The Geminids

Tonight is the night of The Geminids. The brightest meteor shower for a year and a half. I had planned to kill two birds with one stone, the stone being my Nikon D300, the birds are my desire to shoot a time lapse of the revolving heavens and a meteor streaking through the night sky. I was all prepared, 30 seconds at f1.8, repeated every 90 seconds at high resolution.

Damn clouds!

Bolton Wedding Photography

My new wedding photography website is now online;

wedding photographer bolton

Richard

Victory for Photographer's Rights

Myself and two others recently wrote to Dorset For You expressing our disgust at its rights grabbing photography competition, Dorset For you – Share your photographs of Dorset. This was in response to the competitions terms and conditions which were unethical towards the photographers who were entering (all too common with photography competitions).

Good news.

I received a reply which you can see below;

Dear Mr Roworth

Thank you for your email pointing out your concerns with the terms and conditions of our feature asking users to share their photos of Dorset.

As a result of your email (and two other similar ones), we have now significantly altered the terms and conditions. You can see the new revised ones at http://www.dorsetforyou.com/index.jsp?articleid=391319

Best regards,

Martin

This is a great victory for photographer’s rights and good business practice.

A big Thank you goes out to Dorset For You.

Share Your Photos of Dorset is now listed on the Rights On page of Pro-imaging’s Bill of Rights for photography competitions with a green light.

http://www.pro-imaging.org

Adventures in Time-Lapse

This video is copyright Richard A Roworth 2010 and must not be copied, published or broadcast in any way shape or form without written permission.

For a while I have been wanting to record a time-lapse video of falling snow. Today I (only just) got that chance. Although I knew snow was forecast, it wasn't scheduled to arrive until after dark so I thought my chances were slim. However, the snow arrived just before dusk so I managed to film 30 seconds worth (over 60 minutes). This worked out as 720 frames at 1 frame per 5 seconds.

Unfortunately I only had a few moments to set up as we had visitors, I was cooking dinner and our 1 week old baby needed feeding and changing! Also, the arrival of the snow took me by surprise so it is a bit of a rush job.

Nikon D300
50mm
f8 - 1.8

I left the camera on a/p as the light was fading, changing it to manual and 15th sec a few minutes before the end to produce the fade to black effect.

I also changed the aperture to f1.8 about half way through as condensation was smearing the glass of the patio door I was shooting through. This changed the depth of field which is an effect I might play around with in future time lapse projects.

Mistakes;

• White balance on auto.

• Perhaps it would have been better on full manual shutter, but I wouldn't have been able to alter the depth of field half way through.

• Little preparation time led to poor choice of composition.

• Tripod pressed against the patio door was not steady enough and led to camera movement.

The Waiting Game

It is not long now until our child will be let loose on this world, Mrs RaR is on the maternity ward although she would prefer to be at home. After spending most of the day in the hospital, I am now at home, waiting for the call that labour has started. It could be tonight, it could be tomorrow, it could be Saturday. The only thing the midwife could confirm is that we will have our baby before Monday.

Are we prepared?

We have bought all there is to be bought (thanks for all the gifts), and read all there is to be read. I don’t think that we will ever actually feel prepared though. I believe that, with most things in life, preparation is part of the process and the more it is enjoyed the better the result. So we went to Ikea and bought some flat-pack furniture.

Ikea isn’t first on my list of places to shop but we needed a cot pretty urgently and hadn’t been able to find anything either suitable or in-stock anywhere. This was a few weeks ago now, but we were aware that shopping would become progressively harder as each week passed by (we were not wrong on this)!

We ended up buying a Leksvik, a Sniglar and a Vyssa Vackert to go in the Leksvic. After moving a few walls out of the way, we made it to the end of the maze and collected our goods from the warehouse section. The next stage was the build and a chance to use my new cordless drill/driver.

A few twists, turns and ****s later and the Leksvik had turned into a cot (and the Vyssa Vackert into a mattress);

After a few more expletives, the Sniglar had transformed into a Changing Table;

Holcombe Hill

Since moving I have been meaning to explore some more of the local countryside, today I got that chance. Myself and three survivors from my house-warming dinner made the short drive to Ramsbottom, our aim was to reach 'that tower' which we have seen so many times whilst driving past on the M66 on our way to Yorkshire.

The weather was typical for Ramsbottom - wet and windy - so photography wasn't really the main focus for the day. Half an hour after leaving the warmth of the car, we reached the tower. I didn't know this before we set off, but some well learned locals informed us that the tower was built as a memorial to Sir Robert Peel, who was born in Ramsbottom.

Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister twice in the mid 1800s but he is more famous for inventing the police. He is the Robert (BoB) who gave Bobbies their name.

I think the Azkabanesque memorial tower is very fitting to a man who preferred to lock criminals up rather than hang them, it looks like a prison, the mother of all prisons perhaps.

Peel Tower, Holcombe Hill

Snow Day - Part 2

The Return to Captain's Clough.

Last night saw temperatures in The North West fall as low as -17c and it certainly felt it as I walked home from the pub. Today I had to return to the pub with a shovel to recover my car. On the way I passed through Captain's Clough again, this time it was bathed in glorious sunshine. the photographs can be seen below;

Captain's Clough, Doffcocker. Bolton.

A little like 'Narnia' perhaps?





Two versions exist of this - one with and one without The Sun,
I prefer the one with.





Landscape photography is not always about sweeping mountain vistas.





These branches were a little like arms reaching out
to catch and embrace the snowfall.






Lovely long winter shadows....





...make interesting patterns.



Alas, I had reached the car and the end of my little walk.
Winter Hill beckoned but I had too much
to do. I might venture up it on Saturday.

There seems no end in sight to the cold spell, the thermometer in my garden is currently reading -10c. I am glad we have central heating, double glazing and double loft insulation!