Category: Travel Photography

Photography from my travels

A Break in the Storms

A Break in the Storms

As I mentioned in my last post, we recently spent a couple of days on the Isle of Wight. As we all know, the weather has been very stormy recently and it was a bit hit and miss as whether we could get across and what sort of weather we would get.

Well, as with most of our trips there, we where lucky and had a few days of non stormy weather and even some sunshine.
On the first day we got down on to Bembridge beach. I always wonder just how many beach huts are still there each time we go.

This one look liked it had suvived intact, although getting to it might be a problem!




Day two took us in search of dinosaur bones on the southern coastline. I’d done some research into which of the beaches & bays would be good to find them on and it was a place I’d never been to before. Getting there was another issue though! The storms had caused the undercliff road to fall away, which meant a bit of a detour, up a very steep road! An hour after setting off we got to the narrow lane to take us to the car park at the very end, but blocking this single track lane, was a lorry doing some work on someones garden. This made it totally impassable! Giving up on that, I thought I’d try a couple of the Chines along the military road.

This is what we found




So we gave in and went to a fossil shop in Yarmouth. At least I got that photo from the cliff edge being buffetted by the wind. I was pleased with the result!

Day three, took as to the Dinosaur Isle Museum and then on to Havenstreet. That was closed as they were doing maintanance work on the tracks, even though it was half term. We were still allowed in to look around though.




That evening, we headed back to Bembridge beach in the hope of a bit of a sunset. I was quite lucky and got a couple of shots like this.



So, we had ok weather, but our plans were thawted a little by what had gone before.

More HDR photos from the Isle of Wight can be viewed here Isle of Wight HDR

A Short Break

A Short Break

We had a short break on the Isle of Wight. We visit there once or twice a year, but this time was the first time that our youngest was walking around on his own, so he throughly enjoyed exploring all the places we visited.

I had wanted to visit some of the southern coastlines to get some interesting shots with rock in the foreground and long exposured water, but as with most things, time conspired against us.

So we I had to settle for the scenery where we were visiting, or where we were passing. As usual with the island, it didn’t disappoint.

Robin Hill adventure park was great for kids, but it was also great for scenery!

I had wanted to try some more vertorama photography (2 or more photos, vertical panorama), so I tried it out on a couple of occassions. This is a view at Robin Hill


View at Robin Hill

Another view that is great is Brading Down, so I tried the another vertorama


View from Brading Down

I have now created a few of these, so I am going to create a Vertorama section to the website, under Creative

Ahh, Venice…

Ahh, Venice…

Ahh, Venice
How I miss you,
Your crumbing walls,
Your vivid colours,
Canals so green,
Buildings so bright,
Bridges to islands,
Islands to bridges,
Alleyways to squares
and doors to nowhere.*

* (C) Lee Orchard

Venice Inspiration

Venice Inspiration

After seeing some similar photos on Flickr, I was inspired to try something similar with mine. I had done a textured image of Ronda, but Venice is something totally different!

Venetian Canal

Rugged Ronda

Rugged Ronda

I thought I’d blog this in case you haven’t seen it.

Ronda Puente Nuevo

It’s a photo I took in 2004 but I have run it through topaz and added it texture.

I’m also posting all of this from my phone so we’ll see if it works! hmm, maybe not, couldn’t link to the photo.

Black and White

Black and White

Things are still frantic!! We are so near to starting the extension on the house, its great! Still got many other things on the go too! TheFlyingDucks.co.uk website is completed and another about to start!

Also I’ve been playing with the new Topaz Lab plugin, Black and White. Here is one of the images I’ve created!

Old Venice

Look into my Eyes…

Look into my Eyes…

I’ve been going through old photos again!

A while back I saw an image taken at Sedlec Ossaury (The Church of Bones) in the Czech Republic that was processed in black and white and I thought it really suited the topic.

So, I thought I’d try a similar process on one of my photos.

Here is the result!

Skull @ Sedlec Ossuary

Please let me know what you think

Seeing the Potential

Seeing the Potential

When I took this photo, I saw the potential in it.  The problem was, the image out of the camera just didn’t do it justice.


So after straightening it, turning the jpegs into tiffs and putting them in photomatix,  I then made it black and white and this was the result.  The potential I saw was revealed!

More Venice

More Venice

Still picking out the occasional Venice photo and running it through Photomatix.  This one in fact is now hanging on the wall at work in the companies camera club exhibition.

I know the sky went pink, but I like it.

I’m also preparing these for the up and coming Surrey Artist Open Studio.

An Amazing Compliment

An Amazing Compliment

Yesterday I was on my Flickr page checking to see if I had any new comments, when I found this on my Crumbling Venice image.

Crumbling Venice

“Hi Lee…..that is one amazing shot….i just had to sit and soak in awe of how captivating it is to the eye! You are amazingly creative and have captured multitudes of stunning shots! Textures, DOF, color…they are all breathtaking! Thank you for sharing your incredible gift of creativity and talent…perusing through your photo stream is the pause that refreshes! I hope you never tire of hearing the “Wow” about your work….I am sure people don’t tire in saying it! Grateful for the walk through your masterpieces!! I”

Wow,  this was amazing and it made my day!  I’ve had a lot of great and nice comments on my images over the years, but I think this one has to be one of the top!

Prague

Prague

Last weekend we had planned to visit Prague.

Not being to sure of the weather we took clothes for cooler weather too. As it happened, Saturday and Sunday were quite hot, and nice sunny weather. This is great for walking around in t-shirts, but it does mean your photos have a clear blue sky, which isnt always what you want.

Saying that the sun does light up the buildings nicely in the evening giving a lovely glow. We explored all around Prague and also visited Kutna Hora and the Ossuary “Church of Bones”.

Here are just a couple of images from Prague Old Town that I have sorted out so far.

This is the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square, taken on our first evening. Of course, its one of the first things you head for when you are in Prague!

Prague Clock (HDR)

As you can see the weather changed as predicted on the last day, but it really makes for a dramatic image.

Dancing Building (HDR)

This is the Fred and Ginger, or Dancing Building. It was pretty wet and we had to wait ages on a small island in the middle of a busy junction!

More images to follow!

Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

Recently we visited the Isle of Wight.

This was our first visit this year and we had built up a list of places to visit and shot we wanted to try and get.

The as it turned out, the weather was nice, although rain did threaten to make it difficult for us.

We visited Ventnor and walked all along the coast, finding some interesting bays, passing through Steephill Cove and ending up at Orchard Bay!

We had planned to try and get some sunset images and a beach called Woody Bay. However, we didn’t know how to get to it. With a little driving and following a map, as close as you can when looking for footpath signs, we eventually found a sign to the bay. Heading across the fields and down on the beach, we’d made it! Now we realised that it was the wrong time of year for sunsets in that bay! Anyway, it was still very picturesque and I got a few lovely images.

For the sunset we went to St Catherines, and ended up waiting 30mins for it to set! We were early! The sky was dramatic and we watched the rain pass us by, only having to huddle over the cameras once!

Here are a couple of images from the day.

Steephill Cove

Steephill Cove (HDR)

Orchard Bay

Orchard Bay (HDR)

Woody Bay

Woody Bay II (HDR)

St Catherines

Catherines Fiery Skies
Holiday Snaps

Holiday Snaps

Ok, as promised, & 1 whole month after returning from holiday 🙁 I have some holiday photos to show.We went to Sicily, and it was hot! We did lots of walking, visiting places and seeing the temples. The area we stayed in though was very busy with cars and a bit stuffy with all the fumes. This made exploring it very difficult, but it was worth it as there was so much to see.

Just outside Palermo there were some lovely small towns with Cathedrals and a couple of picturesque beaches.

Here are a couple of the photos.

I haven’t finished the sicily gallery section yet, so this is just a small selection.