Mackerel Sky

Whilst in New Hampshire earlier this month we drove by a lake in which this classic mackerel sky was reflected. No choice but to stop ...

Mackerel Sky - White Mountains - New Hampshire

This is a slightly different rendering of the version published yesterday (linked here) by the Cloud Appreciation Society.

New Images added to my Virtually Grey Gallery

It's been a while since I updated my website. There are now a few new images from New England in October 2013, from Dunstanburgh Castle on the NE coast of England and one from a recent hike on the Wychavon Way. The New England trip was excellent in so many ways but politics in the US managed to shut Acadia National Park over the 5 days we were there! However the lovely White Mountains region in New Hampshire was fully open and the waterfalls there were a real photographic challenge.

Hopefully I'll be able to resume my recently started Thames Path hike shortly after I get my camera back from repair after it developed an intermittent focus problem whilst in the US.  The link to my website's New Images page is here.

Dunstanburgh Sky

Ripple Reeds

Sharp and Silky Water

Surface

Photo-hiking The Thames Path

I've just started a new project - photo-hiking the full length of the Thames Path in both directions (at least 368 miles). The primary objective of my photo-hikes (apart from its helping to keep me reasonably fit) is to seek out things which interest me sufficiently to want to photograph and then to spend time on creating finished versions for screen or print. My photographs may or may not betray the proximity of the River Thames and its path. I've decided to record the whole trip in a blog. It's at:

www.photohikingthethamespath.blogspot.co.uk

where, if all goes to plan there will be an entry for each day that I hike.

Ash Grove

TED Talk about Clouds

I often photograph the sky - it's always available, often interesting and sometimes fascinating. Gavin Pretor-Pinney founded the Cloud Appreciation Society to which many sky watchers, like me, submit photographs. I've been lucky over the last few years to have several of mine published on the CAS website. Recently Gavin gave a talk about clouds at TED Talks in Edinburgh which, the last time I looked, has been viewed over 200,000 times. Do watch it, linked here, it's well worth all of the 11 minutes. I was delighted that he used one of my cumulonimbus photographs as one of his illustrations.

If you've not yet come across TED I would encourage you to take a look. The short talks on and about every subject under the sun are splendid, challenging, inspirational, thought provoking, funny, infuriating, ...

Mono Dunstanburgh Skyscape published by CAS and NASA ESD

My monochrome Dunstanburgh Castle Skyscape (posted just below this) has now been published as Picture of the Day by both the Cloud Appreciation Society (in mid July) and NASA’s Earth Science Division (today). Thank you to both. The images are linked here for CAS and here for NASA ESD.

And these links (here and here) are to their daily refreshed pages where new images from around the world appear every day.

For those interested I have a twitter account @virtuallygrey to notify of any new work or updates to my website or blog. It is only used for my photo stuff - nothing else.

Another Dunstanburgh Castle Skyscape

... just for good measure. Monochrome this time.

Evening Sky over Dunstanburgh Castle

Dunstanburgh Castle

Dunstanburgh Castle is a somewhat hackneyed subject - but, when one's there, it's irresistible. Last week I was staying nearby so took several opportunities to visit both early and late in the day. The first image below was at the time of the 'SuperMoon' which rose over the castle in the middle of the photograph. Unfortunately the distant cloud just beat it so the moon was sadly not revealed. The next two were soon after sunrise a few days later whilst the last two were one more day later just before and then after sunset. The way the sky changes so dramatically over such a short period is a thing of wonder. The timing of the visits and the camera positions were planned with the aid of 'The Photographer's Ephemeris' - an invaluable tool when it comes to needing to know sunset, sunrise, moonset and moonrise times and positions. Unfortunately the app can't help with what clouds will or won't be present ... !

9.40pm on 23 June 2013

4.41am - 27 June 2013

5.10am on 27 June 2013

8.56pm on 28 June 2013

10.02pm on 28 June 2013

Sebastião Salgado's 'Genesis'

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at Sebastião Salgado's 'Genesis' photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. This is the very best photography exhibition I've ever seen, by far. The subject matter is inspiring, the photographer's stunning compositions are breathtaking (yes, literally), the mostly high contrast full tonal range images are printed to the highest quality most of us can only aspire to, and they are superbly presented in a simple but highly effective gallery space. And of course, they are all monochrome black and white images which serves to intensify the attention each and every image deserves. I couldn't afford one of the 500 £7,000 limited edition books of the exhibition, nor one from the 2,500 less expensive £2,000 limited edition - but I did part with £45 for the 500+ page hard back unlimited edition book of the exhibition

Highly, highly recommended, whether or not you're a photographer.

NASA's Earth Science PoD - 27th March 2013

Delighted to say that NASA have used another of my photographs as today's Earth Science Picture of the Day. It's linked here. It was taken on a recent visit to Madeira which, as it turned out, wasn't very productive photographically.

Levada

There are about 1,000 miles of levadas or irrigation channels on Madeira, many of which are walkable. Some are tiny, like this one in the photograph, whilst others are much larger. They distribute water around the contours of the volcanic island to irrigate the steeply terraced mountainsides on which the island's fruit and vegetables are grown. In places the levadas flow through tunnels, some of which can be walked - a head torch is essential for the longer underground stretches. The picture above is just a few miles to the west of the capital Funchal.

NASA's Earth Science PoD - 2nd February 2013

NASA has posted another of my photographs on their Earth Science Picture of the Day website. It's one from October 2012 of Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney taken from in amongst The Alabama Hills in California. Linked - here.

And it looks like they will post another soon taken in Madeira.