Flying Geese

When you are busy it’s the unusual sounds that disturb and attract your attention especially if the noise is getting louder and louder. Looking out of the window I discovered where the noise was coming from, a gaggle of geese flying straight at us, or is it a wedge of geese? No time  to discuss. Grab a camera, shoot!  The light for taking some reasonable shots was just about right as it was evening with a few clouds in the sky and the sun was soon to go down.

Geese Flying in Formation Images

Geese Flying in Formation

The geese were flying in formation coming in of the sea, wave after wave of them with a few straglers trailing behind. This was a really amazing opportunity to shoot a few images and a few videos, not always so easy when caught unaware with absolutely no time to prepare. Here is one of the pictures that was taken. There will come a few more images hopefully when I have time to go through all the shots.

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• Editing Photos Exercise
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Sunday the day of rest
• Ycademy Seminar for YORGOOpress
• Vegetable Garden Designs
• Photo Media Stock
• Goodbye Sweet Pea
• Summer Feasts
• Clacton Air Show 2010
• First Day at the Airshow

Sunday the day of rest

I remember Sundays when it was a day of rest, a day of peace, childhood fun and family get-togethers. These days everyone seems to be caught up in work, shopping, travel and catching up on yesterday. The 21st century appears to have acclerated society into perpetual motion, everyone chasing their tail, and yes! I am here on a Sunday…

Sunday

Sunday for some is still a day of peace and rest. As the proverb says….“A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content.”  The lucky few.

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• Ycademy Seminar for YORGOOpress
• Vegetable Garden Designs
• Goodbye Sweet Pea
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Summer Feasts
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Clacton Air Show 2010
• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex

Ycademy Seminar for YORGOOpress

As per usual Ycademy is holding it’s monthly seminar, this month focused on upgrading the publishing network, namely YORGOOpress. For all participants there will be a brand new theme for their Press websites.  

Ycademy Seminar for Working from Home News

Working From Home News has been up and running for well over a year now, since the March Seminar in 2009, every day hitting the desired target on the Google search  engine. Since it’s installation we have had numerous updates on both WordPress and the plugins that we use. Over time you begin to notice how a single update on a single plugin can screw up a whole blog, absolutely no fun when then you have to spend time uravelling the disaster. This kind of mess always leaves some traces behind. Things just don’t work as they used to.

Time to re-think and time to change. ““There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” said Winston Churchill.

It’s a time to reassess, to discard what’s not working and re-energise what produces results!

For more information about the forthcoming seminar click HERE.

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• Working from home news developments
• Creating images for YORGOOpress
• Creating rotating headers with YORGOOpress
• YORGOOpress: project update
• Online Media Production
• Ycademy Facebook Seminar
• Ycademy Facebook Seminar
• Google Wave invite
• Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic
• Web Design

Vegetable Garden Designs

What caught my eye today was a brand new site called Vegetable Garden Designs, just take a look at the photos! Being a bit of a gardener myself and enjoying eating good real food I will certainly be following the progress of this web site on Google.

Vegetable Garden Designs and Semiomantics XO

The new website is based on the latest Semiomantics XO, scripts known for their efficiency, visibility and publishing quality. I have been working with the older version of this script and am interested in following the course of this new script and its rise on Google to Google top ten on a 7+ million keyword.

To be continued……….

For more information about the Semiomantics XO script go to my shop HERE .

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• Semiomantics XO Advertising
• Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic
• Web Design
• Increase Your Business Exposure
• New Style New Look
• Internet Marketing Services
• Christmas 2009 and beyond
• Learn online at the Daily online training call
• Google Wave invite
• Garden Talk News

Photo Media Stock

Yesterday was such a miserable grey, windy, rainy day but a perfect day to work indoors preparing images for the new stock photo site, Photo Media Stock. Just because you have shot a picture with your digital camera and it looks great on the camera screen it doesn’t mean its ready to be uploaded to a Stock site. There is always some editing to do beforehand. 

Photo Editing for Photo Media Stock 

On most digital cameras there are different setting  for different phoptographic situations and its well worth paying attention to the guidelines as outlined in a manual until you get well accustomed to the camera settings. What you see on the camera screen is not neccessarily what you will see if you then edit your photo with a photo editor. 

My Nikon Coolpix P90 stores images in the .JPG format which means that every time the image is saved the is a loss of picture data. When you save an image it is compressed, the jpg compression loses some some image data in order to create a smaller image file.  To avoid ‘loss’ of image quality its is better to upload images to a photo editor such as Lightroom 3 and do the neccessary editing. Once the editing is done to avoid loss of quality a good way to store the image is in the TIFF lossless image format as there is no compression with this format and the same image  can be used again for further editing.  To save an image for use on the web it is best saved in the .jpg format which is accepted most everywhere, just like the one here.

Photo Editing with Lightroom 3

With a good photo editor such as Lightroom you can correct your photos; whether its an underexposed image, or you need to correct the colour balance, cover up small blemishes or even sharpen blurry edges. These are only just some of the tools that are available to help edit photos in  Lightroom 3. There are of course the Lightroom presets which can be employed to enhance a photo as opposed to using the settings to develop your own photo preset. Depending on the photo I use either or, or develop a user preset.

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• Editing Photos Exercise
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Greek Church Stock Photo
• Photo Media Stock Seminar
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography
• Digital Photography
• Summer Feasts

Goodbye Sweet Pea

One of those wonderful sweet smelling garden flowers is the Sweetpea, Lathyrus Odoratus. A native of the native of the Mediterranean region but grown successfully here in my garden in Essex.

Sweet Pea Plant

The Sweet Pea plant is an easy to grow annual climber and comes now in such a large variety of colours. Throughout the summer months the vines climb using the tendrils to twine around plants and supports and grow to around 2meters depending of course on the variety chosen. Deadheading the blooms throughout the summer encourages more growth.

As the summer draws to an end we see the last of the few remaining Sweet Pea plants fading and the Sweet Pea flowers turning into long pea pods full of seeds for the next year. Goodbye Sweet Pea, we look forward to seeing your beautiful vivid blooms next year.

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• Editing Photos Exercise
• Summer Feasts
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Down Came the Spider
• First Day at the Airshow
• Hollow Trees Farm Images
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• Hollow Trees Farm, Suffolk
• Digital Photography Portraits
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise

Editing Photos Exercise

Today turned out to be a stunning day weather wise - a warm breeze, lots of sunshine with long wispy clouds overhead; a day to just go outside and enjoy!  After the heavy downpour we had overnight the flowers in the garden took on a new lustre,  just shouting to be photographed. So out came the faithfull Nikon Coolpix.

Following up on the ‘Editing Photos Exercise’   that took place last week and the preparing  of  images for the new Stock Media Photo site I added all the photos that were taken with my digital camera to Lightroom3 where they would be edited.

Editing Photos of Flowers

One of the photos that stood out most for me was that taken today was that  of the Cyclamen, a most beautiful flower with its tall stems,  fiery red twisted petals and variegated foliage. Stunning!b  Beloved by  both florists and gardeners. Rather than keep  my Cyclamen in a pot I prefer to see it growing in the garden among all the other flowers.

In Lightroom started the editing process with just a touch of tone, adding a touch of brightness and contrast, tweak of clarity and a little more depth in the shadows. Every flower deserves unique attention as so much depends on the time of day the image was taken, camera settings and the light.

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• Editing Photos Exercise
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography Portraits
• Digital Photography
• Summer Feasts
• First Day at the Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex

Summer Feasts

The summer holidays are almost over and the children start the process of going back to school and we slowly drift into autumn; the season of ‘mellow fruitfullness’ as so aptly put by John Keats.

During the summer we  tend take advantage of the longer days, the warmer weather, spending more time outdoors. One of those pleasant summer activities is eating out, al fresco, feasting on the summer fruits, ice creams, enjoying a barbeque or two, picnics or just enjoying a drink in the warm sunshine.

Wasps

Not only do humans enjoy feasting in the summer, where there is food we often tend to find annoying insects like the wasp. The more you try to get away from the wasp the more it will follow you and you could end up as an unfortunate victim with a nasty sting. Wasps aren’t aggressive by nature but do not like to be disturbed. Leaving them well alone it seems is the best remedy. Leave food around and they will congregate there.

European Wasp

Wasps just love to feast on our leftovers, watch them carefully and you will see how they tug and cut away a small chunk of food to take it elsewhere. It’s really fascinating watching these little creatures. If you have your digital camera to hand its worth giving it a shot.

European Wasp image

On just such an occassion after a summer feast I managed to capture this picture of a wasp [Vespula germanica] with my digital camera having a go at some of the leftovers on a plate.  This little creature spent quite a attacking this bit of food.  The wasp did eventually manage to cut or tear a piece of the food of and fly away with it.

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• First Day at the Airshow
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Hollow Trees Farm Images
• Hollow Trees Farm, Suffolk

Editing Photos Exercise

Ycademy Trainings offer training in various subjects. Digital Photography and the preparation of photos for the new ‘Photo Media Stock’ site was covered during the August seminar. Following  through on this theme Fridays daily training call was concerned with  editing photos using Lightroom3. As all participants used the same submitted photo for the exercise it will interesting to compare the end results. The photo was  taken the begining of April 2010 on a bright, sunny spring day.

Edited Photos

No1. The original

No2. Edited Photo

No3. The black and white version

No4. A little bit of post-editing gives the same photo a very different feel.

Click on the images to see a larger view.

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• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography Portraits
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Greek Church Stock Photo
• Photo Media Stock Seminar
• Digital Photography
• My Essex
• First Day at the Airshow
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

Spider

The last day in August turns out to be a glorious summers day which is a rare occurence this summer here in Essex where I live. If you saw my earlier posts about the local  Airshow you will notice that the weather nearly let us down. However, today was wonderful with long spells of warm sunshine so much needed after so many dreary days. The garden was the best place to be today. What caught my eye glistening in the sunshine was a big spiders web just by the door. Down came the spider from his hiding hole to catch an unwary little fly.  Having watched this for a short while  I decided it was an opportunity not to be missed and got the camera out. What was really intriguing was that I was watching the spider from underneath, and not looking down on his back.

Garden Spider 

Well I think its a garden spider, if anyone would like to correct me on this one please do. By the time the camera was in place this little spider had consumed his prey and looked like it was wrapping it up and then sort of pushed it out in a little ball. I am no nature freak but this episode was absolutely fascinating. Here is the photo I shot of this spider with my Nikon Coolpix. With the sun shining directly on the web the little ball here looks like a blue gemstone.

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• First Day at the Airshow
• Full Moon over Frinton
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography Practice
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography
• My Essex

Red Arrows at Clacton Air Show

The flying program at the Clacton Airshow 2010 included the famous RAF aerobatic team, the Red Arrows. There is nothing quite so breathtaking as watching this display team whiz through the skies and perform their aerobatics. 

Red Arrows at Clacton Airshow on Youtube

Here is a short video on Youtube of the Red Arrows aerobatics display at the 2010 Airshow in Clacton.

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• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Down Came the Spider
• Clacton Air Show 2010
• Full Moon over Frinton
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex

Clacton Air Show 2010

The Claton Airshow still manged to attract loads of visitor this year despite the weather, although the numbers were slightly down on previous years. Each year the show attracts not only the aircraft hobbyists but also families with children. As the airshow is a free event it makes a great day out for all family, there’s always something for everyone. Airshow, sand, sea and funfair!

A chance for the young to see a model of a  Spitfire close up.

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• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings and Evolution
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Apricot Season
• My Essex

Clacton Airshow images

First day of the Clacton Airshow 2010  provided a great opportunity to take out the digital camera to shoot some pictures of the days proceedings.  Here are a couple of pictures taken of the Red Arrows aerobatics display on day one of the airshow. 

and….

Notice the heavy cloud and murky sea, not really the weather you expect in August.

All pictures were taken with a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560.

Clacton Airshow Day 2

Maybe just a slight improvement on the weather conditions for day 2 of the Clacton Airshow with some bright patches and a little bit of blue sky but not for long. The crowds again have gathered to watch the Red Arrows display at 12.30 today and the fly past.

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• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Full Moon over Frinton
• Greek Church Stock Photo
• Photo Media Stock Seminar
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Hollow Trees Farm Images
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• Hollow Trees Farm, Suffolk
• Shady Nook

First Day at the Airshow

Althougth the rest of  East Anglia suffered some torrential downpours, down here around the coast of Clacton the weather remained relatively good enough for the Claton Airshow 2010 to go ahead. The weather was by now means the best, but at least good enough for the gathered crowds to enjoy the flying displays.

Here is a short video on Youtube, a small part of the Red Arrows display showing off their aerobatic skills.

Click HERE to watch the video.

The camera used in this instance is to take the clips is a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560 with a 4x Optical zoom.

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• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

First Day at the Airshow

Althougth the rest of  East Anglia suffered some torrential downpours, down here around the coast of Clacton the weather remained relatively good enough for the Claton Airshow 2010 to go ahead. The weather was by now means the best, but at least good enough for the gathered crowds to enjoy the flying displays.

Here is a short video on Youtube, a small part of the Red Arrows display showing off their aerobatic skills.

Click HERE to watch the video.

The camera used in this instance is to take the clips is a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560 with a 4x Optical zoom.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

First Day at the Airshow

Althougth the rest of  East Anglia suffered some torrential downpours, down here around the coast of Clacton the weather remained relatively good enough for the Claton Airshow 2010 to go ahead. The weather was by now means the best, but at least good enough for the gathered crowds to enjoy the flying displays.

Here is a short video on Youtube, a small part of the Red Arrows display showing off their aerobatic skills.

Click HERE to watch the video.

The camera used in this instance is to take the clips is a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560 with a 4x Optical zoom.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

First Day at the Airshow

Althougth the rest of  East Anglia suffered some torrential downpours, down here around the coast of Clacton the weather remained relatively good enough for the Claton Airshow 2010 to go ahead. The weather was by now means the best, but at least good enough for the gathered crowds to enjoy the flying displays.

Here is a short video on Youtube, a small part of the Red Arrows display showing off their aerobatic skills.

Click HERE to watch the video.

The camera used in this instance is to take the clips is a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560 with a 4x Optical zoom.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

First Day at the Airshow

Althougth the rest of  East Anglia suffered some torrential downpours, down here around the coast of Clacton the weather remained relatively good enough for the Claton Airshow 2010 to go ahead. The weather was by now means the best, but at least good enough for the gathered crowds to enjoy the flying displays.

Here is a short video on Youtube, a small part of the Red Arrows display showing off their aerobatic skills.

Click HERE to watch the video.

The camera used in this instance is to take the clips is a point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Powershot A560 with a 4x Optical zoom.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Tropical Wings and Evolution

Clacton Airshow

Today is the day of the actual Clacton Airshow, a 2 day annual event that takes place along the beach and greensward in Clacton, with a full air display taking place over the sea during the afternoon . An event that in 2009 drew over 100,000 visitors. This year is the 19th year of the show. Each year there is a full flying program of wing walkers, Battle of Britain planes and others and the biggest draw, a display by the aerobatics team of the Royal Aiforce the Red Arrows.

Clacton Airshow 2010

The weather here in August has not been very kind to all the holiday makers and today is no exception. With heavy clouds, wind and the constant threat of rain does not bode well for the air display this afternoon. We are all keeping our fingers tighly crossed and hoping for just a little break in the clouds with perhaps a little sun to brighten up the day.

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• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings and Evolution
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Apricot Season
• My Essex
• Flash Website – My Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development

Full Moon

After a day of very strong winds, heavy clouds, sunshine and showers as the night came we managed to get a peek of a full moon amongst the heavy clouds.

Taking a picture of the moon with a  digital camera is not such an easy task. It needs just a little preparation beforehand to get a reasonable shot.

Shooting at the Moon

In this instance the camera used is a Nikon Coolpix P90, a 12megapixel camera with a 24x Optical zoom. In order to use the zoom successfully I took note of Yorgo’s advice in his article and set up a tripod as well as using a timer.

Catching the moon without cloud cover was a game of patience, as well as dedication for it was pretty cold outside. Here is the result below.

Full Moon

A shot to show the heavy cloud cover.

Unfortunately the cloud cover was too dense  and the temperature outside too cold to sit around for too long outside in order to do shots with the other cameras. Something worth doing perhaps another night.

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• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Apricot Season
• Digital Photography Practice
• My Essex
• Digital Photography
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Greek Church Stock Photo
• Photo Media Stock Seminar
• Tropical Wings and Evolution