A different female to the other day. These creatures are fiercely defensive of their territory. Even at 550mm they are quite small in the frame. Grebe are a tad skitish too. The forward one of this pair scudded throught the water at a rate of knots without removing her beak from her puffed out chest […]
Meteorological Spring brings Winter a tad late, but also a male Alcedo Atthis
It just is, it will always be so. As soon as some threshold gets crossed or a statistic blurted out across all media platforms that the passing season has been the warmest/coldest/wettest/driest on record, thensome incredible weather pattern hits us to keep us on our toes and reaching for an extra ganzie. This morning saw […]
March is a month that can bite you on the bum
March is a vicious month in my opinion. I have had everything today, torrential downpours, snow, sleet, glorious sunshine, bitingly cold wind, stupendous cloudscapes and all that blows away with the cavorting of a particular female. With the tail wind ruffling her feathers, this female Alcedo Atthis brightened my day. Fitting that this was a […]
There are scans and there are scans
A bit of a comparison here. The 4 seconds I spoke of the other night related to the availability of this type of light illuminating the subject. This was several minutes after sunrise as the sun had to reach an elevation of at least 5 degrees to cast rays of this wavelength on the buildings […]
…and a few minutes more
A few extras from yesterday. Still ploughing through the medium format negatives. An extra large format. All un-spotted as yet. No point doing that if I am going to scan again at higher resolution. Perhaps my favourite medium format of the site so far. The juxtaposition of the commercial silos holding barley from the vast […]
4 minute rule
Over the last year I have often been asked about how and when I make my large format images. Often as not I’ll say that sometimes I’m lucky to get 4 minutes of light at the right wavelength on the right day. Of late, and very late that is for me in my shooting season, […]
Where did February go?
‘strewth, I cannot believe we are in March already. Today is grim, just like so many days so far this winter, grim, wet and windy, not a good day for dogs, but a good day to check over gear inside and ruminate at the announcement of the passing of yet another great product – Fuji […]
The mists of time
Misty mornings like today have been like hen’s teeth this winter. My mind was half-cocked this morning waiting for the alarm to go at 05:00 and the forecast was spot on. Bitterly cold and fog on the way. How time flies at this time of year. Getting up at this time last week was adequate […]
Blown away
This week has been very busy already. After a 15 hour working day yesterday starting at 0445, I had a lie in today until 0500. For the first time in weeks we had a dramatic drop in temperature forecast with light winds (below 10knots). I was so excited I could hardly get to sleep. I […]
Tourist traps
Last week I happened upon an improbable projected image of Bamburgh Castle at dusk. Images of this castle must be one of the most reproduced or emulated ever, especially for the front cover of photography magazines. Indeed, I blogged about the very phenomenon of a sea of tripods nestled in the rocks at Budle point […]