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.