My wife, Susan, grew up on re-runs of American 80s shows set around Santa Monica, Malibu & LA. This lead to dreams of visiting those places on holiday. Our first trip to the US together was to Houston, to A buffy the Vampire convention (yep, we’re nerds). After that, whilst still in the Navy, we made it across to Santa Monica & Malibu a few times. Susan has always been a huge fan of Ford Mustangs & we were able to rent them on our holidays.
Susan behind the wheel of a Mustang on the Pacific Coast Highway.
I have many favourites in the flower world, but I thought I’d concentrate on perhaps the most bizarre looking; the orchid. I think the appeal of orchids is the fact that some look decidedly otherwordly or from a different time period.
I thought for this challenge I’d look at some of the older parts of the cities that are, to my mind, far more interesting than the modern glass edifices that are everywhere nowadays. Starting with Edinburgh on a bit of a gloomy day.
Hi All 👋 My entry for this week’s challenge, set by Patti: Motion.
This first series of shots was of an aerial battle envolving 3 ravens on a snowy & misty morning. I was shooting at the limit of my 18-300mm zoom in low light conditions which was not ideal. The end result is that the pictures aren’t as crisp as I would normally want, but I think it adds to the overall chaos of aerial combat.
This first shot is of a sunrise I captured in the coastal town of Arbroath, Scotland, & is my number one choice. To capture this meant an early rise whilst on holiday–with sunrise at about 0530. I’d also looked at the weather for the morning & the conditions looked like they would be ideal. We were up (yes, my long-suffering wife came with me) at about 0430, had a quick breakfast & headed to the seafront to get a good vantage point. There was a bank of low cloud sitting on the horizon with higher cloud above catching the sun’s colours before it arrived, which I took several shots of. Finally, the sun peeked over the top of the clouds & turned the world orange just as a small fishing boat left the harbour. The fishing boat is more of a silhouette, just like the gulls following it, but you can see the light glowing through the windows of the wheelhouse. There was also an interesting reflection off the seawall top–on the left of the picture. I love the scene as a whole, but it’s also the fact it was a planned-for-shot that worked & the fishing boat was an added bonus.
