24 August 2013

I was fortunate enough to combine a visit to two of my favourite places in the UK on a long weekend break. We had only planned a day trip to the Lake District but managed to get a last minute hotel in Coniston so we could head up a day early. Unfortunately, as with most of my visits to this amazing area, the British summer weather lived up to its reputation and it rained non-stop. In a brief respite from the rain I made it out at sunset to a jetty on Coniston to shoot some long exposures with my new Lee filters. As you can see there was very little colour in the sky.

The next day the weather had improved and we took the kids to Tarn Hows, a very scenic spot and a nice easy walk for toddlers. In the afternoon we started the next part of our journey and headed over to the in laws house in Bishop Auckland where we were leaving the kids so my wife and I could head up to Northumberland for our wedding anniversary the next day.
 
I absolutely love Northumberland and try and get here at least once a year. We visited the interesting, spooky and slightly eccentric Chillingham Castle on the way and headed over the Cheviot Hills full of beautiful purple heather (below) to Bamburgh.
 
 
We spent sunset on the beach and I was up at 5am and back there again for sunrise. I had the beach to myself and despite the disappointing sunrise (the tide was too far out for the shots I wanted) I just love being by the beach. 
 
On the way home I managed to squeeze in a stop at Embleton beach - a wonderful curving bay that goes from golden sand to big black boulders (which look great on a receding tide). It also helps having the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle perched on a cliff above it. Again the tide was out and the mid morning light was harsh but I stacked all of my filters for a 2 minute exposure (Hoya ND400 8 stop screw on along with a Lee Filter holder containing a Hitech ND1.2 and Lee Hard ND Grad 0.9). The Hitech caused a horrendous purple cast hence the conversion to mono.
 
 


Lake District / Northumberland

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10 August 2013


 
I'm pleased to say that I came third in the Travel round of the annual Photographer of the Year competition run by Photoanswers.co.uk (the online portal for best selling UK camera magazines Practical Photography and Digital Photo - both published by Bauer Media).

The standard of entries is always strong and so to have been shortlisted and then placed is a great achievement.

My image appeared in the September edition of Practical Photography - shown above - (out in shops from August 8th) as well as Digital Photo magazine (out in shops from August 15th).

Photographer of the Year - Travel - 3rd Place

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08 August 2013

I've just returned from a week holiday with the family in Malta. I'd never been to Malta before and love to visit new places but I must admit I wasn't sure what to expect having heard mixed things about the country. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Okay so Bugibba (where we were staying) is an uninspiring place but outside of the resort there are some great places to visit from the excellent capital Valetta and the equally impressive Grand Harbour / Three Cities to the fishing port of Marsaxlokk with its iconic colourful fishing boats (below). More pictures to follow.

 

Malta

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05 August 2013

Today my image was shown on the Insight Guides Photography App as picture of the day. The App is available to download for ipod/iphone/ipad. It can also be seen on their website by clicking on this link: http://www.insightguides.com/inspire-me/destination-of-the-day/05-08-2013?position=9

The image was taken in Lucerne, Switzerland. A larger version can be found on Flickr.

 

Insight Guides Photography App

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