A Walk Around Mellor

For the past twenty years or so I've been going on a monthly walk with a small group of friends. We take it in turns to organise the walk, which is usually somewhere in Wales, the Peak District, the Lakes or the Yorkshire Dales. For the March walk we decided to do something much closer to home, on the east side of Stockport, and were blessed with a fantastic day. Today was all about fresh air, beautiful colours, warm Spring sunshine and, especially, strong light and crisp shadows. The variety of shots I managed today (all on my Canon G9 compact) was amazing. Here's hoping for more kind weather and beautiful light for the photo-rambles I'll be organizing later in the year.

The striking simplicity of this majestic old tree against the March sky.....

Beautiful colours and shadows in Mellor churchyard....

Playing with shadows at Cobden Cross....

Totally unstaged, a couple of locals enjoying the Spring sunshine outside the pub....

One of the many railway tunnels on the route....

Probably my favourite image from the day. Beautifully subtle colours in this detail from an old wooden railway truck being used for storage on a farm near to Roman Lakes.... As the sun sinks slowly in the west.....

Glorious low evening sunlight on this farmyard....

A classic sunset image to finish....

An Easter Break

Janet and I have had a very pleasant and relaxing Easter break. The weekend kicked off with a visit to our god-daughter Sarah. As you know, Sarah has more than her fair share of problems and a recent virus hasn't helped. She still manages to cheer everyone up with her gummy smile though, and is doing well. She has a major heart op coming soon - no one has told her yet!

Then followed a couple of days staying with our friends Jo and Martyn Pearson and their boys in St Annes on the Fylde. After a wet and windy day on Friday we were blessed with a beautiful morning on Saturday, perfect for a walk down the dunes towards Lytham. The combination of dunes and cloud was a photographer's dream, captured here on my trusty Canon G9.

Back at home for Sunday, an Easter day roast with friends and family was followed by a catch-up day on Monday, nicely rounding off a very 'chilled out' break.

A whistlestop tour of Malta

Yesterday, after three days of hard work at the MIPP conference, our Maltese hosts treated Janet and me and the rest of the UK party to a trip around the island and a taster of the delights of Malta. Our base for the weekend, the Corinthia in San Gorg, was a very comfortable hotel and made a superb location for a photographic convention, but it was relief to escape our modern surroundings and get out to see some of the real Malta on our final day. Our whistlestop tour included Mosta, Dingli Cliffs and the Blue Grotto, Valletta, Mdina and Marsaxlokk. Needless to say that with only a few hours to spare we didn't get a lot of time for serious photography, but we did enjoy the beautiful November weather and saw enought of the country to convince us that Malta is a photographer's paradise.

Golden light in the alleyways of the ancient city of Mdina...

The fishing village of Marsaxlokk is famous for it's colourful fishing boats, but looking inland this colourful doorway also caught my eye.Mediterranean cats always make appealing subjects.....

After our brief taster, one thing is sure - we'll be making a return visit......

Postcard from Lytham

Brooding skies, almost empty beach, imminent downpours....yes, it's the British seaside Bank Holiday! Janet and I were visiting our photographer friends Jo and Martyn last Monday. Having aborted our planned beach barbecue (I wonder why?) we did manage a mid-afternoon walk down the sea front before the heavens opened. Still, it made for an interesting shot across the sands, captured on my Canon G9 compact.

Postcard from Greece

Janet and I have just returned from a holiday sailing around the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. Normal service at Michael Turner Photography is slowly being resumed, though after two weeks of hot and sunny weather we're not impressed that it's still cool and showery here in the UK. It's OK, we don't expect sympathy!
We were sailing with our good friend Jonathan Chandler, his partner Conny, their summertime skipper Lex and an American couple from Connecticut, Conrad and Amy. This was a busman's holiday for Jonathan, he spends the rest of the summer running skippered charters around the Greek Islands. Jonathan was born in Greece, educated at Dartmouth Naval College and employed firstly in the Hong Kong Police and then in the world of corporate sailing in the USA (America's Cup, Whitbread Round the World Race). A colourful background to say the least. Now he has settled back in his home country and his local knowledge and understanding of Greek culture (and especially the food) gives an extra dimension to a sailing trip that can't be matched by the big charter companies. You can check out his website at http://www.sailcharter-greece.com/.

Jonathan's pride and joy, and our home for the past two weeks, Koralia3...

This was an active sailing holiday for us, rather than a photographic trip, but we did manage to take 'one or two' pictures along the way. This is a tiny selection :

A typical street scene on Poros, our first port of call after sailing out of Alimos Marina in Athens...

A sunrise walk around the harbour on Elafonisos island at the southern tip of the Peloponnese rewarded me with a portrait of this amazing looking character preparing his fishing boat. I don't speak fluent Greek (only a few words in fact) but a gesture to the camera and 'en-dak-zee?' (that's Greek for OK) and he was happy to pose.

Two more pictorial shots from my early morning walk...

Random images from the most southerly island on our voyage - Kythira...

If you think that Greece is completely dry in August you may be surprised to see this shot of an ethereal waterfall we found at Mylopotamos on Kythira island...

And finally...for our friends who think that our sailing in the Aegean is the same as going on a cruise, in other words lounging on board a luxury yacht drinking ouzo all day, think again....this is Janet in action raising the mizzen, nonchalantly assisted by Lex!

Nice Weather for Waterfalls

...and ducks! Last Wednesday I had my monthly outing with my walking friends. We successfully managed to arrange it for the wettest day of the month, if not the year! The walk was on the borders of the Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes, east of Sedbergh - normally very scenic but today, very wet! My camera stayed nice and dry in my rucksack for most of the day, but fortunately the rain eased when we arrived at Uldale Force on the River Rawthey.

This was my favourite image, hand held at a 1/15th second. I converted it to black and white to emphasise the graphic effect of the rushing water. Here's hoping for a drier walk next month!

Misty morning in the Forest of Dean

I was pleased to find out today that I've picked up a Gold Award in the May judging of the SWPP monthly on-line print competition. I captured this shot early one autumn morning in the Wye Valley, between Monmouth and Symond's Yat (one of our favourite areas for short breaks).

Travelling light, I shot this on my Canon G9 compact, an ideal camera for slipping in my pocket on an early morning dog walk. Misty effects like this don't last long - between the sun peeping over the edge of the valley and the mist vanishing was literally a matter of minutes. Proof, as if it was needed, that it's worth getting up early if you want to capture landscape photographs with a difference. Just don't forget the camera!

Paris in the Spring

Last week Janet and I spent a few days in Paris with friends. We took the opportunity to be inspired in some of the major art galleries, notably the Louvre, L'Orangerie and my favourite (for the huge collection of Impressionist paintings), the Musee D'Orsay. Needless to say we had our cameras with us! Avoiding the obvious touristy views, these are some of my favourite shots from the week. Shopping and Paris go hand in hand. This fashion store window made an interesting backdrop, and a busy passer by on her mobile phone completed the scene.... People taking photographs of each other make great subject for candid photography...... here we're in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. In the Louvre. The tourist paparazzi ?

And who was the celebrity they were desperate to capture? Yes, that famous lady, the Mona Lisa. I'm fascinated to know what all these people are going to do with their own snap of Leonardo da Vinci's painting...hang a print of it on the wall? Or is it simply a case of proving to family back home that they've seen the real thing? Another tourist 'must-do' ticked off the list. Quite amusing really...I wonder whether Leonardo could have ever imagined these scenes when he set out to paint his iconic portrait way back in 1504....

Scenes reminiscent of Lowry paintings, shot through the upstairs windows of the Louvre. I avoided reflections from the windows by pressing my lens close up to the glass.....

Back outside, and a heavy shower on it's way helped to create this moody lighting in the Jardin des Tuileries and on the roof of L'Orangerie in the background.....

The view from the Arc de Triomphe, looking back towards La Defense and the commercial district on another showery evening.

Looking upwards in the spiral staircase that takes you to the top of the Arc. It reminds me of a snail shell.

Nervous drivers should look away now.......this isn't a picture of a car park, but the circular road that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe. Traffic comes in from all directions and each vehicle has to battle across the roundabout to exit by one of the twelve avenues that converge on this point. An amazing sight for the spectator, and every motor insurance company's worst nightmare!

And finally.......I couldn't resist this candid shot of a headless man reading one of the descriptive labels in the Louvre........

Over and Underground in the Dales

I regularly go walking with a group of friends, often in one of the spectacularly beautiful National Parks that we have within a couple of hours drive from our homes in Greater Manchester. As well as fresh air and exercise it gives me the opportunity to shoot a few landscapes and detail pictures just for fun.

April's walk was around (and up) Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales. No sooner had we set off from Clapham village when this disused tunnel presented the first 'Close Encounters' photo-opportunity of the day. There is no posing and my friends didn't even know I was taking the shot - I had to quickly get my camera ready before they disappeared into the distance.

It was windy today! These dry grasses caught in a fence reminded of photographs I've seen of Tibetan Prayer Flags (mostly in Himalayan mountaineering books by Chris Bonington, Doug Scott and Co.). I believe it can be a bit breezy in the Himalayas too!. Although the day was bright and dry, the effect of shooting into the Spring sun (trying it's best to peep through the clouds) created some brooding black and white Yorkshire Dales landscapes.

On the slopes of Ingleborough, close to Alum Pot, we came across the entrance to Long Churn Caves...and ventured in. We hadn't expected this cave system to be so accessible, but even though it was pitch black and had a stream running through it (half a metre deep in places), we manged to navigate quite a way down the caves with just one small torch between us.

It's worth mentioning that people have died in these caves in wet weather as recently as 2007 -these tunnels are prone to flash floods. The weather today, and for the previous few days, had been bone dry and with no prospect of rain for the rest of the day we were perfectly safe. We wouldn't have gone down if it had been raining and I would recommend extreme caution when exploring any of the pots and caves in the Dales.

From a photographic point of view I'd been expecting an overground walk today, not an underground one, so I was totally unprepared for photgraphing such a difficult subject. Once inside the caves it was totally dark so I had to manually set the focus by the light of a pencil torch and had no option but to use the pop-up flash on my Nikon D200. The results are a good record of the experience but I doubt I'll be entering them for any awards!

This area of the Yorkshire Dales is famous for it's limestone pavement scenery. I spotted this formation that looked almost as though it could have been carved out by ancient civilisations in times past.

The general views around Ingleborough in the afternoon were very hazy, but later in the day as we descended back towards Clapham we were treated to beautiful evening light catching the tops of these limestone cliffs.

And finally.....a wide angle lens isn't the most flattering for portraits but this little pony was very inquisitive and I couldn't resist capturing this whimsical viewpoint.