The Snapping Bishop

A couple of the larger eagles at Warwick Castle, shot during an excellent display of these and other superbly maintained birds held within the grounds this summer.

There’s this building, which for those around here like to call the quarter deck building. Its quite beautiful, its shape somehow very natural. But then, unfortunately for me, having returned to the same spot as last year’s Red Bull Air Race,  a really attractive building to use within a composition containing the swooping, turning and banking planes! Just like last year… D’oh! So that meant the same types of compositions, even the sky was similar. Shall I just pretend I was extending last years shoot..?

The first two earlier shots can be found in the gallery. (shot RedBull Air race 2007)

Eight G Opens gallery, new window.

Close Shave Opens gallery, new window.

These two shot this year 2008.

After three months of no sightings I had become used to the idea that the pair of fox cubs I spotted all those months ago, had in fact become one. I see dead foxes all the time around my area, lots of fast roads pass through and I’m quite sure many of the local population would cull a fox at the first chance.

So it’s my pleasure and with full heart that I tell you… they are still with us. Fstop and Iso (pronounced like Riso, but without the R). But, and here’s the twist, there are in fact, three of them, not two.

I’ve only got these two shots of two of them unfortunately. These little fellas, although far more inquisitive than mum and dad, tend to hear the first click, look at me, second click, gone… every time. I’ve got loads of rear ends disappearing into the bushes, but alas as yet not any clear or even acceptable  shots of all three together.

This is the first cub, called Fstop. You’ll have seen him on a previous blog, his name chosen because he had a large boil on his forehead when we named him at the start of the year after the first sighting. There’s half a day between these two shots, but it was well worth the wait just to glimpse more than one of them on the same day.

Introducing Iso …a girl I’m guessing….not quite sure what bits I see their.

For the last few years a few of my fellow photographers and I get together for an annual meet at Dungeness Beach in Kent, England. This year we went for July 26th and 27th with a sunset at about 9.30pm followed by some night shots, then up again for sunrise at 4.00am … we won’t do that again I’ll tell you! …well actually we might, because the sunrise was particularly impressive and beautiful, we all worked the scenes hard and left a few hours later very happy yet totally exhausted.

Dungeness Beach. A photographic documentary.

Their’s something uncanny about Dungeness beach, its isolation down on the tip of Kent leaves it with a ghost town feel, and although its within the highly populated south eastern tip of the UK, somehow, because all journeys end here, there’s no through traffic, no rush hour or peak time, the people come and go quietly, the place is restful and confidently at peace with itself and altogether happy with its bleak, bleached and wind blasted coastline. In fact the coastal waters along this stretch hold more hidden secrets than you’d realise … If you ever walk across the beach at the Dungeness tip, be careful not to tumble over the bank of pebbles at its edge into the sea, because its not too far out before the sea bed drops into deep ocean. Its that deep ocean that tugs at the fishermen we watched preparing that morning, before the light had flooded the sea they where up and running their boat down the shingle bank, rods baited and cast almost before the boat left the beach, and I can image, it wasn’t long before they hauled in their first catch.

Some of the sunrise shots first … More from this set can be found within the SnappingBishop Gallery. (opens in new window)

Sunrise. 4.10am

The day.

We met at the Pilot pub as normal … cool drinks and good fresh fish and chips.

The Newer Automated Lighthouse at Dungeness.

Near deep sea fishing ..

–

The Old Dungeness Lighthouse and keepers house. Two exposures, merged top and bottom.

The bait…

The fish…

Yea old lighthouse. Two 10mm wide angle exposures merged top and bottom.

Below is a small selection from my previous vivists …more like these can be found within in the Snapping Bishop Gallery. (opens in new window)

“Shooooosh, be quiet, don’t move. I’ve just had two fox cubs almost wander into my living room…”

I live in deep East London, terraced houses everywhere kinda environment, and although I’m used to them wandering through the garden, to suddenly looked up from the screen and see them both looking up at me through the open French doors, one of them with his/her foot on the step made me freeze, I just stared, whilst trying to disguise the fact as you do, I feared if i looked away they’d be gone… all the time my camera and bag about six feet away … nope no good, they didn’t like the look of me… off trotting down to the back of the garden and away…

So then I sat there with the camera on my lap, even turned my iso up as the evening came in! (I don’t like the noise my camera makes at High iso)… but as I said to friends that night, “I bet they won’t come back tonight… so don’t watch this space… but I just know they’ll be back, and soon.”

Well one came back a few days later, just the one though and its been a few weeks now I still only ever spot this one …the one with the spot.

Just the one shot, thought I’d best get it up before it was way out of date.

This is shot through the windows double glazing, so its lost some clarity, although with that particular lens its hard to tell as everything’s always pin sharp anyway.

We’re gonna call him F-stop for obvious reasons hehe . .

Closer crop … Hes about a foot high to the ears…. a tiny version of mum and dad.

So I get invited to Silverstone race track for a testing day to take photos, “wahay and okay” I say, Its been many years since I’ve shot any motor sport so it’ll be good for me to exercise those techniques.
Trouble was, they seemed to have made the fences higher than I remember, darn it if I could find a good vantage point and settle down to polish some crackers…. and even though I made some search inquires before about good spots to photograph the action, it looks like google isn’t as infallible as I’d wished, because all those supposedly good spots have been adjusted, moved or blocked off allowing no cool spots whatsoever, well at least none that I could find anyway.

At first I was thinking that getting any good close shots may be tricky, you know the type, those typical ones we all expect with the blurred backgrounds and cars rushing passed nicely caught with beautifully smudged logos on the wheels, well, if I was going to get those with my limited long lenses I was going to have to include the fence or at the very least make the collect mainly distant shots over the fence …. so I tried the latter for a while, and yep loads of nice pan shots with blurred fence or so far away as to not to be acceptable for me …. hmmmm, not really my kind of collection I though after a while, so I gave up and did my usual wandering and arty ponderings, which ended up being the silver lining to my day … because after chatting to folk I got interested in a fella and his banter, the next moment I’m invited pit side to grab some pictures.

… excellent.

I would name all the cars and drivers, but I know nothing of such things…Now if it had been bike testing, thats a different matter!

Photographic Piece.

I’ve darkend the shadows within the dimmed garage a little to emphasise this stunning machine.

–

A fuel nozzel problem of some sort, they seemed to be wiping away something repeatedly.

–

I’m sure they know what they’re waiting for, mean while, the tracks the other way guys …

–

The BMW team, making some fun for themselves after a long day.

–

The Mark Webber stall. … just leaving the pit exit whilst waiting for a clear run … ‘kerdonk!’ Oh bugger.

Quick chat with the man …its the electronics bud! …Okay, what ever you say Mark.

Pit Side.

Art piece.

—

Its a hard life, but someones got to do it.

Ferrari… A continuously shot set.

Testing run completed.

Many Thanks to Yvonne at WhiteGoldImages for the invite.