That photography thing...

I realised recently that next year it will be 10 years since I started this blog. I started it originally to make myself take photos - but it's evolved somewhat since then! Still though I see photos as being at the heart of it - and indeed more and more photography is so much a part of me now it's difficult to ever imagine it not being.

For those who aren't aware, my Grandfather on my Mum's side was a photographer. (He was a musician as well, but I've come to the conclusion that I didn't inherit much of that!) As a result there are a LOT of very lovely photos of Mum taken by him from her babyhood right through to her & Dad's wedding. Sadly he died when I was three so while there are still quite a lot of photos of me growing up, they're rather more "kodak instamatic" that the earlier family shots. (Sorry Mum, but I know you'll agree!). I do often find myself wondering just how astonished he would be if he could see the camera gear I'm shooting with now - it's a world away from what he would have been used to in terms of instancy, but I suspect that may have been something that would have really appealed to him. In some ways though things really aren't so different - to get the most from my gear I still need to understand the fundamentals - metering is done via the camera these days rather than by using a separate light meter, but things like depth of field and freezing/blurring of movement are done in the same way. Perhaps in some ways the biggest change within camera themselves once you remove the film -v- sensor/memory card aspect is the way in which we change ISO these days - with film you select your film according to the conditions - a very bright sunny day - ISO100 film, for more standard use ISO200, and for lower light ISO400. Anything above that was harder to get and demanded a certain acceptance of graininess  ("noise") in the final print. Now of course it's done by the press of a button and the turn of a dial - and can be adjusted to far more precise increments. My current DSLR produces almost no discernable "noise" at ISO800, and indeed will produce perfectly acceptable results at far higher levels than that, also.

Chaffinch - Canon 7DMk2 @ ISO2500 

Now I have the ability to take a camera pretty much everywhere I go, in one form or another. of course a lot of my leisure time activities involves carrying the full kit, but even on a regular working day for example, my iPhone is always with me, and indeed sometimes I'll default to shooting with that in preference to the DSLR! The days of me needing to own a small compact camera as well are long gone. That "portability" is something that I imagine Grandpop would have heartily approved of!

My current kit is my Canon 7DMk2 - which is truly remarkable. Nicest camera I have ever owned without question. That pairs up a lot of the time with the wonderful Canon L series 100-400mm zoom, for aviation & wildlife purposes, or with the Sigma 18-250mm for more general "walkabout" stuff. The third lens in my collection is still the rather brilliant canon 50mm  f1.8 "nifty fifty" - cheap as chips but really packing a punch. I'm about to upgrade my second body - I'm currently still using my old 40D as a backup body -  I bought it back in early 2009 so it's done incredibly well. When I bought my 7DMk2 I had no hesitation in keeping the 40 and part-exing the original 7D, though - it really IS that good. God knows how many shots I've taken on it - it had a new shutter assembly fitted a few years ago so I'm guessing that will have seen it past the 150k clicks mark, though. Coincidentally it is also the second nicest I've ever owned...! I'm hopeful that its replacement - the recently released Canon 80D, will prove to be a worthy successor.

I'm feeling that I need to get back to challenging myself photographically, though, So much of what I do these days is just "camera, lens, known settings" as a starting point, I want to stretch myself a bit, do more stuff where I really have to think about what I'm doing, how I'm setting up, and the results I want to get. I've a vague notion of setting myself a series of challenges through the winter months - while there's not much going on in my more familiar aviation world. I'm still musing on what these challenges might be, currently, but in my head at the moment is:
- A day shooting ONLY in black & white (via settings within the camera)
- More days out shooting only with the 50mm lens
- A day where I restrict myself to 36 shots only, and cover over the screen on the back to replicate the "film experience"
I've got other ideas too - limiting myself to using manual mode, perhaps breaking out my old film camera and running a couple of rolls of film through that (Almost certainly the rather lovely Ilford XP-2) - that would also limit me to the 50mm lens, as my Sigma is "digital only" and won't work well with the old camera. I'd like to do some more low-light photography - something I used to absolutely love but have got out of the habit of doing in recent years. Some more documentation of interesting areas locally maybe. I'm also intending to pick the brains of a good friend - who also happens to be an award-winning RAF photog - to see what he suggests, maybe even get him to set me a challenge himself. I think what I'll end up doing is making a list of things I'd like to do photographically and then ticking them off as I go, with no particular timescale. I can sense a new page of "plans" in my Bullet Journal, can't you?!

Robyn

Thames Path - Section 3

Last week we braved a chilly day with an icy wind blowing to walk the next section of the Thames Path - very different to the areas we'd passed through previously, this one, and we also had no idea how closely we'd be able to stick to the river itself, how many diversions we'd have to make "inland" as it were, and how far we'd manage to get. we had our sights set on at least getting to the West End - Westminster - but no firm plan for an end point.

We started this section as close to the River as it was possible to be, really - you'll see from the above that with the tide out on this stretch, we were able to wander right down onto the foreshore, and at one stage I was even standing just in the water itself - the first time I've ever done that, I believe! There were people wandering with metal detectors - the word "Mudlark" refers to people who scour the foreshores of the Thames for treasures in fact - and others walking a dog, (River and Rover interacting?)  which appears to be having a fabulous time! For us though it was time to go and find one of these...

The boat on the pointy end of the signpost is a Thames Barge -these would have been a familar sight on the river in years gone by, but we've not seen any at all, so far, although our next stretch - through St Katherine's Dock - will change that. Far from boats though, this time one of the most striking things we saw was architecture - there have been a huge number of housing developments taking advantage of the golden sales line "River Views" and inevitably the designers of these have capitalised on said views by giving the apartments as much window area as possible...

 

And those particular flats would have a rather excellent view of the Battersea Heliport - used regularly for both commercial and sightseeing flights, there were flights coming and going all the time, I didn't have to wait for long to get this lucky load of sightseers heading off for their aerial view of the City.

Although cold it was a gorgeous sunny day - the views along the river were stunning - this was looking across to Chelsea...

...and we weren't the only ones enjoying the views either - yes, I confess, I did wait to get the London Bus crossing Battersea Bridge in the background of this shot!

Just a little further, and time for possibly one of the most striking bridges over the Thames - The Albert Bridge. Definitely up there with Hammersmith, and of course Tower...and helpfully empty of traffic when I wanted to take this photo!

There are more bridges on the stretch we walked this time than we will encounter anywhere else on the walk, and, in fact, when we set off on the next stretch from Tower Bridge, we'll be turning our backs on the final Bridge across the London stretch of the Thames - from then on it's all tunnels until you reach the Dartford Crossing - and our walk will finish before that!

A little further and we reached Vauxhall - another area chock-full of new development. These rather expensive looking buildings caught my eye...

...and then, looking past the Bridge - a familar sight - the MI6 building. Remember seeing this getting blown up in Skyfall? I can assure you that "no buildings were harmed in the making of that film" and here it is all in one piece...

We chose to cross to the South Bank at Lambeth Bridge - much loved by London drivers wanting to head from North, to South West London, this one, as it's the easiest, most traffic-free route by far across the water. On foot though, and heading East, we were soon into one of London's most touristy areas - the South Bank - home, of course, to this...

Now regular blog visitors may remember that I've had an ongoing project for several years now trying to document the Eye with shots from as many different angles as possible. As time goes on this gets more tricky, but I did get a few different ones this time - I'll share some more of those in another post, I think.
Weekends on the South Bank also mean the famous second hand book market. MrEH, needless to say, had to stop for a rummage, and I used the time to do a bit of street photography - not a subject I do much of but this is a great place for it and I can rarely resist when I'm in the area...

Time to stop for the final cups of tea from our flask (and some doughnuts bought from a stall - tasty they were too!) before the final stretch....

Arriving at Tower Bridge just as the light starts to fall is never a bad thing - MrEH commented that the last time we'd stood and looked at it, it was wearing its Olympic Rings - in fact I believe it was the day of the Cycling Road Race which I blogged about.

We decided in the course of the day that Tower Bridge was the perfect place to finsh this stretch - it was clearly going to be getting fairly late by the time we got there, and the transport links mean it's an easy spot to get to and from making it idea for the start of the next section. So, that's it - section three done and dusted. From Station to Station (Putney Bridge to Tower Hill) we walked a little over 10.5 miles this time - the longest section we've done, and it's a credit to my still fairly new walking boots that it didn't feel that far at all. The next stretch will be at some stage during April - we've not set the date yet, but we're already looking forward to it!

Robyn

Fun, friends and four-legged folk...

As I mentioned, we were recently invited to spend a weekend in Norfolk with some pals. They had booked a holiday cottage up there and suggested we might like to join them for a few days - as the North Norfolk Coast is one of our very favourite areas, we jumped at the chance!

Travel was easily sorted - I wanted to be in Lincolnshire at Scampton during the day on the Friday, so we booked MrEH a cheap train ticket from London to Kings Lynn for after he finished work, and I collected him from there mid evening. We arrived at the village we were staying in just before 10pm, and weren't in the least surprised to find no signs of life at the cottage! A short walk to the pub found N, A and the two dogs - @UrbanGundog and @RuralGundog - it's not in the least unusual to find them in a pub! Once the chaos caused by two excitable Labradors and our arrival has abated, we settled to beer and chat before heading back to the cottage - and very sweet it was too! A traditionally built flint faced terrace,  beautifully kitted out and finished to a really good standard - we were all extremely impressed.

The following morning we jumped in to the car and drove the short distance around the coast to Blakeney - we'd intended to walk out to the point but somehow managed to park in the wrong car park so had to settle for walking a section of coast path - and the damage caused by the winter storms was very apparent...

...rather more clambering and detouring was required than the last time MrEH and I walked along this section - in places the water had come within a few feet of the top of the embankment with the path on it and it wasn't surprising that the structure had simply failed under the impact. They've begun making repairs but you get the impression that it's going to be quite a long job.

This is the view across to Cley Next The Sea - you may remember it was in the news a while back when a USAF helicopter crashed there during a night-flying exercise. No sign of such traumatic events now thankfully, just a rather lovely sleepy Norfolk Village. You can see further signs of the damaged path in that shot too. After returning to Blakeney and enjoying ice creams, we drove back round the coast to find a pub with local beer (well it would be rude not, to, surely?) and then back to the cottage for a while, before heading out in the evening for dinner. Another pub was selected - one in the Village this time, the Lifeboat Inn. Owned by Marco Pierre White, we were slightly unsure what to expect - although as N said "If they want £25 for fish & chips, we're going elsewhere!" - sensible sentiments indeed! On arriving though not only was the pub without question dog-friendly (our two furry hosts were welcomed and able to curl up next to the table) the prices were also extremely reasonable - four plates of fish & chips were duly ordered, and arrived a while later looking like this...

MrEH immediately jettisoned his mushy peas, but I decided to give mine a try and was glad I did - far from the usual image of them as so beloved of those from north of the Watford Gap, these were fresh peas, roughly pureed, and were delicious! Home made tartare sauce, and fabulously crispy chunky chips, along with a huge piece of haddock which must have been swimming about just a few hours before, it was so fresh. We've earmarked this as a definite place to visit again in the future when we're camping up in that area.

Sunday dawned so gorgeously sunny and astonishingly warm that there was only one thing for it - to head to the beach of course! Wells Next the Sea was the chosen location...

...a gorgeous expanse of sand and dunes - we walked a good two miles each way along, stopping to let the dogs paddle, and to watch birds, and a friendly inquisitive seal who seemed absolutely fascinated by all the dogs in and out of the water! We'd all elected to leave our coats in the car thankfully, and MrEH and I were wearing walking boots with wool-based socks so our feet were cool and comfy enough - N & A were both wearing wellies though (perfectly sensible beach-wear for March) and by the time we returned to the car they were both suffering rather!

Time for lunch then - more delicious food (we did feel that we'd spent the entire weekend either walking, eating or drinking, but equally we weren't complaining about this!) this time at the Wells beach cafe which serves up fare from the Holkham Estate of which the beach forms part. Tasty filled rolls and cake went down very well, and for good measure we had ice-cream at Holkham Hall itself later on!

A lovely weekend indeed then - and a huge thanks to N, A, Urbs and Rural (pictured above, looking thoughtful) for being kind enough to invite us!

Robyn

ps - once again these pictures were all taken with the startlingly good Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. (Apart from the fish & chips - that was with the iPhone!)

Thames Path - Section 2

Last Sunday dawned gloriously sunny so we set off to walk the next section of the London Thames Path. You might remember that our first days walking a few weeks ago took us from Hampton Court (the start of the London Section) through to Richmond Bridge, so naturally enough it was to Richmond Bridge that we headed to start this section! It's a far easier journey than Hampton Court as the whole trip can be done using the London underground, mind you, the District Line all the way down there still takes an age! We arrived at Richmond at just before midday though, giving us plenty of time for the stretch we wanted to walk.

The first thing that struck us about Richmond was how old fashioned it felt - with lots of old fashioned proper boathouses still working on "real" wooden boats (and submarines, apparently!). The second thing that struck us was that the path along the first stretch was clearly where the trendies go on a Sunday - it was full of yummy mummies and designer babies! After a short while though they mostly thinned out and the walking got easier as we weren't constantly dodging joggers and being ambushed by cyclists. (By the way, Cyclists - you know that funny shiny thing on your handlebars? it's a BELL - feckin' well ring it!)

For the first couple of miles of this section we were walking past first Richmond park, then the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was lovely seeing all the gorgeous green spaces, and also things like the meridian obelisks - placed there to allow for the setting up of instruments from the Kew Observatory. Just near to Twickenham Bridge MrEH spotted this odd little building...

...we've been entirely unable to find out anything about it, and there was nothing nearby to shed any light.

One notable thing about this section was the fact that we were right under the Heathrow main approach, and right through the day we had planes coming directly overhead, dropping their landing gear just as they passed us...

...at one point we finally thought we'd passed the flight path, then clearly conditions changed as everything started heading across in front of us again!

We were soon right into the heart of Boat Race country, and the number of crews out training on the river was quite surprising - I had no idea it was such a popular hobby! we were also passing underneath more and more bridges - 7 in total on this section I think, although more if you include where there are adjacent railway and road bridges. The most impressive of the bunch is probably Hammersmith bridge...

...here it is looking majestic in the late afternoon sunshine. Here you see the problem with me choosing my 50mm lens to document this walk with - it proved impossible to get a decent picture of the whole bridge! I had to settle for some nice textural detail instead...

We'd originally thought that we might only get as far as Hammersmith, depending how long this first 6 and a half miles had taken us, and how the daylight was looking. As you can see though we'd made good time and there was still bright sunshine, so we made the decision to continue to Putney. It was at about that stage that I noticed that the sole was starting to peel away from my right walking boot...not ideal this, particularly considering they were under a year old! (Subsequently to this I contacted the excellent Customer Service team at Mountain Warehouse and they told me to return the boots for a replacement or refund, the store I returned to also confirmed to me that they had not seen this problem on these boots before). Full credit to the boots for tenacity though - not only did the sole hang on until we'd finished walking, it stayed put right the way home, too! Good thing too as there was still more to see. This amazing building...

...now posh flats, and the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust's London Wetlands Centre, which we realised we were passing when we saw these chaps on the fence...

On the other side of the river meanwhile, as we stopped for the final cuppa from the flask, was Fulham FC's football ground "Craven Cottage". This used to be shortened to simply "The Cottage" but in the light of the "alternative" current use for that term the supporters now tend to prefer to use the name in full, as I understand it. ;-) (Supporters are still apparently known as "The Cottagers" however - although whether more by opposing fans than themselves, I have no idea!)

From there there was just another mile or so up to Putney, where we wasted no time in finding a pub (The Bricklayers Arms, as it happens, one of our favourites) for our traditional well-deserved beer, before heading home. Eventual walk length from bridge to bridge was 8.5 miles, and my pedometer recorded over 27,000 steps in the day! the next stretch will be walked at some stage in March.

Robyn

Five favourites...

These are five favourite photos from our first London section Thames Path walk which we did yesterday. I'll blog later in the week about the walk itself, but thanks to some inspiration from Twitter I made the decision that each time we walk another chunk of the path I'll take the DSLR and just the 50mm lens with me. I love the way that restricting myself to just that one lens makes me think more, and look for different angles to get the shot I want. I'll no doubt take some pictures on the iPhone as well each time, but these are all from the "Nifty Fifty"...

Skaters on the ice rink at Hampton Court. I slowed the shutter speed right down for this to see what variation in motion blur I'd get across the differing skills of those having fun...

The "Nifty" doing what it does best - shallow depth of field. This beautiful Winter Jasmine was rioting over the brick wall around Hampton Court Palace.

A little further downriver and we spotted these three Swans. I did wonder if they'd be happy to let me get close enough to get the shot I wanted. They seemed pretty laid back though, thankfully!

More shallow depth of field - this time with the metal plaque giving the history of Kingston Bridge. For a sub-£70 lens, the 50mm really can give some incredible effects.

This completely deserted line of benches with their attendant trees caught my eye at Canbury Gardens just east of Kingston.

Robyn

Nifty Fifty Project....

A lovely sunny day here today - I've been waiting for one of those as I needed some decent light to do the latest photo for the online photo challenge I'm part of - the theme was "Reflection" and I knew the shot I wanted, getting it has been quite the challenge though. However, this is not the photo I've posted on here....

Once the challenge photo was done I crossed the road to the fantastic St Mary Latton church. I've taken some shots of the church before, but not for a long while, and as I was so close it seemed silly not to go and play! Some more shots will probably appear in due course, but for now, this gargoyle-type creature is one of a pair to be found either side of the main entrance door in the base of the tower.

A quick bit of history - there has been a church of some sort on the site since at least 900AD, and the main part of the current church is known to have been built in 1087 by the Normans. The Square tower was added in the 16th century, replacing the previous round one, but utilising some of the materials from the old one, including some Roman bricks which can still be seen at the base of the tower. From the early 1920's the numbers in the parish declined drastically and the church gradually fell into disuse, until in 1950 a group of people got together with the intention of reopening and restoring the now derelict church, which was re-consecrated in October of that year. It is a fascinating building, both inside and out, and my thanks go to the verger (I presume) who arrived whilst I was happily strolling around the outside and asked if I would like to see the inside as well - I did! He also furnished me with a fascinating booklet from which the above history has largely been taken.

Robyn

Nifty Fifty Project...

Thought I ought to get back to this again - as I've said before I love using the 50mm lens, it's just getting around to using it that I have an issue with. Then I pick it up, pop it on the front of the camera (works better that way round) and it's as though its never been gathering dust in the bag. I have to start thinking - really thinking - about composing shots and how to get exactly the picture I want. Sometimes I have to re-think the shot I thought I was going to take as it simply doesn't work for the fixed length of the lens - that's a tricky one as my photography head doesn't like admitting that a shot isn't possible.

The shot above was another one taken for the photography challenge I'm doing online with a group of friends. The theme was "Something architectural" and although I guess paving slabs aren't strictly speaking "Architecture" I was wandering round town with my camera and "that" lens, and saw the array of different shapes, sizes and coloured slabs and decided I liked how it looked. The challenges are good fun so far - we're seeing some excellent shots coming from people who had been at great pains to tell us all that they weren't very good at taking pictures - so far the evidence is disproving this! From a personal perspective I'm finding it a real kick-start to thinking about photography again and just plain picking up the camera and using it.

Robyn

Nifty Fifty - the project continues....

Having done a few days out last year with just the 50mm lens on board, I decided that the project was worth pushing on with. There is no question that it does make you think more....what is interesting though is that I found it an awful lot easier today than previously, so perhaps you get better at being inventive with practise? We stayed fairly local today albeit thanks to taking the wrong footpath to start with we had a longer walk than expected. It was a beautiful afternoon for a walk too - we can only hope that it is here to stay now, or that at the least we can take the sun with us to the Hebrides in a fortnight!
Robyn

The nifty-fifty project - part 2.

I had to go into London on Friday - some site visits to be done, so as is my usual habit I tucked the camera into the bottom of my bag. Well, you never know what you might find, do you? I decided to attach the 50mm f1.8 to have a go at stage 2 of the project I've set myself - namely to spend some time with ONLY that lens to use, in order to make me think more about composition etc. Actually, that's a lie. There wasn't much space in the bottom of the bag and the nifty was the only lens that would comfortably fit whilst still allowing me to carry notebook, toe-capped boots etc.....
As lunchtime beckoned I found myself on the way back to Kings Cross to get back on the tube - it seemed like the ideal opportunity to spend an hour working on another little project I've been thinking about for a while - a wander around St Pancras (St Pancras International as I believe we are now supposed to call it). St Pancras is probably my favourite building in the capital. The outside is stunning - OTT architecture at its very best. The inside has been fairly sympathetically treated - heavy use of glass doesn't exactly suit the character of the building but does at least enable you to see through to the finer parts of the structure from almost wherever you are in the upper part of the station. The brickwork is now as clean as the day it was built and the roof-supporting ironwork has been restored to it's sky-blue painted glory. That is presumably what John Betjeman's statue is regarding - and well he might as it's quite a sight to behold. Betjeman has a special reason to look in awe though - he was in part responsible for saving the magnificent building from being demolished when the idea was mooted in the 1960's. Good on you Sir - I'm very glad you did!
Robyn

The nifty-fifty project.....part 1

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, we had a walk around the South bank area on Sunday while we were in London. I decided on leaving the pub to head down that way that I was going to put the "Nifty" (50mm f1.8 for the uninitiated) lens on the camera and take the rest of my days shots using only that lens. All in all an interesting experiment. Being restricted to a focal length is strange for someone used to a Zoom. You have to work in a different way - rather than seeing a shot, you have to really look for stuff that will work, and rather a lot of what you frame doesn't, initially, you have to move forwards, or backwards, or change angle...... 50mm did, however, prove to be a lovely length for capturing some urban action from the skateboarders. This shot has been treated to a bit of "funky urban processing" also thanks to an old magazine article I've been carefully hoarding for just this eventuality!

I'm expecting this project to be ongoing, in fact I MAY even try some speedway stuff with it. ("It'll be too short to get anything decent" said Steve on Monday when I debated this possibility with him.....hmmm, best get thinking how I can prove him wrong, then!). Keep your eyes peeled.

Robyn