(Quick thing, I’ll try and figure out a way to make navigating the article easier. I haven’t yet so bear with me!)

Late May 2026:

It was warm that day, approximately 30ºC (that’s really warm for the UK, shush).

It got so much taller! This is approximately the span of a couple of weeks.

Notice how at the bottom the red part has faded? A third leaf has appeared at the back too!

Now obviously there isn’t a photo of when the bulb was planted; it would just be a picture of soil, but here is a few weeks after!

I had a couple that were closer however they were blurry. This is only the beginning!

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Just realised, this will be the first actual post to the Photoness section since 2024! Go me!

Adding

So I had a recent vision for the Photoness project. Since it will probably take me a little while to get back up to speed with things, I wanted to introduce a couple of sub-projects to the mix. As well as the yearly round up of photos, I want to take you guys on a photographic journey with me. One that takes place in my garden: watching the growth of a flower that was recently planted. I know it may sound boring but I want to see if I can keep up with this. I’ve often wondered about the process of a flower growing and well I want to take you on that wondering journey with me, following the growth with my own two eyes and updating those who aren’t there to see it. So I will be posting an article and updating it every month-or-so with a new photo showing the changes in the flower! Sound cool? No? Go away then!

Now that the uninterested people are gone, the other sub-project I wanted to introduce is an article called “My Favourites”. Basically, It’ll be very similar to the Yearly Collections but this time it will be my favourite image of the month! Not much else to say here! I will also attempt to make a note at the bottom of every Photoness article (apart from this one) that shows what equipment I use. Maybe it could be of use to you, or maybe just informative!

Change

Now I’ve been wanting to do this thing for a long time; since even before the thoughts of starting the Photoness project up again.

The logo.

You’re probably only just noticing that it’s changed, or maybe not at all. Maybe it’s your first time here and you see the new logo and have never seen the old one. Well, to satisfy the curiosity, here’s the old and new:

I got incredibly bored of how the old one looked. It just looked old. You ever just look at something like a logo and think ‘that could do with an upgrade/update’? Just me? So anyway, I updated the logo! I think it’s cool, what are your thoughts?

Anyway, ramble session over! As you were peeps!

Arcanum x

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Just a quick thing, I took a couple of the following images on or around the same week as the previous post as I haven’t quite had the free time to take many more. I think what I’ll do also is go through my SD Card on the camera and see what I can pull up from previous random photo shoots to maybe make this more interesting... 

So, I think what I’ll start with is a continuation of garden photos considering I still have loads from the previous photo shoot. The one I am quite proud of, both the fact that I was able to get the shot and how clear it came out is this: 

A little sparrow that had landed on the wall. And around the same time as this little guy landed here, another one landed in the butterfly bush that was mentioned in the last post: 

It’s amazing to see birds up close like this, granted the one in the bush was at the other end of the garden but the one on the wall was really close. It goes to show how animals will come up to you if your calm, cool and collected and if you’re gentle enough then you can grab a picture of them like that. 

If you know me, which many of you won’t, you’ll know that I absolutely love ducks. I don’t know what it is about them, I just love them. Which is why I am happy that I could get close enough to snap some images of some. Rather interesting thing, I read earlier that the Mallard is one of the most common species of duck in the UK. Make of that what you will. Anyway, here are the photos I took: 

Just click into them if you want to see them better. Now, the top three are male mallards and I think they’re the same one... yes, that might be right because one of the ducks was very comfortable around us and I think that’s the one I managed to get the most shots of. The bottom one is a female mallard, as you can see quite different colouring. 

I started writing this little photography blog thinking that I wouldn’t have the same problems as in the past when I have made the attempt to write anything, but those problems have come back, and I am struggling with what to write. Typical. 

Now, keeping in mind that I am writing this over many days, I recently had the idea to switch up the way I show my photography. I had the thought to post my stuff on Instagram as I had previously stated that I struggle to write sometimes, and it has started with this project. I have now run into two problems with that platform though. I originally created an account called Arcanum’s Project Nature; however almost immediately after signing up, I tried to login and was told the account was disabled for “Violating our terms of use.” I had literally just set the account up, there were no posts to the account and no profile picture, and I didn’t think there would be a problem with the name. So, after a lot of trying to figure out what the hell was going on, I gave up. 

Almost twenty-four hours later I tried again, creating a brand-new account. This time, I got everything set up and everything looked to be alright. That was not the case, however this time I only got an error saying: “There was a problem logging you into Instagram. Please try again soon.” This was on a computer and when I tried to login on my phone, I was told: "Error: Sorry, there was a problem with your request”. So, I’ll either wait or mention Instagram on Threads because that seems to be the only way to contact them. 

Anyway, complaining over. Moving on... 

What do you think of this? 

I cannot remember when or where I took this photo. I have racked my brain for a while now and it will not come to me whatsoever. I’m not sure what it is about this image that really draws me to it; perhaps the detail in the little green areas below the browned pine leaves (I think they’re pine, don’t quote me on that) or even perhaps the focus on that one leaf at the top. 

Still keeping in mind that this post has taken me, well, since the last post to write; I finally got the Instagram project started! It eventually let me create an account and post images to it, and I named it the same as this Substack: Photoness. So as well as this project on Substack, detailing different things about my photos I will be starting/continuing the Instagram project which will be daily (or at least semi-daily) posts of different images that I have taken with little to no writing in the descriptions, that writing will be reserved for here. 

Right, I think one more image and then I will call it done. This one was taken a while ago and I cannot remember where I took it, but I think it was near a body of water considering the insect: 

A dragonfly, perched upon a branch from a bush of sorts. I don’t even have to tell you, the detail on this one is unbelievable. If you look closely, you can see the different sections of the wings on this little guy; I like how it focuses mainly on the dragonfly and blurs everything else in the background. There’s not much more to say about this one so I guess I’ll end this here. 

Thanks for reading if you did, keep an eye on the Photoness Instagram page at the link below for daily-ish image posts: 

Photoness Instagram 

Ciao! 

Arcanum 

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So in the last post, I mentioned how I was starting this new project of posting my recently renewed photography journey on Substack. Well, this is a continuation of said project. The first official post of, well I suppose it’s called a blog huh?

I think what I’ll do is first mention how I came across the cover image for the page. If you can’t see it, it is a picture of a very nice pink flower taken with a macro lens (I will try and identify the type and pop it in either this post at a later point or in the next one). Yes I just had to Google how to spell lens, and apparently spelling it with an ‘e’ at the end is incorrect yet many people use it... How interesting... Anyway! This image was taken I think a few months ago when visiting my Grandad. He has a very nice garden that he enjoys tending to and that has always given fantastic photography opportunities and that area is one of the main ones where I was able to take some nice photos and build my ever-growing collection of plant images.

[Future me speaking here! Decided to change the cover image to match the new Instagram so I am posting the original picture here :)]

The thing with cameras is that there are always different types of lenses to use; there is always a use for at least one of them no matter how many you have from which to choose. I think my favourite so far is my macro lens because I rather enjoy taking photos out in the wilderness. If I can zoom in close enough to something as simple as a leaf, you can really see the different textures and parts of it and it always makes you wonder. I’ve also been trying to find a nice sunny day to take photos of different insects and flying things but typical Britain: one sunny day then the rest of the month is grey and cloudy so I haven’t quite had the opportunity to do that. However, because it’s the summer time, the butterflies are out and about so I’ll be spending my summer in the garden waiting for them to come fluttering by; weather permitting, obviously.

Staying with the topic of my garden, I have recently taken images of some different types of plants that I think would be good for here.

Take this one for example:

A white hydrangea. Now, you would not believe how many of these flowers I have seen in my lifetime. I think nearly everyone that has flowers in their garden has at least one of these hydrangeas, noting that they have different colours depending on the levels of acidity in soils (yes, I Googled that). I think what’s nice about this one is how small each individual flower is; bearing in mind I used a macro lens on this and was standing about 60cm away from them. I’ve never really gotten into the study of plants in general, but it could be an interesting topic to review. This photo was taken after a good day of watering (it was raining, bloody typical) which is why the image may look darker. It’s also amazing to see that this sort of flower is very popular with bees and butterflies, much like the flower: Buddleia, more commonly referred to as a Butterfly Bush, a sweet-scented purple flower which also attracts a variety of flying insects. For reference, this is a flower from a Butterfly Bush:

Unfortunately, it is rather blurry, mainly because it was incredibly windy when this was taken so it kept moving.

Moving on, I am given to understand that people say a lot of things about four-leaf clovers: mainly how they tend to be rare and are rumoured to bring good luck. Well, I found quite a few more than just one of them which to me disproves the rarity factor by a mile. Maybe we just got lucky… but my mind almost immediately said ‘Get the camera, get the camera’ and so I did, and I managed to snap this calm image:

It may not be perfect, but it’s still beautiful either way. I mean look at it. Really look at it; if you look closely at each leaf, you can see slight creases in every layer in a sort of an arrow pointing down the spine towards the stem of the whole plant. You may also be able to see a hole on the top left leaf where an insect has had what looks like a midday snack. What a sight! I can honestly say that I never thought I’d see a four-leaf clover in my lifetime, now I’m glad I have!

One more interesting thing I found recently is about Hoverflies or Syrphidae if we’re going to be scientific. Apparently, they feast on Lavender plants as well as those previously mentioned butterfly bushes and hydrangeas and are classed as the most important pollinators among flies. The reason I bring this up is that I managed to catch one resting on my lavender the other day, and here it is:

It's quite cool to see the patterns on the bottom of the actual insect itself and the wings too. Many people think of these to be some sort of bee or wasp but in fact they are only flies and have no stinger. If one approaches you and tries to land on you, try not to swat it away; it might be only looking for moisture and salts upon your skin, especially on warmer days. Let it land on you if you’re calm enough, it won’t harm you and it’s fascinating to see what happens!

Right! I think I shall end this post here for now. Thank you for reading if you did, it is much appreciated! I will keep updating this page with my different findings especially throughout the summer months because there will certainly be interesting finds to document.

Until next time!

Arcanum

In the last week however, I had an idea. Now, bear in mind that the majority of my ideas don’t come into fruition and if they do they don’t last very long. The idea was to take one of my favourite hobbies and talk about it, and post my findings/creations on a platform of some sorts. (I have used Substack a lot in the past and have had a lot of use with this platform so I chose it as my platform to write on.) My hobby in question is Photography. I could also choose to write about my music (my other favourite hobby) but I am kind of already showing my musical creations elsewhere so, yeah.

So that is the new plan! Take photos, post them here and write about them as I do. Now one of the main problems with this could be the fact that I run out of things to say. This has happened previously whenever I talk about, well, anything really. The biggest slap in the face was when I thought I had put enough effort and written enough about a Photography project that I had done in school, only to be told it wasn’t enough. But, I won’t let that have an effect which is why I am attempting this little project.

As with my musical projects (which I post to YouTube if you’re interested), I am posting this sort of thing not as a cry for attention, just as something new that I am trying. If I inspire people, great! If I gain a following, great! But the following would not be the reason I started. I want to inspire and I want to inform and share my outcomes, thoughts and musings with the people of the internet. Of course, the internet may not always be so kind but that is something that happens whether you like it or not. You just gotta see what happens, when it happens!

I look forward to posting my thoughts and images in the near future!

Wishing you all the best, wherever you may be!

Arcanum

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