Couple of new ones from me, haven't been out as much  as I'd like as works been busy and my backs been giving me some jip on and off for a few weeks, hopefully things have settled down on both accounts so I might be able to get out and about more.

I'm also trying some of my photos without the usual border/logo on as I'm not sure if it really adds much or isn't easily removed in photoshop.


123, 122, 121, 120, 119... by russellcram, on Flickr


ISS Flyover by russellcram, on Flickr


Finchale Priory by russellcram, on Flickr

Wouldn't say I'm 100% happy with the last shot as I think I've over done it with the Neutral Density Filter over the top half of the photo so I've had to push it quite a bit in photoshop to get any sort of detail and it just still doesn't look too well balanced.  I've got a couple of other shots to edit from there but if they don't come out to well and the weather is decent I might pop back over as its only 20-25 minutes away by car and maybe look at doing something like an HDR shot as well as a filtered shot.

Was going to say, looks like a bit of fringing or something in the trees in the last shot, everything below the horizon seems ok though.

Is 123,122... a wooden escalator? Pretty cool. I've been meaning to try some B&W photography recently.

This week I'm pretty much outside in a woodland and field area, with nothing much to do, I'm hoping to get a few decent photographs of things whilst out there...

I noticed those trees when I was editing it and can't really explain it properly, could be some reflections from filters as I might have had 2 or 3 filters on for that shot, haven't seen that before though so not sure if that's the answer.  I need to go back and do it as an HDR shot, that'll probably give them best results just got to wait for the right night and see if I can get there.

Yeah its the wooden escalator in the Pedestrian Tyne Tunnel which are apparently the longest wooden escalators in the UK or maybe even Europe, they're about to replace one of the escalators at each end of the tunnel with an inclined lift thing thats going to totally spoil it, got till the 20th of May to get any more shots before they close the place for a year.  I've done a few B&W's recently which is surprising I never thought I'd do that many but they can really make an image pop when there isn't much colour in it.

Sounds like an opportunity to get some shots in, seen the macro ones so that's a good start to the week, lets just hope it doesn't start raining or something!

A wildlife shot from me along with some details as which make it an interesting ish tale:


Poor Mrs Blackbird by russellcram, on Flickr


Around 2 weeks ago my parents were pleased to find that a pair of blackbirds had started to build a nest in amongst some pallets in their back garden.  Having not had a chance to do much wildlife photography since moving out a few years ago I took the opportunity to dust off my 400mm lens and get snapping.

All seemed to be going well until I called in on my way past to find two very concerned parents, they had came home to find lots of feathers strewen around the garden and there had been no sign of the female blackbird that night.  A quick wander about and too my dismay I found the severed head of an unlucky blackbird.  That's not to say that the unlucky bird was the nesting blackbird but it is strongly looking that way.  What could have happened to Mrs Blackbird?  Well a few weeks before the blackbirds started to nest my parents had a much larger and deadlier visitor in their garden, a male sparrowhawk, I think, as the only pictures they have were taken on a blackberry.

Hopefully for the sake of our blackbirds the sparrowhawk will stay away, but not before it lets me get a few photos...

Was up at 4am yesterday morning to take in a sunrise at St Marys lighthouse just up the coast from me, managed a couple of decent shots got more to upload as well.


That Lighthouse by russellcram, on Flickr


In a Rush to Get to St Marys by russellcram, on Flickr

Edit: These both look a little flat on my laptop monitor, hopefully its just that and not the shots in general, they looked good on my PC's monitor.

Also just booked up over the weekend to go to Sorrento later in the year with my parents as a sort of family holiday for my Mam's 60th, I've already started looking for places to go just need to work out what gear I'm taking and get that insurance sorted.

Last sunrise shot...


And Slowly She Rises by russellcram, on Flickr

Few weeks ago I managed to find a screen shot of my flickr views from 22nd Jan last year just after I took the photos of the Aurora and started to get loads of views, at the time I had 5348 views and I think I'd had my flickr account since 2007.  I set myself a little goal to get 10,000 views in a year, I missed checking my flickr views on the 22nd, but as of the 23rd I had 15990 views, so I've had 10642 views in a calendar year which I'm quite chuffed about since I'd only been averaging 1000 views a year before that.

Don't think I'll quite manage another 10000 views in the next year as my aurora photos make up about 3000 views of that 10k but I'll try

So I got 10,000 views last year and was rather pleased with that, well things are continuing quite well, that last shot and the one I posted yesterday have taken me to 26,007 views, so since the 23rd Jan I've had 10,017 views in 107 days, am averaging 93 views per day!  If this continues I could be on for 30k views this year alone, hopefully that's possible but lets just stick with the next 10,000 views first I think.

St Marys Seal by russellcram, on Flickr

How are you doing the italic equipment sub-titles in your descriptions? Manually and typing out the <i> tags yourself, or is there some function somewhere I've not spotted?

The seal photo is pretty cool, nicely exposed in difficult lighting conditions.

Yeah its just manually putting in the <i> html tags when I upload the photo, strangely sometimes it strips them out so I have to put them back in, can't see anywhere to get it to put them in automatically.

Thanks, it was getting quite dark so I did wonder at the time how they'd all come out, especially as its hand held.  Got another half dozen of them but I don't think I'll upload all of them, well not yet anyway lol