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.

Rain Stops Hike // Cloud Appreciation Society

It's been two months since I was last able to make progress on hiking The Thames Path. The rains have swollen the river so that the path is impassable in many places and impossibly muddy in others. See my blog link (right and linked here).

The Cloud Appreciation Society have today used one of my sunrise photographs (linked here) - taken over Blore in the Peak District on 10th January this year. It's the one below in my 15th January post. It was spectacular, as was another five days earlier.

Roy Harrington's Print-Tool

Roy Harrington has recently released an updated version of his Print-Tool (formerly known as QTR-Print-Tool). It's available from the Print-Tool web page, as is the User Guide which I've written for Roy - linked here. The User Guide is free; Print-Tool costs $39 (USD). If you have any feedback on the User Guide that would make it more clear or more helpful then please email me or Roy.

And ... what is Print-Tool? It's a layout and print application for Mac OS X. Print-Tool features include:

Position and resize multiple images on a page
simple drag and drop images, drag edges and corners

Accepts many formats

• jpg, tif, psd, png, gif
• 8-bit or 16-bit; RGB or grayscale

Print to any print driver

• QuadToneRIP, Epson, Epson ABW, HP

Expanded control of ICC color management

• Off, Application Controlled, System Controlled
• Rendering Intents - Perceptual, Relative, Saturation
• Black Point Compensation
• Soft Proofing

Requires Mac OS X with Intel Processor

• Snow Leopard 10.6.8 - Lion 10.7 - Mountain Lion 10.8 - Mavericks 10.9

Cloud and Sky Landscapes

I've added 10 new images to my website - linked here. Whilst they are mostly landscapes, the sky is the main feature of each image. Here are two:

Dawn Over Eureka Dune - Death Valley

Owens Valley - Sunset Over the Eastern Sierras

Gower - Peak District - Thames Path

On a hike on the Gower on Monday we came across an old 6 foot log washed up on the beach. It was almost completely covered with Goose Barnacles. They are so named for their resemblance to a goose head and the ancient belief that they are embryonic geese. Wild geese generally breed in higher northern latitudes, beyond sight of most people in the middle ages so they never saw them breed - hence their 'theory'. More specifically Barnacle Geese are named after these barnacles due to their head pattern resembling a goose barnacle.

The first week of this year was spent in the Peak District. Not much photography but I did find a few worthwhile images.

And finally - my project to hike the Thames Path is on hold due to there not being too much path to hike. The recent rains have flooded the river throughout much of its non-tidal length and it will take weeks (at least) before the path becomes hike-able once more. Linked here.

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.

Eastern Sierras - California

I spent 3 weeks in October in California photographing at various locations along the Eastern Sierras, Owens Valley, White Mountains and Death Valley. Here are a selection from the trip - the full set are in two galleries on my website - here and here. The last four and the second link are images from a memorable visit to the abandoned gold mining town of Bodie. I have a few more images to work on from the trip (Death Valley in particular) - I'll add them in due course.

Convict Lake Sky

Lembert Dome - Yosemite NP

Aspen Creek

Early Dawn over Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney

Bodie-1

Bodie-22

Bodie-26

Bodie-8