Taking Stock

Elaine and I are slowly getting the gear ready for our upcoming trip to Gambia, and with just 5 weeks to go starting to get a tad giddy at the thought of 2 weeks in the sun after what seems like a very long summer without a proper break. I've also got the hardship of 4 days in Catalonia fishing on the River Ebro before then as well! I just hope the catfish are more obliging than last year when it was a real struggle for Alan and I to get amongst them. I've been slowly ticking items off my ever increasing photographic equipment list in anticipation of Gambia and India again in February, when it dawned on me that other than a few photographs of birds, I never did get around to editing most of the images from India this January. I'm not really in to hours spent post processing but I'm slowly getting a little more creative with some of my work. I always smile wryly when I see work flows explained in detail and the work that goes in to image editing. I'm bored after a minute and don't really understand 99% of what the software does, suffice to say my workflow comprises of chuffing around, twiddling this and that until it looks something like!  More often than not I mess it up again and thats that for the day. I do like Silver Efex Pro however and I've dropped some pictures from Agra in to one of their preset templates, I quite like them and if I get fed up I can always twiddle around with them some more!

Kids in the street -Agra January 2012- Life in some parts of the City is pretty tough as you would expect, great kids that really latched on to our chocolate eclairs!

Quiet contemplation - Street food is a large part of local life throughout Agra. I reckon this image could have been taken any day in the past 50 years!Everyone tourist who goes to Agra does so to visit the Taj Mahal, us included, it is quite simply breathtaking and worth every ounce of the effort to get there. We had a great tourist guide and after an hour or two in Agra Fort he couldn't get his head around why anyone would want to visit a normal street where the tourists don't go. I suppose if you don't you never meet the people who make the city what it is. There's an atmosphere on the street especially as dusk fall, little rubbish fires burn all over the city as the temperature drops but the streets are thronged with people just getting by in life.

Its hard to capture the atmosphere in the street, the smoke and noise but I tried never the less!

Express delivery - This is still a normal way of getting around along with oxen and carts, tut tuts, lorries and every conceivable mode of transportation known to man!

We rounded off the day watching the sun set over the Taj from the opposite side of the river. There was a large security operation on so any chance of getting on to the river bank was dashed by the presence of an armed Police Officer every 25 yards, still worth sitting and watching the sun go down though. I had a wander around the lovely gardens on the site of what would have been the Black Taj, even in the 16th Century some degree of fiscal responsibility halted some ambitious building projects!

Gardeners at the BlackTaj - I reckon that sunshine takes its toll

I've plenty of pictures of the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort but none as good as you can find on a thousand other internet sites, it is nice to see the places with your own eyes and through your own lens ( or in this case Steve's 17-55 nikon!) What also stood out about the trip was the journey from Delhi to Agra through Uttar Pradesh, I'm not even going to try and describe that other than what a road trip, almost like the 17th century colliding with modern day

Just like the isle of Axholme!

God knows when that gun was last fired, an old soldier guarding the roadside cafe!

Uttar Pradesh January 2012 -This little girl spends her day helping Mum and Nan make cow dung patties so the family have fuel for the family home - thats them drying in the background

I could really make strong comment about the last image when I see some of the wasters in this country, but I shan't for once, I'm pretty sure you can work it out for yourselves. There we have it, eight images only another 1350 to edit!

Mid September Doldrums

Well its that time of year when its neither one thing nor the other for me. The fish are still growing down on the farm but slowing down a little now things are cooling off, especially the night time air temperatures. Its an in betweeny time for the bird life as well, the sedge and reed warblers are still there around the reservoir but silent, long gone are the noisy afternoons of May and June. We've had a few oddities of late, I saw a peregrine on consecutive days and a hobby as well but I've seen neither of them for a week or more. Its just the residents now, lots of Jays about in the new woodland which are always nice to see and nigh on impossible to photograph.

Steve has put my Sigma 120-300 through its paces and is more than happy with its performance. It looks like this lens sucks the life out of the D7000's battery so much so that a battery grip and extra horsepower will be required for Gambia. Its a different beast on the pro bodies such as the D4 and even the D700, put it on a prosumer body like the D7000 and it shows up every weakness, especially in the autofocus system.  Gambia will properly put the combination through its paces, if I'm still having issues with the D7000 then it will be gone and replaced by a secondhand D300s. I do wish Nikon would bring out a D400 with a better DX sensor and the new AF system, there seems to be nothing on the horizon at the moment.

I went fishing with Westy the other afternoon, early start was the order of the day, for that read 12 midday! Highlight of the afternoon was Westy's attire, respondent in tropical Camouflage he was. So much so that the sausage dog freaked and sat there growling at him, never having seen anything quite like it. Neither for that matter have I, but I took a photo for prosperity. Just to add insult to injury we blanked, the fish took one look at him and fled in panic, so much for tropical camo, more tropical storm Garry!

Tropical storm Garry - The trousers were matched to a jacket underneath the one he's wearing!

My fish pellets have gone up by 25% in the last year, so much for low inflation. Apparently its the worldwide cereal price. What I find strange is how once they know you pay it,  despite cereal prices fluctuating it never comes back down? Its a bit like fuel prices, some of its down to wholesale costs, a lot of its down to wholesale profiteering. The big two dutch firms are now around £1100 per tonne for pellet, a lot of us in the trade no longer bother with it at that price, I hope they go to the bloody wall, serve them right.

Highlight of the week is " Mester's"  doing its first 40. Its taken ten years but we've finally got there. Anthony rang to confirm the split tail linear caught  at 40lb 1 ounce by Tom, its been out since at 40lb 10 ounce. Everyone's waiting to see what the fish known as one pec will do now, he looks enormous and should he decide to make a mistake could well better that, we'll have to see.

Soon be time for 5 weeks off work and trips to Spain for the catfish and Gambia for the birding and fishing. Much as thats enjoyable, 30 odd days off nights is what I'm looking forward to most, roll on October!

Weekend Away

Making the most of a lovely late summer forecast, we hooked up the caravan, bundled in the dogs and shot off to North Somercotes on the East coast. We like it there, we stay on a lovely little site, Oasis Lakes,  with great fishing, more importantly its near to the beach at Donna Nook where the dogs can run for miles and your always in with a chance of seeing some decent birds (feathered of course!)

I was that knackered Friday evening after my turn of nights, any thoughts of getting the fishing rods out in anger fast disappeared after the first beer, I was quite content to doze in my chair doing nowt at all!

Saturday was fairly dismal in the morning, grey and dull, so we went in to Louth to stock up on some goodies. We find Louth almost unique these days, you can park your car in the centre without feeling like some environmental criminal and despite the presence of a large supermarket, small shops thrive because people can get to them. The little cheese shop is a must, as is the butchers, bakers, green grocers, market and all the other independents which still retain individuality and character. We used 7 different shops and didn't go near the supermarket and it was busy, brilliant to see. I couldn't help but compare it to Fort William which we visited in May. One huge supermarket and a pedestrianised street with a whisky shop, numerous outdoor clothing places all selling the same over priced items and a plethero of charity shops, a soul less bloody place, thank god for the outstanding beauty around it! What ever Louth Town Council is doing different to the rest of us, I hope they carry on with it and keep showing the way.

I didn't fish Saturday either, the lakes were busy and I couldn't do with it, the light was poor as well so the cameras stayed in the bag. I saw an egret at Saltfleet of all places, bizarre! Highlight of the day was the old chap next door turning up with his caravan. It had one of these motor movers on it, we were treated to an adult version of robot wars as it zipped around the site, far more entertaining than watching folks put an awning up. 15 minutes it took to manoeuvre with inch precision, god knows how long the battery lasts! In this time I'd have had the awning half way up? We'd brought loads of wine so that took care of the evening!

Sunday was lovely, down on the beach at Donna Nook were no less than 7 kestrels hunting over the marsh. I've never seen so many before in such a small area, I think they were hunting darters and dragon flies. To a cocker spaniel, a kestrel is just another duck, Jess missed one by inches thank goodness, defiantly ignoring the whistle as she clocked it dropping down from 50 yards away. I took the dogs back to the van and returned with the camera. I was having the normal fun and games with the D7000 auto focusing on anything but the kestrels diving, it really is a most infuriating camera to get top side of. The D700's far better but I'm back at 600mm not effectively 900mm with that body. The lens had the last laugh when the af motor went again. Its driving me nuts, its only been back from repair a couple of months and its gone exactly the same. I could pen my thoughts on it but I wont, however if you ever consider purchasing a sigma 120-300 F2.8 zoom, seek me out for my thoughts! I managed a few images of the kestrels but none worth shouting about. 8 weeks to go to Gambia and I'm having to ship the lens back to Sigma, mended or not I doubt it will be coming on the plane with me.

The lakes quietened down late afternoon and i decided to catch a carp or two. it was a perfect evening for floater fishing and the fish went crackers. In 90 minutes I caught 7 doubles to just under 18 pounds and missed no end of takes. The best floater session I've ever had to be honest in terms of action, and a great way to end the day. I wrapped up at 8pm, had my tea and a scotch whilst plotting how to afford a 500mm Nikon prime whilst avoiding divorce proceedings! 

One of 7 carp in 90 minutes, iphone picture despite 2 nikons in the van!

Experimenting with HDR

Well, I've finally downloaded a copy of NIK software HDR Efex Pro2. It seems that everyones messing about with this at the moment, so I thought I'd give it a try. To be honest I'm not much of a fan of HDR images but I've seen some interesting shots of various landmarks around the world, the Taj Mahal, Tower Bridge in London etc, or in my case Thorne Colliery pit top! This scene has been carefully enhanced by various arson attacks and years of neglect, to be honest it was the glorious sunset that caught my eye. Now I've just come off nights and in five minutes managed to merge eight images and get the software to work, thats testament to the softwares simplicity. Its really good, it creates you a load of images and puts them in templates with effects ranging from bloody awful to ghastly! I picked one that was in the middle, a sort of uugh? effect. I'm sorry Kev, it doesn't float my boat this HDR palava, its best described as the punk rock of photography!

Bizzare, but interesting, not really my cup of tea, and with that thought, I'm off to bed!

'Off the Mark'

Well its raining stair rods outside and I've been threatening to do this for long enough, so todays the day. I've created a blog if for nothing else than to record the myriad of thoughts and nonsense that rattles around in my brain day in, day out!  So seeing as family, fishing, photography and holidays are my daily diversions from the routine that is work, it follows that should this blog flow, here after, its likely to be a jumble of the above. Or for that matter what ever else is bugging me at the time!

One from last week - Daybreak - 'Tween Bridges Wind Farm' Thorne

Straight out of the camera, other than cropping no pp, the colours were out of this world and lasted 10  minutes!