Not Quite Spring

Its Easter Weekend, the beginning of April, its really cold outside and there are still patches of snow on the ground.

I have spent the weekend in the UK lake district walking and photographing in the hills and lakes around Grasmere.

Today it was sunny and bright but the other days were rather grey and cloudy, which overall I don't find very inspiring to photograph. I prefer to photograph in 'bad' weather, generally i find this provides the most interesting light and sky.

Of course there are always some interesting shots - like the shot below of Alcock Tarn with the tarn completely frozen, and the snow lying on the hills beyond.

This is a shot at ground level on the bank of the tarn showing last years grass stems poking above the snow drift

And this vista which shows the view on the climb from Grasmere up to Alcock Tarn

In a completely different style below I have a couple of iPhone shots, minimalist sky dominating the image with a strip of the landscape at the bottom. I really like this type of shot, but other people who have looked at don't always agree. What do you think ?

How long are your shoelaces ?

How long are your shoelaces

When I put my shoes (trainers) on this morning I noticed that one of the laces was looking a bit thin and ready to break. I was going out shopping so easy to get a new pair, but how long did I need - the ends of the laces were already frayed so I did not want to take the laces out to measure them so of course I asked the internet - thinking I would just get some average lengths or similar - Instead a found a web site which can tell you everything you could ever need to know about laces - and some more as well. you can see it here -  Shoelace website

Not just what length you need but also more ways of lacing your shoes than I knew existed

So after a bit of calculation off I went to the shop -
and typically found they did have any suitable laces anyway !
  














Yesterday I visited the Hand Made exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam
This was a great exhibition with a wide range of objects on display, from hundreds of years ago right up to today.

 These were some of my favorites, on the left a knitted or crocheted pair of people, and on the right a imitation of a under sea coral made from pottery and woven steel wire.    












There is also a live demonstration of crafts which changes each week, yesterday there was a person painting trays and things in what I think of as canal boat style, and a demonstration of taxidermy.  This did not sound too attractive but in fact it looked more like making cuddly toys out of animal skins rather than putting their cleaned bones back together

 

You can have a look at the museum web site Here

Panorama of the week 

I was on a business trip to Sweden this week and to get back I went on the train from Malmo in Sweden to Copenhagen Airport in Denmark. 

The Öresund Bridge is a double-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel across the Øresund strait between Scania (southernmost Sweden) and Denmark.

The bridge runs nearly 8 km (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm, which lies in the middle of the strait. The remainder of the link is by a 4 km (2.5 mile) tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager.

The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe, and connects two major metropolitan areas: Copenhagen, the Danish capital city, and the major Swedish city of Malmö. It connects the road and rail networks of Scandinavia with those of Central and Western Europe.

When you are on the bridge you cannot see much but the sea and horizon in the distance and the steel work of the bridge flashing past the window. Using my iPhone to try and take a panorama produced the image below which is a chopped up version of the bridge which gives a modern art or abstract image.

iPhone Panormas and Dusty Demons

I was working in Finland for a few days this week, unfortunately no real time for photographing the beautiful scenery, maybe this was just as well, there is still a lot of snow around which is great to photograph, but the temperature was -15C so not very comfortable to be outside for very long.

We did have a 90 minute car ride from the airport and I spent some time trying to take photographs through the car window using my iPhone.  Then I started using the panorama feature on the phone.

The usual way to use this is to set up the phone, press the start button and then slowly move the phone to take in the panorama you want, doing it from the car offers an alternative technique where you simply hold the phone still as the scenery moves along past you.

For photographs where you have only the distant scenery this gives a pretty nice picture from a distance looks pretty neat in fact, but if anything more close by pops into the picture - like a passing car or truck - this gives a different effect entirely, you can see what I mean in the examples below - (tip have a look at the cars in the pictures and you will see the effect I mean)

 

 

  

This last picture was made in the more conventional way of standing still and moving the phone

 

This week I realised that the marks I could sometimes see on the photographs taken with my little Sony NEX camera were caused by dust on the sensor.  You can only see this on the sensor using a strong magnifying glass.  I expected just one or two specs of dust, it actually looked like someone had emptied their vacuum cleaner on to it.

Dust marks in the senor= marks on the photo

No problem I thought, just blow it off with a blower brush.  This did not seem to have much effect so I tried with my little can of camera cleaner compressed air.

I had seen a guy in the camera shop do this, just check first on the back of your hand that its not too powerful and then in you go.

All went well for about one second then a big blob of water (?) came out of the compressed air can and landed - yes you've guessed it - right on the sensor.

So now not only has the sensor got dust on it - now it looks like a my car windscreen in summer - that is as if a fly has been squashed on it.

Senor after cleaning (Really the desert in Morocco)

So onto the internet and order a cleaning kit, which promptly arrives the next day.  Looks simple enough - has a little swabbing tool and some cleaning fluid.  Set it all up and manage to clean the gunk off the sensor.  Problem solved - until I decided one last swipe just to finish off - and suddenly I have a big smear of oil (?) from something at the edge of the sensor.

Back on the internet and order some extra special smear cleaning fluid - promised for delivery next day but so far I am still waiting .... so more to follow next week