Wild West

The West coast can be pretty windy, and the top pic taken on Friday is evidence enough of that claim! The Riverdance freight ferry, on passage from Warrenpoint to Heysham, got into difficulties on Thursday night after a load shift, and ended up here, just up the coast from Blackpool. Apart from the media that decended upon the beach, there was also B&Q compost and a lorry load of Mcvities chocolate digestives. Looking at the angle its on, i think it will be quite a mission to shift it again. Spot the Tower below!

In the Navy

Well since leaving Uni ive been involved in a bit of shipbuilding, and as you can see above, there is certainly no expense spared in the latest Navy vessels being built! An excellent standard of accommodation for all the crew.

Feeding time at the Zoo

Quite literally feeding time at Blackpool Zoo on Saturday for the splash of sealions. Part of the incentive for this jumping spectacle by "Isabelle" the Sealion was a tasty Mackerel for her Luncheon. Certainly made for a rather impressive sight!

Clover over Dover

Looking at these fine cliffs, a natural first line of defence for our islands for many a year, its hard to argue with Blur on the point that " . . . if I jump its all over". Anyway, another excellent trip down south this summer saw me around Kent again, in the Big Smoke, and across la Manche.

About toon

Coming to the end of my days living in Newcastle, so some final shots are offered. To make up for lack of updates ill put a fist full to peruse. Enjoy.

Pining for the Fjords

If your not familiar with the comedy that is Monty Python, then you wont appreciate my title. If you do, then well done. Above is the Princess of Norway leaving North Shields ferry terminal an hour late a few weeks back. Im off on her tomorrow for a few days on a trip to Bergen, via Stavenger and, of course, the Fjords. I find these "minicruises " too cheap (3 nights for £ 50 with breakfast - its cheaper than the train home!) to resist, and of course theres the excuse its marine engineering related for my studies. I may get some nice shots in Norway to share on my return, if final months of degree madness allow time for such.

Anyway, the "Princess" has got around a bit. Built in Germany in the 80s, then sold to spend the 90s plying the waters between Melbourne and Tasmania in the Southern Hemisphere, and now back to Northern Europe. Think of all the people off Neighbours who have been to Tazzy- maybe if Paul had organised his Lassiters party on the boat instead of that plane, all those people wouldn't have died in the crash, or maybe Robert would have bombed the ship, she would have endured a long painful sinking, Paul would have got mangled by the propellers, and i wouldn't be able to go to Bergen.

Here she is in her former Guise last year before she got a paint job. Although the above shot is quite dull and dark, i like it, kinda atmospheric.

Wild life

Back in Preston for Easter, so an afternoon ramble in the countryside was called for. Spring must be in the air as these 2 pheasants were have a bit of a ruckus, probably fighting over some eligible lady pheasant (much like drunk lads in a club one could say). Anyway it was quite entertaining so fired a few shots off and combined 4 of them them into the above flapping of feathers. Enjoy.

When its spring again...

Ill bring again, Tulips from Amsterdam, or so the song goes! Its not technically srping yet, thats on the 21st, and it has to be said the weather tonight is bitterly winteresque, despite the warm spell last week. This was taken a few weeks back on a cheeky voyage to the Dam again, all the fun of a southwesterly force 9 was had on the way out and with nothing but grey, the tulips above, and of course the red lights, were the most colourful thing on offer.

Virgin train crash.

If any of you have seen the news today im sure you will be aware of the Virgin train crash in Cumbria last night. Well here is a picture from my archives, the 21st August 2006 to be precise, taken here, which is only half a mile from the de-railment site (in the distance on the mid left of the pic you can just see the top of the overhead wire masts at the crash site) . Ive used both the section of line and the train involved many many times heading between Newcastle and Preston over the last few years, and this has to be my favourite bit of the journey anywhere on UK rails, with such outstanding scenery and fast curves.

Suffice to say the media frenzy erupted with allsorts of non-sensical speculation, mainly from people who know nothing about the technical aspects of railways or engineering, and much rubbish was quoted. Stupid questions and demands were being put on whatever people they could get to be interviewed, asking Richard Branson personally why all his trains don't have seat belts, why all the trains were not being taken out of service immediately, and any other sensationalist and emotive crap they could think of. I don't know why this annoys me, but it does . . . . perhaps its the fact that trains are so safe (i will still feel perfectly safe taking this same journey in a few weeks). Maybe its the fact that one tragic death overshadows the 10 that have occurred on the roads since the accident, or maybe its the "lets attack and blame someone as soon as possible" attitude they have with everything. No one knows exactly why whats happened has yet, and will not until the technical experts finish their investigation, weeks or months from now.

Ages ago (see "crossing the border", June 06) i was banging on about the safety of the mk4 coach. Well today i think is evidence enough of the excellent design, manufacturing and engineering of the Pendolino - looking at the pictures of wreckage its amazing so many people walked out - even the majority of windows didn't smash (including the drivers windscreen) and the majority of the carriages look to have remained structurally intact - impressive when according to my crude calculations it had a kinetic energy of 420million Newtons to dissipate in seconds. Testament indeed to the skills and importance of good engineering, which ultimately can be the difference between life and death. As a final point i was on this very same train (City of Glasgow) on this very stretch of line just 3 weeks ago on the 3rd Feb, and whilst being very bored sitting at Carlisle, below i took a pic of what the inside looked like before the accident, the exact same coach is labelled 1 and seen here, sitting in a field.

Green Market

This is the Green Market in the Eldon Square shopping centre, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. It contained many small stalls, such as a cobblers, florists, sweet shop, and the Fish market to name a few. I assume it opened at the same time at the main shopping centre, 1977, hence why 30 years on it looks pretty dated, brown tiles being long out of fashion. These pictures were taken on Friday (26 Jan), about an hour before it closed for good, to make way for the re-development of the area and a new Debenhams. So I thought a few snaps to capture a "70s indoor market style" of the past were in order, the available light requiring a high ISO and hence post image smooth processing. The Green market stalls are now moving to the Grainger market across the road, or equally as close, a new Green market in another corner of Eldon Square.

Happy new year!

Remember, a dog is not just for Christmas, save some for boxing day! The flat screen TV on the other hand is good all year round, and doesn't need walking 3 times a day in the rain. This, I conclude, is why it gets put on a nice cabinet in the lounge and not in a box under the stairs.

Happy 2007 to all

Christmas 2 for 1

Two pictures this time of nothing particularly special taken from my "December misc" folder. The thing I love about autumn, as illustrated in these shots, is the skies you can get. When it isn't cloudy they are often crystal clear - at sunset giving a perfect transition from midnight blue in the East to orange in the West, or with a low sun illuminating things in a beautiful golden glow.

Top was from a Newcastle ramble over the central motorway A167(M) and town moor, long exposure with no tripod. Below shows on of my favorite things, a country eatery back home in Lancashire, with horses thrown in for good measure. I had fish and chips for my lunch there today :)

Homeward bound

Not taken any pictures recently and prob wont for a while, so i dug up this from my archives. Taken back in October on a very windy day, the RNLI lifeboat Spirit of Northumberland powers its way back to home to Tynemouth station, rounding South Shields pier. The wind was deceptively strong (id estimate force 8*), but being westerly it was coming off the land hence the low wave heights near shore. A look at the spray coming off the bow wave shows just how strong it was, whipping the water back, and out to sea plenty of white froth. When you consider the "7" class lifeboat is only 17m long (tiny when anything under 100m is classed as 'small craft' at uni) , its sea-keeping abilities are most impressive and design for the harshest weather possible are an amazing feat of naval architecture. One of my lecturers told us recently about how lifeboats were, at certain conditions, designed to be inherently unstable, which is what allows them to self right if they capsize - some seriously clever maths (who says it has no use) was scribbled on the board!

* Force 8, according to my lecture notes is

"moderately high waves of greater length, edge of crests begin to break into the spindrift. The foam is blown in well marked streaks along the direction of the wind - mean wind speed of 37 knots" (around 40mph)

Steel Grey

Apologies for slacking with the updates but ive been busy with serious school work and an "educational" trip to Holland. The latter was most interesting, seeing the world class MARIN research facilities , the unimaginably gargantuan Port of Rotterdam, and two nights in Amsterdam (one during an England away match). Despite this, the trip was pretty abysmal for photography, with it being banned for security and commercial reasons in the MARIN complex, and through a coach window at Rotterdam - also you cant take pics of the ladies in the red light district for those of you interested!

We went over on the Ferry (and got an engine room visit) from North shields to Ijmuiden courtesy of DFDS seaways on the King of Scandinavia which was great fun. The picture was taken approaching Holland in the morning, sailing towards the docks which have a large steel works alongside. To try and make the photo a bit more interesting and atmospheric ive converted the dull colours into a B+W photo on the comp. I have just realised its a month till christmas!

Bang!

Yesterdays explosive action in Geordie land! IS lens in action again..

Somewhere else?

Last weekend i had a trip out before my railcard expired - from now on most trips will be to the library. The pictures above were both taken from the train doin around 100mph (1/500 sec). As you can see the motorway sign has been paint shopped but i left the junction # ... so question is which motorway and whats the river to the left of it?

Sky High

The red arrows were at the Great north run a few weeks back (see previous post) and armed with the 100-300L i fired a few shots off. They were pretty hard to track and lack of USM focus slowed things down but a few shots pleased me. The display was certainley very impressive using the British Hawk jets. Apologies to those who have already seen the pics on fotopic, and those who havent, Enjoy....

Shutter 1/1000 and 1/640 @F8, ISO 200

Keep on running....

Ive been in Newcastle for 3 years yet Sunday was the first time I bothered getting out of bed to watch the Great North Run, which is apparently the largest half marathon (13 miles) in the world. The reasons for this were mostly because Steve and Ben* (G) were running in it, I wasn't hungover, it was sunny, half a mile away, and Si was going. It certainly provided something different to snap, masses of colour as seen in this shot with Nessie forging her way through the crowd. We got up on the northbound carriageway of the A167M central motorway - the sheer volume of the 40,000 ish crowd was impressive, especially as we only saw half of them - the rest passing underneath, dodging the p*ssers up top. In the end we went to South shields via the Tyne Ferry to the finish, where we waited for Steve. Getting home was certainly a mission, so if you end up in Tyneside when the run is on, beware!

Well done to Ben and Steve

Kitchen equipment...

Like me, im sure most of you have seen at least some of Red Dwarf (if not your missing out), and therefore are familiar with Lister's phrase. So imagine my joy when rambling the streets of Scarborough one cold day last November when i spotted the above sign outside a Kitchen shop. For Smeg is also a rather classy brand of Kitchen appliance (£725 + for a fridge), but youd just chuckle everytime you went for the milk if you thought of the cheekyScouser - since appearing on Robot Wars and Corrie. Anyway, the reason for the pic was ive just returned to uni (got on the internet now too) and it pretty much sums up my reaction to the impending workload i face. If i go quiet from now on you know why.....

*Pic taken with Pentax Optio S

Belfast Built

A long spell without posting again as i was in the often overlooked south-western part of Scotland - go north to the end of the M6, past Carlisle, over the Solway and turn left at Gretna. This was my last holiday for the foreseeable future (well until post degree anyway) and was a very relaxed affair. The weather came good towards the end so a trip to Corsewell point, north of Stranraer, to photograph the Marine engineering sights (ships) proved irrestible. Its an exposed location which on a clear day gives views up the Aryshire coast, to the Kintyre pensiular and Northern Ireland - look at the Map! . Note on the picture you can also see the Isle of Arran (far left) and the lump of rock that is Ailsa Craig (left).

5 ferries passed us as they plied their trade from Northern Ireland to Scotland (P&O with 2 ro-pax and one cat, Stena with the HSS and ferry), but the above was the oldest. The Stena Caledonia is seen here on the 8th September heading for Stranraer with the 11:00 sailing from Belfast. Built at Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast, (responsible for the infamous Titanic triplets) in 1981, she was one of 4 "sisters" - ro-ro ferries built for the old British Rail owned Sealink and originally called St David until 1991. Suffice to say she is the last now in UK waters as the others are dispersed around the med. Here are some pictures i found in dry-dock. Id copy the "tech-spec" but if your interested click.