Me 'olidays. Ah well, Britain will have to do!

Me. In Cumbria. Atop a hill. With a view.
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

For an extremely top secret reason, I am unable to travel to distant shores for me 'olidays. I consider this to be a major pain in the backside because I really do want to go to some places, far, far away for some very special reasons. Instead, I have to stay here in Blighty and make do.

That exciting aroma of Costa Coffee and jet fuel that permeates airports is for me, not a sign that I'm going away, but that I'm either fetching or dropping someone off at the airport. Its the smell of other peoples' fun and I find it makes me mildly depressed. For a maximum of three minutes.

You see, I have to forgo the sheer luxury of shuffling slowly along some pointless queue amongst the "other people" at Gatwick or Stanstead. I have to do without sitting next to Ms Halitosis and her 'ubby, Mr Tattoos on an Easy Jet flight to Malaga. (Why do these people always try to look like anxious, high level business travellers, despite their bizzarre holiday clothes, always checking their watches and making mobile calls as they pace about like Donald Trump as his empire comes crashing down? Kevin, you're not fooling me. I can see you're just a low level sales rep, a denizen of a thousand Travel Lodges, not Alan Bluddy Sugar!) I can't share in the collective pleasure with my fellow travellers as they listen to yet another flight delayed announcement. No, I have to stay here. In the dreadful Britain that they seem so keen to escape. Several times a year.

The Descent.
Kirkstone Pass, descending to Ullswater, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

Yes, I have to suffer the sights of Britain. In Britain, whilst they, the lucky (?) travellers, get to suffer the British in Spain/Greece/Portugal/wherever. Just like the Brits that travel abroad, I too can drink a pint in the Red Lion/Hearty Gardener/Jolly Farmer/Whatever. The difference is, that my Red Lion is a nice, quiet pub in a gorgeous, stream braided scenic valley, full of nice, interesting people quietly discussing the next mountain walking trip, the best hiking boots or the latest Shimano mountain bike groupset. They are, you see, my kind of people. In my kind of pub. In Britain, near a mountain. And a river. And a beautiful view.

Ullswater, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

A thousand or more miles away, other Brits are in their Red Lion in Benidorm watching Ms Halitosis and Mr Tattoo having a foul-mouthed, tobacco-and-boozed-breathed knock-down, drag-out barney whilst their putrid offspring are trying to drown the rather bookish child of a couple who are on one of those hideous "Holiday Swap" programmes. (No, Mr TV producer, Holiday Swap programmes are not "an interesting insight into the human condition". They are the lazy-minded, slackjawed spawn of creatively barren minds for the lazy-minded and intellectually barren... oh shit, I'm ranting).

Martindale, Near Ullswater, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

I used to resent not being able to go away and to be fair, still do wish to go to places like Morocco, Nepal, and Alaska as well as some VERY remote places which will remain a secret. I would never sign up to one of the revolting package deals in "Spine" that so seem to attract the "other people". Not even in my worst nightmare. You see, I have at last, after nine years living here, discovered BRITAIN! And it is bloody amazing!

Stone Bridge, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

In the last few weeks I have been fortunate enough to have had two short holidays both in spectacular locations. I went to Pembrokeshire in Wales and I've just returned from the Lake District in Cumbria. Both places are fascinating and absolutely stunning in terms of the scenery. As a photographer, I can honestly say that I was spoiled for choices of where next to point my camera. Its easy to take great photographs (if I say so myself) in these places. The light angle is low-ish all day and its quality is superb - it gives everything a slightly too-saturated look, but when it comes to processing the images, only the very slightest of tweaks are necessary to make the photographs really sing.

Martindale Stream, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

And then there's the people. They are fantastic! Let me tell you about parking in Tenby in Wales: Me and my lovely Anna needed to go shopping so we pulled into a parking garage. I got out the car to do the pay and display ritual and Anna decided to ask the car park attendant lady for directions to the shops. Well, the car park attendant lady was just beginning to write out a ticket for a car that had overstayed its welcome. She told Anna that she "felt a bit guilty" because she didn't like issuing tickets to people who were there on holiday - "they might not return"!!! The overstayer by the way, had been given an hour's grace! For a Londoner, for that is what I am these days, this was madness! Unbelievable.! Hell, in London the parking attendants would happily stand in the middle of the M25 in fast flowing traffic (okay, fast flowing is somewhat unlikely, but stay with me on this one) if they thought they could slap a ticket on a windscreen.

Post Box and Daffodils, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

Yes, outside of London - the Cotswolds, Wales or Cumbria, the people are warm, kind and welcoming. And the beauty of it all is that those who aren't warm, kind and welcoming are usually plastered to a bar stool, getting dribbling-drunk in the Red Lion in Torremolinos, in the company of others of similar stripe. Bargain!

Living here in the UK we tend to forget that we live in one of the world's great tourist attractions. Our Islands are in fact one giant and spectacular natural theme park where stupendous scenery makes up the backdrop against which architecture, art and cultural diversity are harmoniously blended with wonderful, sometimes mystifying traditions and colourful, kind, interesting people. If people from all over the world fly in here every day, there must be something worth seeing. And there is. I spoke to so many people in Cumbria (we were at a wedding) who said that they'd never been there before. Many of them my age or even older and had lived all their lives in the UK.

Ullswater and the Road to Martindale, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

People here complain about the prices of holidaying in the UK. But how can you complain about the prices of the priceless? Britain is accessible. There is something for all budgets, but I'd like that to be kept secret. You see, I want Ms Halitosis and Mr Tattoo to keep going to Spine. That is where they belong, not here in this beautiful, lyrical place that so effortlessly coaxes out the poet in your soul; that so cleverly steals your heart and makes you at least for a few days, hers and hers alone!

Kirkstone Pass, Cumbria
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Copyright 2009 Paul R Davey. All rights reserved

I feel I may have made some generalisations about people. Oh dear!

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Please Note: I actively pursue those who steal my work . If you want to use any of my images or writing for any purpose, please ask first and thus avoid any massive lawsuits that will beggar you, your children, their children and their childrens' as yet unborn children. If I can't get rich selling my work, I sure as hell can by suing those who chose to steal it!

A little catch-up

I really do need to make more effort with this blog, but at the same time, I'm trying not to write just for the sake of writing something; this is not about quantity, its about quality.

Kensal Green Night Shoot

First off, a brief report on my efforts to spook myself. On the full moon before Easter, I decided it would be clever and energetic to get off my backside and do some night shots in the Kensal Green Cemetery. It never ceases to amaze me how good I feel when I make the effort to go and take photographs instead of "doing the usual".

Cross and Moon
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Unfortunately, by the time I'd cooked dinner and eaten, the moon was quite high in the sky, so I had to write it off as one of the subjects for the shoot. There is a broken fence that has replaced the cemetery wall that collapsed (how clever is it to have hundreds of graves, all subsiding right next to a 16ft wall?). I snuck in through the gap in the fence and started wandering around the various graves and monuments that I know are good subject matter.

I have not done much night photography and was quite disappointed by the very urban, very bright sodium glare from streetlighting, coupled with the fact that the Heathrow approach path was running west to east, right through the darkest bit of sky. I set up a few 30 second time exposures and ran around various monuments illuminating them with a small LED light, with mixed results. I also did a few shots over 30 seconds with my flashgun hand-held, flashing once at the beginning of the exposure and once (after re-charging) at the end, dashing between two different positions so as to give two light sources per exposure. Again, varying degrees of success.

Sentenel 3
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Note to self: Get some portable battery-powered studio lights, get permission to shoot in the graveyard so guerilla tactics can be avoided. In other words, make the shoot a proper, planned production.

One shot I wanted involved a musoleum. I wanted to flood the inside of it with light and have it illuminate the ivy-clad tombstones outside. I set up my tripod and composed the shot (note to self: bring a powerful torch to enable acccurate manual focusing on the subject) then st the exposure to 30 seconds then hoped, skipped and jumped over the jumbled graves into the mausoleum with my flashgun, firing it twice at various walls. I repeated this a number of times at various aperture settings. Results? Medicre. Spook factor: Medium-high.

One of those shoots I was glad I had done, despite results that were below my expectations. Over the next few months I want to master night photography. Plenty more trips to the cemetery!

Easter in Wales

St Brides
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St Brides is a lovely bay in Pembrokeshire, Wales, west of Milford Haven
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Over Easter me, my lovely lady and my splendid daughter went to Wales. To Pembrokeshire, in fact to enjoy a week with the bulk of my family at a place called Saundersfoot, near Tenby. Which is near Pembroke. Which Is near Milford Haven. In Wales. Got it?

Obviously, I considered it a clever idea to take my camera gear and use the week essentially as a long landscape shoot. In the end, I shot over 1,000 raw images which will probably shake down to no more than 20-30 "keepers" - not that I ever throw any photographs away.

The Church Doors
Skrinkle Bay, Pembrokeshire
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

The last week has seen Lightroom and Photoshop sweating as I clean up and manipulate the images, and my RedBubble account has seen a lot of action as I upload said images and then 'farm' them - posting them to various groups, plus Stumbling them etc.

Kite Surfer, Tenby
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned on this trip was to be more grateful of the opportunity to shoot in such a stunning location . I thought I was being a good, diligent photographer by getting to Saundersfoot harbour 10 minutes before sunrise. In truth, I wasn't. I should have been at a previously recce'd location at least an hour before sun-up. I should have pursued just one photograph instead of machine-gunning the entire area with my camera and every lens I possess. The results were inevitable: a couple of okay shots standing head and shoulders above a hundred or so entirely mediocre pics.

That said, I did come away at the end of the week feeling quite satisfied with several photographs, some of which are now for sale.

Sister and Niece
Wisemans Bridge, Pembrokeshire
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

I'll be going back, possibly in the summer with my son and his girlfriend and I promise to be up and shooting at least an hour before dawn, and will also shoot at sundown and for at least an hour after.

Nab Head, St Brides Bay, Pembrokeshire
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

With my 28-200mm lens out of action, I was unable to use my 72mm polariser on my, essential for photographing landscapes at this time of year when the sun is low and there is a bit of haze from the sea. I missed it an awful lot, even holding it over the 58mm front element of my 50-200mm zoom. But what I also missed and MUST get were a range of neutral density filters to help tame the low-sun glare.

Dawn Patrol
Photographed as the mist cleared in Pembrke Dock, just after sunrise
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

On top of this, the sea mist - invisible most of the time - coats the front lens element and on my wide angle, this created havoc with sunspots. A lens shade that I can mount onto the hot shoe is another "must". Oh, and image stabilised lenses. Did I mention a new camera? I need one. NEED, not want.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.