Life Observed

Is it the Norfolk Broads? Is it perhaps lake Como? No. It is a gravel pit. These end up as nature reserves and fishing lakes for some reason. Occasionally they get converted to holiday resorts. Perhaps there is a tax dodge involved. Strange.

I think it is always useful to put a picture into its context. It also helps to include something to add a sense of scale. Here's an uncharacteristically stormy sunset from Cyprus.  The sea and the shore need the mountain to establish the context of the picture. The ensemble also needs the single human figure to give a sense of scale.  Ideally I would have liked a couple walking on the sand, but you have to work with what you have got.

After the gloomy grey rain filled skies of your typical warm front, the weather clears, the temperature drops and we see clear skies for a few hours. Then the clouds start to boil up and on come the showers. Green and pleasant land: It's all due to rain.

Plan ahead if you intend to photograph a sunrise or a sunset. It is my theory that the Sun accelerates when the horizon is involved. I know from experience that the golden moments at sunrise are literally moments, not minutes.  It is equally true that you need to be in the right place at the right time to capture a sunset. Setting out on foot a bit before sundown in a promising direction will ensure you are not in the right place, and by the time you find the right place you will be too late. So, in the spirit of this small rant, here is a nice picture of a rural gateway just after sunset.

Greetings dear reader. Your genial host has been absent in the sunny perfection that is Cyprus for a short holiday.  I returned with several rolls of film featuring Cypriot life observed which I hope will prove interesting. Let's start with the weather:  We have visited Cyprus in the spring for ten years and have always been impressed by the lovely climate. It's like a Mediterranean version of California, but without the infrastructure, the technology and the gross national income. Every morning seems to promise a perfect day and every evening a joy to behold. However this impression was rudely shattered this year by an unpleasant looking cloud. "I don't like the look of that cloud" I said.  Lo, it turned into a good sized thunderstorm for much of the night. The next day we found the mountain roads covered in fallen rocks. Exciting times. Look at this picture taken from a similar spot a day later.. This is more what we expect, yet another g...

Last light of the day up on Watership Down and the temperature is already minus three. As the sun sets, the last dog walker of the day makes his rounds. These moments were caught using my Olympus E-PL3. The first with the superwide 9-18mm lens, the second with the 40mm short tele. Both hand held in the freezing cold. How we suffer for our art. The rest of the day was spent indoors in the warm...

A cold front passed over here yesterday and gave us this lovely dusk. A giant cloud hung over the horse exercise yard at the end of the day. A cold front changes the weather in a magical fashion from dull and grey to bright, cold and showery. The cold over warm arrangement of the air makes for an unstable situation. Rising cumulus clouds propagate and expand, and can form a giant anvil that brings on a thunderstorm. In this case the cloud ran out of energy at the end of the day and restricted itself to heavy showers.

Twenty Twelve already! It only seems a moment ago we were all agonising about the new millenium.  How time flies. Will this year be different to all the others? Only you can say.

Here's a balancing act: It's an example of balancing light.  Usually we speak of balancing the photo flash power with the ambient of background light, so that the picture looks natural. However, here we have a different task. We are balancing the artificial lighting with the dusk colours in the sky.  Fortunately this is a simpler task, it doesn't involve Guide Numbers or wireless triggers, it is judged by eye and adjusted by time. Simply wait until the fading dusk matches the floodlights perfectly, then take the shot... The cresent moon is a nice bonus BTW.

Well here's an unexpected sight. Where did I find this, somewhere in the Highlands? No, this magnificent if rather flighty beast is pictured within sight of central Guildford. (This is the first occasion in my long association with cattle that I have had to exit a field at more than walking pace. Fresians and Holstein cattle are generally well behaved, and perhaps these Highland cattle were just feeling a bit lively, but its those horns I respect) Here we are just outside Guidford, quite close to the cattle on top of St Catherine's Hill. The hill is a curiosity, the road and railway cut though it and the river skirts its lower edge. It appears to be made of one huge pile of  yellow-brown Folkstone sand, and is responsible for a sand slick that reaches right down to the river. Atop the hill you find the 14th century St Catherine's Chapel, site of the old St Catherine's fair and part of the Pilgrm's Way. Consider the Medieval pilgrim if you visi...

After yesterday's gloriously faked pictures, here's one that is gloriously genuine. This was just as seen, taken using 600mm equivalent telephoto lens*. After so many dismal days this last month, I was very pleased to see some sunshine and blue sky today. There was the makings of a fair sunset so I drove home the wrong route. (There is clearly a right route , its shorter but uglier). Here on the wrong route I finally found my shot. A March sunset over Watership Down, North Hampshire. I do like the back lit mist effect in the valley trees, something similar is visible at sunrise under the right conditions. *Technical note regarding this Olympus lens. That's actually a 600mm equivalent zoom lens, no lens hood, straight into the sunset: And no lens flare .

Here we are, about a thousand feet up on the Pennines with a spendid sunset. The hills recede towards Lancashire and the clouds reflected in the reservoir. Aaah... Another summer evening. This time looking towards Shalbourne over the Kennet Valley. Ranks of trees march westwards over the hidden village of Speen. Both of these images are mangled and partly faked. There never was a lake in the first one. I flipped the sky and drew in the shoreline to create the illusion. The right hand third of the second image is a reflection, added to make the picture wider. I merely adjusted the trees in places to destroy the giveaway symmetry. To quote the Moody Blues: Red is grey and yellow, white . But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion.

I have had a good moan recently. I feel I'm on a roll, so here 's another one: There are certain commonly used words that get my goat because (to me at least) they seem to be misused. Lets start with this Stunning sunset. Surely that which stuns is an experience so extreme it causes unconsciousness. Is that really what happened when I saw this scene. I don't recall passing out. So down with "stunning" as a word used to describe things that are in fact quite nice. I will admit it was quite nice to watch the sun sink into the low cloud behind this screen of bare trees. That's why I took a picture of it :-) What about this Awesome view? A colleague who has an ear for these things once reported a most inappropriate use of "awesome" overheard in a department store. "Hey, come and look at this awesome soap dish" Can a soap dish truly create awe in the mind of the beholder? If  so, they should get out more. This rather nice...

We live close to a gravity stabilised unshielded nuclear fusion reactor . So close to it, that you can make out its disk in the sky. Surely this is clearly a risky strategy for a planet with a paper thin atmosphere* but I guess that's how its been for a few billion years. Midsummer Sunrise (a favourite subject of mine) at Hampstead Marshall, west of Newbury near the river Kennet. This giant and potentially lethal reactor rises above the horizon. Sunset, Spring Equinox. I once lived in a house where my view to the horizon between the houses was due west. Every year the Sun would set in the gap at the right time. How does it know it should do that, eh? Here is one from just last night. A January sunset from the end window at the office over North Hampshire. Our neighbourhood fusion reactor gives the clouds a golden lining, while the rooks perch in the tops of the trees to survey the scene. I confess have some previous form with nuclear fusion. My first...