City of Perspiring Dreams

Izzi drove across to Oxford on Monday to visit a friend, and I decided to tag along as navigator and co-pilot.  It was sunny but bitterly cold, resulting in beautiful strong light and clear blue skies.  Although I'm a "Cambridge Man", I had to admit that the Dreaming Spires looked particularly beautiful - especially the Bodleian Library, which was one of the few buildings not surrounded by tourists.

I was footsore and frozen by the end of the day, but it was worth it.

Black (and White) Country Museum

A few more from our afternoon at the Black Country Museum in Dudley on the way home from the PAGB Print Championships in Ormskirk.  Despite the fact that the place was crawling with families, I managed to find a few havens of relative peace and quiet.  The conditions - and the subject matter - seemed to call for a monochrome treatment.

Black Country Abstracts

On the way back from our trip up to sunny Ormskirk for the PAGB print championships back in October, we decided to drop into the Black Country Museum in Dudley for the afternoon.  What we'd failed to remember was that it was a weekend during half term, so the place was crawling with families.  As a way of avoiding the heaving crowds I went to an area in the canal basin where I knew there was some interesting pealing paintwork (the ultimate bait for catching photographers).  Because of the dull light I felt that the straight shots were rather boring, so decided to try a bit of camera waving instead.  Does it work?  Who knows, but normal service will be resumed as soon as possible...

Swans and Sunset at Welney

After spending Friday morning fighting with a dead boiler and a man from British Gas, it was a welcome relief to spend the afternoon at Welney photographing the swans with other members of Cambridge Camera Club.  The light was intermittent, but when the sun came out the yellows, pinks and oranges of the sunset were absolutely gorgeous.

As the light level dropped, it was time to try a few arty-farty slow shutter speed shots.  I particularly like the one of the three mallards.

During "last knockings" we were able to watch the swans flying in with a dramatic sunset in the background.

Huge thanks are due to Ann Miles for the loan of her lens.  She had to make do with "holding the baby" (her granddaughter) or borrowing my lens instead.  We all have to suffer for our art...