Horsey Sunshine

After a rainy start to Saturday, the skies clear in the afternoon to give some lovely light at Horsey. It also brought out the visitors to the beach. I was amused and distressed at the number of people walking with their heads in their mobile phones oblivious of the beauty of the sea and dunes around them. How quickly we can lose that simple enjoyment that the two children were having, lost in the natural world.

Seals in Norflok

Some images of the Grey seals that come ashore on the beach at Horsey each year to have their pups. The pups cannot join their parents in the sea till they have lost the white fluffy fur so spend a lot of time lying around. They gradually lose the white fur and become sleeker. The adolescent males were constantly arguing and sparring!
These images are from small jpegs - I will replace when I can process the raw files.

Images from our London Trip

The apartment that we stayed in before the New Year was in the Bayswater area. As always, the internet descriptions of the flat turned out to be somewhat optomistic though the Bayswater area was a very good centre and the staircase up to the 4th floor impressive.

Madingley War Cemetery

Three infrared photographs from a visit to the war cemetery on a particularly dismal New Year's Day. There was still ice on the ponds and the water lily leaves were hardly visible under the ice. Taken in infrared they show up remarkably including all the veins and details.

Into the New Year

This bronze sculture by Epstein is the image that I have chosen to lead into 2011. It has such great energy reaching forward with enthusiasm and not backward with resentment; it symbolises perfectly my thoughts of what we should aim for in life.

The Bowater House bronze sculpture, The Rush of Green depicts family and their dog rushing towards the park to enjoy the fresh air and green spaces. Pan is depicted charming them away from the shops and offices behind. Sir Jacob Epstein was 79 and working on this sculpture on the day that he died. It was cast after his death. I love the energy of this sculpture and enjoyed seeing it having read about it at the Epstein Collection in Walsall Museum in March this year

Last from London

A couple from Oxford Street on Tuesday evening, some from a visit to the fair on Monday evening and finally Harrod's man this evening.

London Birds

Another foggy morning - I loved the graceful poses of the Mute swans - looked like the pedal boats you get on some boating lakes. The Coot was having a good stretch and the Pigeon a good rummage for crumbs.
It was almost dark when we saw the Heron - fortunately very close with suitable post to lean on.

Highgate Cemetery

Much warmer today and wet resulting in misty conditions. First image from Kensington Gardens as we walked to the tube. We visited Tessa and Ian in Highgate - thanks for lunch etc. We took a tour round Highgate West Cemetery and the soft misty conditions certainly added atmosphere.

More from the Winter Wonderland!

Very grey day in London so no interesting dusk sky. Enjoyed playing with slow shutterspeed and the lights. Interesting that each cabin records on the image as I zoomed - would have expected smooth transition.

Walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens

The Winter Wonderland Christmas Fair is on at the moment with lots of lights and colour.
The Serpentine is almost completely frozen over.
Anish Kapoor has four sculptures in Kensington Gardens in a show entitled 'Turning the World Upside Down' which is exactly what this spire does.

Christmas Dinner

A large party of Fieldfares, Redwings, Blackbirds, and Starlings enjoyed their Christmas dinner of apples in our garden today.

Madingley Hall

A trip to a very snowy Madingley Hall.

Full Moon Photography

There was a full moon this week and a lot of lying snow, conditions that made for interesting night shots. The first was as taken (30sec, f8 iso 400). This could be converted to monochrome either using a lot of blue channel as in the first giving a daylight look with light sky or with little blue channel and lot of orange channel giving a dark sky and a night look.
The fourth shot shows the shadows cast by the very bright moon on the snow.
In the next you can make out the stars in the sky (Orion's belt).
The last picture shows an image taken with the 15mm fish-eye in area where there was no artificial light and the moon was behind the clouds.