Saints v Leicester

Posted on 15/04/2012 by shendy

I’ve not been to the rugby for a while – the last game was 3 months ago and that was in Milton Keynes, so it was good to get back to Franklin’s Gardens – especially as the sun was out!
It was a huge game – Saints v local rivals Leicester, and with 1/3 of the England squad playing it was always going to be full-on. Just a shame that things didn’t quite go according to plan, with Leicester winning 35-21.

Here’s the pick of the pics

A somewhat unorthodox tackling style from Manu Tuilagi

Ben Foden

Paul Diggin

Geoff Parling

Ben Youngs

Chris Ashton beats Alesana Tuilagi to the ball – in defence rather than attack unfortunately

Dan Cole

Toby Flood looks quite pleased to score his second try

Stephen Myler

The full set are on my website.

Venice

Posted on 09/04/2012 by shendy

Having waded through the 1600+ photos that I took in Venice, I’ve finally come up with a moderate selection to post on here. This was our 4th trip to Venice, each of them for a week, but I never tire of the place – it’s absolutely wonderful.
We did pack an awful lot into the first few days – probably too much – and were pretty knackered by the middle of the week. The 60+ steps up to the apartment (overlooking Campo Santa Maria Formosa) didn’t help, especially as they got steeper nearer the top. I think the most I did was 5 times in one day.

The first lot of photos are just some general views.

One thing I love to photograph in Venice is the decay, although the tourist people would probably hate me for it. I think that the rusting ironwork, the rotting wood and the decaying plasterwork add to Venice, showing that it’s a real place, not some sanitised mock-up. And on a grander scale, there are the screened off palazzo, where serious restoration work is going on behind the scenes. One day, the finished product will be on display again, but for now you just get a bloody big sheet. One some buildings, particularly around St Marks, they actually put a painting of the building on the front so you can see what you’re missing.

One place we’ve not been to before is San Michele, which is the graveyard island. Given the water level, people aren’t buried below ground so much! A fascinating place.

One recommendation I would always make is to go to the veg and fish market at Rialto – well worth a look.

The other new one this year was a tour round the clock tower on St Marks – not the big Campanile, but the one with the bells and Moors on top. When the parents visited Venice for the first time in 1977, they were able to go up the tower, but it’s been closed ever since – we think that this was Mother’s 12th trip to Venice and this was the first time since the original trip that she’s been up there. We booked the trip for her birthday, and fortuitously booked the 11am tour – which meant we were up at the top when the bells struck 12. The views over St Marks are fantastic, and tour guide Aga was excellent

The Brother and I also took a couple of trips out at dusk to take photos, which worked well. The longer exposures here are anywhere between 2 and 5 minutes.

And finally, a few that don’t really fit in anywhere else.

I’m going straight to hell for that one of the nun, aren’t I?

It’s worth mentioning the company we use for the apartment – Venetian Apartments.

Cornwall 2012

Posted on 15/03/2012 by shendy

SWMBO and I had a break down in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago, staying at the rather lovely Gurnard’s Head, just beyond St Ives. A couple of really excellent meals.

It was also a good excuse to actually take some photos – I’ll warn you now that if you’re not interested in photos of waves then there’s not going to be much here for you!

After we arrived on the Friday, we took a stroll down to the actual Gurnard’s Head – quite pleasant, and rather odd with the cloud level somewhere about the height we were at.

Saturday morning was spent at Sennen – we had originally planned to walk round to Land’s End but couldn’t be bothered in the end. The seas were really spectacular, and combined with a blue sky and sunshine to make brilliant weather for photographing the waves.

I like this sequence – it gives you a good idea of how big the seas were.

In the afternoon we went down to the Minack Theatre, spectacularly built into the cliff over the Atlantic, with a great view down to Porthcurno.

The waves at Porthcurno looked really good, so we went down there and I took more photos of waves…

Sunday morning was spent enjoying a Force 9 gale at the Cape Cornwall Coastwatch Station - very strong wind that made photography really quite difficult. I took more pictures of the sea. The coastguard helicopter was looking for an old man who had gone missing from a care home in St Just (nearby). A quick Google search shows that he was found safe and well.

BTW, have a look at the Coastwatch’s Shipping page – it’s got a live ship tracker. Minutes of fun!

On Sunday we went back to Porthcurno and had a wander round the Telegraph Museum – Porthcurno is where the under-sea cables first came up, where Cable & Wireless were formed (the cable company merged with Marconi’s Wireless company) and where they used to have the Telegraphy College. Really quite interesting, and SWMBO was able to get a bit geeky about the modern fibre-optic cables. I couldn’t believe that the cables were coming into Porthcurno in 1870.
The place was basically empty, so we got a personal talk about the place and demonstration of the old telegraph kit.
Well worth a look if you’re a bit geeky – I bought a great pair of circuit-board cufflinks!

It’s worth mentioning that both the Minack Theatre and Porthcurno Telegraph museum have an excellent scheme – if you pay your entry with Gift Aid, you can go back for a year free of charge. And visiting Minack gets you a discount off the Telegraph museum.

Northampton Saints v Bath Rugby

Posted on 26/12/2011 by shendy

Coo, some photos at last – my first set of rugby photos this season, as Northampton Saints comfortably beat Bath on Christmas Eve. We also took my mother to her first game for 40 years!

The full set of photos are up on my website

More stars

Posted on 03/10/2011 by shendy

I got the opportunity to take some more star photos at the weekend when I camped in deepest darkest Dorset. This was better than France as there was no moon and even less light pollution – there were an incredible amount of stars on display.
Tweaking the images a bit in Lightroom showed one thing – there is a huge amount of information hidden in those images. Check out the two copies of one image below – one as it came out of the camera, the other with auto-levels applied.

The two long exposures were about 45 mins and have come out really well, but I think I need to experiment a bit more with the short exposures. 2 minutes at ISO400 is producing just a bit too much movement in the stars and makes the image look out of focus, so I probably need a shorter exposure – but that means a higher ISO and therefore more noise. More experimentation required I think. Still, at least it’s easier during the winter as it’s properly dark so much earlier!

Starry Starry Night…

Posted on 22/09/2011 by shendy

After an unsuccessful attempt at photographing stars in Dorset in May (see previous post), I was determined to have another go in the dark skies of rural France while on holiday.
And I have to say, it went quite well. The new batteries did the job and I was able to take some very long exposures.
The first two are 687 and 3642 seconds (yes, an hour), while the others were taken on a couple of nights a week or so later and are 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. The only problem was that there was quite a full moon on the later days which reduced the amount of stars you could see. I experimented with lighting the trees in the foreground by the simple method of shining a torch onto them.

Coming home yesterday, the view from the middle of the English Channel was excellent while the view of the skies over Hampshire while driving back from Portsmouth was superb. I’m going to have to try some more of this, although finding somewhere dark enough isn’t easy.

Red Arrows

Posted on 20/08/2011 by shendy

Given the news today about the crash at the Red Arrows display, I thought I’d post up the photos I took of them last Sunday – they were doing a display over the Bristol Balloon Festival at Ashton Court, but we could see them from the spare room window. A bit distant, but not a bad view!

Mmmm, steak

Posted on 31/07/2011 by shendy

A fantastic dinner last night, which deserved a few photos.
We picked up a lump of beef rib from the new butcher on Whiteladies Road (Ruby & White) and cooked it carefully on the barbeque.
Served with our own potatoes (boiled, rolled in olive oil, parsley and rock salt, and then put on a skewer and lightly cooked over the barbie) and courgettes (cooked in garlic butter).
The result? A stupendously good meal, served with a bottle of Tavel rose from Corks of Cotham.

Ducks On Tour

Posted on 06/07/2011 by shendy

This is going back a fair bit – something we did in 2004.
We “borrowed” two plastic ducks from our then-landlords, SWMBO decorated them in a His and Hers stylee, and we took them on holiday to France. It was the early days of my having a digital camera and I also had a portable Canon postcard printer, so we sent postcards from our travels.

1) Hampton Park, Bristol. 31/08
Hello! The rubber ducks are off on their holidays.
See you in about 3 weeks time.
Tarquil & Jocasta

2) Newbury. 31/08
Are we nearly there yet?
Sebastian & Ludmilla

3) Giverny. 01/09
You know what’s missing from Monet’s water garden pictures?
Duck! That’s what!
Jacquies & Nigella

4) Chateau de Chambourd. 02/09
OK, if we must slum it tonight.
Hector & Clarissa

5) Puy-de-Dome. 03/09
No ponds!
Claude & Henrietta

6) St Flour. 03/09
Ah, the joys of a luxurious hotel.
Jeremy & Cynthia

7) Pas de Payrol / Puy St Mary. 04/09
The views are so good that I’ve taken up photography.
Timothy & Audrey

8 ) Tournon d’Agenais. 05/09
Hooray! A pond at last!
Edmund & Hermione

9) Tournon d’Agenais. 10/09
Making new friends here at the pond.
An interesting sounding museum has been recommended – we shall investigate next week.
Gerald & Persephone