Archive for the 'photography' Category

Wildlife Near You

Published on January 13, 2010 in api, mashup, photography, wildlife and wildlifenearyou. 1 Comment Tags: api, mashup, photography, wildlife, wildlifenearyou.

Where’s the nearest Rainbow Trout to London? How about the nearest cow to Malaysia? or Everything near Brighton? www.wildlifenearyou.com is a site that allows you to track where you’ve seen wildlife all over the planet, allowing correct classification of the animals, and indexing the locations where they were found. It’s a great example of building a useful service on top of several APIs (inlcuding Flickr and Google Maps) and utilising social tagging to glue the data together.

Simon tells me there will be an API for WLNY soon, so you can write an app to find out, for instance, where the nearest Komodo Dragon to Basingstoke is, or perhaps you just want to go somewhere interesting at the weekend and find out what you can see and where. I could definitely see myself using the site for that.

Check out my profile – several of my favourite photos are linked from there. For now, here’s a photo of a European Robin from Pulborough Brooks:

Snow in Sussex

Published on December 19, 2009 in arctic, photography, snow, south downs and sussex. 1 Comment Tags: arctic, photography, snow, south downs, sussex.

Sussex is currently lying under a blanket of snow, with the councils thoughtfully neglecting to grit the footpaths, which have now become dangerous sheets of ice. Brilliant.

As I’ve recently moved closer to the South Downs, this snowfall was a great opportunity to wander over the downs with a thermos flask of freshly ground Monmouth Coffee beans from Coffee@33, and to take some photos of this rather picturesque area.

Here’s a photo of the area before the snow:

Here’s one with several inches of snow:

At the top of the downs there were drifts everywhere, some of which were several feet deep. You can see the surface snow being blown around in this video:

Of course, not all drivers know how to drive in this weather, such as the refuse truck driver who thought it was a great idea to speed along a one-track icy road, almost hitting me and another car. The driver than managed to get the truck stuck, and blocked the road for several hours:

Another driver thought it would be a good idea to speed along the road too, and unsurprisingly ended up in the ditch:

Anyway, nobody was hurt, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the area. The rest of my photos can be found on Flickr, or have a look at the slideshow here (hit the button in the bottom-right for full-screen):

iPhone camera – 3GS vs 3G

Published on June 20, 2009 in 3g, 3gs, camera, comparison, iphone, macro, n95 and photography. 3 Comments Tags: 3g, 3gs, camera, comparison, iphone, macro, n95, photography.

Here’s a quick comparison of the iPhone 3GS camera versus the old 3G camera. The 3GS has a macro function, so it’s not a fair test by any means

New iPhone 3GS:

…and here’s a shot from the old 3G:

That’s quite a difference!

However, it’s nowhere near as good as the camera on the N95, and there are some great photos taken with that phone. Still, it’s a vast, welcome improvement.

North Wales Photos

Published on May 28, 2009 in nikon, photography, pictures and wales. 1 Comment Tags: nikon, photography, pictures, wales.

Rachel and I spent a long weekend with my parents in North Wales, staying at my uncle’s house. Once again I was stunned by the natural beauty of the landscape.

Cwm Bychan was as spectacular as usual, and I visited Dinas Oleu for the first time, which is definitely worth visiting if you’re in the area.

As usual, I took a number of photos. Here’s some to bore you I recommend going full-screen.

Anish Kapoor’s C-Curve – Brighton

Published on May 10, 2009 in anish, brighton, festival, kapoor and photography. 0 Comments Tags: anish, brighton, festival, kapoor, photography.

An excellent photo by Brighton’s Rob Orchard! I absolutely love this photo. I’ve got to go try something like this myself now

Where I’m happiest

Published on April 4, 2009 in happy, nikon, photography, photos, wales and wilderness. 0 Comments Tags: happy, nikon, photography, photos, wales, wilderness.

Perhaps it’s due to all the childhood holidays I used to have in Wales, but I’m never happier than when I’m in Wales. Perhaps it’s something in the psyche; being away from civilisation, high in the mountains, with the plains spread out around you. Or maybe on a deserted beach with huge peaks in the distance. I love Wales, and in particular North Wales.

This feeling has something to do with the blog’s description: “the concrete world is starting to get ya” – which is also lyrics from the Flight of The Conchords’ song “Inner City Pressure” (which is hilarious).

Here’s some photos from 2007:

They’re probably best viewed here, as a slideshow.

[update]: Ah, I didnt know you could embed a set, nice one Flickr!

Strange weather phenomenon

Published on March 1, 2009 in circumzenithal arc, flickr, kern arc, photo, photography, strange and weather. 1 Comment

My parents took this photo today. Does anyone know what it is?

It looks like a Circumzenithal arc, but it’s got another rainbow.

Could it be a Kern arc? Those have only been seen 6 times.

More info on Flickr!

Update
Les from Atmospheric Optics tell me that the top half is a circumzenithal arc, and the bottom half is a "rare supralateral arc made by hexagonal column crystals"

Apparently seeing this is quite rare: "the combination of the two would be once a year or less"

Thanks again to Les for clearing this up

Wildlife photography

Published on January 4, 2009 in life and photography. 0 Comments Tags: birds, great tit, jackdaw, pheasant, photography, robin.

It’s been a while since I posted any of my photographs here, so here’s a few shots from WWT Arundel and Pulborough Brooks RSPB reserve. Both are excellent places for a day out.

More photos are on Flickr.

Robin