Guggenheim In Bilbao

Whilst on my trip to northern Spain to a couple of days out to visit the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

The first time I visited Bilbao it was a gritty working city that would appear to have little time for art and culture.  Stayed 12 hours and pleased to be back on the road west to get clear of the city with its black river and air the that hung heavy with the stench of industry.

Went back there  13 years ago on a cold freezing day in the middle of winter and standing in the middle of of this urban wasteland was this beautiful gem of a building.  I am pleased to say that the warmth of this building has reached out into the surrounding streets and further into this city  of Bilbao

Take a look at some more of my work  and visit my portfolio on Behance.

Some years later

Ordesa National Park

Just spent a few weeks in northern spain.  Based in Pamplona I managed to see desert mountains and the sea.  Its a great location if you to have plenty of things to do.

I always wanted to visit the Ordesa National Park , so this seemed to be the opportune time to do it.  And I wasn’t disappointed, walking up the valley you slowly rise through forest and eventually open out on to alpine pastures.  All the time you are surrounded by the cathedral of the mountains that bare down over the ribbon of green in the valley.  The one small disappointment was that Spain’s oldest National Park is very popular with just about everyone and their dog.  But it doesn’t seem to matter in such fantastic landscape.  If you really want to escape the crowds  there are plenty of other walks in to the mountains that will take you up on to the top of the mountains.

 

Here is one picture I took looking under a bridge at the bottom of the valley.

 Take a look at more pics here!!      

In the Vineyards of Bordeaux

Spent a few days travelling around Bordeaux making a series of videos with Sommelier Ronan Sayburn MS.  However I made sure I had some time to take  photos whilst I was there.  Below is one of the pictures from the set.

To see the rest visit my on line gallery  on Bordeaux

Old Folkestone

Always feels a bit strange travelling down the M20 towards the ferries.  I feel as if I am shooting off abroad somewhere.  Not on this occasion.  I only got as far as Folkestone.  I was heading for the harbour and a new restaurant called ‘RockSalt”.  The tide was out and the small boats sat on the mud flats  The place felt as if it was at the end of a railway line where nobody went anymore.  But sure enough sat amongst this tired past was a brand spanking new restaurant perched out over the edge of the harbour.

Standing in the restaurant looking out across the sun kissed harbour and squinting a little you could believe that this was a gorgeous place to have lunch.  And in truth it was, but there was something nagging about the quayside opposite. It was the old railway station where apparently the ‘Orient Express’ used to pick up its passengers from the ferry.  Apparently in time this will all be gone.  So I wanted to see what was there and what little bit of history would soon be swept away.  Took some good shots that day all round.  Here are some pics of the old station.

And thanks to all at ‘RockSalt’ for your hospitality.

My New Canon G12

Decided it was time to get a new pocket camera.  I have been surviving on a Canon G7 for a few years now.  After a short time looking around for a new replacement  I decided to go for the canon G12.  As was I pleased I did.  A handy camera in a similar guise to its predecessor but it has those tweeks that I really like.  Yes of course you can shoot in Raw and Jpeg and it has total manual operation.  A few more  f stops would have been a bit more handy.  But I really like the ability to have manual focus as well.  And the screen is really bright and can be seen in fairly bright light conditions.  Something my old G7 couldn’t do.

 

Here are my first few pics taken at the weekend.  I shall give it a proper run out shortly!

The FA Cup Final. . . Is It?

Well you really know when the importance of the FA cup final is coming to an end when there is a full Premier fixture list on the same day.  I thought the FA Cup final was meant to be something special when you would all sit down and watch regardless of the teams. So what we have now are two organisations running the top end of football and we  can see who will be running the show very shortly if they aren’t already.  If I worked for the FA I would definitely be looking over my shoulder.

Come on you  ……..

I’ll be watching tomorrow……

Our own Royal Wedding

Oh well only a week late with this one.  But its somewhat quicker than I usually am.  We had a great day, the kids loved it, and  somehow I think the parents did as well. After the garden party it was a quick drive round the village with Charles and Di and then back to sampling the local ale.

Using presets

Just discovered the magic of using presets in Lightroom.  There are plenty of free ones out there and its great that people are sharing them. Thanks!!  So I tried a few  of them and have had some really interesting results.  However at the end of the day I created my own preset and applied it to some interiors I shot the other day.  It gave them a really interesting results. Two here for you to take a look at.  It didn’t work with all of them but hey!

Once I have worked out how to export the presets for others to download I shall post them up, just in case anyone else would like to give them a go.  I felt they gave the images an antique feel. I suppose it could with a name antique?? 

Where is Here?

Saw a great big sign the other day with numbers 1-4 on it and then written slap bang in the middle was You Are Here. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t know where here was.  And the numbers didn’t help.  But then I never was great at maths.

New Web Site

Its only taken two years to put this one together, but eventually its finished.  I  think my web developer is glad to see the back of me.  he said about a year ago that web sites would be a thing of the past before we got this finished.  I think he could possibly right.