South West Safari

The jolly jaunt to Dorset and Devon was an interesting trip; the weather was mixed - thick sea fog and strongish winds on day one, wall-to-wall sunshine on day two, a bit of a mixed bag on the first day in Devon and almost a complete washout on Lundy Island! The return run on the Sunday saw glorious weather until I stopped off at the Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge at which point the Heaven's opened. Oh, the joys of being an outdoor photographer.

However, despite everything I managed to bag a few decent pictures and a few are presented below. I hope you enjoy them.

Firstly, a foggy picture, which was processed for my Fotoblur portfolio...

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The bed and breakfast I used in Dorset was Chiltern Lodge in Worth Matravers, run by photographer, David and Ann Ensor, and he kindly offered to turn out with me on a dawn shoot. We went to Old Harry Rocks and were greeted with a lovely sunrise...

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On the Jurassic Coast proper I walked from Lulworth Cove to Bats Hole and back on a gloriously sunny day...

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Click the image for the bigger picture

I can heartily recommend David and Ann's b&b - comfortable beds, good breakfast, lots of ideas from David about photo locations, very obliging and homely. Here's a link to Chiltern Lodge and to David's travel photography web site:

Chiltern Lodge, Worth Matravers

David's photography pages

They get excellent reviews on Trip Advisor, too.

Before moving on to Devon I made a few images in Dorset. Firstly, The lovely St. Andrew's church in Church Knowle and then Corfe Castle:

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Click the image for the bigger picture

Moving into Devon I met my friend, Simon, and after a wander around Hay Tor on Dartmoor we travelled north to Westward Ho! where a decent sunset greeted us:

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This sunset was published on Fotoblur and earned me a 'Featured Image' award.

Despite the mixed weather I had an excellent break learning much about my Lee Filters and a newly acquired circular polariser, which I have found to be invaluable.

Thanks to David and Ann for their hospitality and to my good friend Simon for the invite, my introduction to Dartmoor and Lundy Island. I WILL be going back!

More Travels

A good friend invited me to join him on a trip to Lundy Island towards the end of May to photograph the puffins gathered there for breeding. This has been a good excuse to go and practice my wildlife photography, which is a very patient photographic discipline. I've visited a hide at Thurstaston Country Park on the Wirral a couple of times in recent days and am quite pleased with some of the images I've taken. The last visit was pretty slow in the bird department because the grey squirrels were hogging bird feeders and generally making a nuisance of themselves. However, a few siskin, bullfinches and sparrows have put in appearances.

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Click the image for the bigger picture

I'm Down on the Street

Having joined the Street Photography group on Fotoblur I thought I'd better get some street images together so I wandered around Liverpool city centre and captured these images. Two have been previously published on Fotoblur.

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Click the image for the bigger picture

Click the image for the bigger picture

Click the image for the bigger picture

*Out in the Street by Bruce Springsteen from the album 'The River'

I'm So Blad!*

The lovely people at Calumet Manchester held their spring open day a few weeks ago and I toddled over for a look and a play. Most of the major manufacturers had representatives present and I was able to get a few technical queries answered. Calumet offered free camera sensor cleaning, which was most useful for me having been in some sandy and windy places recently! There were free refreshments and a free lunch, too. 


I was glad to get the chance to have a decent look at Fuji's new X100; wow! What a lovely little camera. Small and compact, light, easy controls, fixed focal length lens and a host of nice features make this an affordable option to the Leica X1 (which I covet!). The results I saw from a preproduction version were excellent and I'd like to try one out when they are more readily available. I'm adding it to my wish list ;-)


It's not often you see Hasselblad at a trade show these days but with Calumet being a mainly professional dealer they clearly felt it was worthwhile. They built a small studio and were doing some lighting seminars and I thought I'd have a little look. I'm glad I did!


At the end of an interesting lecture the few folks present were offered the chance to experiment with the lighting and have a play with a 'Blad H4D-31. Of course, I had to have a go!


What a lovely camera; light, easy to use, controls just where you want them, clever electronics, tethered shooting, big viewfinder that was really bright and uncluttered and so much more. I fired off a few shots of Stacey, the model the Hasselblad team had brought along, and was viewing them on a MacBook Pro within seconds of taking them. I liked the focusing system on the camera very much. Once locked onto a focus point (the eyes in portraiture) the picture can be recomposed without having to refocus. 


At the end of my little session the first thing I noticed was the clarity of the images. Using software designed purely for the images of one camera means that when the image is rendered every little detail is captured whereas a package like Photoshop can only guess at what some of the really fine detail captures resulting in pixellated sections at high magnification. Hasselblad's Phocus knocks Photoshop into a cocked hat and the fine detail produced by the camera wasl beautifully rendered.


I was able to bring my RAW images home (always carry a memory stick!) and I downloaded Phocus Light from Hasselblad's website to process them. Here's Stacey in one of my images...

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The original RAW image was 61Mb and I've converted it to JPEG format and resized to 5x5 format, which reduced the file size to less than 1Mb; the clarity and detail is still startlingly good.


I love my Nikon and my little Leica and the quality of the images they produce. I can only dream about the quality of the pictures I might get with the H4D-31. My meagre budget won't run to one but if anyone wants to sponsor me...


Thanks to Calumet for a grand day out and a BIG thank you to the guys from Hasselblad and to Stacey for their kindness and patience - you made a camera fan very happy.


*With apologies to Cream for butchering their song title! I should have used ''Blad All Over'!

Newborough Forest

The last day of the Easter break saw me wandering around Newborough Forest near Maeltraeth, Anglesey. It was a new location to explore and the light and weather were quite stunning. I found several lovely glades where new life was blooming and captured spring at its very best. Please enjoy this small selection of pictures...

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Click the image for the bigger picture

Click the image for the bigger picture

Thunder on the Mountain*

Easter Monday was another perfect day with a visit to Rhyd Ddu to watch the little trains of the Welsh Highland Railway tackle the climb up to the little station with an alternative view of Snowdon the prize.

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Click the image for the bigger picture

*Thunder on the Mountain by Bob Dylan from the album 'Modern Times'

Rhosneigr

Easter Sunday saw us out with family and good friends at Rhosneigr beach. It's a wide sweeping beach with stunning views. What better place to pitch your tent or sail the seas - clear blue skies and stunning scenery - deep joy!

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I also got a chance to try out some boat-to-boat photography using my little Leica...

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