Tag: black

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Canada 2015 – Wildlife

For the first blog post of 2016, some photos from last year when I went to Canada.  I’ve got lots of photos to share form my Canadian adventures… just ten at a time of course. 

One of the things I was looking forward to seeing and photographing was some of the wildlife that inhabits Canada.  On my list of wildlife to shoot, well photograph, was a whale, a moose, and a beaver.  I managed two of three, but had to cheat a bit with both of those as you’ll see below.  It’s disappointing to miss out on some of the wildlife I wanted to see so I guess I’ll just have to return to try again some time.

Most of the photos are from the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland where I spent the majority of my holiday.  

I did a whale spotting boat tour with O’Brien’s Whale and Bird Tours from Bay Bulls.  When I went, on an overcast day in September, it was just out of whale season and no whales appeared.  But I did photograph some puffins and eagles in the wild.  It was very cold out on the water so if you ever go be sure to take a big coat!  Ironically when we got back to dry land the weather started to improve and quickly became warm and sunny.

I also visited Salmonier Nature Park which is a government run conservation park.  The park is so vast that all the animals have lots of space which is always nice to see.

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Shiverpool in Liverpool

This is the first of three posts from a recent weekend trip to Liverpool.  The visit was originally planned around a ghost hunt at the abandoned Newsham Park Hospital, but that was cancelled at the last minute leaving a free weekend with accommodation booked.  So lots of tourist adventures were done, including an evening with Shiverpool…

Shiverpool run theatrical ghost tours around the city, a very entertaining way of learning the dark past of Liverpool and its people.  No actual science or ghost hunting, just good clean and occasionally spooky story telling and fun.

The tour was focused on the Hope Street area and featured Lucy Carew, aka Chiller Black, and Samantha Hill as Chiller’s sister.  One or more members of the Shiverpool crew lurked in the shadows from time to time too.

I’m delighted to say that Shiverpool liked the photos from the evening so much they’ve had a copy of them all, and even used them as part of their submission for the Liverpool City Region Tourism Awards!

I don’t want to give away too much about the tour, or spoil the surprises for anyone, other than to say it was really excellent and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Liverpool.  And if you’re in Oxford, then look out for Bill Spectre who does a similarly excellent ghost tour around the town.

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New Years Day at Didcot Railway Centre

New Years Day 2015 was quite dull, weather wise, but was brightened up by a visit to the Didcot Railway Centre.  Although I only live a few minutes walk from the Centre this was only my second visit.

It was lovely to walk around and see the trains on display and even ride on a couple of steam trains going up and down the track.  From a photography point of view the Centre offers rich pickings, whether outside amongst the rails and trains, or inside the buildings and sheds getting up close to the engines and carriages.

I took Olympus OMD E-M1 and shot with my Olympus 25mm f1.8 lens and the Samyang 7.5mm Fisheye.  As the weather was so dull, most of the photographs came out dull too… and so for the first time I processed the photos into black and white.  It’s great that the black and white grainy photos reflect the dirt and grime associated with the engineering of the steam age.