Photo Friday ‘Artificial Light’

This week’s challenge is yet again from the archives and from an evening where I together with a couple of friends played with light effects, as the evening turned to night the photos got more and more ridiculous but I will spare you for that and leave you with this :0)

Ghosts

Photo Friday ‘Little Things’

After being away for a long weekend I was curious to see what the “Photo Friday Challenge” had in store for me and with a title of “Little Things” my thoughts quickly fell on an Expedition Photography Workshop I attended last year in South Tirol run by the super talented Ulla Lohmann and one of the days was spent focusing on macro photography and here’s my best shot.

Moth

Ulla is a regular photograph for National Geographic and have photographed all kinds of animals so when she says this is a nice photo I believe her :0)

Wildlife photography

I love the “new” format of BBC’s nature programs where you follow the photographer almost as much as the subject he/she is filming and I always wanted to try my hand on wildlife photography myself and I have spent many an office day daydreaming about tracking wolfs and eagles across barren landscapes or witnessing the mating ritual of cuttlefish :0)

But not being able to travel to globe for my hobbies I always keep an eye on the landscape when I’m out and about and always carry a camera.

This is what I found and learned just the other day :0)

It was nearly 0800 and it was a beautiful Saturday morning so I decided to go for a walk before the crowds came out to spoil it all, not only would it be healthy exercise, I might get some nice photos and I was scouting for a discrete place to sleep rough in an upcoming micro adventure I’m planning but more about that later. As I was entering the Sherburn Willows Nature Reserve it felt like I had the whole world to myself and I was enjoying the sounds of birds singing in the sky, the gentle sound of a small burn only interrupted by a faint sound of a passing train.

Enter man walking huge dog and all the birds turned very silent while the dog was chasing a ball that the owner kept throwing across the meadow, seconds before the dog came running into view I spotted some movement in the distance and I was curious to see what it was so I walked slowly past the dog walker and circled back to a small group of trees that would work as a cover and it was only a few meters away from where I saw the movement. I settled down to wait while I was watching the small burrows where I thought I saw the movement. It was a nice morning but as soon as I sat in the shade with a gentle breeze my back started going cold almost straight away and I told myself “I will just wait and see for 10 minutes” the 10 minutes came and went as my curiosity was fueled by some tiny movements underground that made some dried out plants sway in the wind, another 15 minutes passed and my legs started to cramp up as a result of my estranged seating position but I dared not moving as I sensed something was happening and within moments a large rabbit started jumping across the meadow, heading straight for me, only stopping a few times as if it sensed there was something out of place but since I didn’t move a muscle it was eventually happy with everything being safe and came right up to the burrows I was stalking and straight away the cutest kittens came out of the burrow and sat in the sun only 2-3 meters from my camera and I could literally hear my hero’s Gordon Buchanan, Doug Allan and of course David Attenborough narrating the scene in my head while I snapped away.

Below is a small selection of the photos I brought home from my morning as wildlife photographer.

 

Rabbit Kittens 1

Rabbit Kittens 2

Rabbit Kittens 3

Rabbit Kittens 4

Rabbit Kittens 5

Rabbit Kittens 6

Rabbit Kittens 7

Rabbit Kittens 8

Rabbit Kittens 9

 

All too soon something that I never saw or heard spooked the large rabbit and she jumped away while the kittens quickly ran into hiding underground.

I’m embarrassed to admit I could not tell the difference between rabbits and hares (not good enough for this pro wildlife photographer!) but a quick search on google guided me to this helpful site and I have now learned what to look for in the future :0)

Photo Friday ‘Pets’

I have another archive photo for this ”Photo Friday” and it take me back to the summer I worked in Norway as a dog handler, taking tourists and business men into the mountains on dog sledges.

It was a simple carefree summer and I loved working the dogs even though it was mostly cleaning out the dog shit and feeding them but also running them every day for exercise and training, every day I was amazed how strong the dogs were when they with ease would pull our stripped out VW transporter round in the woods at breakneck speed, we used the VW when there was no snow on the ground and it had no doors or engine and therefore no brakes, the no brakes part was making it quite interesting to make emergency stops!
If for some reason you needed to make an emergency stop you called out to the dogs to make them stop and as soon as the speed slowed, you jumped out of the still moving van with a land anchor trying to nail it in the ground with your body weight and if you were not successful it meant that you on a good day had to sprint next to the van and jump back on board while you tried to avoid the anchor being dragged on the ground, on a bad day you would fall or get entangled in the anchor before you had to sprint and jump back on board, once you stopped there would be time to assess how badly you were hurt or injured “those were good times”.

Husky 1

Husky 2

Husky 3

This was my lead dog and while strictly not a pet but a working dog he would shift between work and play in an instant and when he was in work mode and all business like he could be very scary when reprimanding the rest of the pack.

But as soon as he was out of the harness he would look at me with a sparkle in his eyes and be ready to play like a cheeky puppy.
At the end of the summer season I had to go home and it was with a heavy heart I left the dogs behind, I swore I would be back one day but never did :0/

Daily commute

As some you might remember I now have a time-lapse app to play with on my phone and while it’s great fun it does have its limitations as I can only edit on my phone but being a modern guy and all that jazz I embrace my tech toys and here’s my latest time-lapse project.

Allow me to present to you my morning commute to work.

 

And now it’s time to go home :0D

 

 

Sadly my phone ran and that stopped the recording meters from my house.

Or you can watch them on Vimeo.

There’s extra love and points if you can name pub where the recording cuts out ;0)

Oh and please let me know if you can recommend some software to edit the time-lapse on my laptop, free software preferred ;0)

Photo Friday ‘Natural Light’

This is my first Photo Friday post and I was lucky enough to have some archived photos that fit the ‘Natural Light’ challenge.

Green Turtle in Natural Light

I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Hawaii a few years ago and the friends I stayed with lived next to a natural lagoon where the green turtles would come in to rest every night on the sandy bottom and then leave again at first light to feed on the reef beyond the breakers.

Out of my five weeks on the Hawaiian Islands, I spent four weeks on the Big Island and missed maybe three or four morning swims with the green turtles :0)

Coolest Dive Buddy ever

I apologies for the poor quality of the photos but I did not have an underwater housing for my camera and these were taken with a single use camera!

 

Clipper Ventures 2013/2014

I have recently been feeling a lot of love on my blog so I thought I would try to push my luck a bit further with you lovely lot ;0)

Apart from photography I have also been carrying a long ambition to participate in the around the world sailing race called Clipper Ventures, as it’s the only around the world race that lets anyone participate no matter what level of sailing experience you have.

The fleet will consist of 12 identical 70-foot, stripped down racing yachts and at 40.000 miles it’s the world’s longest ocean race and it was founded by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston to give everyone a chance to experience the thrill of ocean racing after his record breaking solo and non-stop circumnavigation in 1968-69.

I came across this competition on the Gore-Tex Experience Tour site a while ago and have finally managed to fill in the application just before the dead line and now YOU can help me get under way and take part in this unique event.
All you have to do is click here and click “VOTE NOW” then you fill in your email address in the popup screen and once you receive the email notification you open the email and click the link to confirm you’re a real person and then your vote is helping me one step closer and allow me to say thanks in advance and I promise that I will do my very best to bring you close to the action and share this amazing experience right here :0)

Big Smile

I don’t currently have a sailing photo so here’s a photo to show you how much you can make me smile ;0)