Dave's Photo Blog

Chilly River

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:17:00 +0000

What's this? Almost two years without a peep and now a picture of a frozen river?

Yep.

The Daugava river in fact, in Riga. Just the day before it had pretty much started to thaw, but the temperature fell overnight and refroze sections of it, trapping bits of ice that had broken off further upstream and were busy trying to escape to the sea.

More soon ... maybe. Perhaps don't hold your breath.

Lake Nakuru - Back to Nairobi

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:46:00 +0000

As we head for 'home' the sun sets and talk is of everything we've seen.

It's a pretty long day out from Nairobi to Lake Nakuru, but well worth it.

Lake Nakuru - Rhino and Hippo

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:06:00 +0000

We're on the trail out of Nakuru park, settling down for the journey back to Nairobi, when our driver again spots a couple of animals we hadn't believed we'd be lucky enough to see.

Firstly, rambling along the side of the road, munching its way through foliage as it went, was a Black Rhinoceros. There are less than 5000 black rhinos left in the wild, so to see one here is amazing.

The rhino watches us for a couple of minutes, then wanders away, nochalantly, carrying his bird buddy.

Our last find is a couple of hippopotamuses (no, hippopotami isn't the correct pluralisation). They are about thirty meters out in the water, and the sun is starting to set, making photographs very difficult to expose correctly. I do my best and get a reasonable shot of one of them.

Lake Nakuru - Lions

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:32:00 +0000

It's nearing the end of our time in Nakuru and we're all hoping to see some lions before leaving. It's not looking hopeful when our driver spots something out of the corner of his eye (the sign of a good guide is the ability to see something you didn't think possible and make everyone aware of it).

We drive over and stop near a tree, under which there appears to be ... nothing. One of our group points excitedly, exclaiming and we all turn, aiming cameras at the spot being pointed at ... but it's just a lion-coloured rock.

Suddenly, under the tree, there's movement and two heads pop up. Two females are spending the afternoon resting in the shade. Then, just as suddenly, up pops another, smaller head - they have a cub!

Reminiscing

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:38:00 +0000

It's my birthday! Yep, another year older.

I'll return to the photos from Kenya in my next post, but to mark this occasion I would like to look back and show you some of my favourite photos from before 2003 - these are some of the shots that made me realise how much I enjoyed photography.

So, here they are, in no particular order apart from how I discovered them while browsing my collection. As always, click a photo for a larger version.

August 1997, Gloucestershire, UK

The best sunset shot I've ever taken.

I think everyone has a favourite sunset photo, because everyone takes photos of nice sunsets and they are relatively hard to mess up if you leave the camera to itself. However, this picture reflects the sky that evening exactly - it amazed me then and it amazes me every time I look at the photo now, and, although I've lost touch with them since, I wonder if the people with me there remember it too.

2001, Zakynthos, Greece

Smugglers Cove.

This shot, taken from a viewpoint on the cliff-top, shows the ship that washed up on the beach in 1980.

The real name of this beach is Navagio, but it is called Sugglers Cove by many as the ship, the MV Panagiotis, was allegedly carrying cigarettes illegally between Turkey and Italy.

August 1999, Cornwall, UK

A view over Land's End.

This shot was taken looking directly down over the edge of England's most westerly point.

I've been back since, and never been allowed to get anywhere near this close to the cliff.

Late 1997, Norfolk, UK

Wells-Next-the-Sea

It's not perfect (the prints are unevenly spaced and broken by another set in the mid-distance) but I always liked this one. I don't remember it being particularly early in the day, but the time of year meant the beach wasn't used much.

The scanning process has also added quite a lot of vignetting to the bottom of the photo - I don't think it was there in the original, but it adds to the atmosphere of the shot.

2002, Austria

The view from Zwölferkogel

During a walking holiday staying in Saalbach-Hinterglemm we attempted and achieved the top of Zwölferkogel.

The view on a clear day such as this is amazing - overlooking Hinterglemm, Wiesenegg and finally Saalbach where we started the journey.

Spring 1997, British Columbia

Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park

This park is a couple of hours east of Vancouver. Park up and walk along forest paths to get to the falls themselves.

Even though this photo is so simple it has always been amongst my favourites - the way it splits the scene into three both vertically and horizontally just appealed for some reason. This was taken long before I knew about the rule of thirds, but now I do I can see why the photo is successful.

In case you're wondering why I picked 2003 - this was when I got my first digital camera, so all my photos from before then have to be scanned in before I can upload them, so it seemed a good cut-off point.

The photos from before 2001 were taken with a simple point-and-shoot zoom camera, which goes to show you don't need to spend thousands on equipment.

I hope you enjoyed me wondering through the past for a while.

Lake Nakuru - Giraffes and Rhinos

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:08:00 +0000

Heading down from Baboon Cliff we hope to see some giraffes. One of our party spots one, but giraffe are very shy and no-one else see's it.

Finally, we all see a giraffe close enough to get a good look at. It knows we are there and looks a little wary, but continues to eat lunch for a time. Apart from the occasional glimpse from a distance, that's the last we see of the giraffes in the park.

Back down on the plains surrounding the lake and we're in White Rhinoceros country. While driving around the lake shore and up to Baboon Cliff we spotted some rhinos in the distance, but now our driver wants us to see some close-up ...

Probably a little too close - the third photo below was taken with no zoom (OK, for purists, 40mm, translated to about 60mm on a 1.5x crop camera - eyesight is equivalent to around 50mm) so shows just how close we were. Between the second and third photo the sound of the clicking camera shutters seemed to annoy the rhino - it stood up and looked menacing, we made an exit left.

Lake Nakuru - Views and Baboons

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:21:00 +0000

After taking our fill of flamingoes and pelicans at the Lake Nakuru shore, we head away from the water a little, with a drive across the plain and up to Baboon Cliff.

It's a dusty road, and almost completely devoid of baboons, but the view from the top shows us the lake shore we have just driven along.

Fortunately, we catch up with some baboons later, and one is kind enough to pose.

Lake Nakuru - Flamingoes and Pelicans

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Here we are with some more photos from my trip to Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya last year.

The lake itself is highly alkaline, and as such contains a huge amount of algae - enough to support thousands of animals. Everywhere you look the lake shallows are covered with birds.

The flamingoes at the lake are slightly less colourful than others I have seen in zoos over the years but no less impressive. (A flamingo's colouring depends on it's diet and zoo-bound flamingoes are often given the additive canthaxanthin, which is also often given to farmed salmon.)

In the photos below we have two different species - greater and lesser - of flamingo. The lesser flamingo is slightly smaller than the greater flamingo, although the most obvious trait used to differentiate them is the beak - lesser flamingoes have almost completely black beaks, while the beak of the greater flamingo has only a black tip.

The lake also supports huge numbers of pelicans - they don't seem to like socialising with the flamingoes and stay huddled together in large groups, both in the shallows and on the lake shore.

The photos below are of great white pelicans. They seem a little clumsy while waddling around on land, but look amazing while in flight. Fortunately, a few performed for us and I managed to get some of my favourite shots of the day of these huge birds in the air.

Lake Nakuru - Zebras and Storks

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:33:00 +0000

I find myself in Pune, India's seventh largest city, having just missed a train to Mumbai, the world's fourth largest urban centre, due to a sleepy driver and a phone number mix-up.

What better time to start talking of my time in Kenya last year?

I was in Nairobi for a little under two weeks - which meant one full weekend free from work and free to do something touristy.

Saturday started the weekend well, with a trip to see UB40 (well Ali Campbell plus band) - good fun. Sunday was the day I was looking forward to though - a safari to Lake Nakuru National Park.

On entry to the park we immediately start seeing the animals we came for - beginning with a small group of zebra. We'd already seen a few zebras from the car on the journey to the park, but its great to see some close up in their natural habitat.

Next - on to the birds. In fact it is impossible not to see the birds at the lake - there are literally thousands of pelicans and flamingoes, which I'll come on to later. First, we have a couple of storks: a Marabou - big, rangy, ugly - and a Yellow-Billed - slim, smooth and colourful.

Sundial

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:37:00 +0000

Another photo from the Peak District for you.

This photo shows part of the vertical sundial above the doorway at All Saints Church in Bakewell (a nice spot for a good view of the town).

When I originally downloaded this photo from my camera and compared the time shown to the date recorded against the picture I thought the dial was wrong - the time shown is 11-ish, while the time I had was 12:15. However, I then realised that it was my camera that was wrong as it hadn't been adjusted correctly for the clocks going back the previous autumn.

The markings on a sundial's face have to be designed specifically for the latitude at which it will be used. If a sundial is moved north or south it will no longer be correct, unless it is tilted by the same number of degrees as it has been moved. If you'd like to know more about sundials, this site is a good read.

Contrails

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:52:00 +0000

I suddenly realise I haven't posted in a horrendously long time.

I'm currently sitting in an apartment after a relatively stress-free day at work while the rest of my team are still at the office beavering away on their own tasks - I'm doing the user training, which tends to mean fairly strict start and end times and everything is prepared well in advance for a change so there's no need to develop tomorrow's course tonight.

I'm also looking through a load of photos I took yesterday while on safari (oh yeah I guess I should mention I'm in Kenya. It's a tough job this, but someone has to do it). OK so they'll be the standard set of clichéd shots taken by many tourists before and after me, but hopefully there will be some good ones which I can post when I am back home.

In the meantime, here's a shot I got while on holiday in the Peak District earlier this year. There's a lot of conspiracy theories on contrails if you search around a bit.

Book Learnin'

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:34:00 +0000

Who needs toys, books are where it's at.

Nikon D300, Sigma 30mm f/1.4
1/60 at f/2.8, ISO 320

How To ... Bemusement

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:09:00 +0000

Sometimes you just need to grin and bear it.

Sometimes you just need to bear it.

No matter what is going on around you or being done to you, you know there is nothing you can do to change it.

It's at times like this when you just need to zone-out and try to forget that in years to come this moment may come back to haunt you ... it's time to look 'so lost in thought as to be unaware of one's surroundings.'

This third instalment in the How To ... series is for when laughing just isn't right - How To Look Bemused.

Driving to Work

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:18:00 +0000

I've been driving to work recently, now that I found out I have somewhere safe park. Do like my reserved spot?

Actually, no, I haven't been given a huge bonus (this photo was taken in Switzerland, not London). Instead, the company who manage the office at work have announced that there are two parking bays in the car park reserved and free for use just for bikes - the motorbike kind, not the pedal kind.

This is a bit of a surprise as I'm sure we asked a year or two back and were told we'd have to pay.

Anyway, now that summer is finally here and I can leave my bike safe in the knowledge it will be there when I return, I can arrive and leave at times that suit me and save a bit of money too, rather than relying on the trains all the time.

EDIT: I wrote the above last night and was thinking about it again while riding in this morning: I realised that, if anything, driving is actually more expensive than the train. A weekly train ticket costs something like £92 - call it a round £19 a day. Driving costs £13 a day in petrol, tyres add maybe £8 a day (really! A pair costs nearly £300 and will last possibly 4000 miles, which is about 35 daily commutes), while general servicing and wear and tear add even more. Who would've thought the train would be the cheaper option?

Abstract Jersey

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:30:00 +0000

I went to Jersey for a couple of days the other month with work. The distance between hotel and office was walk-able, and the weather good, so I decided to leave slightly early and amble.

Along the way I noticed this pair of houses, looking almost symmetric, with a massive gas container thing pretty much in their back gardens.

Must be a nice view - from one window the busy A7, from the other a hulking metal shell full of something flammable. Here it is from the air.

Sony DSC-T200

Last of the Cooks

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:41:00 +0000

I can't let June go without at least one post. Hopefully I'll get round to posting all my new stuff again in July, but for now I'd like to show you another couple of photos from the few days my wife and I spent on the Cook Islands.

The first photo below is my favourite, and epitomises the relaxing time we had between a 24 flight from the UK and starting our tour of New Zealand. The second photo is a view from the small villa we were staying in and shows just how close we were to the sea - I can certainly recommend Crown Beach Resort as a honeymoon location.

Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens

State of the nation (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:58:00 +0000

It's not often I read a newspaper. This week though I've had a couple of free copies of The Times and a particular story in Thursday's edition, about proposed changes to the driving test, caught my eye.

The on-line version of the story has been re-worded for some reason - maybe to give a work experience kid something to do - but the gist is the same. The sentence that caught my eye in the print version says 'The DfT consultation paper, entitled Learning to Drive, also proposes to stop publishing the questions for the theory test, meaning that candidates would no longer be able to memorise the answers without understanding the principles.'

For anyone who is unaware, the driving theory test for cars and bikes consists of a set of multiple choice questions, of which 43 from a selection of 50 must be answered correctly, followed by a hazard perception test in which only about 60% of potential hazards need to be spotted. The multiple choice questions can be downloaded, bought or practised on-line, while mock tests for the second part are also available in numerous places, such as here.

The proposal sounds reasonable then doesn't it? After all, the questions are derived from the Highway Code and multiple choice quizzes are never the hardest in the world, often relying more on common sense than knowledge. Almost everyone who pays their £28.50 (!) must pass easily with minutes to spare right?

Wrong. The actual pass rate for the driving theory test in the UK is less than two thirds.

<sigh>

Burning Trains

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:31:00 +0000

My train journey home last night took two and a half hours for what is normally a forty minute high-speed dash up the country.

It all started well, but the train came to a halt at Wembley Central and some of the lights went out. About ten minutes later the Train Manager announced that there was a burning freight train just ahead of us and, as the fire brigade were busy spraying water around, the power to overhead lines in the immediate area on both sets of north/south lines had been cut.

A while later the train's backup power supply depleted and the remaining lights went out. All passengers were forced to vacate and wait on the platform for a while, before squeezing into an already overcrowded London Overground train to Watford where another fast train was waiting.

Stopping the trains sounds very sensible - everyone knows that water and electricity don't mix very well (or do, that being the problem).

But ... hang on ... what happens when it rains?

Tropical Flora

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:27:00 +0000

Here's another couple of shots taken in Raratonga on the Cook Islands. This time we have two lilies - both were in a small pond near the villa we were staying in at the resort. We would walk past them every time we went to a meal or to the pool and I couldn't resist not photographing them - especially, in the second case, after a short spot of rain.

Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens

Holiday Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:06:00 +0000

Gah! I've been suffering a terrible lack of inspiration lately - I even sat down to write something last night, chose a nice photo that should have been easy, and spent a few minutes just staring at the empty Title field.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly. However I can't leave my Photo Blog again without posting something relevant, so here is a photo from one of my favourite holiday locations of recent years - Raratonga in the Cook Islands. More to come soon.

Nikon D70, 18-70mm kit lens

Where's Dave?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:49:00 +0000

Here I am!

It's been over two months since my last post, and over three since my last photo. I could blame it all on my home PC having blown a gasket (or whetever it is inside these things) or on being too busy achieving my New Year's resolutions, but one of those is a cop-out and the other is a lie. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which (although I had the boiler fixed so I haven't been completely idle).

My PC has really broken though. I think it was partially my fault. Before it went I started building a new one, and got far enough along to not want to go out and buy a completely pre-built new one that will work straight away, but not far enough to have finished it yet. This leaves me with no PC on which I can download and edit photos.

The new PC won't be done until at least the start of April, so my current plan is to go back over some of my favourite old snaps and start posting those - the blog heading does state 'past and present' after all.

While my thoughts meander around what to choose, here's something you should definitely watch if any of the following are true: you quite like Star Wars; you think Lego is one of the best inventions ever; Eddie Izzard has ever made you giggle. Enjoy.

EDIT: Removed video as is caused IE to crash! You can see it here

Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:00:00 +0000

I've been tagged by Neil after he created his own little meme. Neil wants to know what my New Year's Resolutions are. Normally I don't make resolutions, but this year I have.

I must first apologise to others that have tagged me where I haven't (yet) responded, but this one needs doing now if it's to be done at all. So, without further ado, here are my five:

Fix the lights - we have two sets of lights in our living room at home and one of them has been broken for, literally, years. It's time to get them sorted out.

Fix the boiler - our boiler currently has a problem and stops working when it gets hot. Not a good thing for a boiler. 'Rebooting' it seems to fix it for a time, but I resolve not to let this turn into another broken lights situation.

Get a bit fitter - ah look ... my third resolution is almost a direct copy of Neil's third.

Drink less - I don't tend to binge drink (except maybe when on a night out, but that doesn't happen often), but I do tend to have a drink almost every evening. I think I should probably reduce this a little. Doing this might also help with the previous resolution.

Do better next time - ah, a cop out - I only have four real resolutions, whereas the challenge was to create five. This is just one example of how bad I am when tagged. Next time I'll try harder.

How to ... Chuckles

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:03:00 +0000

This second in the How To ... series is on a less serious topic than the first.

Unlike the previous instalment it can be easily practiced on one's own, although for the sake of all-round amusement I would suggest attempting simultaneous rehearsal among a group of like minded individuals.

Lastly, while the previous lesson was demonstrated through the use of an instructive image, this one requires a video to convey full tutelage.

Dave's Photo Blog is proud to present How To Make Full Use of Your Laugh.

BBC iPlayer Without the Downloads

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:03:00 +0000

Time for a tangent ...

Back in July the BBC launched the iPlayer, a piece of software that would allow you to download and view programmes from the last seven days.

There were two problems: the player was only available for Windows, shutting out anyone with a Mac or Linux and a lot of people (myself included) are put off these days by having to install yet another client to watch/listen to locked content - most of the major channels seem to have their own versions of these things (e.g. Sky, Channel4), yet we're supposed to moving into a Video on Demand world in which we can watch anything at any time through our set top boxes.

Today, the BBC has launched a new version of the iPlayer. This time it's online. No downloads (apart from upgrading Flash if you still have an old version) - the videos just play in your web browser, like YouTube. This is great for me as I often find myself forgetting about things I meant to watch until shortly after they have ended.

OK, so it's nowhere near HD quality, but its good enough. If you have a web-enabled gaming console, you might even be able to get the service working through that, onto your TV, rather than watching on a monitor.

Content is only available if you live in the UK, but if you meet that criteria give it a go - I just discovered a show I'd never heard of before, The History of the World Backwards. Only the final episode is still available, so we're at the end (beginning) of history, featuring a henge design review meeting and talk of the hunting of a pre(post)-historic car wash. I'll now be watching out for earlier episodes when they are repeated.

Right, I'm off to watch last week's Top Gear...

The Great Fire of (East) London

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Licence) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:53:00 +0000

I've been really bad lately - only one post in November, and now here we are almost a third of the way through December! I have some catching up to do.

Well actually that's not really true - for some reason I haven't been taking many photos recently so there's not much to catch up on. Various things have been getting in the way - busy at work, busy at home, it's dark now when I leave the house in the morning and when I get back at night, I've been doing some extra curricular work designing a website and when I have had some free time I've been playing Crysis.

Even the photos I did take last month went untouched until today when I finally got around to downloading them onto my PC and playing around with them ... Back in the middle of November there was a large fire in the East of London on the site of a future Olympics venue. From our office we had an amazing view of the huge plume of smoke and could see the flames when they were at their highest.

So, even though they are four weeks late and this isn't news any more, here are a couple of those photos. In the first one I like the way the smoke takes the shape of a dolphin jumping from the ground, and the fact there is a plane that seems to be flying straight for it. The second has been messed with a little to make the plume more ominous.

Sony DSC-T200