My new Photo Project: On Bredon Hill - 2016

After completing my last photography project in September of last year - Photohiking The Thames Path (linked here) I've been looking around for a new one which involves far less driving. Bredon Hill is a short distance from home and is where over the last 30 years I've occasionally walked. I've decided to see how I can portray the hill throughout 2016, taking about a hike a week throughout the year: all weathers (perhaps not torrential rain), all seasons, any time of the day and night. At the time of this post I've completed my first 4 days. As with my Thames Path project I've set up a blog where I'll endeavour to post some photographs from each day's hike along with just a few words reflecting the day.

The blog is linked here: https://onbredonhill2016.wordpress.com/

Hebrides, Edinburgh, Northumberland, York, Peak District

We recently returned from a photo road trip with four friends from the US. We met in Glasgow then headed off to Oban and the ferry to Lochboisdale on South Uist. Working our way north over the next few days through North Uist, Benbecula, Berneray, Harris and Lewis we were delighted not to be assaulted by the worst of weather that we were really only half prepared for. Indeed the weather was largely benign making for all round excellent and varied photographic conditions. We departed Tarbert for Uig and then spent a couple of days on Skye where the good weather continued.

Enjoying a drink at 10pm in the bar of the Lochmaddy Hotel someone rushed in shouting "they're out, they're out". It was the Aurora Borealis. I couldn't have arranged it better if I'd tried!

After Skye was a stop in Fort William then on to Edinburgh for a few days, at which point all but two of us departed for home. The next few days were spent meandering through Northumberland, York and The Peak District on our way back to my home in the Midlands. Two and a half weeks of excellent photography, good company, good food and drink, with good weather to boot. What more could one reasonably wish for?

My images from The Hebrides are linked here on my website in the Hebrides and Western Scotland gallery. A few of those images and some from Edinburgh and beyond are linked here in my New Images gallery.

Completed - My 'Photohiking the Thames Path' project.

Just a short post here to say that after almost 2 years, last week I completed my 'Photohiking the Thames Path' project. It has a blog all to itself (see here) where I've been posting photographs from each of the days I've hiked along with a short commentary on the day. I've just made my final post there reflecting on the last 2 years.

Trulli

We recently spent two weeks in Puglia - the heel of Italy. Trulli (singular - Trullo), the small conical roofed buildings, are a distinctive feature of the region, particularly around Alberobello. They date back to the 16th and 17th centuries when they were the homes of the poorer families. They still serve as homes, some having been made particularly luxurious. But there are many in various stages of neglect or dereliction. The conical roof has an interesting history. In this region of Italy there was a roof tax - similar to the window tax in Britain. But Puglians were smart - the conical roof could be very rapidly removed whenever there was a roof tax inspector in the region, thereby avoiding the tax. And then rebuilt promptly after the roof tax inspector had departed. More information here.

Click on any image to see full size views of the images.

Website Update + New Camera

Two days ago I completed my 20th day hiking The Thames Path. The latest photos and blog entry are linked here. And I've now updated the New Images and Home Page images on my website to reflect the progress I've made so far. I've covered 125 of the 184 miles - but as I hike in both directions it's really 250 of the 368 miles.

Under the M4

I recently sold my aging but excellent condition darkroom equipment and traded in my Canon 7D and lenses (after 5.5 years of excellent service) to help with the purchase of a new Sony A7II and two Zeiss zoom lenses. So far so good, superb image quality and excellent dynamic range which to me is highly important. The images from Day 20 were my first with the A7II after a few days playing with the camera at home to get familiar with its huge range of configurable settings. I'm getting there ...

Suffolk with a Point & Shoot

For a short while I'm without my DSLR - it's been traded in for a new one and I'm awaiting delivery. So whilst I staying in Suffolk for a few days I've been using my superb little Canon S95. I've had it for several years and know just how good it is. Here is a small selection which demonstrate that if one doesn't need large images, say greater than about A4 in print or for any web use, then there's almost no need for a camera of more than about 10MP. The two St Edmundsbury images are stitched from 6 and 7 handheld images.

Click on any image to see full size views of the day's set of images.

The Nave Ceiling - Lavenham Church

Hinge

St Edmundsbury Cathedral - Bury St Edmunds - The Choir

St Edmundsbury Cathedral - Bury St Edmunds - Altar and Crossing

Wicken Fen - Old Water Pump

Wicken Fen - New Water Pump

Progress on Photohiking the Thames Path

I've now completed 19 days and about 118 miles of my project to hike the full length of The Thames Path - in both directions. It's 184 miles one way - so 368 miles both ways. Each day that I hike I'm going 'there and back', so I've covered about 236 miles so far. Each hiking day I start at the point where I finished the previous time. I hike out for half a day then hike back to my starting point. It's proving to be a productive, challenging, enjoyable and at times frustrating experience. All of the good things come from the hiking, the photography and the progressive achievement of building a coherent body of work. What will success look like to me? I'm still not sure, but it feels like things are going well. And the frustrations so far ... there's one definite one, it's the struggles at times hiking on some lengthy sections of the path which are so thick with sticky, glutinous, slippery mud that it takes all the pleasure out of the exercise. I have to watch every step to ensure that I know where I'm placing each foot to be certain not to slip and fall. Somehow, so far, I've not fallen in the mud! And the other frustration is that now that I'm in the latter stages of the hike, I'm also much further away from home, which means that each of my hiking days is much further to travel before I can start the hike - and, of course, much further to travel to get home afterwards.

At my current rate of progress I have about another 11 hiking days to go to cover the remaining 66 (132) miles. So, I hope to be finished by about July this year.

My blog following this project is linked here.

Demise of my Darkroom

I set up my darkroom at home over 23 years ago and for a few years enjoyed playing at printing. But, unlike some people who achieved a real mastery of the darkroom, I could never manage to reach that level and was never satisfied with my printed output. The advent of digital processing was for me a revelation. I took to it like the proverbial duck to water. I got Photoshop in 2001, along with my first scanner and ink printer and haven't looked back since. Since then digital image capture has taken over too. For me this has all been good. So, I finally decided it was time to let go of my darkroom. It all went this week in two ebay sales to two darkroom enthusiasts where hopefully it will bring them years of pleasure. And it has provided some funds towards replacing my aging digital camera and lenses!

65,536 Shades of Grey

The title perhaps indicates something else, but, it is the title of an illustrated talk I'm putting together to give to photographic societies who are interested in black and white photography. In case it's not clear, 65,536 is the number of equal gradations or shades between pure white and total black in a digital workflow working with 16 bit RAW image files. The number is 2 to the power of 16. There's a huge advantage of working with 16 bit files over 8 bit files, typically JPEG files, which have a total of just 256 grades or shades. The talk touches on some of these advantages, but is really more about my approach to and experience of producing black and white images and is illustrated throughout with examples from my portfolio.

Website Update for Namibia

I've now selected and processed a few of the many photo files from our trip to Namibia. I have a few that I'm very happy with - but I made far too many snaps. My selection is linked here.

Namiib-Naukluft Dune

Chevy Dashboard

Namibia in September / October

Just back from a family holiday in Namibia. Two weeks taking in the edge of the Kalahari Desert, the Namib Desert, the coast around Walvis Bay and Swakopmund and finally the Etosha game reserve.

900 year old Camel Thorn Trees at DeadVlei

Saw and photographed much of the county's wildlife (except for Leopard and Cheetah), but wildlife photography isn't my speciality so I'm concentrating mainly on processing my landscape and other images. Huge numbers of image files to cull before I post a small selection on my website in a few weeks time. This image from DeadVlei is like many such images on the web, but it doesn't diminish the experience of being there and photographing these ancient dessicated trees.

NASA's Earth Science Picture of the Day - EPOD

A few days ago I had my eighth photograph published by NASA’s Earth Science Division Picture of the Day - known as EPOD. It’s of Bowling Ball Beach on the coast of Northern California. It came as a surprise when I looked back that I’d had eight in total since I submitted and had accepted my first photograph in August 2011. I’ve just been looking back over them and taking stock of why they seem to be accepted quite readily. This quote from their ‘About EPOD’ link really reflects what I try to send them for consideration - “The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives.” I don’t go out looking for photographs that might interest them, on the contrary I only look for images that interest me which, fortuitously, sometimes match up with what they want to see. I try to keep my image making simple which perhaps helps to focus on one particular feature of the landscape that contains sufficient (usually) geological interest. Anyway … all 8 of my EPODs can be found by searching for ‘Gledhill’ (so far I’m the only one) in the search box on their EPOD home page. One is from Madeira, one from England, one from Wales, and five from the USA. Their EPOD is announced daily by @EarthPic

Copied from the EPOD footer:

EPOD is a service of NASA's Earth Science Division
and the EOS Project Science Office
(at Goddard Space Flight Center) and the
Universities Space Research Association.

Resumed Photohiking The Thames Path

After a break of almost 9 months, my Thames Path photohike is under way again ... blog linked here.

Lake District Sky

A few days ago The Cloud Appreciation Society published another of my sky photographs taken recently in the Lake District.  It's linked here - and is shown in the post below - Watendlath Sky.

Virtually Grey Website Updated

Following my recent trip to California, Oregon and Washington and an even more recent visit to the English Lake District I've updated my website with images from both. The USA visit is linked here and the Lakes visit is here. And here are a few of the images.

Chaotic Falls into Lake Quinault

Wizard Island in Crater Lake

Pine Candles

Watendlath Sky

Rydal Water Slate Mine

Just back ...

Just returned from a three week photography road trip between San Francisco and Seattle which included some coast, a Redwood Forest or two, Crater Lake, Mt St Helens, Mt Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula and the Columbia River Gorge, +++. Lots of images to process - here's one for now, taken on an overnight hike out onto Shi Shi beach at the NW tip of Washington State. Hopefully there'll be sufficient material for a new web page on my website - linked here.

Low Tide at Dusk - Shi Shi Beach

Eureka Dune - Earth Science Picture of the Day

Delighted to say that NASA's Earth Sciences Division have just posted a photograph I took in October 2012 of Eureka Dune in Death Valley, California, as Picture of the Day (EPOD - @EarthPic) for 31st March 2014. It's here permanently, and here, just for today. And, it's the topmost photograph here in my blog entry on 19th January.

Three images from Cumbria - and a pair of clouds

These three images were taken in the last week or so during a few days in Cumbria. After working on the colour originals I concluded I preferred then in monochrome. They are the three images that I discovered Blogger was "auto enhancing" for me. These are rendered they way I want them.

Woodland Path above Rydal Water

Sour Milk Gill

Path from Blea Tarn

And two clouds taken yesterday from my garden.

The Odd Couple

Be wary of unintended blog settings

In my previous post I reported my discovery of Google's "Auto Enhance" feature for images uploaded to Blogger and more generally to Google's Picasa. My response to finding out about this has been to explore alternative blogging platforms, Wordpress being the obvious first port of call. As a trial I exported my blog from here in Blogger - easy to do - and after setting up an account with Wordpress at virtuallygrey.wordpress.com and selecting a free template I imported my blog to Wordpress - also easy to do. And it seems to be a success with all entries and photographs 'faithfully' displayed.

Today I accessed my Twitter account (@virtuallygrey) only to find 48 new tweets from me, one for each of my blog entries. It seems Wordpress has tweeted every one of my entries. My fault for not realising what happens when in Wordpress you link to Twitter. It's ok for each new post to be tweeted, in fact that's exactly what I want, but I failed to understand that every post in my imported blog would also be tweeted. Live and learn. I've now deleted all 48 tweets.

I'm still deliberating whether to migrate my blog permanently to Wordpress. If I do I will make a final post here in Blogger with a link - but also keep this blog open for some while with no further updates.

Images now being "Auto Enhanced" by Google

I've just added three b&w images to a draft blog post here only to find that they are being "lightened" in the upload process. They were lightened to the extent that I won't now post them until I've tracked down the problem - except the one below which illustrates the lightness. My intent is a darker image. I've changed nothing in my processes and settings, all my previous b&w image posts have uploaded without any adjustment. It seems that Google / Blogger are now adjusting my b&w images during the upload process!!!

=================

1 hour later ... now solved - see below the two images ...

Path from Blea Tarn - AS GOOGLE "AUTO ENHANCED" IT

Path from Blea Tarn - AS I WANT IT - "UNENHANCED"

A search through the Google Forums found the answer. Google now 'auto enhance' images when they're uploaded. This seems to be a new 'innovation', brought in since I last uploaded images in recent post. Maybe it suits some - but not me. My wife called it "auto bland". There is a way around it ... BUT, you have to be signed up for Google+ to be able to access the settings where you can turn off the auto enhance. I've so far avoided joining G+ but in order to keep this blog going I've had to sign up for it in order to turn off the setting. G+ is not something I want (it will lie dormant) - I resent having to signup for G+ in order to fix something that, as far as I'm concerned, wasn't broken. Google's auto enhance should be a selectable option within Blogger.