The Saint Edward Brotherhood Monks returned to Chertsey for their annual blessing of the waters, and luckily the water had subsided otherwise I would have been stood in the river! There was a good turn out again as the sun shone to keep us all warm after the sub zero temperatures of late.
Read More »After Last Weeks Floods, Our Waters Are Blessed AgainIt was 10 years ago since Chertsey last saw flooding like this. It was largely the same places that flooded and the same people whose lives were turned upside down again. In the meantime there has been very little progress (none?) in preventing flooding from causing distress and financial hardship for those affected, not to mention the health affects from being exposed to raw sewage, which is routinely dumped in our rivers.
It was 20 years ago today (November 26th, 2023) that Concorde made it’s last ever flight before being permanently retired from flying duties. That flight… Read More »Twenty years ago – Concorde’s last ever flight
Another early morning and another sunrise shoot. This time I headed off to one of my favourite local locations, Chobham Common, although I went to an area I had not been to before. There’s always a risk in doing this as I went with no idea of what I would find, or if there would be anything worth photographing.
There was a certain amount of mist around, which is always a favourite subject of mine, but I struggled to find a composition that worked. Eventually I came across a large pond covered in lilies and, as sunrise was fast approaching, I opted to try and create an image from them.
With the news of extreme temperatures, and the fires in Greece, finally hitting the headlines in the UK, it’s pertinent to remind ourselves that, despite the current wet weather, these things are affecting us at home too.
Last year, around 50 hectares of the Hankley Common nature reserve in Surrey, were affected by a wildfire that took several days to get fully under control. After the fire had been put out I went to see the damage.
Read More »Wildfires at home and abroadThe Royal Tradition of Swan Upping takes place every July on the River Thames, so I got my bike out again, and headed down to Shepperton Lock to meet up with the Swan Uppers, on the first day of Swan Upping of 2023.
The alarm went off at 3:20am, and 12 minutes later I was on my bike heading towards Bushy Park, one of the Royal Parks, to see what sunrise would bring. As it was Clean Air Day, I decided that I would use zero emissions transport, which meant it took me around 50 minutes to get there, hence the early start, to be in time for sunrise.
I mostly followed the route of the River Thames, from Weybridge to Hampton Court Palace, and one of the things I noticed was there are a lot of flies and midges around at that time of the morning! With it being dark, it wasn’t easy to see them, so my breathing was in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Only one got through!
Read More »Capturing The Beauty of Sunrise on Clean Air Day 2023One of the truly remarkable things about my Spirit Of Brooklands project, was the realisation that nature is incredibly resilient, and, when left to its own devices, could prosper after apparent destruction. You would think that the laying of 3 miles of 6 inch concrete, would bring an end to the chance of anything growing there, but as this photo shows, nature can break through, and even thrive.
Continuing from my previous blog post Sunset OR Light Pollution.
Once I had decided that I wanted to continue with my Spirit Of Brooklands project, I then had to work out how to gain access. Now most of it is publicly accessible, but the land obviously belongs to someone, and if I wanted to publish the resulting photos, then I would need consent from the landowner.
As we enter 2023, I realised that it was 15 years ago that I took the first photo that formed the basis of my Spirit Of Brooklands project.
At the time, I had just bought a new camera which was meant to be good at long exposures, and I wanted to test it out. The darkest place I could think of was a banked section of the former Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit, where there was no artificial lighting, so would be pitch black after dark.
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