Sparkly day at Abberton Reservoir

Sparkly day at Abberton Reservoir
Sparkly day at Abberton Reservoir

Sparkly day at Abberton Reservoir shows the sun shining through the clouds onto the water and making it “sparkle”. The sunlight picks up the choppy nature of the water and creates the white and grey contrasts. The sun is shining from the right hand side of the image. The clouds in the distance are multi-coloured, even dark and foreboding. The wind is turning the wind turbines slowly in the background. The unusual lighting from the clouds creates a silhouette. The wind turbines, the bare winter trees and even the fence posts all stand proud from the slope above the water.

Abberton Reservoir is located south of Colchester near the village of Layer de la Haye, north of the Blackwater opposite Bradwell. Essex and Suffolk water own the reservoir. Essex Wildlife Trust manage the nature reserve at the reservoir Use this link to see their website

Just below the visitors centre there is a hide by the water’s edge. I was inside the hide when I captured this image, looking south. The image was captured just before lunchtime on Wednesday 26th February. This was undoubtedly one of the few nice days, in a week which once again has started and ended with a storm. See more of our images at WWW.Compassphotography.co.uk

Stormy Seas – Competition successes!

Stormy Seas – Competition successes! These three images have just received prizes in the same international competition. The theme of the competition was “Capture the Wind”. With storm Dennis which is here today, these images will resonate. The one with the hooked wave came 11th out of 500 and the other one came 74th out of 500. The wave rolling in came 200th out of 500!

The first image was captured at Ramsgate on the first Sunday of January 2018. The weather had been bad. I was fed up of being cooped up inside, I definitely needed to get out. The south coast was my destination. The sea along the beach at Ramsgate was foaming. In addition, when I got to the harbour around lunchtime there were some giant waves. Very dramatic!

The power of the sea, Ramsgate
The power of the sea

Broardstairs is the location for the second image. It’s not far from Ramsgate. People had parked cars on the quay whilst the tide was out and as it came in, the tide washed the cards. I have often wondered if the cars started after their soaking. Some daft folk were also dodging in and out of the spray.

Stormy seas
Washing the cars at Broadstairs!

The third image shows a wave at Dunbar in Scotland last year. It is one of a burst of seven images. It was windy and the wind was blowing against the spray and driving it back over the waves. I spent quite a few minutes capturing shots here.

Windy waves at Dunbar
Windy waves at Dunbar

Hope you like “Stormy Seas – Competition successes!” See images at the Compass Photography Website. WWW.Compassphotography.co.uk

Sunny day before storm Ciara

Sunny day before storm Ciara

Today was a sunny day before storm Ciara arrives tomorrow. I was able to capture images at Hanningfield Reservoir and Compass Gardens in South Woodham Ferrers. The reservoir at Hanningfield held more water than I have seen it is for a long time. The sun and the clear sky allowed me to create marvellous images of the large expanse of water. Use this link to take a look at Hanningfield’s website

Sunny day before storm Ciara
Glorious views at Hanningfield reservoir

In Compass Gardens the crocuses and catkins were out. I played with a few images of the crocuses and in the end got down to ground level. Literally the camera on the grass and my mobile phone employed to keep the camera level. It’s a great result. It shows the grass being taller than the crocus. The trees look massive in the background. The storm is coming tomorrow and I suppose it will not be possible to get such nice photographs.

Sunny day before storm Ciara
Yellow crocuses from ground level

See more of our images at WWW.Compassphotography.co.uk

A nice day out.

Travelled to Leicester on Wednesday for a nice day out. My hosts took me to Beacon Hill outside the city where the views of the Trent plain are quite remarkable. I’m pleased with the images I managed to capture on my new camera from the top of the hill. It was a really bright day, though cold. On top of the hill there is a very attractive craggy feature pushing out of the landscape. This made a nice panoramic.

A nice day out
Beacon Hill, near Leicester
A nice day out
Craggy outcrop – Beacon Hill

I passed through London St Pancras as I was travelling by train to and from Essex. Captured a few nice nighttime images of the Christmas lights. People playing the pianos create a nice atmosphere in the station. There is however no Christmas tree at the station this year. Last year the tree was awful. This year there is a pink Eiffel Town monstrosity. Why can we not have a traditional tree in this showplace. I have not included a picture of it here, however if you use this link you can see it. All in all it was a nice day out. Two good journeys and lots to do in the middle.

London St Pancras
St Pancras at night

See more of our images at WWW.Compassphotography.co.uk

Suffolk in Autumn

Suffolk in Autumn comprises four images from an overnight trip this week. The catalyst for the trip was the concert being held by “The Hot Club of Cowtown” in Bury St Edmunds. I chose to take the scenic route to Bury, up through Clare and via Ickworth.

The main street in Clare was full of fallen leaves and this gave a great opportunity to create a really leafy Suffolk in Autumn image.

Ickworth is a national trust property – see their website I went there to photograph the huge Rotunda. Alas, scaffolding covered the Rotunda! At the bottom of the Italian formal gardens is a path which curves round. The wall and the shadows of the wall lead your eye nicely round to a tree with golden leaves. Classic leading lines!

Moving on the Bury St Edmunds I spent time in the Abbey Gardens. One ruin amongst others! Firstly, I came across golden trees and then ruins of the Benedictine Monastery. I progressed down to the stream and found many opportunities for autumnal colours.

In short, there was lots to see in Suffolk in Autumn! The autumn colours seem brighter this year

Farleigh Hospice Exhibition

Farleigh Hospice Exhibition. Over twenty of Mike’s images are now on display at Farleigh Hospice in Chelmsford. Turning left at reception there is a long corridor. The images are hung down both sides of the corridor down to another junction.

Find out more about Farleigh Hospice by visiting their website

See more of our images on our website

Autumn colours in Colchester

There were lovely autumn colours in Colchester yesterday. I spent an hour in Castle Park walking along the side of the River Colne capturing some lovely images. Image 236 is just above the weir where the river bends. Reflecting in the water are the golden leaves still clinging to the branches. Image 263 is again by the river. It reveals a bend with the bank on an angle and a rusty field of fallen leaves. The Willow in image 297 droops to the water and on the other side of the Colne more golden leaves reflect in the water.

Away from the water, image 337 shows that one tree has turned golden by the footpath. Bare branches of multi-stemmed trees that have already dropped their leaves reflect in the pool further down the Colne in image 346. A flock of seagulls that was sitting on the lake was disturbed. They took off as I was capturing another image of the pool. I managed one or two shots of them (363).

Find out more about Castle Park by visiting their website. Use this link to do that

Madeira magic three recent images

Madeira magic, three images from last week’s visit to Madeira. Two images are at sunrise, which in October is mercifully late! One image shows the mirror like hotel pool with reflections of the palm trees and rails. Leading lines to the palm trees come from the rails.

The second sunrise image was captured from the promenade below the hotel. The white building and the palm trees are silhouettes against the cloud and rising sun. The bonus in this image is the Cunard liner Queen Victoria creeping into Funchal harbour. I did not see the ship until I was looking at the images in the hotel room after breakfast.

The third image shows Funchal from one of the viewing points high above the town. You can get to Pico dos barcelos on a long and tortuous bus ride that has lots of nice views along the way. Images can be captured from the viewing point here around 360°. There its a lot to see here. Madeira magic, three images from last week’s visit to Madeira.

Use this link to see more about Madeira

Use this link to see images from our previous visit to Madeira

Rochford Arts Festival

Mike’s images are on display as part of Rochford Arts Festival. An Art trail has been created around Rochford and there are guided tours to meet the artists. St Mary’s charity shop, 7 North Street, Rochford is where the images are on display for 12 days. St Mary’s run a Horse Sanctuary. If you like looking at art have a wander round the centre of Rochford in the next few days and look at what is on display.

Mike’s display for Rochford Arts Festival

These three images were captured with my phone just after the installation. They are not brilliant picture because of the reflections and the fact I did not want to get run over.

Launch event

Images are also shown of the launch event last night. Use this link to look at the Arts festival website and follow in on Facebook

See more of our images by visiting our website using this link

2020 Essex Landscapes Calendar

2020 Essex Landscapes Calendar

The 2020 Essex Landscapes calendar from Compass Photography is now available. Attached to this post is a copy of the front page of the calendar. Below the main image for each month is an appointments matrix . Normally, this matrix would have blank squares. This calendar has placed more images in those blank squares in each month’s appointments grid.

To have a look at the images included in the calendar access the Compass Photography website by using this link. Our website includes a slideshow of the pages.

Calendars cost £7.00 each. Postage and packing within the UK costs £1.50 each. Postage beyond the UK is charged at cost. You can pay by PayPal or bank transfer, cash or cheque (UK only)

Please contact Mike by email (compassmike@btinternet.com) or phone on 07973-294820 to get your copy of the 2020 Essex Landscapes Calendar