Sissinghurst.

The gardens at Sissinghurst are always worth a trip. At this time of year they are not at their best as far as flower blooms are concerned.

The tower is well worth the climb to the top as the view is spectacular.

Rochester

I drove down to Rochester with the aim of shooting some HDR images around the town.

St Mary's Lower Higham.

I have been getting out to shoot images on a more regular basis recently. Since the start of the year I have had a couple of spells when I have produced a relatively large amount of images, then I would go through a spell where I was producing almost no new images.

Recently though I have made a conscious effort to get out with a camera and create.

I have started to experiment with producing time lapse videos. I don't shoot with a video camera, but with a still camera and then output the resulting series of still images as a video. I am also trying to get deeply into shooting HDR images. These here are produced from 9 images bracketed at 1 stop apart. The results are some of the most 'stretched' tonally that I have taken.

Cars at Greenwich Market

One night a month there is a car meet at the market at Greenwich. Undercover in the old market area a selection of cars and bikes gather. There are food and drink stalls around the sides and a life band plays.

Dartford Bridge images 22 years apart.

Another warm evening today and I decided to go out to see what I could find to photograph.

At this time of year the sun sets directly behind the Dartford Bridge as viewed from Greenhithe. It is a return to the scene of one of my most used image. Twenty two years ago, just before the Dartford bridge joined in the middle, I got a picture of the sun setting right in the gap of the unfinished bridge.

Shot on film, Ektachrome or whatever 100 ISO film I was shooting at the time. The camera would have been an Olympus OM1 or OM2sp lens most likely a 50mm or 35mm.

Luck played a great part in the image. The bridge had been under construction for some time but was completed very quickly from this point, as the risk of wind damage to the bridge increases as the two sides get closer together, due to vortices created by the wind interacting with the edge of the deck. The weather that spring had been very poor with few clear evenings only a grey overcast when I was free to shoot. One evening the sun came out and I was free, so I went out with my camera. I knew roughly where I needed to be to get the image as I had tracked the sun on an OS map, but I could only get the exact location by being on the ground. This was long before the internet and smart phones with apps that can work out all that information. Also I had to accept the tide as it was on that night.

The results were worth the effort. I shot several rolls of film and a couple of the images have been used on several occasions. This image was used as a magazine cover and won me the prize of Transport photographer of the year in 1991.

Tonights images are slightly different.

Evening by the river.

I had not taken any pictures of the wind turbines at Tilbury.

It was a fantastic day weatherwise. A trip down to Sevenoaks and a visit to Knole. 

In the car park was a Frog eyed sprite, in wonderful condition. The face on the front is always worth a picture.

More from Dungeness

Here are a few more images taken yesterday down on the coast. I have tried a bit of black and white conversion of the images just to see how they perform.

Dungeness and Rye

Day off again today and with the weather still good I went down to Dungeness and then on to Rye. Nice to be out in the sun even though the wind is still cold.

Sunny Sunday

V was in work. I was in no mood for DIY and the sun was out. A quick trip up to London seemed to be the order of the day.

Back after a long break

Its been months since I put a new post up on the blog, months since I added any images to Instagram, Months since I took any pictures.

Not going to give any reasons, but today I had my camera out on a trip.

It was just down to Igtham Mote, but as the weather was nice and the sun was warm, my mood turned to tacking some pictures.

Just a few and with a pit of post production I was pleased with the results.