3 Peaks Training - Eglwysilan

I wrote in my last posting that I had signed up for the Tenovus 3 Peaks Challenge which about 40 of us at work have signed up for. I'm one of un-fittest of the people who signed up so I've got a real challenge to get fit, and one of the things I'm doing is not stinting on getting up hills and talking camera equipment with me

Last time I wrote about a spectacular  walk in the Brecon Beacons, but I can't always afford the time to drive that far so today I  worked out a route from almost sea level to one of the highest local hills Eglwysilan Mountain

Starting from Upper Boat and heading right up to the summit I was afforded some fine views, and an opportunity to get the justaposition of wonderful landscapes and modern structures

Noormally like most landscape Photographers I'm going out of my way to get these type of things out of my pictures. But for once here they are

Phone lines going into Senghennydd

Power lines topping the skyline

And getting reflected in the pools

The Brecon Beacons in the distance 

After these pictures it bcame hazy and the sky went white which is the bane of all landscape photographs so I increased my speed and headed home

It is nice to be up here again though. I haven't been here since I was Working A Sunset

Another  6.5 miles and 1200 ft climbing for the training

3 Peaks Training - Neuadd Loop

I've not taken many landscape pictures for a while. All my time was taken up with my other project Land Rover Katy

Well as you can read on that blog she passed her MOT which is great news as it is giving me more time to commit to something I've signed up for as a personal challenge

That is the Tenovus 3 Peaks Challenge which about 40 of us at work have signed up for. I'm one of un-fittest of the people who signed up so I've got a real challenge to get fit, and one of the things I'm doing is not stinting on getting up hills and taking camera equipment with me

Recently a group of us took a walk around the Upper Neuadd Reservoir Loop which is a much nicer way to get to the popular peaks of Crybin, Pen y Fan and Corn Ddu

If you pick the right day the views are spectacular as I hope you will agree from this selection

Pen y Fan and Corn Ddu from Cribyn

Pen y Fan and Corn Ddu from Cribyn

Pen y Fan

 Pen y Fan from Corn Ddu- no skill in these next three pictures - it would have been almost impossible to get a bad shot

 Pen y Fan from Corn Ddu

 Pen y Fan from Corn Ddu

 The reservoir from Pen y Fan, This is a 5 shot stitch and I wish I had taken another shot on the left - I'll need to go back and do it as another training walk 

 Pen y Fan and Corn Ddu 

Well that's another 8.5 miles and 2500 ft climbing towards the training regimen

Some things just need to be shared ...

Some things just need to be shared ...

110 not out between the pairof them

And cakes to share

Funny Signs

Spotted on a street in Sicily 

 Looks like no wandering around in your pants eaither 

And from Australia 

Etna Escapades

 Who would live on Etna ?

Plenty of people work there as you can tell from the visitor centre at th eleft of this picture. In fact there are a few more buildings out of site in the middle ground

I wonder how long until they look like this ...

Even with a bit of sunshine it doesn't look much better 

The tour up and down again is spectactular with all the lava flows. it's just a pity that there is no signage to tell you anything about them.

Old St Mellons Fete 2011

I only had a few minutes to pop over to the village fete this year and decided to take a long rather than standard lens. This means you can be unobtrusive and get some interesting pictures rather than just crowd shots.

So here are a selection from the day.

1. WHY have they given me a spoon to eat this Ice Cream ?

2. Careful !

 3. I CAN have a manly conversation whilst holding onto a pink balloon animal - Honest!

4. Who are you looking at ?

And my favorite...

5. I AM going to eat this hot dog even if it's nearly as big as I am !

It was a nice day and it was really good to see people out enjoying themselves

Craig Cerrig Gleisiad

I've been neglecting this blog for the last few months because I've been working so hard on my other projects and at work, but I hope to find more time from now on for the rest of the summer (ha ha) to be back here

So it's about time I posted dome summer views and her's one I took on a recelt walk in th esunshine

I know I was walkin gin the sunshine because it was hot, but it stopped being so sunny and I took off my sunglasses and put them down somewhere, and that's why there are a pair of sunglasses littering the countryside because I forgot to pick them up again

Just on the switch between the two states, I took this picture. The skies were wonderfully threatening and much more dramatic than the blue skies that we'd had earlier

Hardly any adjustments to that picture, simply point, shoot, process, upload

When the scenery is that good who needs more

Grassfire in Old St Mellons

On the way home tonight we saw smoke streaming from a field near the houses in the area where we live

On close inspection it turned out to be a grass fire in a field started apparently by 2 local youths seen throwing what looked like a cigarette into the field

We stopped and phoned the fire brigade and then I started taking pictures (see social responsibility comes first ! )

Here's a selection

The view that greeted us

Fire Brigade on the scene and rolling out hoses

Putting it out

Damping down

I should have cropped that foot out !

All I can say is thank goodness we have these guys as well as the idiots in the world!

Chocolate Box Photography

There are very many superbly artistic photographers out there

I don't count myself amongst them

However what I do think I can do is appreciate a nice view

Like Castel Coch in Tongwynlais near Cardiff where I live

It's a place I know well. it should be... I got married there

And yet when I look through my photographs there was hardly a picture of the place in the collection

Thankfully this has now been rectified in part, but it;s also left me realising that I need to do more. I had a walk I was leading in the area so rushed off to check the paths were OK before the day and realised I was there, the light was nice and I had seconds with one lens and a few seconds before a hoard of people walked into the shot

So here's my chocolate box view of Castel Coch and I think I could see it adorning many a suitable box of local delights..

Now I just need to sell the idea to someone :-)

What you can get away with

On a recent event in Dan yr Ogof (Wales Premier show cave) I was asked to take some pictures and record the event

However as I was also organizer, part event leader, rounder upper of people and general dogsbody as well I found the whole timing aspect quite a challenge

Suffice to say that I rapidly decided that setting up tripods and even using creative flash was out of the question as there were too many people doing too many other things

So I went for the click and prey approach to taking pictures and it's amazing what you can get away with in Digital

Take these for instance

These are both taken on the E-30 with the 14-54 lens and they are taken hand held, no tripod, and using the show cave lighting which was only on for a short period of time as we went through ( the caves were not open yet for the season). ISO 800 and F2.8

OK I'm not going to win any competitions with them and they are to be honest not pin sharp when you look at them full sized on a good screen, but a few years ago I would not have considered taking such pictures. Even when I stated with the e-Series my E-500 was not up to these type of pictures and I would have had to do noise reduction, but these are straight out of the camera, resized and posted.

As I say - an example of what you can get away with