The problem with puffins

Puffin - Bempton

Puffin - Inner Farne Island

Puffin - Skomer island

First off some house keeping.   I took 2485 images this morning out of which I kept 418 which is a 17% hit rate - about right for the type of photography I was doing today.  I think I have got some very interesting images that I think I can make into first class photographs.  It is noticeable that my standards have risen markedly over the past few visits to Bempton.   Images that may well have been kept on my first visit only get the most cursory examination before being deleted.  This is especially true of Gannet images.   After a while one image of a Gannet flying overhead tends to look like the next.  This is progress and I have to say I am happy with the situation.

This brings me nicely to the question of Puffins.   The RSPB makes a big thing about the puffins at Bempton and yes there are a relatively large number of them.  However, the views are to say the least restricted.  They spend most of their day sitting on the chalk cliffs which on a very bright day posses some real problems.  Also even with a very powerful lens the resultant image is not that impactive.   To show this compare the the three photographs. I think the the Bempton is a distant third of the three.  

So what does this mean?  Well, first I have try harder to make the photographs more interesting.  One idea may well be to try High Dynamic Range (HDR)- the Bempton photograph has a shutter speed of 1/8000 th so this give plenty of scope to implement a HDR experiment.   This, however, is incidental to the main problem.  Puffins are just not as accessible at Bempton than at the Farnes or Skomer.  Can't wait to visit both site in the next month.

Boy am I tired

The first images out of the card...well sort of

I am officially mad.  Yes Mad!   The reason for this insanity?   Well I went to bed at 8 o Clock last night so that I could get up at 2am.  Why? you may well ask.   I wanted to get to Bempton Cliffs for dawn.  However, this is not the depth of my insanity - oh no.  Instead of waking up at 2am I woke at 12:30am and was on the road by 1:30am - 30 minutes before I was going to get up.  Was it worth it?   Yes it was and I would do it again - just not tomorrow!    I'm currently uploading the files as I write this and so I might be able to publish one or two today...then again this may well have to wait until tomorrow.   I may be mad but I feel very happy with my madness.

Fineshade Woods

Just finished culling the images that I made today at Fineshade Woods, Northampton.  Over the next day or so I will start to produce some photographs - to date I have managed to make four and as usual you can see them by clicking here.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker - Fineshade Woods

Fineshade woods

Just back from a day at the Forestry Commision's Fineshade woods in the Rockingham Forest.  Too early to see if I have any useful images - still uploading.  Hopefully, I will be able to report back later that I have some crackers...well having seen some of the RAW images this might be a bit much - still always live in hope.

Chasing Banded Demoiselle

Whilst trying, and failing, to capture a nice image of buttercups in the local park this Banded Demoiselle fluttered into view   There was a recent article in the Iris magazine about how to capture images of damselflies and dragonflies.  In short it was to set a high ISO and blast away.  This is exactly what I did and low and behold I captured a good photograph of the Banded Demoiselle.  This one is a male.  Now I don't want you to go away thinking that I am some sort of expert.  I'm not.  I found out this information from the web.

Poppy

The weather was just right this afternoon to do some flower photography; it was warm, dry and slightly overcast.   Out of the three the overcast is the most important as it means that there is a bright light source without being too bright - thus creating hasrh shadows.

So I started off in my garden capturing images of a lovely red poppy that is flowering at the moment.  After this I went to the local park and tried to capture images of buttercups.  As usual I failed.  I just can't get the right balance between the bright yellow flower and the green background.  I need to work on this further.  Another challange!

Again, I have put together a show on Flickr which can be accessed by clicking here:

Learning more about FlickR

I have spent most of the day catching up on admin work.  I have also been trying to get my head around Flickr.   I have had to add some functionality to my Meta data tag generator (I know this is a fancy name but it is a small bit of software that I wrote to generate Meta data for my photographs.)  The problem was that I couldn't use my meta data from Lightroom because there was too much of it.  Flickr only allows 75 individual tags.  It is not unusual for each of my photographs to have 150+.  Also, Flickr doesn't handle spaces at all well, you end up with the words all rolled into one.   Anyway, to cut a long story short I added some simple functionality to the metadata generator that allows me to produce tags for the photographs.   So hopefully this will make my photographs more accessable.

One feature of flickr I really like is the mapping facility.   Very quickly for start to build up a pattern of where you work.   I find this interetsing although I suspect many other people would not - probably says a lot about me!

More Bosworth Landscapes...

Whitemoor, Shenton

I have just added a couple more photographs to the Bosworth landscapes set.  Click here to view all the photographs

Some Decent Weather...

What a lovely evening for photography.  The sunset was almost perfect - could have done with a few more clouds towards the east but can't really complain.   I spent the evening in and around Market Bosworth and the battlefield site.   There is a really fantastic lane there that has a really marvelous display of wildflowers - I'll no doubt visit this site over the next week or so to capture more of these flowers.   I was taking to a couple who were out on their evening constitution - they may well view this blog entry so Hello and I hope you enjoy this and the other photographs on the blog.

I then disappeared up a lane by Whitemoor.  As I came back I saw what, at first glance, looked like a rather close cropped cat.   It looked at me and I at it.  I then realised that it wasn't a cat but a Muntjac deer.  After a few moments the deer wondered off into the undergrowth. 

To see the other photographs I have made from this evening then click here.

Not quite sure what I am doing.... and more landscapes

Trees - Owston Abbey

Oh dear oh dear.  I am really not sure what I am doing with my photographs on Flickr.   I have reactivated my Flickr account and now are publishing photographs there.  I have joined two groups at the moment, I am sure this will change as I get to understand the whole process but I feel I am missing something - not sure what it is but I feel it is missing.  Only time will tell how sucessful this new adventure is - but you have to try.

Click here to see tha lastest photostream?? on Flickr.

Old Landrover - Lowesby

I am still working on new landscape photographs.   The weather is looking good for this evening but in the meantime I have been going through my back catalogue and creating these photographs from previously unprocessed images.

Cold Newton

Best laid plans...

Well I was supposed to get out and make some landscape photographs.   It was supposed to be thunderous this afternoon, hopefully with some magnificent clouds to increase the dramatic nature of the photographs.  Well, needless to say the weather didn't materialise leaving me with flat light and a grey sky.  No use for what I wanted to achieve.  So back to capturing the birds in the garden - not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  Just hope the weather picks up and produces some beautiful light and powerful skies.  However, this is england so expect another day of flat and unteresting light.  La de da.

More landscape work required

I am going to have to put the wildlife photography on hold for a bit as I really must concentrate on producing some more landscape photography - I understand that we might have some really interesting clouds this afternoon - thunder is predicted!  This might help.

Herons, Coots and Flickr

Another busy morning.  Was up at dawn with a plan in my head.  I wanted to try and capture the Heron's I had seen the day before.   By 5am I was on the roads around Leicester in search of the Grey Heron.  Three hours later mission accomplished.  I then spent the rest of the day selecting and processing the images into photographs.   I'm happy with them, well as pleased as I ever am on the day of creation.

I have started to reactivate my Flickr account - I havn't used for a while.  I am now going to post the blog photographs as a set on Flickr.  Today is the first day and I am not sure whether I have got all the finer points sorted out.   So if you want to see these photographs on Flicr then click here.

I will be doing this from now on so my photographs will be able to other people than the readers of this blog.  I wonder how this is all going to work out?  Only time will tell.

Mallad mother and ducklings

Grey Heron - Abbey meadows, Leicester

Grey Heron - Abbey Meadows, Leicester

Grey Heron - Abbey Meadows, Leicester

Coots, Abbey Park, Leicester

Canadian Goose and Gosling - Abbey Park, Leicester

Coot on nest, Abbey Park, Leicester

Coot, Abbey Park, Leicester

Messing about with Landscapes

I thought I should do so more work on the Landscape project - after all they have to be submitted by mid July so I think I should come up with some new work.   So what to capture?   I decided to visit Abbey Meadows, a part of Leicester I used to know well but is no longer too successful - well it is mainly derelict awaiting redevelopment which is unlikely in the short term.  One thing it does mean is that there are some great photographic opportunities.

So I spent a couple of hours walking down by the canal and through Abbey Park and these photographs are the result.   I am not sure whether they are any good or not, I never am when I have just produced the work - usually I am more satisfied a few days on.  

Another bonus was the number of Herons I found by the canal - well worth a visit with the long lens to see what I can capture.

On a completely different tack I have just installed Google Chrome, well it installed itself when I down loaded Google earth.  I have to say I am really impressed.   It is a speed machine when searching the web, not a surprise I suppose but it does knock the spots of any other browser I have used.   So far this is really good.  I will never use it as the default browser as this must always be the Internet explorer (this is the lowest common denominator as all web sites will work with this even if not very well).   However, my day to day browser will be Chrome until I find something better.   Well done Google.

London - No 2

It has been a couple of days since the exhibition opening and so I have now had chance to think about the whole experience and I find myself still very confused about my feelings.  On the one hand I feel a great deal of pride that I had a print selected.  This needs to be contrasted with the great sense of unease I have whenever attending such gatherings.  I guess it is because these things never happen to me - but there I was within a cavernous auditorium at Allen & Overy's huge London HQ - no credit crunch here.

The day started after we had checked into the hotel with a short walk to the British Museum.  Now if ever you need a wake up call to see how mush further you may have to travel to real artistic greatness this was it.  We spent an hour or so wondering around the Assyrian sculptures and the infamous Elgin marbles.  The thing that struck me was the wonderful levels of craftsmanship displayed by the Assyrian's almost 3000 years ago.  In contrast, the Elgin marbles looked almost ordinary.  Now this is no doubt due to the familiarity of the styles, the greek sculptures have been copied through out western europe and so their impact is somewhat dimmed.   This is not the case for the Assyrian sculptures.  I found myself standing in front of these huge slabs of stone marveling at the dexterous skills of the artists.   

After this it was back to the hotel to change and take a taxi to the reception.   The city of London really is another world.  It has power, money and luxury oozing from every pore.   It is within a stones throw of some of the most deprived communities in England and yet has no real attachment to them.  It is an alien world of capitalist power.  Even in its current state the buildings still look wonderful. 

The reception it self was the usual mixture of congratulatory speeches and prize giving.  The highlight was the winner of the Allen & Overy prize who had flown all the way from Japan to receive his cheque.  He rightly socked up his congratulations.  We played a game, 'spot the lawyer'.  It was a very simple game - which of the gathering were photographs and which were lawyers.  It wasn't difficult.  We photographers are clearly not as prosperous or attached to dark suits as the lawyers, many of whom seemed to be very young and propping up the bar.

Once the reception was over we walked back to the hotel through the still buzzing city of London.

The next day was the journey home.   We still had time to do a bit of shopping and then get back to the hotel, collect our bags and off to the station.  St Pancras really is a wonderful building.  The renovations are superb and for anyone who remembers the old dilapidated station it is unbelievable.   St Pancras also provides the photographer with endless opportunities for shots - one which I took advantage of.  Then the express back home and the whole experience was over - hopefully not the last I will have to go to.

Landscape Photographer of the Year

I have decided to enter the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition.  To this end I went out this evening and made these photographs.  Not sure if they are good enough to enter but it is a start.

London - No 1

Elgin Marbles - British Museum

It has been a busy old day.   I have only had time to work on these photographs from London.  Hopefully I will get around to write a full report of my day and night in the capital tomorrow.

Elgin Marbles - British Museum

St Pancras Station

St Pancras Station

St Pancras station

Just got back...tired but happy

Just got back from the reception - tired but happy.  I'll post something more interesting??? over the next day or so.   Just to say it was really satisfying to see your print up there with all the others.

Going through the back catalogue

Palace of Westminster

Having sorted out the computer problems I had over the past few weeks I had to clear out a load of old files on the now defunct hard drive.  I came across a whole series of images dating back to 2005/6.  Now I think already have these in my system but looking at them again inspired me to work on the images again to produce a series of new photographs.  The interesting thing for me is how my view/style has changed over the past four years.  I have clearly been influenced greatly by other photographers over that period and I think it shows a significant amount of development.

London Eye

Canary Wharf