I’ve been threatening for a while to spend the night on the hills to get the late sunset and early sunrise and Joy has been sceptical at my lack of action but I finally got round to it on Monday last. I had a spot on Birker Fell in mind from a long-ago memory of a spectacular sunset there lighting up the Scafell range. I also knew there’d be no problem finding overnight parking (which is usually forbidden in most of the managed car parks). Birker Fell is a wild, desolate and

Do yourself a favour and make a trip to the Isle of Harris. We’ve seen a lot of lovely beaches while we’ve walked the south-west coast path and visited several gorgeous mediterranean shorelines but I’ve never seen anything like the beaches of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. The water is like turquoise crystal, the sand golden white and all so peaceful. #photography #omdem10 #landscape #gallerypost #olympus

Richard and I went strolling along the shores of Ullwater last saturday night, after our first (fruitless) day exhibiting at the Cumbria Photography Show at the Rheged Centre. The weather was beautiful, which was no doubt partly to blame for the poor attendance at the show. Who wants to be indoors in such weather when you have scenery like this to enjoy? Anyway, these are all hand-held using the Olympus OMD-EM10 and taken at the northern end of the lake, near Pooley Bridge. #

I’ve just been watching Ridley Scott’s film of Blade Runner. The photography and production design are incredible. Sometimes when you take a photograph you’re just capturing what’s there. I think in Blade Runner they truly create something. The combination of photography, lighting, set and special effects (before this became trivial with CGI) makes unique images. There was a particular shot that caught my imagination of a tiny origami creation seen very close up, almost filli

In response to the WordPress Daily Post challenge <a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/abstract/”>Abstract</a&gt; Abstraction is difficult to achieve with photography. A photograph made in the normal way is always of something real. The thing is there in the real world. An abstract painting on the other hand does not represent reality but is genuinely new and original, a thing that has never before existed in the universe and never will again. An abstract

The Olympus OMD-EM10 (mark 1) has a built-in monochrome preset called “monotone”. If you select this preset (menu -> Shooting Menu 1 -> Picture Mode -> monotone ) then you get a monochrome view in the rear screen and the EVF. This is really nice, you can visualise exactly what you’ll get in black and white. This is true both for raw and JPEG. I really like the monochrome conversion built into the camera. I’d be quite happy to use it without further processing but being parano

£7 for car parking??? I really need to get better at finding free parking in the Lake District. My plan was for Grasmere and I realised there aren’t any cheap car parks around Grasmere. It turned out to be worth it as the light and weather were fantastic. I’d thought of staying low down by the water but I couldn’t help following the rough path up to Loughrigg Fell. There’s a proper panorama up there taking in Grasmere, the Fairfield horseshoe, Great and Little Langdales, Bowf

I’m continually nicely surprised and impressed by the results I’m getting from the unassuming 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 m.zuiko kit lens on my Olympus OMD-EM10. Here’s an example 100% crop from one of the shots I published earlier…: …which is taken from near the middle of this shot – https://anthonyshaughnessy.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/moel-y-gamelin_3050028.jpg It’s even fairly tough. I dropped my camera and it hit the ground lens-first. It now sports a small dint on the front (not

A walk round the hills above Llangollen yesterday. Changeable weather is good photo weather but I’d forgotten my waterproofs! A good day for monochrome, apart from the single shot in colour. The oranges in that shot were too good to lose. Llangollen is definitely worth a return visit for the sunset, with a tripod. The views from ancient Castell Dinas Bryn are panoramic and wonderful and the town is full of interesting shops and nice cafes (and some interesting characters!) Al

Perfect walking weather in the Lake District. Sparking snowy tops, clear blue sky. Actually, I’d prefer worse weather for taking good photographs, you get more drama but I shouldn’t complain. You can drive to the summit of Wrynose Pass at about 400 metres and from there in about half a horizontal mile and 300 metres of ascent to Cold Pike of Pike o’Blisco and panoramic views. West to the sea. North to Skiddaw above Keswick. South east to Windermere and the Howgill Fells. #cum

I need to apologise for the number of pictures in this gallery post. One of the rules of presenting your photographs is to edit ruthlessly and I should probably only be showing half of these but I couldn’t help myself. I went to Langdale, one of my favourite places, in the hope of spectacular sunset light catching the pikes. I remember being there last autumn and seeing a truly spectacular light show on their southern flank but I wasn’t in position for it. This time I was in

Landscape photographers have to take their chances where they can get them. I went over to Snowdonia yesterday knowing that the forecast was changeable. It only really changed from light rain to heavy rain. I only got one reasonable shot from the day and here it is. An old stone boat house on Llyn Gwynant, Snowdonia #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography

This was Joy’s last hurrah before going back to full time work so we made the effort to get to the mountains and find some snow. We did a simple route that I thought we could do quickly and then extend if we had time to spare, though I over-estimated our speed. We did a round of Tryfan, going up to Bwlch Tryfan from the Cwm Bochlwyd side and back again down Cwm Tryfan. From the road the path is almost immediately rough scrambling and very wet but with glorious weather. Dazzli

Joy and I made the journey to Ambleside in hopes of catching the snow at its best and we weren’t disappointed. We did the very popular walk to Troutbeck via Wansfell Pike and return via Skelghyll Wood. There was a heavy overcast but otherwise good weather to start, it made good subdued light for photography. We were soon glad we had taken our very useful mini-spikes and walking poles. The popular track was steep and iced up. Plenty of people were spending a lot of time fallin

The first time I’ve been in the mountains for a few months and this time it’s Snowdonia, which is now nearer to me than the Lake District. Llyn Ogwen is very easy to get to and you can walk from there up to Llyn Idwal, in it’s spectacular cirque, in about fifteen minutes. The forecast was not good but it was sunny when I arrived so I hurried on up while the light lasted. I’d had a surprise during the drive down, as from quite some distance away I’d seen the tops of very snowy

Since I started photography I’ve been used to colourful winters. I’ve spent all of them in the pennines, either in the Yorkshire Dales or Calderdale. Even when the trees are bare there’s a lot of colour around, in the heather, the bracken, the gritstone, the fallen leaves. Now I’ve moved to Cheshire and it’s all shades of grey. Hence why all my recent shots have been in black and white. I think I’ve never shot so much black and white. I’m enjoying it, though I’d love to get o

While visiting relatives and doing some walking I’ve taken some black and white shots. #photography #omdem10 #landscape #gallerypost #monochrome #olympus

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Circle.” Walking home on Christmas Eve we saw the moon in the centre of what seemed like a perfectly round hole in the clouds. It turned out to be one of these. I’ve never seen one before but it seemed fairly obvious that it must be something like a rainbow type of effect. Very atmospheric. As I didn’t have a tripod or any way of guessing good exposure I just pointed and shot with my trusty Olympus OMD-EM10 and it did a

Some strong autumn colour from back in November. The dark overcast and wet weather are good for emphasizing the colours, a good tip if you think the weather is too bad for photography. #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography

A couple of shots from the Dee Estuary, taken from the Wirral side at Thurstaston beach, just by Shore Cottage Studio The first shows, presumably, cockle pickers doing their back breaking work. Cockle pickers on the Dee Estuary The second is the view towards the inland end of the estuary #landscape #olympus #omdem10 #photography