After almost a whole weeks holiday it was back to the grindstone on Friday with a couple of days on press followed by Easter Sunday locked in a darkened room editing sunny beach shots. Read the rest of this entry »
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“Barnstaple Square”
Having gone to bed early it was up before dawn to make the most of the snow that had been dumped overnight. Read the rest of this entry »
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©NorthDevonJournal
On paper it sounded great. Official turn-on/reveal of a new wind turbine on the edge of Exmoor national park at the Calvert Trust. Timed for just after sunset and creatively lit it sounded like I’d be able to get all inventive and get the whole story in one shot.
The weather had other ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
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Croyde 14th Jan 09
After a bit of mixup at home as to who was getting up and when, I made it down Croyde beach later than expected this morning. It was a couple of hours after high tide and the sun was trying to break through the high level cloud (which it didn’t) and the wind was a baltic offshore that had real bite. Surf was 3ft+ with the odd barrel to be sneaked. Read the rest of this entry »
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lowertown-harbour
I spent the early part of last week in Wales photographing the Pembrokeshire and Gower coast. It looked so close on the maps, over the bridge head to Swansea and you’re almost there. Not entirely true but worth the drive. The Pembrokeshire coast is stunning and was lit up with a solid ground swell. The Gower was for me even nicer. This is possibly to do with stumbling upon a perfect hidden reef setup having wandered round a big headland.
marloes bay
Finally back in North Devon. Yeah…
New Years Eve was a busy evening photographing drunk people out on the freezing streets of North Devon. Bideford first then a mad dash back to Barnstaple for the festivities on the square. Managed to stay warm with lots of layers and the obligatory silly wooly hat, but I did worry for the 2 Smurfs I saw in Bideford.They only had blue shorts on and had just dipped themselves in a vat of blue paint. Mad!!
Once the fireworks display had finished lighting up the river Taw and the thousands of spectators I made it home for my first beer of 2009, quickly followed by the second, third and fourth. Possibly a fifth and even a sixth. This didn’t exactly set me up for a morning of heavy editing but I managed it somehow. Although it was a struggle to read my own notes at times!
I think this shot is possibly the best from my New Years Eve shooting for the Journal.
view Barnstaple NYE Gallery view Bideford NYE Gallery Read the rest of this entry »
ShareChristmas passed in a haze of alcohol/food/family/presents and fun and I’ve managed very little photography. However I think I’ve found a new pet project to keep me busy of the next few month.
We’ve been staying with the folk’s right out in the sticks and I noticed on a couple of nights that the really clear evenings combined with the lack of local light pollution produced an amazingly bright night sky, with the milky-way a shimmering ribbon laid across the vivid starfield.
Suitably insulated against the knawing cold (Northface jacket, silly hat and lots of rum) I assembled my tripod and set about trying to get a decent exposure. It was a lot trickier that anticipated. So far i’ve shot 2 nights and i’m still not happy. I’ve included the best pic so far…
There are a number of problems i’ve got to overcome. Noise levels induced by such long exposures (but I think I’ve sorted that out now), but the most annoying is the sudden cloud cover that instantly extingushes the celestial display. It’s hard to photograph something thats no longer there! Anyway I’ve a few more days here, and several more months of long nights on which to practice and refine the technique. So i’ll keep you posted and expect to see an awesome limited edition print of a galaxy far far away, very soon.
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