2012-10-23
Could this photograph of distant trees be the worst one I have taken this year? Maybe not. When the fog descends there is a great temptation to believe that nature is offering us little to work with. This is rarely true. During a short dusk walk this evening my senses alerted me to 3 different, but related things. 1) I could not see very far. This did not come as a surprise, it has been misty all day. 2) There was a strong smell of burning logs.
2011-03-10
I have just returned from a wonderful couple of days in the Lake District. I was at the 'Words by the Water' literary festival in Keswick in the Lake District. My thanks to Kay and Steve for hosting such a great event. When I was invited to give a talk it did not take long to make up my mind: a literary festival, in a theatre by a lake, surrounded by beautiful mountains? Where do I sign? It would have been churlish not to sample some of the local bumps whilst up there and I enjoyed a…
2010-10-08
These two photographs were taken this morning, within a few seconds of each other and from exactly the same spot. In the book I touch on the difference between viewing mist horizontally and vertically and these pictures illustrate the point nicely. Mist and fog, which is just a word for intense mist, are low visibility caused by looking through millions of suspended water particles. When we look horizontally we have to look through hundreds of metres of these particles and the effect is very poor…
2009-04-01
President Obama was visibly furious with his British escort team after his secure cavalcade accidentally drove into the tiny Devon village of Clovelly. The armour-plated vehicles were too wide for the narrow cobbled streets and became wedged. Locals of the picturesque, but sleepy fishing village were woken by the sound of police motorbikes and two helicopters overhead. One resident told us, 'Mr Obama was clearly upset, but we gave him a nice cup of tea and some homemade biscuits and that seemed to settle him.' Mrs Avril, from the tourist board thought that it was due to the lead driver…
2008-11-18
When sorting some photos last night this picture - taken a few weeks ago on a very cold morning in Chichester harbour - came close to being deleted. I had a change of heart and decided to rescue it and elevate it to my blog. Rarely have the fortunes of a picture changed so suddenly or dramatically... OK, that's a bit much, not least since it is a rubbish picture. It's one redeeming feature and indeed its only feature is that the flash does help illustrate that fog is made up of lots of tiny droplets. It is…
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