Just taken a fantastic trip to Chobe River, Botswana with a couple of friends, Jenny and Mo and we stayed in a fantastic lodge which had good resturants and a swimming pool (not used, too busy); the weather was perfect, probably a little too hot in the afternoon. The main part of the trip was 7 days on a motor boat with swivel chairs and gimbals for the cameras. I was able to borrow, as part of the deal, a 600mm lens which I had to use on a Nikon camera, " I have Canon", which took a bit of getting used to, more so using the gimbals in conjunction with the swivel seats and of course using a prime 600mm lens. I did get some great shots of birds and animals on the shoreline and islands. Chobe River is famous for its elephants of which there were hundreds. I didn't expect to take so many bird images thinking there would be loads of different animals coming to the river to drink. I will produce a full page of images for my website after I have done my processing but in the meantime below, a sample of images from the trip.
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My first real cruise which was with Fred Olsen Lines to the Norway Fjords and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very impressed with the shows and below is a sample of the dance teams..
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I spent a day out on The Solent in a Motorised Catamaran, chasing yachts taking part in the Cowes Regatta. It was great fun and fortunately the weather wasn't too bad for photography. I mainly used my 400mm lens to capture close in shots of the yachts keeling over to get drama.
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I went to take images of the Shrouds of Somme, it was a sea of shrouds all laid out in Northernhay Gardens, Exeter remembering the 19240 Allied Servicemen who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme 100 years ago. Rob Heard a Somerset artist created each of the 12 inch plastic figures in a hand stitched shroud and they were laid on the 1 July 2016 in the Gardens at 7.30 am. He added a further 150 to commerate the soldiers who died through their wounds who were in the battle on the first day.
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Rob Heard |
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I took a short trip to Javea where I was able to get some interesting doors, windows and roof shapes at Cabo La Nao. I also visited Valencia and spent most of myh time there at the Science Park taking different angles of all the different architecture.
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Exeter Streets were awash with bright colours on the eigth pride march made its way through the High Street and Queen Street. A celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities. I managed to take a few images of this event.
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I spent just under week at Southport end of April to beginning of May with a few camera club friends even though I had broken my hip only 6 weeks previously but I managed to take some images in Southport and some surrounding areas. We managed to get the whole of the Pleasureland to ourselves for a day which was something quite different as the place was closed until their season started. Crosby was another place we visited, perhaps not in the best light but very interesting. I also spent a lot of my time at the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool whilst the others explored the town. We visited Blackpool as well but unfortunately it rained most of the day but I still got some images. Another day was spent on the canal as one of our members had a canal boat and she took a few of us for a trip along the canal which was very close to the place we were staying. Just a few images below, for more on the area go to my Southport page.
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