Stawberry Splashback

Made the most of today's strong sunshine and took this picture.

Yes, it's yet another "splash" shot but they're fun to do! It's like seeing a world you don't normally get to see.

A "lucky" shot!

Only because this was taken on a mobile phone! (Sony C902).

I saw this lovely dappled cloudscape before I got into my greenhouse workplace at 5.15 am the other morning and decided to take a photo of it, but I only had my camera mobile on me at the time.

It wasn't until I downloaded the image onto my computer did I notice the bird! How could a mobile phone camera be capable of freeze framing an object flying along at high speed?! And it was a swift and they fly at jet-fighter speeds!

Surf's Up!

Went for a bike ride today, and caught this pair of wind surfers in action.
And a man looking wishfully out to sea.

Black panther on the prrrrrowl!

Okay, it's only my pet cat, Chad. He's normally an indoors cat, so I had to carry him out into the front garden to get the shoot, he wasn't a very easy model to work with as he kept wanting to run back indoors. Out of the 50 or so attempts at taking his picture, this is one of the better shots. I did a little bit of processing on this picture to give it that eerie look about it.

The Mexican Wave

Did another one of those cartoon/photo combo-thingy yesterday. The fella is Dan, a very good workmate of mine's.

Mystical Dawn

I'd forgotten I had this in my camera memory card! This picture was actually taken 10 days ago but when I browsed through the card looking for a particular picture I came across this lovely misty dawn one! So rather than just leave it languishing in the card for longer, I dusted it off and placed it in here. It was taken with my trusty knockabout Fuji S5600 and absolutely no processing or alterations had been carried out on the image. It was taken near Etchinghill, Folkestone.

Another crackin' storm!

A terrific thunderstorm raged over Folkestone last night. And it was a real biggie as it lasted one and a half hour. It dumped 25 mm (an inch in old money) of rain in the space of half an hour, that's more rain than May, June and the first half of July put together.

More noctilucent clouds!

Had another display of noticulent clouds last night, but this time it was much more brighter and extensive. At one point it covered 50% of the skyscape. Apparently it was a 1 in every 20 years event.

Noctilucent Cloud.

Spotted this mystical cloud layer at 11 pm last night. It's where a layer of ice crystals 50 miles in the atmosphere is still being lit up by the sun even though the sun had set some two hours previously. It is quite a rare occurance and is only a high-summer feature. This particular display is part of a massive and vivid one that was observed over the whole of Europe! When it does occur, like most things in the world of photography, it looks so much more impressive when viewed in real life.

Making An Another Splash!

Thought I'd do a twist on my recent splash shot. Instead of plopping tomatoes in pint glasses, I've spent a fine sunny afternoon dropping a toy spade in a large paddling pool!

The Day Work Followed Me Home.

I'm a tomato grower by trade. As well as enjoying photography, I'm also a bit of a cartoonist. So, I'd thought I'd fuse all three concepts together . . . and came up with this one!

Storm over the horizon.

This storm system as viewed from my work location near Lyminge actually caused flooding over the Hastings area. This photo was taken at 1 pm and by the time that nasty-looking band of cloud reached my location an hour later, it lost most of it's energy. Still looked interesting and threatening from where I stood, though! But what you will see in this blog is a lot of weather-related pictures as I am passionate about meteorology.

Making A Splash!

I wanted to do one of those strawberry-being-dropped-into-a-bowl-of-water-type picture, the ones you get to see being used in advertisements. Unfortuntely I didn't have any strawberries to hand and I couldn't be bothered to go to the shops to buy one so I had to make do with a cherry tomato instead. Actually, it's quite simple to do and you don't need a vast complete camera/equpiment set-up to do this. All you need is a digital camera that can do 1/2000th of a second (nearly all cameras can do that, even compacts), good strong sunlight, a piece of white cardboard paper behind to reflect the sunshine even more, a tripod to hold the camera in position (so that one finger is free to press the shutter button and the other hand is free to hold the cherry tomato in position) and a clean glass full of water. Finally, to make the whole thing work, you'll need to have cat-like reactions! Be prepared for lots of trial and errors and missed shots but give it a go and you may surprise yourself!

Here's another thing: how come when I did my 365 photos website, I was always constantly struggling for ideas and subjects and finding the time to keep it up, but now I'm keeping it more relaxed I'm brimming full of ideas! Mind you, it is a Sunday today and I'm quite bored.

Misty Sunrise

Since my job forces me to get up at 4 am, I get to see some of the most beautiful sun rises and this morning was no exception. This was taken at a frost hollow a few miles inland from Folkestone. A frost hollow is where cold air settles into one spot and then condenses and they are most always associated with valleys or a dip in level ground. Get used to seeing this kind of thing in here as I love taking pictures of low lying mists with the rising sun having the effect of making everything glow.

Strike Me!

A violent thunderstorm raged over Folkestone last night (2nd July), so I couldn't resist trying to get a lightning shot. However it was met with some difficulty as it started raining when I got myself into position with the camera and after half an hour struggling with holding an umbrella keeping the camera dry I was about to give up and pack everything away. But then I thought to myself "Oh, I'll give it one more go" and set the camera for another 25 seconds-long exposure . . . and KABOOOM! I got that beauty! Needless to say, I didn't hang about outdoors for very long after that one!