Sand Bay

It seems to be a peculiarly British thing to complain about the town in which you live. There are even polls in which people vote for the 'honour' of having their town declared the 'crappest' place to live in the UK. It's clear that these polls are highly subjective, of course. Both Bath and Windsor are in the top ten! Who knows why people compete to have their town declared as crap. Maybe they want to show that they are 'better' that the place in which they live - kind of like saying, 'yes, this place is rubbish, but I don't really belong here'. I've recently become one of those people. I live in a seaside town. In recent years, many drug rehab places have opened in the town, and the seafront became run down. It's easy to forget how lovely parts of the town and the surrounding area are. My daughter and I went to a beach the other evening. It is less than a mile and a half from my front door, and yet, because it's on the other side of the hill, it's easy to forget about it. When we visited, it was a fabulous summer's evening. The tide was in and the sunset was stunning. Unlike the busy main beach in the town, this one was hardly populated. We saw only a handful of people. Few enough that we nodded and said hi as we passed people. It was clear enough for us to see the birds in the top of the trees on the headland and the derelict Victorian pier in the distance. Needless to say, my daughter and I took some photos. Here's one.

Light Trails

After a serious illness about ten years ago, I made a few changes. We moved into a bigger house, which increased our outgoings, I left my job and did a full-time degree course in English literature, which reduced my income, and sent two of my children to an expensive school. You can't take it with you, right? I don't regret any of this, but of course in the end our financial recklessness came home to roost. A few years ago we had to tighten our belts hugely. In order to pay bills and debts, we had to sell everything we could: Books, guitars, TVs, and of course my camera. All of which is a verbose way of explaining why I haven't posted any photos on the blog since October 2010. Now I have a new camera, so a few weeks ago Sophie, my daughter, and I went out to photograph light trails. Here's one of the resulting images.

Uphill Reconsidered

I've never been much good at analysing my own work. When I did my Master's, I had no idea if my dissertation was any good until I got the mark. When I have a lesson observation, the observer always kicks off the feedback the same way: "so how did you feel that went?", again I usually have no idea. It's the same with photography; those which I think are my best shots are not considered as such by others, and vice-versa. In January, I posted what I thought was the best shot from a shoot at Uphill. Others have said they like this one, though. On reflection, I think they're right.

Butterflies

This was taken about a year ago. I thought I'd put it on the blog ages ago, but I guess I only put it on Flickr.

Kath and I, and our youngest son Jacob went down to the creek which runs into the Bristol Channel a couple of miles from our house. We had a fun time exploring and I took my camera hoping to get some photos of land/seascapes or of the boats, in various states of repairs, which are moored (or sometimes abandoned) there.

I didn't really get anything interesting though, but the bushes around the place were full of butterflies. I got some nice shots of Jacob walking between two bushes with butterflies flying all around his head. For this one I used a long lens and a wide aperture to get the shallow depth of field.

Canal in Varreddes

During the summer break from school, we stayed in a place called Varreddes in France. The idea was that we would be close enough to take the kids to Disneyland Paris, which is what we did on five of the six days that we were there. I am not a fan of Disneyland. I don't want to sound like a misery, but I regard it as a place for children - which I am not - and I don't really like visiting places which are built simply to be visited. I trudged around the place failing to have a good time and trying not to spoil it for everyone else.

Still, the good thing about being into photography is that, even when you are somewhere you'd rather not be, you can take your camera and still have a good time. This canal was just outside the camp we were staying in. There were enormous freshwater fish swimming in it. As my father-in-law said to me, it's strange to think of this place being occupied by the Nazis only seventy years ago.

Uphill Tower

This weekend I was due to go to Prestatyn as a guest of Nick O'Hara Smith for an event called The Gathering, which is an annual celebration held by Mike Peters of Love Hope Strength and The Alarm. Unfortunately, I didn't confirm that I wanted to attend until Thursday, and Nick had to confirm his guest list on Wednesday. I was disappointed to miss the event, and to miss the opportunity to get involved with Love Hope Strength, and I wanted to avoid having another weekend of sitting at the laptop planning lessons, which I don't mind doing, but after a while it starts to crush the spirit.
From my bedroom window, I have a great view of the Old Church of St Nicholas, on the top of a hill in Uphill. I had never been up there though, so in the afternoon I went up and took some photos as the sun was going down. From the top of a hill, you really get a sense of perspective, and of your place in the world. I am so looking forward to climbing Snowdon with Love Hope Strength in the summer.

Birnbeck Again

I haven't uploaded a photo for ages, which shows how busy I've been with my new job, I guess. But now it's half-term and I've got a little time to indulge. My friend Jane from work has a similar camera to mine, and we agreed to meet up, take photos and swap camera tips. We went to my favourite site for shooting, Birnbeck pier. When we arrived the light was poor and we were getting poor results, but as the sun set the cloud was just thin enough to allow some feature in the sky. Then the lights in Cardiff came on, across the water, and we started getting some very pleasing results. This one is a thirty second exposure taken in very low light. I like the glow in the sky from the Welsh lights, and the fact that there is a Wall's Ice Cream sign visible on the derelict pier. Also, the long exposure time has smoothed out the sea in a rather pleasing way. I can't wait to see Jane's results - from what I could see on the camera, they looked fabulous.

EDIT: Here's Jane's version. Fabulous indeed.

Owl

I took this one during a school trip to a park called Woodlands, in Totnes, Devon. I've been there a few times before, but I was too busy jumping down death slides and stuff to realise they had a falconry centre. I took well over a hundred photos, and got about four good ones. To get the birds in flight, I needed a fast shutter speed, but when they weren't in flight, I needed a slow shutter speed and a wide aperture - so I spent the whole time changing from one setting to the other. Perhaps that's why only got a few good shots!

Heron and Great Crested Grebes

This was taken at Blagdon Lake, which can be a frustrating place to shoot. On one side of the bridge there are always loads of aquatic birds and lots of action, but because of the position of the sun, the water always seems to look brown and muddy in photos. On the other side of the bridge these is less action, but the water looks lovely and blue. This one shows a heron and great crested grebes.

Wuthering Heights

My Mum bought me the mug for Christmas after I saw it in Borders Books. It cost £8.99. The book is a 1951 edition that I bought for a pound in a market in Wells. I didn't need another copy of Wuthering Heights to read as I had two already, but did need it for the photo.

Lonely Flip Flops

My son's flip-flops, taken next to the pool at a holiday villa in Denia, Spain. This photo was inspired by one that I saw in a photography magazine.

Obelisk Blue

This is the side of the theatre building at Bath Spa University. My daughter Sophie and I took a number of shots similar to this. I don't know which of us pressed the button for this one - but Soph claims it as hers!

Gazania

I walked into the garden one morning and saw this bright orange gazania in one of our planters. My wife must have planted it. I took a whole series of shots, but lost all the others when my hard drive crashed; this survived as I'd hosted it online.

Birnbeck in Morning Sunlight

I took this photo of Birnbeck Pier as a present for my mum. It was taken at 8.30 on a December morning, and I was really lucky that the sunlight picked out the main deck and left the causeway in shadow.

Hello!