RAF Parachute display

This afternoon I took the boys along to Lyme Regis, a place well know to most Brits as the UK's fossil Mecca. Today the RAF (Royal Air Force) put on a very impressive parachute display. Armed with a 200mm f2.8 and a 1.4X converter this are some of the shots I got...

Sea gulls

Seagulls are not exactly rare and they're not difficult to photograph but of course it's only people who live near the coast that see them. We get them a lot in London but not as many as by the coast, these ones were pulling paper out of the bins looking for chips. They don't seem to mind people, you can often hold up chips and they'll snatch them out of your hands in mid-air. I caught this one (a Herring Gull) as it flew past (without baiting it with chips).


* A British chip by the way is like a "French fry" but much more chunky, they're usually larger than a man's thumb.

A Walk in the Woods

Although Charmouth, where I am for the next week and a half is noticable cooler than London it's still too hot in the middle of the day to take my boys down to the beach. Yesterday we went for a walk in a nearby wood to cool off, an excellent idea, it's difficult to understand why more people didn't do the same, luckily they didn't, it was a fabulous walk.

Charmouth by night

I'm in Charmouth for a two week holiday with my three boys. It's not easy keeping them happy and the weather is far too hot to be out during the middle of the day. I took these in the evening, long after sunset, most were all around 2 minutes exposures at f5.6 taken towards the south-west.





On this one you can see the "star" trail of Jupiter on the upper left

More Docklands

Sometimes I just wonder through the hundreds of old photos and try the odd one out in PhotoShop, I think this one came out quite nicely, I took it at the same time as the Dockland photos. The ligh trails at the top of the river are from a river boat, this photo was a 2 minute exposure which gives a rather nice sheen on the river.


Details: A view from the Docklands up river to the City
14/04/06, 19:01
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
120 sec @ f2.8 with Hoya 72R infrared filter
70-200mm 2.8L @ 100mm
Tripod

Barcelona

Life's hard, after visiting Rome I had to spend almost a week in Barcelona, I was there for a conference which meant hard work writing slides and long nights drinking until 6am but I did get time for a few photos on the Saturday before flying home.

This is the part of Barcelona where the photos were taken... Google Maps.


Details: Barcelona, Spain
24/06/06, 12:10
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
1/250 sec @ f8
20-35mm 2.8L @ 20mm
Handheld


Details: Barcelona, Spain
24/06/06, 12:25
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
1/200 sec @ f7.1
20-35mm 2.8L @ 28mm
Handheld

Roma (Rome)

A few weeks ago I had to visit the beautiful city of Rome. Getting there was a bit of a nightmare, travel in economy so nothing viable to eat, I arrived 2 hours late to a completetly closed airport, shared a taxi to the centre only to find my hotel was near the airport, got to the reasonably nice hotel to find they couldn't even find me an apple or a bag of peanuts. Starving by this time I drank a few beers out of the minibar as my evening meal, did a bit of work and went to sleep.

The following evening after a relatively good day's work made up for it all, Rome is just stunning. I took the following while wondering around just before settling down to eat. I was with several others so really didn't have time to compose or use a tripod.

This is the area I was walking around, it's the old part of Rome, for any Americans reading this old means "REALLY OLD". Google Maps


Details: Rome
29/05/06, 19:15
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
1/25 sec @ f2.8
20-35mm 2.8L @ 35mm
Handheld


Details: Rome
29/05/06, 19:24
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
1/160 sec @ f5.6 curves modified with Photoshop CS2
20-35mm 2.8L @ 32mm
Handheld


Details: Rome
29/05/06, 19:37
Canon 20D, ISO-100, RAW
1/60 sec @ f3.5 curves modified with Photoshop CS2
20-35mm 2.8L @ 32mm
Handheld

Face painting

Shame on me, I intended to write to this blog roughly weekly and it's been several months since I list posted anything. It's not as if I've stopped taking photos it's just that I've either not had the time to process them for web consumption or just simply not been connected to the internet with enough time to spare to post the photos.

These photos aren't necessarily in chronological order but you're hardly going to know the difference, the important thing is to get some photos up here again and wake this blog up from it's sleepy state.

These photos were taken a few weeks ago, my boy's school held a fate one rather hot evening in late June. I had the three boys to watch on my own so didn't really get much change to take photographs. I was pleased with these results though, the sun was getting lower in the sky and the light starting to get that nice warm evening glow.







Finally James, this was before England lost. Since my boys are half French it was pretty easy for them to switch alegence to France, that got them just a little further.