Christmas Eve

I have not had much time lately to get out with the camera so here is something just to keep the blog going, merry Christmas

The Big Freeze Part two

For the past week we in the UK have been advised not to travel due to treacherous road conditions, we have had images on TV showing deep snow drifts, grid locked roads with cars abandoned in heavy snow, satellite images of the whole country under a white veil and reports of possible fuel and even food shortages should these weather conditions continue. Well I am glad to say that fortunately my wife and I with my sister and her husband decided not to cancel our Christmas shopping trip to Belgium, we drove the 260 odd miles down to the channel tunnel without so much as a minutes delay, in fact the journey was quicker due to there being less traffic on the road thanks to the weather reporter, yes we saw snow and lots of it in Kent but non of it was on the motorway, our tunnel crossing suffered no major hold ups and the weather in Belgium was bright and sunny but bitterly cold, all in all a nice weekend, which by the way we would have missed had we listened to the man from the met office.

Ice Locked in Ostend by Al Whitley

The Big Freeze

Ice Crystals on Glass by Al Whitley

Hawthorn Berries by Al Whitley

Purple Haze

A happy Accident

the photograph above is the result of trying to open Canon raw files in Raw Studio on a linux based system, my canon g10 records jpeg and canons version of raw with every shot and it wasn't until I tried to process said file that I noticed this wonderful phenomenon, to me it looks much like infrared, a medium I played around with quite a lot, many years ago but in those days digital photography had not even been thought of, I had to make use of black and white IR film.  Coincidentally I have just been given a Nikon Coolpix 950 which I have learned is the camera to have for IR, so maybe its not so much a coincidence maybe its time to start looking at the world in a different light, I eagerly await the arrival of an IR filter so I can start this new project. Look out for more IR images coming soon.

Images from the west coast (Blackpool)

Anonymous Portrait

Sitter on central pier

The following are general views taken on and around central pier, I was glad to see some much needed improvements going on along the prom and beach.

 Central Pier

 Above: View towards the south from central pier

 Above: view towards the north from central pier

Nice to see that there are still some neons !

Autumn Equinox

Whilst out and about these last few days I have noticed a substantial drop in temperature and have for the first time in many months taken to wearing a sweater, of course that is only to be expected considering the time of year, winds are now more often turning to blow from the North and bringing with them that chill in the air that makes Autumn for me the best time of the year, it is not so cold yet that the majority of trees have turned to those beautiful deep shades of red and glowing amber, that is still to come here in the North West but I await in deep anticipation camera at the ready. Autumn officially begins  on Thursday 23rd September here in the Northern hemisphere at 04:09 BST but it appears that someone forgot to tell the fruit and berry trees that.   For at least a month now they have been laden with ripe fruit ready for the picking, I was told many years ago that an early autumn in nature is a sure sign of a hard winter, this was true last year we will have to wait and see if it's so this year.  Below are some early Autumn photo's no deep reds and golds yet but I will post them as I get them. 

 

 

Images from the East coast

The following are images taken on a day visit to Whitby on the east coast of England, the light on that particular day was in my opinion fantastic, the sun had come out after rain in the morning and it gave that particular quality of light that more than often is missed by many photographers but as luck would have it on this day I did have a camera. I particularly love the contrast between the dark threatening sky and the sun bouncing off of the sand in some of them, what do you think ?

Whitby's skyline is dominated by the ruins of St. Hilda's Abbey, high on Whitby's East Cliff. Spreading below Whitby, a maze of alleyways and narrow streets run down to the busy quayside.
From the old town of Whitby, 199 steps lead up to the parish church of St. Mary, whose churchyard on Whitby's East Cliff gave Bram Stoker the inspiration to write his world famous book, Dracula

The things you see when you havn't got your camera

Sat quietly by the side of a Cheshire lake some weeks ago, waiting for some unsuspecting fish to come my way, my attention was taken by a splash some 20 feet to my left  as I turned to look I was greeted with the sight of a Kingfisher doing the same as me but with a lot more success, it flew onto a nearby branch with the fish still writhing in its beak and stayed for several seconds, plenty of time for me to get several shots off had I had a camera, its beautiful blue and turquoise plumage against the lush green of the tree would have made a wonderful photo.
A lesson to be learned here perhaps ?. here are some photo's I didn't miss they where taken when out for an evening meal with friends at Conway North Wales, I hope you like them.

New Beatles Images

Just to let Beatles fans outside of the UK know that a series of new and previously unreleased early photographs are available here, Enjoy.

Weekend in Amsterdam

Apologies first of all to those who have been waiting for me to actually post something on this blog, as you can no doubt see I started this in November 2009 but have not until now got around to doing anything with these pages, so with renewed enthusiasm here we go, new look, new title and new photo's.

Weekend in Amsterdam

this unplanned spur of the moment weekend started with a very uneventful long drive to Newcastle in the north east of the UK and then the overnight crossing to Amsterdam. On board the Princess of Norway things had changed very little since we last sailed some 4 years ago, the bar prices were a little higher but the quality and choice of the food was still excellent, the North Sea was flat calm thankfully (we had gigantic waves last time) and overall it was a very pleasant crossing. So what can I tell you about Amsterdam, well it has very beautiful architecture wonderful canals and lots of smiley people, it is expensive like most major European cities but well worth the visit, if you have been then you would probably agree that the place has a certain air about it that beckons you back (and I don't mean the wafts of air from some of the cafe's). so here are a few of the images taken whilst there, I need to work out how to size these photo's so that they look bigger once in the blog, see you soon.

Market place just of Rembrante Bridge

Delivery trike

North Sea Sunset