Weather warnings in July

I'm so glad I moved to Wales, but weater warnings for my area in July! I had plans to go out but they're a bit scuppered. On the plus side, I have just got my weatherproofing for my 7D, so I'm hoping to be able to use the bad weather to my advantage and go out and shoot landscapes and wildlife images that other people might not get out and capture. Always look on the bright side.

Help required with competition

Hello all

Last week I spent a couple of hours one afternoon photographing damselflies. Well, I am particularly pleased with one image (see the thumb below), so I have entered it into Digital Camera Magazine's Photographer of the Year competition. The competition is still open for entries and you can see all of them as they are uploaded by visiting the POTY site.

The images can be voted on by viewers, and the more votes an image has, the more likely it is to garner the attention of the judges. Here's where you come in. If you think my image worthy of a vote in the competition then I would love for you to go and vote for it at the below link. You would really be helping me out and I would be very grateful. While you're there check out some of the other images, there is some cracking photography being entered into the competition.

You have to register to vote but it's real easy and takes just two minutes. Also, they don't send you any email, spam or otherwise, so you don't have to worry about that. Registering just ensures that each person can only vote for an image once.

Anyway, just CLICK HERE to go to my entry, and if you would like to vote, just click on 'Vote to like this' below the image (after registering).

No Hawks, so I climbed a mountain!

I'm a little behind with my editing at the moment, I have just today been editing a shoot from the 18th June at Cwm Idwal. I went down to Cwm Idwal early in the morning (I arrived at about 7.30am) with the intent of waiting around for some RAF Hawks to fly through the Ogwen Valley on their training runs. Unfortunately the cloud cover was so dense that there was no hope of any hawks doing low level flight training, so I decided to scramble up Glyder Fawr, one of the highest peaks in Snowdonia (the fifth highest, over 3000ft!).
It took me about 50 minutes to climb up, I came up from the Cwm Idwal side only to find when I reached the top that there is a path on the Tryfan side, I was hit with a mixed feeling of accomplishment and despair at the same time, I couldn't believe I'd put in all that energy when there had been a path all along, at least I'll know for next time. Anyway, from near the top there were some fantastic views, when I could see them, the cloud cover was insane! The wind kept blowing it over Glyder Fawr, one minute I could see some lovely views, with some great low cloud to boot, the next minute I could barely see 5 feet in front of me! It was a little disconcerting being someone who suffers from vertigo, 3000ft odd up in the air, near the edge and not being able to see 5 feet! Anyway, I ended up with some good shots (well, I think they're good) which will be posted to my flickr account soon, I just thought I'd post this one up so you can see the conditions. This was from near the top of Glyder Fawr looking over Cwm Idwal to Y Garn, you can't see Llyn Idwal or the rest of the recess of Cwm Idwal at all. For a comparison, this is a shot of Cwm Idwal and the lake Llyn Idwal from lower down the side of Glyder Fawr on a clear day. I was higher up the slope, and Y Garn is the peak to the left of this image.

I did get some aircraft shots just before leaving for home, but they were of a couple of helicopters rather than jets. The RAF were out training some of their defence helicopter pilots. I'll be going back for the Hawks.

Cwm Idwal

Well I just spent the evening at the absolutely beautiful area of Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. I got there at 6.30pm but because of the high altitude and high terrain around the area the sunlight wasn't falling on the areas I had planned to photograph. Still, I got some nice images and will be revisiting, but in the morning I think, to make the most of the direction and softness of early morning light.

I will post the images in the next few days once I have completed edits. I am still editing a few shots from our trip up the Great Orme the other day.

North Wales

Well the move is complete and we're mostly settled in. I love it up here, there is an absolute abundance of different locations to explore and shoot. I have started and look forward to continuing. From countless different castles, to some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen (with the exception of some Jurrasic Coast sites), to Snowdonia National Park, the possibilities are endless. I think I'm going to enjoy it here.

Keep up to date with all my photographs by following my flickr account.

Dorset

Headed home to Dorset for the weekend just past. Was a chance to see the family and do a bit of photography before the move to Wales next week. I can't believe I'm going to be six hours away from my lovely Dorset, and Devon for that matter. But I will be right on the border of Snowdonia National Park, and there's also some beautiful coastline along the North Wales coast.

There are a few images below, but check out my flickr account for all the images.

An update on our lizards

Just found out today that the two Blue Spiny Swifts mentioned in the previous post are only 3 weeks old! Not happy at being told they were 12 weeks old. Mortality rate for reptiles and amphibians drops after about 3 months, if you can get them past this point you stand a much better chance of seeing them to adulthood. I don't know why the guys in the pet shop told us they were 12 weeks when we have a VERY good friend that also works there, they must have known she'd tell us. I could have them done for it, it's crazy. Anyway, our friend was so furious that they had misled us that she gave us the three surviving youngsters from the clutch. One of our original was (and still is) looking weak, and two of the latest three don't look too good either, but the other two are very active and alert. Looks like we may lose up to three (partly because the guys in the pet shop were trying to feed them crickets that were FAR too big for them), but the other two are looking very strong. I'll keep you posted on how they're getting on, and hopefully have a few images up soon.