Where you been?
Hi all! Sorry for the lack of blogs recently, been distracted by other things, summer photography doesn’t inspire me as much as other seasons, although as you will see it has its moments!
First of all a holiday to France happened. My partner has family out there so we headed over for a nice relaxing trip……straight into the worst heatwave France has EVER had! 45 degrees for four days straight and it never once dipped below 25 degrees at night. Most of the time I was sweating like a glass blowers bottom! On top of the that we both got hammered by mosquitos on the first couple of nights there so spent the entire holiday dealing with the bites (we both react badly to them). I didn’t do much photography but I managed a trip out early one morning to film and photograph a ruined château I found while searching the area for places to visit. It was six am and 30 degrees when I took this image…
This place would look even more stunning in autumn!
It was nice to see the family but Jayne and I have decided we wont be going to France in the summer any more!
Next up the van. I am having some serious issues with the leisure batteries and solar panel side of the electrics. On the way back from France we used the fridge, expecting it to be fine on the 9 hours it takes to get home….it wasn’t. The power ran out at some point on the trip home and since then I have been unable to get power back until yesterday when it seemed the system decided to come alive again and start to power up the batteries. It seems fine running the lights and the pump for the water but anything more juicy and it cant cope. So my solution is to get another 12v fridge that I can either plug into the power station or directly into the vans own 12v supply to replace the current one. This should solve the problem until I can get round to removing the solar set up entirely and replace it with a larger power station. On the plus side I did manage a nights sleep in it on the first night in France and it was comfortable enough. The tinkering continues but its getting there!
Whilst in France my local spot in Somerset was hit by the mother of all storms and I saw some incredible photographs of the gigantic shelf cloud that swept over the county. I was a bit miffed to say the least! But the night after we got home we had an incredible electrical storm so I was straight out the front door and chased it over Somerset and north Dorset for a few hours until it petered out. As always when photographing lightning it was intense and exhilarating to both witness and photograph. At one point I could taste the lightning it was that close to me!
Taken from a viewpoint near my home town.
I have also taken up a couple more hobbies. Even though I am now a “full time” photographer the reality is I have plenty of spare time on my hands. I have taken up fishing again to fill some of that time. I have always been an angler over the years and have experience with shore fishing, course and carp fishing too. My Dad was also an excellent angler and its nice to follow in his footsteps and get back into something we both enjoyed. Hope you are watching Dad! The van doubles up as a nice fishing wagon for this too. Kill two birds with one stone! My other hobby is painting Warhammer miniatures. Now this one was a gamble as my eyes are very much not of the quality they were 30 years ago when I used to work for Games Workshop as a store manager and was very big into this hobby! The models are now all plastic instead of mostly being metal as they were back in my day and the quality of them is light years ahead of what I was used to. However the eyes are slowly getting used to the tiny details and I actually think they are strengthening them as I am finding it easier to see them. I guess the body adapts right?
Bare in mind these models are just a few centimetres tall!
Finally I did manage to get out into my beloved woodlands for a session last week when we had some surprise fog here in Somerset. My mate Dave got some cracking images of Foxglove in one of our local woodlands whilst I was on holiday and luckily there were still some there when I paid a visit. I also paid a visit to Bruce the oak with my drone.
This area of the woods is slowly starting to recover after being hacked apart a year or so ago…
The print sales in the local florist are not going well. I think they may be in the wrong position but its the only space available to me so I just hope it picks up a bit. I am to blame too as not been proactive enough in pushing sales on my socials.
I think we are all caught up! Its been a weirdly busy time for me and I am still getting used to not having a structured full time job. Anything that throws me off my routine can have a negative impact on my mental health and I guess an element of that has crept in recently as I learn to adapt to my new lifestyle. Not seeking sympathy, just stating a fact!
Planning a trip to the coast over the weekend to chase the milky way again so looking forward to that. And the Perseid meteor shower is starting to show so keep your eyes peeled at night folks you might just catch a glimpse of one or two.
Thats it for now
Toodles!