Just on the way back from a great trip to North Wales. Had superb weather if a little cold. Five of us went up and the usual hilarity ensued after a few too many pints of Guinness is a small town local pub. Did the Dragon’s Back trail on the sat then the MBR today. Looking forward to getting back and getting a nice roast dinner an getting showered.
The rest of my pics are here and Matt uploaded a few too.
Jim and I decided to do a biggish ride this weekend. We got up early on the Sat and got the train from Waterloo to Guildford and then cycled down to Emsworth. We too a little detour to Hindhead for some cake. That turned in to a large hill just for that but nevermind. We wound our way through lots of little villages to the South Downs and then had to slog it out over the downs to get to Chichester and then Emsworth. There was a fair old headwind so we took it in turns sitting in front with the other tucking in to the slipstream. Total milage was around 45 miles but a very hard 45 miles. Plenty of cheese on toast when we arrived at Jim’s parents place and then a nap on the sofa and some well earned chilli! A force ten storm came in overnight but fortunately had blown over by the morning.
After a late start on the Sunday we eventually headed off to Brighton. The plan of staying on top of the South Downs was never going to work so we headed over them past Chichester and then sat behind them to shelter from the wind. We had the wind with us for most of it until the end. The route we took avoided most of the A roads and went through the wealthy villages of West Sussex. 3 punctures from Jim and a snapped chain with me but we got there in the end. The hardest part was the climb back over the South Downs up on to Devil’s Dyke to enjoy the view. By this time the sun had started going down and was getting cold fast. We grabbed a photo or two and then headed down in to Brighton for Fish and Chips at the Regency. Around 58 miles and lots of hills.
Got up to Wales today with Gav [Erik couldn’t be moved from his bed] and went round Whites level in traditional boxing day fashion. The weather was fantastic and not a cloud in the sky. The winter light casting along the singletrack was fantastic. Didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped due to my shoulder still being quite sore after the crash. Shame the Cafe wasn’t open but the service station did for today. The rest of the pics are here.
Also had a go at recording the trail with the GPS on the iPhone. Results below. Looks like it lost the signal for a while so not great. Trying out a few apps to see which is best. This one was called TrailGuru.
After a long drive from Cambridge to Bath yesterday I settled in back at Mum’s house and awaited Father Christmas this morning. He arrived promptly as usual and I got a range of amazing books [mainly photography], a Holga camera and enough money to pay for my Seb Rogers photo course in March. All good!
Went out this morning for a supposedly quick ride on the road bikes with Dad which turned in to a 22 mile ride through Atworth and over to Lacock taking in Bowden Hill which is a bit of a lung buster. Fairly fast paced ride but none of our preferred pubs were open so went back for a hot whiskey at Dad’s place and then went back to Mum’s for lunch. Had lamb which was ace!
Off to Wales for a trip to Afan with Gavin and also Erik who is over from Germany for Christmas.
Got up early this morning and took the new bike over to Tooting to meet Gary, Rob & Neil. Carried on over to Richmond park for three laps, back to Tooting then home again. A long and quite a fast ride. Loved it but shattered now. This little bundle of fun was waiting for me when I got home. Thanks Emma!
…for 2008. Finished work yesterday and have got two weeks booked off. No more Microstation, InDesign or Outlook! Looking forward to spending some time back in Bath and getting as much cycling in as possible.
Gav and I are doing the now almost traditional Boxing Day ride at Afan. A lap of Whites level and then back to the top to do the Skyline descent.
Not content with living in the Pyrenees and becoming self sufficent… He also gets to make an Igloo!
I haven’t been feeling great recently and have had a bit of a chesty cough and a bit of a cold. I still wanted to get some fresh air this weekend so arranged a ride with Vaughan, Matt, Graham and Dango. I didn’t actually ride though, just used the bike to get to the trails on the fireroad. I wanted to practice taking more action shots with remote flashes and balancing natural light. Swinley seemed like the perfect place as there is the jump gulley and also a load of trails on Surrey Hill that have berms, tables and various other trail features which are pretty good fun to session [ie come past me numerous times so I can take pics]. They’re all in a relatively small area so I could set up a shot and not wait too long for them to come around again.
I found setting these shots up considerably harder than the skate park the weekend before. In the skate park I shot in one place and waited for the action to happen gradually adjusting aperture and the flash power until I felt happy with the results. I think I shot a lot of the skate park on aperture priority and also wanted to get used to using the camera on full manual. I’ve been Reading up lots of the Strobist blog and also been looking through other sports shots on Flickr to try and get an idea of how to light them.
I shot around 320 images and edited these down to 50 or so. Some are better than others but the one I am most pleased with is this shot of Vaughan. That bright light behind is the sun low in the sky. I used to two flashes to freeze the action, illuminate him and also remove any shadows on his face. The flash to the left was on a mini tripod and the one to the right ball bungied to the tree.
I’m also pretty pleased with this one of a local rider taking on one of the bigger jumps on the jump gulley.
I think one of the hardest things was not actually setting up the lights but focusing on the rider as they came in to shot. For the shot of Vaughan I literally just popped the camer down low and without looking through the viewfinder pressed the button and hoped for the best. Getting the camera to focus this quickly on a moving target is pretty tough. I had to bin a fair few shots as the camera had focused on the background rather than the rider. I guess the best way to do it is to manual focus and get a large enough depth of field to capture the rider and press the shutter at exactly the right point. One more skill to learn I think… Lots more to learn but enjoying the process!
Emma just bought a Lomo Diana camera. Incredibly simple and easy to use. Manual pre-focus, one shutter speed. They’re famous for the poor image quality, light leakage and vignetting.
A few examples of Lomo photographs here on the UK Lomo Flickr group.
Would love one of these but thinking of getting one with the fisheye lens.
