May ‘09 Review
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009I started off the month with a bit of a disaster – managing to drop my camera and trusty 24-105mm lens, which resulted in this:
[Potential disaster strikes on 2nd May. Ouch!]
I can’t stress enough the benefits of having a UV or skylight filter on the front of your expensive lenses – in the end, this was all that was damaged, even though it took a trip to the Camera service centre to get the thing off the lens! A nailbiting few days before I knew if I had caused more damage, but thankfully not.
Sunday 3rd was the date of the annual Stebbing Scramble, which I attended with some friends from GNPC. I took my monster 100-400mm lens for a spin, and managed to get some great action shots.
The one on the left was a close runner for Day #489: [Up The Hill - coming out of the water jump]
There is a whole set on Flickr which I took during the afternoon.
May 14th also saw the momentous milestone of reaching Day #500! I thought a cake with candles was the least I could do – but didn’t manage too many other shots as I spent a large chunk of the day driving to visit Alistair in Newcastle.
Although I’ve been further north to Jedburgh and visited nearby Durham and Middlesborough, it was the first time I had been to Newcastle. There are loads of things to see and photograph, and I had an excellent week despite the mixed weather!
Most of the Friday was miserable but in the early evening the sun poked through the clouds so we took a walk around the Tyne, over the bridge and visited the Millennium Centre in Gateshead. There are some great shots here. This one was a very close runner up for Day #501:
[Contrasts - inside the Giant Glass Slug]
We also enjoyed a trip to the seaside followed by an evening Newcastle Photo Walk on the Monday. The weather wasn’t quite as good for that, but I liked the urban gritty feel I got with this shot on Day #504:
[Your Future This Way]
On 24th it was another Chelmsford Photo Walk meet, where Rodney and I did the Springfield – Great Baddow stretch of the Centenary Circle. It was very hot, so we had to slap on the sun cream or risk frying. Here are some images taken during the walk, but my favourite which didn’t make it for Day #510 was this:
[Red, Green, Blue, Yellow - lichens on a bridge across the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation just south of Cuton Lock]
On 28th I spent a pleasant day with a friend looking around Kew Gardens, but the weather wasn’t too great so I didn’t really get many good shots.
Finally, back up North at the end of the month, this time for BarCampLeeds. I liked this bit of architecture, close to the venue, but it didn’t really echo the essence of the day in the same way my choice for Day #517 did:
[Rusty Cladding - I've since been told it's called Corten Steel. Who knew?]
Tags: action, alistair macdonald, architecture, broken, filter, lens, lichen, motorcycle, newcastle, sage centre, scramble, subway, urban
