Tide's Out

Another image from  the Burnham on Sea beach set, this time with the Welsh coast in the distance.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

Recently, I spent an evening on Burnham beach, whilst my son took part in a Beaver Scouts sandcastle competition. Turning away from the complete chaos that ensued, I made a few images as the sun sank. These three gents thoughtfully presented me with some foreground interest.

Cabot Circus

Now that the lighter nights have arrived, the whole hanging around in Bristol waiting to go training thing has taken on a new aspect, in that I have to find something worth photographing in daylight.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I found my way to Brandon Hill Park, which surrounds Cabot Tower. On the first occasion, I arrived too late to go up the tower, so I returned the following week. This image was made from the lower viewing platform - I didn't make it to the upper platform - looking south east, I think. My knowledge of the geography of Bristol is a bit sketchy at best.

Grey Day at Greylake

After visiting the Burrow Mump, we went on to Greylake nature reserve. This image was made from the hide at the end of the reed bed circuit. Its one of those which I like, but I'm not sure about. Greylake is quite different in character to Shapwick and more difficult to photograph - I'm not convinced that I know how to, really.

Getting the Mumps

Bank holiday Monday found us at Burrow Bridge, on the Burrow Mump. As you can see, the day was overcast, so I've had to make the best that I can of the sky in post.

The Burrow Mump itself is a bit of a poor man's Glastonbury Tor - you can see Wirral Hill away to the north. We didn't hang about and went on to the RSPB reserve at Graylake, were I made some images which I'll post shortly. 

Against the Clock

You know that you've let your garden go when you're making images of dandelion clocks which are growing in your flower beds.

The recent trip to Cannington has inspired me to return to a way of working which I'd abandoned some time ago - that is, to hand-hold the camera and use a wide aperture to keep the shutter speed up. The new innovation is to use live view with the camera at waist height, which avoids any undignified sprawling about.

This is much quicker than using a tripod, and very freeing. I'm not sure what it does for my hit rate, but it produces images which are quite different from the more formal studies that I've been producing for the past couple of years.

Canned Finale

Yet another image from the Cannington set. There are only so many images like this that anyone can take, so this is the last one that I'll post. Probably.

Canned II

Another image from the Cannington visit - I think this is also a tulip, but I'm not entirely sure.

Canned

The Easter weekend saw us paying a visit to Cannington Walled Gardens in the sunshine, where I made this image of a tulip. I like to think that this has a similar look and feel to that of last year's images from Tyntesfield, which is as close as you get to a house style on this blog.

Again, I was working with my Alpha 550 and again I found myself niggled by its limitations. In this case, I was shooting hand-held, using live view and holding the camera at waste level as I felt slightly inhibited about sprawling full length on the formal lawn. Back in the day, the live view implementation was considered to be amongst the best, but now...For one thing, you have to switch between live view and the OVF manually, using a switch that would be right at home on a tractor. The screen tilts, but doesn't swivel, so shooting in portrait format was almost impossible. And talking of the OVF, it has 95% coverage only, which means that extraneous things creep in at the edge of the fame, like that leaf on the left of this image.

<rant>As an aside, it strikes me that those people who go on about the superiority of an OVF over an EVF are camera snobs who have lashed out on top end gear with >99% OVF coverage and need to justify the expense. An EVF gives 100% coverage and is a real step forwards for the rest of us plebs.</rant>

I could go on, but I think that you get the idea - I suspect that the A550's days are numbered.

Bridge End

British Summer Time started at the end of March and the previous week saw my final visit Clifton Down to photograph the suspension bridge at night. As luck would have it, it was on this occasion that I finally found the best vantage point for this purpose. This turned out to be near the observatory and a few metres from the point at which I'd ended my previous visit, a couple of weeks before.

Frustratingly, the sun had only just set when I had to leave for my training session - the image above is the last that I took before packing up. Also, the tower on the northern bank was surrounded by scaffolding, which hadn't been there a couple of weeks before. 

All in all, not a terribly successful note to end this series on, but I think that enough is enough and I'll move on to another subject in my next post.

Upon Reflection

Another week, another visit to Avon Gorge. This time, I stayed around the Cumberland Basin, waiting for darkness. But the year had moved on and it was still quite light when the time came for me to leave to get to training.

I made this image whilst I was mooching around, looking for something to shoot in the twilight, having noticed the reflection in the river water. It lacks the, um, drama of previous images in this series, but I like the composition.

I should say that, a couple of weeks previously, I had switched back to my Alpha 550 for one reason and another, and I've really started to notice just how agricultural it is compared to my Alpha 77. I'm beginning to think that its days are numbered - at 14 Mega-pixels, with poor high ISO performance, its beginning to show its age. 

The question now becomes this; do I buy myself an RX100 or hold onto my cash for the rumoured A77 replacement due early in 2016? The former neatly dodges the A-mount versus E-mount dilemma, which makes it an attractive option, but means that I'll have to keep the A77 for the foreseeable future, which is obviously a hardship.

Observation & Reflection

We're now onto my third week of attempts to photograph Clifton Suspension Bridge from the top of the gorge, and it was at this point that I finally found a good vantage point. This was near the Observatory, were this image was made.

The Lone Hydrangea

Further evidence that Spring has sprung, found in our garden. This was also the first outing for my focusing rail, which was a Christmas present which I haven't really had the opportunity to use.

Shapwick Spring

Another image from the weekend's Shapwick Heath visit.

A Tor of Shapwick

A bit of a break from nocturnal Bristol, to which we will return shortly.

So, we had sunny weather for the first day of March and our first visit to Shapwick Heath this year.

This image was made looking almost due east from the decoy hide towards Glastonbury and the Tor, which is the blurry rectangle that you can see in the background.

Desperate Measures

So, we've had Christmas, the weather has been pretty ho-hum, and various family stuff has been going on. The upshot is that I haven't made a lot of images recently. 

Anyway, as a bit of a stop gap, here's an image from the Cheddar Reservoir set that I made back in November. I've attempted a different treatment here, high key rather than low key. 

Anyway, some new stuff next time, hopefully.

River Pheonix

Okay, this really is the last image from the SS Great Britain set that I'm going to post. Something different next time, I promise.

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.