I don't quite know how I did it, but somehow I managed to get 3rd place in the recent "Fire and Ice" contest over at *PhotographersClub !!!!!

Here is the deviation that got me 3rd place:


In the end I was only 5 votes behind 1st place !!!!
Special thanks goes to the club admins, the members that voted, and the people that donates prizes and journal exposure!

And now for something completely different...
As you may have noticed I usually take photos of nature and wildlife with a little bit of architecture and experimental stuff mixed in. But last weekend my wife and I got free tickets to go to the Renault World Series racing at Silverstone (thanks to her boss )! It was a little unusual in that there were several races all weekend, including Formula 2.0 and 3.5(?), plus a few other classes and various demos too. All in all we had a great time and of course I was able to take some different types of photos, some of which I will be submitting shortly...

Had a great weekend away with my wife, *MissCassidy, up in Durham mainly to attend my best man's wedding (finally!!!) but also tromping around the north east of England where I had never really explored before. Durham is a pretty city, but sadly we didn't have time to do much there. The wedding itself was excellent, there was a good solid message from the preacher at the church and much fun was had at the reception given that it was a Northern Irishman and a Scotswoman that were hitched, read: Ceilidh! (and no alcohol involved - yes folks you can dance and have fun without getting drunk ) Even I danced, but there is no photographic evidence... thankfully

We also got to see the "Angel of the North" and Hadrian's Wall, but as always when you're having fun time ran short and we had to drive back home. We really need a decent holiday, more than two days, but current circumstances are against us!

I also could do with some better camera lenses, especially a standard zoom with a nice big aperture throughout the range. Don't you just hate it when you go somewhere expecting to get at least one or two keepers and end up with nothing? The weather was quite nice on Saturday, but still nothing. Ah well, maybe this is just the user blaming the equipment...

At least I got a decent shot of Tigger in the back garden on the bank holiday Monday that seems to be going down well:



Do Tamron make lenses with image stabilisation? I'm really impressed with the optical quality of my 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 Tamron, especially given its price, but it would be nice to have a telephoto lens with IS.

Had a great time at the Cardiff Devmeet in March, despite coming down with the flu (sorry if I gave it to anyone) and it was a shame we had to leave so early. I have submitted a collage of some of the photos I took on the day:


In other news I hit 1000 pageviews some time this week!!!!

Thanks to all those who have visited my page (and even keep coming back!)

Features
I've had several of my photos feature recently thanks to =tori-margaret and ~alone-maggie ! The features are in =tori-margaret's journal ([link]) and even a news article: [link] ! Go on, the news article

Contests
The voting for the water contest at *naturephotographer [link] has been extended until the end of the month. So if you're a member of the club please send them a note voting for this entry:



I also entered for the 'Detailed Nature - Flowers' contest [link] at =NaturPics-club with this entry:

But as you can see here [link] , my entry (88) isn't doing so well If you're a member of this club please vote!

Other Stuff
My wife and I will be visiting my parents in Cardiff next weekend, which should give us chance to go to the Cardiff Dev Meet. So hope to see you there if you're also going!

Been a while since my last journal, so here goes....

Prints
I have enabled the print feature on several of my better photos. It's more of an experiment really as I'm not expecting to earn a single penny, I was just curious if anyone thought my photos were worth hanging on their wall! Let me know what you think.

Swans
I had a really good day the other weekend photographing at a local park, which is where all the swan photos are from. I think they are some of the best photos I have ever taken, but I was helped by the excellent sunset and the fact that most of the pond/lake was frozen over, which had cornered most of the birds into the best position for taking photos . Expect a few more deviations from that day to be submitted soon .

Competitions

I have entered my water drop photo (above) in the Water contest over at *naturephotographer so please go vote for it if you're also a member: [link] . I'm not expecting to win though as there are some really excellent shots in the list, including other water drops.

Finally, I won the latest 'mission' competition at *Ex-po-zure along with nine other deviants ! [link]
So now, thanks to the great people at *Ex-po-zure I get SIX of my deviations featured in their journal. I have submitted six that I really like and haven't received as many views as I think they deserve.