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Our third visit to the lovely Turkish town of Fethiye, and a few new things to photograph!
Firstly, we visited the Lycian tombs carved into the hillside above the town, sadly disfigured by graffiti but interesting nonetheless and giving some amazing views.
We also visited the ancient fortress at Tlos, about an hour's drive away. A fascinating Lycian hilltop citadel or fortress, which apparently, and amazingly, was still lived in during the 19th century, by a local brigand. It was also a Roman town, and many Roman building etc remain, some awaiting funds to properly excavate or uncover.
Nearby, this lady was baking wonderful bread for the tourists.
The town of Fethiye itself is great, a mix of holiday tourism and local charm. It has a good weekly market, an "old town" full of shops (great fake designer goods!) and some superb restaurants and bars. No wonder people come back to visit Fethiye year after year.
While we were our out seeing grizzly bears in British Columbia, we were lucky enough to see bald eagles too, up close. Majestic birds! I didn't expect them to come so close.
This one flew across to a nearby rock, I quickly moved the camera and pressed the shutter. It could easily have been a nothing shot, by by chance I caught it in the act of landing.
Here's the full sequence of shots as it comes into land:
The next day, another eagle watched us approach and simply sat and stared as we floated right underneath the post he was sitting on!
See the full gallery for a few more photos of these eagles.
So, we finally got to see these beautiful bears in June 2016, at Knight Inlet in British Columbia. A trip to the lodge at Knight Inlet is highly recommended - you are taken there by seaplane from Campbell River, on Vancouver Island. There are also day trips from Campbell River.
In a hectic 24 hours at Knight Inlet, we took three trips out to see the bears, as well as a faster boat trip further inland to see more of the wonderful scenery.
Right from the off we saw the bears - five on the first trip out! Our guide knew them all by name. We were able to view them from about 20m off the shore of the inlet.
I was using a Canon 70-200 f/4 IS lens with a 1.4x extender on it, so the equivalent maximum focal length I had was 280mm. The light was mostly not that great, as it was fairly cloudy overhead. These photos aren't as sharp as I'd like, but the best I could manage without a longer, heavier and more expensive lens.
To take these shots, I used continuous autofocus burst mode, a very wide aperture, high ISO number (800 or more) and fast shutter speed (up to 1/2000).
Some more shots follow, or see them all in the gallery.
We had some great Tulips and other flowers in our garden this year, so armed with a new lens, I had to capture them!
We've just spent 3 days in Venice - a fabulous city, a shame about the weather until the last day, when the sun finally agreed to show it's face.
Day 1:
Day 3:
As always, light is everything. The only solution, we are told, if you want to take some half-decent photos on a cloudy, murky day in a city is to look for the details and close-ups, to make up for the drab, flat landscapes and buildings. This isn't easy, but I tried...
Had a nice visit with family to the pretty village of Broadway, in the Cotswolds, last weekend.
I took a few photos but the light was drab and grey. Then I saw an old Morris Minor which looked great in front of the old cottages, and when I got home it gave me the idea of giving the photos an old world feel.
The textures of the buildings worked well in black and white (an old trick when the light is poor but you need to tweak the exposure of each different colour to get the best effect) and I added a bit of grain and vignette to help get the right look.
This cottage was particularly striking:
The look almost turned this pretty Cotswold village into a mining village!
Morocco describes itself as a country of contrasts, and we certainly experienced that on our whistle stop trip there last week! And it's heaven for photographers...
We firstly spent a few days in Marrakech, staying in the opulent La Sultana hotel, which was full of eye-catching, kitsch memorabilia from all around the world.
Marrakech has some amazing sights, sounds and smells to experience, with most people focusing on the Souks (bazaars or markets) and the many royal palaces, mosques and other fabulous buildings, typically featuring wonderfully ornate decoration. Most of these are empty of objets, due to the annoying habit adopted by each arriving "ruling force" of ransacking and plundering the treasures of their forerunners. Hard to take different or original photos, but loads of pleasing lines and patterns.
The Souks are a place to get lost in the maze of alleyways and cul de sacs, and are an extraordinary sight, but hard to photograph. All foreigners are hassled continually, and it's best to avoid their eye; so, taking a photo with a big camera is guaranteed to draw their attention. Photograph the stallholder himself and you are likely to be met with with either anger or a demand for money!
The Majorelle Gardens, formerly owned by none other than Yves Saint Laurent, has some wild flora, not least huge cacti...
After Marrakech we spent a few days in the Atlas Mountains, staying at the English-owned Kasbah Angour hotel. This sits in the foothills of the mountains and has stunning views in all directions, so brilliant for some landscape shots.
The highlights of our stay here were trips to the local Souk - very different to the ones in Marrakech, a real local market for the Berber people of the region - and up into the mountains.
The souk was again very difficult to photograph, with a complete ban on photographing any of the (few) women there.
Our trip up into the hills allowed us to see some of the local Berber people and their villages, frequently built into, or on top of, the hills. Again, no photographing of the women, a real shame as their clothing is wonderfully ornate and colourful. The landscapes were all stunning.
The first photo below is part of the village of Sidi Fares, showing just a few houses perched on a hill complete with rooms for their animals, and satellite TV, and the last photo shows Mount Toubkil, the highest peak in north Africa, snow-clad in September following a recent storm. A great way to round off a brilliant trip.
See all my favourite shots in the gallery.
We hopped over to Prague for a few days, in 2010. We were unbelievably lucky to
have amazing weather at the back end of October. Prague was just like a picture postcard,
and I put the camera to good use.
Two photos stood out. The first was, well, just like a postcard! As we walked across one of
the major bridges, the evening light was just PERFECT. Nothing special about the subject
matter, this shot must have been taken by countless photographers over the years, but even
so it's a great memory of what makes Prague so beautiful.
I had to play with this shot quite a bit on the computer, as "out of the camera" the colouring
was all wrong. A few tweaks though and the true colours shone through. I did cheat and
clone out various bits of litter, etc from the water. Nothing wrong with that...
The second photo is very different. Walking through the old Jewish quarter, the prettiness of the tourist area was replaced by a shabbier side of the city, though still full of interest. This wall seemed to sum it up. Here I had to find the right composition, to get the various points of interest, and I had to work on the contrast and colour balance back home as well, until I was happy with it. I wonder what was behind that barred window? And does the light work any more?
VERY belatedly, here are some photos taken from our family trip to the beautiful island of Sardinia in September 2012.
Two days in Manchester, based in Salford Quays, to help Lauren with her A Level Photography. Had a chance to take some shots myself at the same time. An excellent trip, to a great city.
Worked on some black and white square crop portraits recently, which can be seen in the People collection:
Short trip to Baddesley Clinton, got a few decent shots:
Another fantastic day, so a trip to this beautiful spot to catch some early autumn colour.
A trip to the Cotswolds on an unseasonally fine, sunny day.
We visited Painswick Rococo Garden, well worth a visit if the weather is good.
A nice walk today along the Stratford-Upon-Avon Canal in June 2011, including the longest aqueduct in England, the Edstone Aqueduct. Used the new lens, of course.
