Marc Provins

Although I love growing and colour I wouldn't have chosen roses for my garden. I inherited these from the last owner of my home, and despite some tentative pruning and tying in they've been pretty much neglected. At the moment I have two high fences completely covered in them, literally hundreds, I feel like I should invite people around to see them, its a rather ridiculous, spectacular sight I feel I need to share. Whilst collecting these I got several injuries, which reminded me of their dual nature; all pretty and delicate on top whilst below they snag and catch with their razor like thorns. 

My New Year's resolution this January was to see more of my mum and dad, which I'm managing to do pretty successfully. Somehow in 2013 I only got to Gloucestershire twice, which really shocked me when I realised, let's face it none of us are getting any younger. So I've just had a very lovely couple of days in their company and breathing in some good country air.  I always end up feeling a bit nostalgic visiting that neck of the woods as I grew up there but left in a dash at 19. So today flying along the A40 in my little car with my camera on the passenger seat and Depeche Mode on the stereo, I suddenly had a flashback to doing exactly the same thing about thirty years ago. This time however I wasn't sporting dyed, crimped hair and guyliner and my car seemed a bit quieter than my battered Escort Mark 1. When things become familiar, it's easy to take them for granted and this picture is about that process in a way. The sofa in the picture belongs to...

From my occasional series (well two so far) of colours sampled from dead creatures, I present this poor frog from my allotment that didn't make it through the winter. I was really in awe studying the structure and colours of it, so beautiful. Ive noticed more and more how my relationship with nature through tending the land and growing feeds into my photography work.  If you'd like to see the other picture from this 'series': marcprovins.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/staying-alive.html