Learning in the u3a movement

This is 'Mirror Inside a Mirror'. It's inside my living room, where I've spent a lot of time. It's made by a friend in Brill, Oxfordshire, who uses copper in many of her creations.

When something stops working and is beyond repair I don't simply throw it away but am curious to see what's inside. This is the innards of my first digital camera bought in 2002 - an Olympus C40Z.

During this lockdown a family near me have prepared a tableau every day using their childrens' stuffed toys. This one is a garage scene with the large teddy inside the bonnet, another teddy underneath the car and a blue monkey having removed the front tyre.

The inside of my old watch. We have all been spending a lot of 'Inside time' recently.

I made the connection quite quickly between "Inside" and being in prison but couldn't see how to make it work in a photograph. Then I recalled my misspent youth playing Monopoly. All I then had to do was find the board game at the back of the cupboard, dust it off, set it up and get the camera out.

We are a brand new Photography Group just started in Southport before the lockdown. We are meeting every two weeks by Zoom and each meeting the GL presents us with a challenge. Last one was "Indoors" so I thought I would submit this. I am learning so much about my camera I never knew existed by tackling these challenges. It has been a great adventure

This great tit and it's partner are in and out all day long feeding the chicks inside. It's lovely to hear the babies cheeping away and to watch the parents go back and forth to feed them. I'm looking forward to seeing them venture out from the inside to fly in the big wide world any day soon.

When going to get tools out of my shed I spotted a small round ball looking object at the top of a window. When I looked closer I recognised it as a Wasp Nest which was being built. I could see inside and see the 'honeycombs'. I did not want an infestation so carefully cut it down and took it in to photograph it. On returning to get tools I saw a large wasp (it was the Queen) who was looking for her nest, she inspected the base where I cut it off from. I was too slow to catch her as I did not want her to build another nest in my shed. What you can see in the photo is the interior of the nest and the honeycombs are clearly shown.

I am sure all of us are yearning to get back outside to visit places to take pictures, and socialise with friends and family, and with me this has compounded the feeling of being 'Trapped Inside' so I set out to take a series of photographs to combine together to showcase this feeling of isolation and captivity.

I have a pendant made from a section of fossilised Ammonite which shows beautiful and complex internal structure from which I made a simple sketch. Choosing from the rather limited selection of fruit and veg in my fridge I cut thin slices and arranged them on transparent sheeting and then backlit them to represent the ammonite's structure. The black negative space around my "Edible Ammonite" was done in Photoshop.

A traditional set of wooden Matryoshka dolls with the largest big-bellied doll nesting “children” dolls inside. This set, which we bought several years ago is hand painted and embellished with gold.

For a long time I’ve been telling our bear that he’s going to need to have a wash. I only got him to cooperate with this photo because I convinced him it would be a dry run. He had fun because he pretended he was an astronaut, but NO WAY would he agree to be an aquanaut!

(No bears were harmed in the making of this photo)

With lock-down easing and on the last sunny day expected for a while, we much enjoyed being outside at The Himalayan Gardens near Ripon, when I spotted this bee, busy inside a gorgeous rhododendron bloom.

Under the cover of darkness, Egbert’s daring plan to ‘eggscape’ from inside the kitchen cupboard takes a giant step forward when someone leaves the cupboard door open.

(My aim with this picture was to try to think of something different to reflect the theme of ‘Inside’ and could perhaps also be seen as a metaphor for the current lockdown situation.)

This is our cat staring out the cat-flap at the outside world, deliberating whether or not to go outside. She can go out when she pleases, and in that respect she is much more fortunate than many people just now.