Musings....

Sheep on Peak District Hill

Donna Nook is starting to look less likely to happen. It is nearly a week since I went there and I must say I am still disturbed by the thought of working in a crowd on the beach - just doesn't seem right - after all this should be about the seals rather than some mad scramble to get a photograph. I just don't feel it is the right thing to do. However, I have not made a final decision - yet.

I was going to write about the difficulty of capturing a really interesting nude photograph - but I think I need to give this some more thought before I commit my thoughts to the either. What I have been given a lot of thought to is what to do next year - what sort of projects I should take on and how should I approach them?

This has been prompted by starting to reflect on the last twelve months. I was planning something for the 1 year anniversary of this blog but never got around to it. However, I have been musing on the whole year and what I have achieved and what I want to do next year. So what am I going to do? Well I have a plan - which I will no doubt not stick to - but as I write this it is the latest plan. I intend to work on only three projects over the next 12 months. The first is my ARPS portfolio - I hope to have this ready by the late summer for submission in the autumn. I could submit it now but I want get as many photographs as possible of the same style, lighting etc.

The second project is the Landscape Photographer of the year. This has to be submitted in the July. The final project is the Garden photographer of the year. This is in November. All three give me some time to work on them and they also allow me opportunity submit work to other competitions as they come along. Well that is the plan - goodness knows how long it will last. I will no doubt put something together in the next few days about the Nude - I just have to marshal my thoughts - more musings....

One final thing. I have just crossed the 10000 hits mark on my Flickr account.

Disappointment and Hope...

Life is a very strange bedfellow. It smothers you with kisses and then kicks you in the balls - sometimes at the same time. I started this week feeling okay then I received my Dear John from the organisers of the Landscape Photography of the Year competition. We have all had these...its been very hard...very high standards etc..etc. You can almost hear the '...its not you its me...' line. Anyway, they rejected my submission. Much chuntering and cursing by myself.

Then this minoring - at 04:59hrs?? I received the kisses. I have been short listed for the British Wildlife Photography Awards. Now I am aware there is no guarantee that any of my photographs will make the final selection let alone win any prize but is is a positive step forward. Needless to say my spirits are very high this morning - but there is still a lot of hard work to be done. I have to ensure that the Hi Res Tiffs and their corresponding RAW files have the correct URN and then copy them onto disk and so on. So my fingers are crossed along with many other cliche I may wish to use. It's turning out to be a memorable photographic year for me - long may it continue.

BWPA Submitted

Deer Park - Marloes

Well that's another set of photographs submitted. Now onto the next submission. Well it is a busy time at the moment. I have submitted photographs to the Landscape Photographer of the Year and now the British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA). The next is the Projected Image Exhibition with the RPS. All these competitions are very much the luck of the draw. You try and develop string images that meet the brief and then hope they catch the eye of the judges. There is no feedback nor evolution as you might get with a client.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is the photograph above. I have submitted this as part of the Habitat category of the BWPA and nothing unusual about that I suppose apart from I had forgotten that there was a Habitat category until this morning when I paid my dues and submitted the work. So a quick rummage through my photographs came up with three that I thought fitted the brief. No long deliberation as I had with other photographs but a quick selection process and that was it. Does this mean it has less chance of sucess than the others? I don't know and this demonstartes the random nature of the process. Still it is fulfilling just going through the process and so onto the next submission.

Puffins Puffins and Puffins...

Best laid plans etc. I didn't expect to get round to working on the Skomer photographs for a day or so. However, the sorting out of the Landscape Photographer of the Year submission was a lot easier than I thought - the reason for this that I broke the short list down into individual shortlists for the categories. Once I did this the selection seemed to fall into place. I am leaving it a day or so to see if I want to change anything.

So back to puffins. They are a wonderful and charming bird - perhaps the most photogenic creature there is? Maybe, maybe not. However if you want to up close and personal then Skomer is one of the best places for this. The birds are so unconcerned by the people they walk quite happily amongst the crowds on their way to feeding their chicks. Click here to see the latest photographs.

I had set myself two aims for the shoot on Skomer. The first was take some really close portrait shots - not difficult given the birds behaviour. However the second proved much more difficult. I wanted to capture the birds in flight. This was proving unsuccessful until I walked back to the landing site on the harbour at South Haven. Here the birds just zip past you but without their nervousness they have at the Wick. Only later did I discover that this too didn't work out. After a lot of head scratching and reading the manual I found that the 1D's focusing only works really well with lenses with an aperture of f2.8 or larger. The 100/400 zoom has an max aperture of f4.5 - this clear contributed to the high failure rate. Big lesson. Fortunately I had sufficient images to satisfy me. However it was a painful lesson.

Whilst on the island there was a camera from the welsh language channel S4C. It was fascinating to hear the Welsh language spoken as a first language. It is strange and very beautiful language to listen to. I latter spoke to the presenters about the welsh language and the fact that there were so many common English nouns. They reassured me that when specking welsh they didn't use the common English noun but rather the welsh. This was rather undercut when a young volunteer spoke to them and very quickly it was clear that she certainly didn't appear to have difficultly using English nouns in the welsh language. Of course this is no scientific sample, and also o reflection on the girl in question, but I still have difficulty believing that common English nouns would be replaced by welsh ones. You only have to examine the development of the french language to see how English creeps in even when officially frowned on. This doesn't get away from the fact that the welsh langauge, when spoken in a relaxed manner, is a beutiful, poetic langauge of rythms and harmonies that english simply cannot approach.

One final thing. I watched the programme they were making the other day and I say my tripod leg on the screen. Fame at last!

I have a plan...

Broad Haven beach

I have a plan. Over the next few weeks there are a number of competitions that I am planning to submit work to. This means I will have to restrict the work I will undertake and I am going to have to make a plan. So here is the plan. I will not work on the bird photography from the Pembroekshire shot until I have completed the submission for the Landscape Photographer of the year. This also means that I will not make any other photographs from the Pembroke shoot than I have already done. To see the whole shot to date click here. This doesn't mean I will be returning to this set of images it just means I have selected what I consider to be the best photographs for the competition. There are only so many sunset photographs you can choose for a submission.

After the Landscape Photographer I am going to work on the British Wildlife awards. This should coninside with the completion of the photographs of bird in Pembrokeshire and my next big shoot in Northumbria. However, the date of the submission for this is very close to when I get back from Northumbria so I am not sure how many photographs from Northumbria will be included.

After this there is the projected image exhibition with the RPS. I can't recall the closing date for this but I think it is some time in August. I am hoping that the work I have done on the first two submissions will help me with this.

After this there is the Portfolio two submission to work on. This is sometime in Sept/October. Again the plan is that there previous work can be rolled up into this - thus reducing my work - afterall I would love to get out and make some new images.

Lindisfarne at Dusk

Well the hard work starts from here. There are only two weeks to go before the closing date of the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition and so I am now working through my selection to try and come up with 15 photographs - that is hard work! Not only have you to select up to 15 but they have to be put into one of four categories. I hate this but at the same time it does provide a certain amount of discipline. Lets just hope it is worth it.

Preparing for Pembrokeshire

Newgale beach

Less than a week to go and I'm off.   To the sun sea and sand of Pembrokeshire.  I know it doesn't have the same ring as Miami or Bondi beach but it is in many way better ( all thought that assumes that I have visited both and I haven't - I just haven't got any inclination to do so).  Anyway back to Pembrokeshire - what is so special?  Well for a start going out of season you usually have the place very much to yourself.  The beaches are broad, wide and as can be seen above golden.  Now the downside, it's Wales and so you have to expect rain and cold weather.  None of these things really bother me.

One of the peculiarities of Pembrokeshire is that it is not really wales at all.  I know this is going to get many Welsh men and women up in arms but in their heart of hearts they know this is true.  Even the locals call it little England.  What does this mean?  Well around the coast and much of the western part of the county all the towns and villages have English names.  Whilst I was there last year I undertook a place name survey and the south and west of the country is all English names.  The further north you go the more welsh the place gets.  Even the local accent is different - more west country than west Wales.  So why is this?   Well I think we have to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Edward the first (always worth blaming for such things!) who suppressed the Welsh principality and planted south west Pembrokeshire.  Now I am sure there is lot more complicated reasons than that but this will do for now.

Photographically Pembrokeshire is a wonderful place.  To see some of the photographs I made last year click here.

So the planning goes on and I can guarantee that all the planning won't make the slightest bit of difference to what I finally produce.  However, there are three projects I really want work whilst I am away.  The first is 'Birds of British Coast', the second is Landscape Photographer of the Year  and finally the 'British wildlife Photograhy Awards'  (in truth the first and last are very much the same thing) I know that there is great potential to add to all of these - lets just hope that things work out alright.

Browsing the highways and byways

Emley Moor TV Transmitter at Dawn

Ratcliffe Power Station

I have been wondering through my back catalogue today.  I find this to be a wonderful thing to do from time to time as I usually come across photographs I had forgotten about.   In this case I thought I would upload the Ratcliffe Power Station and Emley Moor TV transmitter.  I remember making both sets as if it was yesterday.  They were both made within about a week of each other in the depths of winter in 2007.  Both were shot around dawn and I seem to remember it was cold.  I don't think that is much else I could add at this time.

If you want to see the Ratcliffe set then click here:

If you want to see the Emley Moor set then click here:

Staunton Harold

Well the weather wasn't right to update the photographs I wanted to today Staunton Harold.   However, I had a great time putting the world to right with David Manley.   We made some images and had a light lunch and it was areally pleasant day.   After lunch we went our seperate ways and I was able to make this photograph.   To see the rest of the series click here.

Flamborough Head

My it was cold.  Perhaps it didn't help that I was wearing shorts and no gloves but handling a heavy metal tripiod at dawn froze my hands.  I am becoming a real whimp!   Anyway the result was that I got some really good images of Flamborough Head at dawn.   To see the full set click here.

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

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.

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.

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.