Somewhere Down the Crazy River

A final(?) image from the SS Great Britain set, probably the most successful of the lot, in terms of composition, anyway. 

I suspect that I'll return to this subject before the winter is out.

Reaching for Composure

Looking at the previous image, its noticeable that an idea of composition went out of the window whilst I was concentrating on getting a reasonably well exposed image. This one is a bit better, I think.

A New Departure

My training routine has taken a bit of a hit recently. The karate club at which I train has lost one of its venues, which has reduced them down to one ninety minute session a week.

There has been a unexpected benefit, which is that a bit of my time has been freed up, although it took me a while to appreciate that it could be used for photography. The penny finally dropped whilst I was sat in traffic on Hotwell Road, looking across the river at the SS Great Britain.

So, long story short, a couple of weeks later, I was back with my camera and tripod. The evening was perfect (I assume - I'm new to this nocturnal photography lark) being very still, with a low overcast and I made a number of images.

One thing that I didn't expect - because I hadn't thought the process through, really - was how long it would take to make each exposure. I set the shutter speed to 30 seconds and then varied the aperture to control exposure, which meant that with post processing, each one took a whole minute, which is a long time when you're stood around in the cold. Then there were a couple of occasions when I released the shutter accidentally whilst trying to get the camera to autofocus - I was wearing gloves, to be fair - and during one exposure I made the beginners mistake of kicking the tripod.

Anyway, the image above is the first decent shot that I produced during the session. There are a few more to come, which I'll post over the next few days.

Cheddar Cheese

I know that I wrote that I wouldn't post any more images from Cheddar reservoir. But this is a rather different image from those I've posted recently and I rather like it, even if sunsets are a trifle cheesy.

The End of the Lake

I made a fair few of these images during the visit to Cheddar Reservoir, but this really is the last one that I'm going to post. This one is probably nearest to the image that had in my head.

Hurry on Sundown

Another image from the trip to Cheddar Reservoir. 

I like the contrail in this one. They always remind me of my childhood, watching the aircraft flying out of Liverpool airport and wondering where they were going. They represented the possibilities of life, tinged with a melancholy that I couldn't quite place.

Smoke on the Water...

...but no fire in the sky.

Its an almost vanishingly rare occurrence that I go somewhere to make images - I generally fit photography around the demands of family life. Recently however, I took the opportunity to catch the sunset at Cheddar Reservoir.

I also took the opportunity to make some long exposure images. This is a bit of a departure for me, but one that I've been following up on recently - the results will appear here shortly.

Struck by Lightning

Recently, I attended a conference at the RAF Museum at Cosford. The actual conference facilities aren't great, but you do get to wander around the museum during the breaks. One of the halls has aircraft hanging from the roof, like Airfix models from a bedroom ceiling.

There was lots of stuff to interest an aircraft geek, but the one exhibit that stood out for me was the English Electric Lightning pictured above.

The design of this aircraft is so simple. Its basically two jet engines - mounted vertically, rather than horizontally - with a cockpit at the front. The wings and tail are swept in such a way that the result resembles a flying fish, of all things. 

This arrangement was so successful that the Lightning was the main interdiction fighter of the RAF for thirty years, finally being replaced by the Tornado - an aircraft which has never been considered adequate in that role.

The Lightning had a party piece which was often to been at airshows during the sixties and seventies - this was a vertical climb from rotation, followed by a "tail stand" before transition to level flight. 

Someone that I worked with many years ago told me how he had witnessed this display go badly wrong. The story went that the aircraft in question took off and climbed vertically into low cloud, then re-emerged a few seconds later travelling tail first. The pilot ejected - too late - as the aircraft hit the ground and exploded, killing him outright. What made this incident particularly memorable for my colleague - who was in the RAF at the time - was the fact that he was standing next to the pilot's wife.

Anyway, the images here were made with my Nokia 1020, with some post-processing in GiMP.