting, black and white photography is, overall, my favourite type of photography. Most of the time It gives faces, people, expressions, street photography and many other subjects much more meaning and soul than colour photography. But with some subjects, such as flowers, having so much colour and vibrance, are almost always more appealing when shot in colour. Especially if they are the main focal point of a picture. To me at least. The good thing is, these days, with most cameras and smartphones having built-in editing abilities, you can have the best of both worlds. Take the picture in colour, then, if you want to, just convert / swap it over to black and white. Alternatively, the same can be done with many other effects. Such as vivid, warm, soft, sepia and many more. A quick comparison below.

Dog Rose in Black & White

Dog Rose in Colour [unedited]

Purple Roadside Flower Identification

There's been a few purple flowers posted on this blog. The nicest one which can be seen here, and ended up being identified by someone who kindly left a comment. This one is a much different flower, but is, again, one of those flowers that many people see on wasteland, in wooded areas, and at the roadside, but doesn't know what it's called. Well, for this one I found out myself by looking through an old readers digest book all about UK plants and wildlife. Great book. Turns out the flower [pictured below] is called Red Campion [Silene dioica]. Or sometimes referred to as Red catchfly. It's not known to be poisonous to humans, but eating it is not recommended.

Red Campion / Red catchfly

Landfill Methane Pressure Releaser

Picture reference. I don't know the professional, or industry name for this piece of equipment, so I'll call it a Landfill Methane Pressure Releaser. I've seen similar ones called either a landfill gas recovery well or landfill gas pressure release valve. But there are quite a few different styles and types, so I don't know if they are all performing the same function. This one was located on a landfill in the UK. Near Coleshill. Every now and then it makes a loud hissing noise. This, I think, is the methane gas from deep underground where the rubbish has been buried being released or captured. Gave me quite a fright the first time I was ever near one. I never knew what it was, and I didn't expect it to start hissing randomly. This picture was taken with the Panasonic FZ50.

 

Picture: A Newer Style Phone Mast [5G?]

I've been seeing these newer types of phone masts popping up for a while now. Is this 5G? I don't know for sure, but when I had a look on the Nperf mapping system, which shows where 5G is live all around the world. This location [first picture], which is Chester Road on the edge of Castle Vale Estate, Birmingham, UK shows as active on the map [highlighted purple]. Newport road also, which is practically part of Chester Road as they are joined.

This mast is situated on a public pathway. Whoever needs to walk this way, and this is a busy area, especially for people travelling to work on foot and on bikes [lots of businesses / industrial estates down this way, including Jaguar Land Rover]. Unless people are on the opposite side of the road, they must pass directly underneath this mast.

I presume this is a 5G tower. I've also seen this type of mast sometimes accompanied by a white or black pole, which is also a phone mast of some kind. I think I have a picture of that somewhere as well, so will add it to this post if I can find it. These newer style masts [see an older one] appear to have a protective thin metal, almost mesh-like covering all the way around the top. Is this to give the mast some added security due to a lot of masts getting attacked and burnt down over the last few years. It could also be to prevent birds from damaging them. I'm not sure.

A pair of very different looking masts very close together in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham.

If you want to look at your location to see how far or close you are away from 5G, take a look at the Nperf map system. Apparently its very accurate. There's also options to search for 3G and 4G coverage. For 5G, I believe the deeper the purple is on the map, the stronger the connection.