Snow

It's been a while since I've been on here

My New Year Resolution is to take more pictures

Yesterday we had some snow which we went out to enjoy - I hope you do

The Lane

A Peaceful Scene in the Lane

Traffic in the Lane, Two Wheels No Problem

The Maen Llwyd, but you would not know it

Regards
Andy

Picture of the Year 2010

In an earlier post I mentioned that there was a Picture of the Year 2010 competition on the UK Olympus e-Group

At that time as voting was still open I thought it inappropriate to talk further about what I had been really happy with in 2010, but now votes are in and counted so I feel free to talk.

So my top three were

Ice plants - these were sedges crowing on Mynydd Llangynidr that I really liked when we saw them in the winter of 2010 just after new year - this wonderful day out was a superb way to start the year and getting down close and personal with these natural ice sculptures was a wonderful way to start the year. More of these Here This was taken with my E-510 with the kit 14-42 lens at the long end, it's F8 at 100 ISO

Goldcliff

As Spring wore on I was happy to spend another wonderful day out with Rhian who I persuaded to pose for me in this picture taken on the mudflats at Goldcliff. She'd been working whilst I spent a wonderful 2 hours taking pictures of the mudflats and the fish traps.This was taken with my new (at the time) E-30 and the absolutely wonderful 11-22mm lens at f5.6 to give a reasonable, but not ulttrasharp DOF and -1.7 ev because I was shooting into the sun

 in writing this I've realised that I never put any of these in my website. I will develop a gallery for the River Severn as it's so photogenic around here

Last and by no means least is my weekend in Tenby

We had planned to be lead on a field trip by Professor Brian WIlliams, but Rhian received a phone call at work.. "Hi Rhian... I'm phoning from the Hague.." The trouble was that was the weekend of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland which is why there are no planes in the sky and I didn't need to photoshop vapour trails out of that weekend's pictures at all. It's also taken on my E-30 and once again the 11-22mm lens. Tenby is always a pleasure to visit and take pictures of as you can see Here 

P.S. if you want to make a model of the Volcano .. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/highlights/iceland/3dVolcanicModel.html

Homeward Bound

One of the nice things about My Tree is that it's got a wonderful view back towards home so whichever way you turn there is a picture

Snow shots are often criticised for being somewhat grey so I don't know what the purists will think of my orange snow, but this was the view a few minutes after the last shot in the My Tree section. I used a fairly small aperture (f16) because I wanted a good depth of field on this picture, and +0.7 ev (exposure variance) to keep the snow bright even thought I was shooting into the sun. 

Clearly a couple of blown highlights in the sun and one at the bottom, in the reflection, but I'm going to not worry too much I'm not a pixel peeper

The long and winding road is the way home. it's about 2 miles and along the way there are many fine pictures to be seen. This one is a little closer to home I've only about a mile to go before I will be warm...

or so it seems because this was actually a few days before and I was going in the other direction and had to shelter in the pub when the blizzard landed ....

At least that's my excuse.

In this picture I opened up the aperture to F8 which is a good compromise in terms of depth of field and still being bright enough for a reasonable shutter speed. Once again +0.7 ev because it's predominantly a white scene 

Using exposure variance in this way is important in pictures that are dominated by Bright or dark because scenes because your camera will try to adjust to an average  

We DID make it home eventually...

My Tree

A couple of years ago I was persuaded to go to our local real ale establishment by my dear wife (she's always referred to as such when she drags me to beer)

Sitting outside in the beer garden we were treated to a wonderful sunset and enjoyed the last of our drinks as the sun slid down behind the church.

It was a little cold so we headed off and, to our delight as we got onto the top road and had a better view the sky turned a deep rich orange colour and the views were spectacular.

I knew that I needed to find a spot to take pictures and I needed to find it fast so we headed quickly to a place where I had stopped to take a shot of a tree in a field about a year previously

I was not disappointed





Tree in a fiery Sky

  

As the darkness drew in the fire did not abate and I settled in to enjoy the view but it got harder t take pictures this is handheld at 1/15th



Up Close and Personal with my tree in the dark

Since then I have been back in the sun and I've enjoyed a number of visits to "My Tree"



My Tree enjoying some sunshine

  

 I've been there in the snow as well ...

In the Snow

So why sound so possessive.

Well on walking around a local Christmas market I came upon a picture of a tree I recognized. It's not this one it's the one in the field across the road from it. I've since found another local photographer to takes pictures of that tree as well .. and I have to admit so do I, but until now I've not seen another picture of "My Tree" so I'm claiming it.

I have no rights to it I understand and I quite expect that there has been someone out there recently eyeing it up and event taking some quite excellent pictures of it, but when I'm there and I'm the one enjoying the view I like to think I've found a little somewhere special of my own .

I'm sure someone will prove me wrong

I'm also sure I've not yet recaptured the majesty of that first night - I will need to try harder