Been taking some new photos and messin' with some older ones please take a look!

Yes sorry to take some of the magic out of the pictures I've taken by admitting I have not been on safari in foreign lands but have in fact simply visited the local zoo.

However I did get some very nice pictures and I did have a very nice time, and I also feel a lot of creative frustration was relieved by changing the subject matter a touch. I've been going round in circles for months on end shooting the same local places and it was brilliant to take photos of things I don't see so often.

So Dudley Zoo is only a small zoo as zoo's go, and naturally there are some photos that would be better done with birds etc outside of cages and hence some photos simply couldn't work out. But the animals I could photograph effectively have been gathered and placed onto deviantArt here. Some animals seem to like to pose while others are more lively and hard to shoot. It made for good practice.

Here is a small selection of some of my favourite photos from the zoo shoot and I hope you enjoy them and much as I enjoyed taking them(Please see gallery for more)

So it came to pass, that Nigel (my beloved other half) and I went venturing into the hills on the English/Welsh borders, we originally were going to head into a place called ‘Much Wenlock’ to take photos of the Priory and Wenlock edge, but we decided to go somewhere else first (or rather Nigel did) and he took me to these fantastic hills. We plan to return to the area again and also to Much Wenlock another day when the weather is nice and I’m better prepared to take the photos. You see this was one of those journeys where we were at a loose end with nothing to do and went out travelling a little way to cure boredom, so I wasn’t prepared camera-wise this time for the stunning views, in fact I didn’t know I was going to see sights like it when we set out. It was; one of Nigel’s better ideas as it turned out and I can’t wait to go back and get more snaps of the place. You can view some of the photo’s I’ve taken so far below and in my gallery.

I do need to travel more to places like this. The local scenery is lovely but over photographed by now and I want some variety. I would like to travel further than just this country too. Though there is so much as yet not experienced here in the UK with regards to photography so I guess I will start here. I shockingly have no seaside pictures at all, so some beaches must be conquered!

Anyway I’ll shut up rambling, hope you like the pictures of the South Shropshire Hills

The Nick Drake Gathering is an annual event held for the fans by the fans and funded by donations only. It is a non-profit event dedicated to the late singer-songwriter Nick Drake who died in 1974 aged just 26 years old. The performers all play for free, the organisers don't get paid either, it's a labour of love all the way and it is becoming more and more popular with every year. I'm very honoured to be a part of the organising process. So I'm sharing the photos I took of the event on Deviant Art, there are some photos that I'm really proud of and others that i couold have set the camera up better for, but either way they're being added gradually, sorry if you get lots of deviations listed in your watching folders, I'll stop when I've posted all the photos I want to share, I'm afraid there are a few though

It must also be noted that the exif data is slightly wrong on these pictures, due to not setting the date and time right. For those who wish to know the actual dates they were the 30th July, 31st July and 1st August!!!

I'd like some constructive critiques however on some of them. I haven't yet activated that option on them yet, but I will. I know some I've posted are not perfect but I'm looking for tips and hints on how to improve my skills with the camera on site rather than improving the compositions/lighting etc through photoshop on return home. I think the best images to work with start out good straight from the camera but that a bad photo will always be a bad photo. So whether I activate critiques or not I really would appreciate some input from people have more techincal knowledge than I do.

I have returned to my old profile here and will be posting my favourite new works at this account from now onwards. All other old work & new work can also be found at my other account here

I will begin by adding my doll photography.(Latest Project)