OK, I admit it, I googled ‘candid’ (or ‘gooooooooooooooooogled’ as it’s known in this house).   I needed to find an unposed picture when the person pictured wasn’t really aware I was taking the photos.  I knew what it meant really but didn’t want to make a fool of myself!

It’s be bit tricky for the children not be aware that I have the camera – it’s with me more and more.   However, they’re relatively easy to take unposed photos of because of just that fact – they’re so used to be snapping away and want to be off doing their own thing.

This weekend we went out to ‘do some nature’ as part of the Cheetah Keeper’s Sister’s “Out and About” Brownie badge.  She’d missed the walk when the rest of the Brownies did it having had a particularly long, boring and painful afternoon at the hospital.  It broke my heart when she said she didn’t want to come to Brownies because she was too tired and just wanted to go to sleep.  It’s not a decision that you would want any 7 year old to have to make.  Anyway, the distinct advantage of your mum being Tawny Owl was that I’d planned the whole thing and we could go on the walk anytime we wanted.  So, we donned our ‘appropriate clothing’, grabbed the cameras, her carefully annotated Goooooooooooooogle map and set out.

The Ver Valley walk is lovely – especially in the sunshine and we had a fabulous time ‘doing nature’.  We ended up on a playing field on the way home – some of which is being left to grow as pollinator meadow with grasses now taller than the children.  The Red Kite was up circling and as I am still on a mission to get a decent photo of it (now ‘them’ – how exciting!) the Cheetah Keeper (and the Cheetahs for that matter) were off exploring.  And then he just decided to do this, because he could (and didn’t realise I could change the camera settings that fast!).