High Speed Rail - Chinese Style
Light show in Guangzhou
Exploring the streets of Chengdu especially the Wide and Narrow Lanes (Kuan Xiangzi and Zhai Xiangzi)
I had another chance to visit Dubai and see the Campus which is now open for business. The City is still fun to visit although as I mentioned in my last blog it is sand, concrete and steel. A year later and I noticed a lot more new buildings. In some cases the photographs I had taken in 2017 would not be possible now. Fortunately there were new possibilities available and a selection are shown in my blog. I took my trusty travel camera the Sony RX100v5 with me. As you can see it is very versatile and offers the ability to capture the sight and sounds of this amazing city.
I went to one of favourite spots for picture taking. Knowle Locks offers all the necessary ingredients. Water reflections, perfect setting sun, trees and a high vantage point. Add some clouds and you have the chance to take a great picture. I took all the gear, tripod, DSLR camera, filters and a range of filters. Whilst I was there I snapped a quick picture with my iPhone and tagged it with #englandsbigpicture on my twitter handle. Should I be surprised that the iPhone picture was the one that made the BBC website.
Here is the link to England’s Big Picture
I am just catching up on my photographs. The following are a set of pictures taken in Knowle Park on a misty morning. There is a part of the park that they have just allowed to grow wild. The early mist brought out the spiders webs and the dog walkers look like beings from another planet. All the pictures were done with my Sony RX100v5 and interestingly the most spectacular one was done with the iPhone!!!
The spiders have been busy
September is always full of surprises and this year it has been no exception. But we now reach the last days of the month and autumn is around the corner. I am training for the Great Birmingham Run half marathon and I use the canal towpaths for my training runs. The bridge on Kixley Lane is a picturesque place and I noticed that the trees has started to turn colour. I decided to go back in the evening when there was enough light shinning on the trees. I packed all my lenses and I had a window of 30 to 40 minutes. I got some good pictures. The people on the long boat passing through asked if there was a photographic competition as they had noticed many people taking photos. I asked if I could show their picture on my photographic site and the man said jokingly yes I could if I cleaned his boat!!!!
I was fortunate enough to attend a conference in Melbourne. It was an interdisciplinary conference and included colleagues in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and rehabilitation sciences. There were many delegates from around the world and also there are many friends in the City itself. I always ensure that I travel with my camera and the Sony RX100M5 is an excellent around picture taker.
Melbourne is a photogenic city providing many opportunities for photographs. The streets were noisy with many people walking around both day and night. Federation square and Flinders street Station were human focal points to the city. Victoria Market with the looming skyscrapers surrounding it provided the contrast between the old and the new. I was particularly drawn to the differences in the architecture especially the old colonial houses with their steel verandas and gates. The Yarra river flowing through the centre is the life blood of the city. So much happens around the river during the day from the early rowers and the commuters to the evening where people congregating around the open air restaurants. It was a touch cold but spring was on its way. I took too many photographs and it is difficult to select a few for this blog and I hope you like the ones that are here.
Following on from the recent blog post Go West. I decided to feature the canals network on Eastside where there is a great deal of regeneration occurring mainly fuelled by the location of the HS2 at Curzon street station. Millennium point was the start of the development and with Birmingham City University building in the area, it has led to further developments. These include student accommodation and other small business enterprises. This is taking place in an area that was left derelict and the canal system still retains the grandeur of former days. I wandered around here with my Canon 6D and a 40 mm lens plus my Sony Camera. The 40 mm lens does make you think about your picture taking and you do have to move to get a good picture. The graffiti adds colour and may not to be everyone’s taste but I do like some of the local artists that paint in the area. There is still more development happening which is exciting to see although some of the old history may get eradicated in the process.
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It is always good when my diary has the free space for an Igersbirmingham instameet and I was lucky as this one coincided with Birmingham Heritage week. The venue was Aston Hall a place that I had not visited since my daughters were young. I expected changes to the layout of the Hall rooms but also, I was excited to visit the Long Gallery which is one of the major attractions of this grand house that is steeped in history. I will not elaborate much further on the history of the Hall as it can all be found on the Birmingham Museums web site
http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/aston
This visit was organised by Igersbirmingham who once again excelled at ensuring we had a worthwhile time with our cameras. We arrived an hour before the official opening and this allowed us the time to browse around the rooms and take photographs of the interesting places. I brought along my fisheye lens as I was hoping that this would provide a different view of the Long Gallery. I also worked with my Canon 5D and the 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses. I do get very excited about taking part in photographic events such as this one and it takes a while for me to settle down and concentrate on achieving good pictures. There are many different views and the Long Gallery view with the fisheye came out how I imagined it which was fortunate. However, I am always surprised on how others view my pictures and the Igersbirmingham team selected the picture of the chimneys on the roof for their blog on the meeting
http://www.igersbirmingham.co.uk/aston-hall-instameet
Many thanks to the Igers team of Beth, Fraser and Martin for their work and enthusiasm in running these Instameets
