Google Earth

Garstang Basin, Lancaster Canal, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

On a wet and cold Sunday evening over Christmas I discovered an excellent way of convincing myself that taking photographs is not just a pointless waste of digital memory.
Google Earth, that invaluable resource of badly lined up satellite photographs, now has images taken on the ground, marked by a blue dot, or a camera symbol. Clicking the marker opens the image, hosted by Panoramio.
These images are uploaded by individual photographers, having been reviewed and approved by Google.
On discovering this I uploaded a set of pictures to Panoramio, including this one of Garstang Basin, 'mapped' and tagged them and waited for a few weeks for the review and approval process (which seems a bit hit and miss).
Rather pleasingly, this, and several of my other submissions, were approved and now adorn the satellite images.
Almost certainly anorak vanity, but it keeps me out of the pub.

Winter in the Marina

Winter in the Marina, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

An attempt to capture the 'golden hour' at the marina this afternoon while I was cleaning my boat 'Henry'. I shot this pair of Freeman 26's (and the bathing platform of a Norman 266) at about 4.30, just as the sun was disappearing. The light levels were too low in the foreground for Photomatix to process the RAW file, so I gave up and used CS2 to convert it. I pulled the curve around a bit to make the most of the way the light strikes across the image and altered the saturation and white balance.
The result is just about what I was aiming for. To be honest, its not exactly a sensational image, but it has boats in it, and taking it was more fun than washing a cruiser in an Arctic gale with cold water.

Well, maybe just the one...

Stalham hire yard, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Taken in Richardsons hire yard in Stalham on the Norfolk Broads in the lull between a series of passing showers which had not only threatened the well being of my Nikon 8700, but also ruined the reflections on the oily water in the mooring basin. To be fair, the water in Richardsons isn't that oily these days but I remember it 40 years ago when trailing an unwary hand over the edge of a rowing dinghy was enough to make me reek of diesel for hours, much to my mother's horror.
I have had a long standing and meaningful relationship with the Broads which started in Brundall in 1964 in a boat called 'Silvery Wings'. It was last renewed in 2006, in a bungalow on Riverside Road which did a remarkable impression of 'Silvery Wings' when the tide came up the River Yare twice without ebbing in between.
Interestingly, the photograph I took of the bungalow the following morning has been selling rather well on Fotolia recently.
I wonder why.

Welcome to Boat Views

Very shortly, I will be using this blogspace to post photos of boats from my image collection.
But not just yet.
I still have unfinished business at www.norman23.co.uk