Thursday 29th December 2011

Please excuse the poor quality - unfortunately the settings for this photo were completely wrong - a small depth of field and a massively fast shutter speed - but I had the camera on settings ready for quick snaps out of the window. I didn't expect this super array of sun beams (a moment of two later they had been firing upwards through a gap in the clouds). This is the sunrise, over a church in Switzerland or France (not quite sure where we were at this point), taken out of the window of a moving coach.

270mm, 1/1600s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Pylon shot.

76mm, 1/40s, f/11, ISO 200

Sunday 13th November 2011

The day dawned misty and the rock was damp which frustrated my climbing friends, but it was a bonus for me as it meant I got a stroll down Padley Gorge with a couple of mates, snapping away at the autumn colours and rushing cascades. I find HDR works really well with water, as does a polariser, so I stuck the tripod in the water and got this, showing the water flow and some of the lovely bright green vegetation.

21mm, 2.5s, f/20, ISO 200

Sunday 6th November 2011

Pink sky on my way home from Oswestry.

76mm, 0.4s, f/16, ISO 100

Wednesday 3rd November 2011

Gorrillas in the mist. Well, more like trees.

76mm, 1/15s, f/5.6, ISO 200

Friday 28th October 2011

An autumnal tree lined avenue next to Penrith Castle.

18mm, 1/20s, f/8, ISO 200

Tuesday 18th October 2011

Knypersley reservoir skies near sundown.

18mm, 6s, f/8, ISO 200

Saturday 15th October 2011

I had a lovely ride on the motorbike today to get a bit of work done at Chester, and on the way I passed a sign for the staircase locks at Bunbury. On the way back I stopped off to have a look. It was a really lovely autumn day and the colours on the trees and in the reflections on the water were just beautiful.

59mm, 1/80s, f/8, ISO 400

Friday 30th September 2011

I really really wished I'd had an SLR with me this evening - coming home from a motorbike ride and there was mist lying on the fields and a moon in the red sky. Beautiful! Thankfully this field mist happens quite often in the Churnet Valley so I shall have to see it as an opportunity and head back.

14.7mm, 1s, f/5.6. (auto)

Sunday 25th September 2011

This, to me, epitomizes Scotland, and an average day on the hill, and is a real 'mood' (as per this blog theme). On the one hand, when the cloud lowers and you're walking upwards you know you're about to get wet and are going to have to know what you're doing to avoid getting lost. On the other hand, you get to touch the clouds!

4.6mm, 1/125s, f/2.8. (auto)

Saturday 24th September 2011

I was up in the Scottish hills again and it turned out to be a reasonably nice day. The hills we were on were fairly unexceptional and most of the views were distant and not so photogenic, but there was a more dramatic situation off the back of an extra sub-summit we made a detour to take in, and the suns rays lit it up nicely.

4.6mm, 1/200s, f/7.1. (auto)

Thursday 22nd September 2011

Being restricted technically is tough (I wouldn't have started this project with a compact instead of an SLR), but it just means I have to put more effort into getting good shots. I think this thought was tumbling around in my subconscious because as I drove home from work the sun was shining and it felt like the last dregs of summer, and instead of going home I went to the Roaches instead. It was actually quite overcast there and I didn't quite get the photos I'd hoped, but it was quite beautiful and I enjoyed the unexpected peace and quiet (unusually it wasn't heaving with rock climbers). I walked along the crag then took a path I knew was there but had never been down. This gave me a lovely view across the blooming heather to Hen Cloud, with its similarly heathery top.

12.7mm, 1/10s, f/5. (auto)

Monday 5th September 2011

I wasn't sure what to take today, so I stopped by the lake on the way home. This was a quite ordinary view, just as it was about to rain, but it looks passable in black and white.

10mm, 1/20s, f/7.1, ISO 250

Saturday 27th August 2011

I was completely spoiled for choice for photos today, it was a lovely day out in the hills with better weather than expected and I had my compact camera round my neck so I could snap away without it delaying our hike. This is the lochan below Sgurr an Iubhair with the attractive Stob Ban on the right-hand side.

4.6mm, 1/500s, f/2.8. (auto)

Sunday 21st August 2011

I really love this photo. I love the angle of the tree and I like the way the carpet of fallen green leaves reflect the leaves on the branches against the sky.

I gave this version a tweak with HDR/tone mapping and it really brought a nice balance to the scene - it took some of the contrast out of the leaves at the top so they're not too stark against the sky, and brought some warmth to the fallen leaves in the foreground so your eye is drawn to them more.

10mm, 1/6s, f/8, ISO 320

Here's the non-HDRed version for comparison:

Also here's a photo of the same tree the day before. On this occasion the sun had just come out powerfully after a downpour, and the tree was steaming in the damp heat. I needed more time and a tripod to get a good photo of it though, so this didn't make it as my photo-of-the-day for yesterday.

10mm, 1/8s, f/9, ISO 200

Sunday 7th August 2011

I wish I'd made more of this. I was on a walk and we were going at a fairly swift pace so I didn't really have time to stop and take photos, plus I was wearing running trainers on mud and polished rock which wasn't the best choice so I was constantly playing catch up anyway. I was taking the odd snap but I didn't think they were coming out well - it was a little dark in the valley and the shutter speed was too slow for a hand-held camera, but more importantly I didn't find a composition I liked so didn't stop to fix the technical issues. However, when I looked at the on the computer I quite liked a few, and with a bit more time and effort I could have made something nice out of them. I'll have to make do with this one! I like the dominance of the gunnera plant, and the matching colour of the lichen on the side of the stepping stones.

18mm, 1/15s (auto from aperture priority), f/7.1, ISO 200

Saturday 30th July 2011

Today saw me and two friends at a Climbers' hut in Roy Bridge, Scotland, having a little stroll along the river before a very early night to prepare for taking on Ben Nevis (see tomorrow). The river was fairly in-obvious from the road, but had some lovely sculptured boulders and flat skimming stones, then opened out into a broad, stony bottomed, still river, with a fly fisherman catching his dinner off to one side and his wife reading a book on the stones.

22mm, 1/100s (auto from aperture priority), f/5, ISO 400

Sunday 10th July 2011

My intention today was to walk into Durham from my friends' house and have a look at the city. It's meant to be an hour's walk down the country lanes but I got repeatedly sidetracked by butterflies, bugs and barley, and it took me 2.5 hours to get there, by which time I was parched and hungry! I didn't mind the diversion though, since the aim had been to find something to photograph, and I found plenty, even if it wasn't the urban experience I had expected! I was quite taken with these lines through the barley field.

65mm, 1/640s (auto from aperture priority), f/11, ISO 800

Thursday 30th June 2011

I was driving back from a running race this evening and stopped in a little car park to investigate some interesting looking congolmerate rock outcrops. It happened to be at the same time as the sun was setting and the other side of the road, which, being on the side of a hill, afforded a fansatic view of the fireball of a sun lighting up the sky. This was just a tiny section of the sky, there was a long horizontal strip of cloud through which the sun was dropping and the rest of the sky above and to the side of these was still blue.

218mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 100

Wednesday 22nd June 2011

The 'Fairy Pools', a very picturesque series of cascades where the water runs down from the Cuillin Ridge to Glen Brittle.

18mm, 0.6s, f/16, ISO 100