A FEW DAYS (Part 2)

It is now the next day .. my legs were weak again but not like yesterday, thankfully.

Today I do not plan on going as far so I am fitting the Sony G 70-200mm f2.8 to the A99II but attaching the 24-70mm f2.8 via the two Lowepro cases, thank heavens for Lowepro!

Of course I planned a route and a road on the map I did not know was there .. was not there! I passed across the M25 and found a spot where there were some butterflies and dead trees.

I crossed back across the road to find the spot I was after from the other side of the M25 motorway as according to the map there was another road that joined up with the one I could not find and I figured I could find the shorter route back. But no .. the road went nowhere.

Then I heard this peeping noise and three birds flew into a bush .. I got off my bike and waited .. Greenfinches?! Not seen them in years.

Of course I did not get any damned pictures!

Went a different way to a place I used to know a great deal, and where Jade Goody lived but did not see much.

Of course now I had to come back going up that damned hill again but once at the top I went to a spot a little past the road where I am staying. Put the bike against a weak fence and tried to get some more butterflies.

There were Large and Small White Butterflies along with what I think were Gatekeepers and Ringlet Butterflies. There was also the odd Skipper here and there but many proved to difficult to photograph.

I had intended to say longer but could feel my legs burning and as I managed to get three dozen or so photographs I decided to call it a day and head back to think about tomorrow. After a bath!

It also turned out I had 346 photographs from the first day. Still due to numerous .. distractions from health to the intense heat and tiredness they wont all be usable. But still even a third of them being usable would be pretty fantastic. Well to me it would be.

I also got something in the region of about 120 today. This has taken my tally well above 450 photos and if I can get the same or a little more tomorrow than I did today I will be pretty happy.

However .. the thought of post-processing all of these and going through uploading them and then tagging them all .. has my head spinning.

It is difficult so this is probably going to take me two or three days. I wont start until Friday night and likely not be close to finishing until Monday (8^th July 2018). But I will upload as I go so there will be some by Friday night, some Saturday night and some Sunday night and if any are left then Monday night.

Groan!

Well .. it could be argued that King Harold will make an appearance over the weekend, as will one other character.

I cannot even recall what I took photographs of?! Just realising there are over 400 photos and trying to think what in the world I saw .. but I am having trouble.

Actually I just checked .. make that 473 images and one day to go .. provided it is not pouring with rain as, as of right now there seem to be some dark clouds brewing and it poured with torrential rain in Paris last night.

Ruins, characters, texture, flowers and a few other things .. rivers, plants the odd bridge .. wild flowers, ornamental flowers. A few insects.

Now after this third day and the three days of post processing? I really must think about visiting a museum and a few buildings in London on my bike with my camera?!

If I can do that .. even a day on my bike with my camera .. my professional camera, I will actually feel like I am getting somewhere. At long last!

Now if I can manage to get to a museum or art gallery too?! That would be cool .. the Tate Modern is the one I would like to get to. Been on the outside of it once already. I was very tempted to go in but I felt I would end up overdoing it.

Would be cool if I could find someone that could accompany me.

Be uber cool if I could find someone who also wanted to do photography themselves and this way we could chat about the subject of photography.

Hmm I just had a thought .. this would leave me with one single thing to do .. but would involve going much further afield ..

A day out doing landscape photography .. or better still a few days. You cannot go a long way on the hope that the one day you are there the light will be perfect, mores the pity.

Scotland, Wales or the Peak District would be the ideal places.

Maybe by the time I have had a day out on my bike something might have worked out with the media thing? Maybe my cancelled trip to Scotland and the Peak District and North Wales might be back on?

Fingers crossed!

I wonder if I should take the Sigma EX 85mm f1.4 tomorrow?

A FEW DAYS (Part 1)

I should have titled this 'A Few Days of a Freeloader'? Lol.

Well I am away for a couple of days.

Looking after my brothers dog while he is in Paris.

I will be a lot closer to nature, while I am here, and not far from somewhere I can get some interesting photographs. Though I do have my usual problem .. I have people nearby that can help and I have a .. secret weapon.

Alcohol!

Lol!

As it turns out the chest issues seem to calm down if I have alcohol and as I have not been able to see a GP since my return .. it is all I have available and I do not even know if there is a drug for the chest issues? Maybe the Tachycardia has a drug, I seem to recall reading about that some place and that may help. But without a GP .. no prescription medication.

I only have my magnesium, calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B pills which I kind of hope help with some issues. But on that afternoon on the beach where I had felt calm for the first time in a year and never wanted to leave? Yeah I had a pint of shandy and two extra pills of each.

My sister seems to think it is the pills where I am inclined to think that the alcohol played a part because it was not just my chest issues that seem to be held at bay .. my anxiety was too.

Though I tend to think it was a combination of the two?

So in the past few days I have put the alcohol to the test and I have purchased pill boxes, because I could not find my usual pill box .. well I did today. So I purchased two others .. one for my Holland & Barrett pills to be taken in the morning and another smaller one with just four compartments .. to take out with me.

Actually it will be a little odd as one thing I have in mind to photograph was one of the very first things I took a photograph on with my first Nikon S8200 digital camera. In fact I used the picture on my corruption blog and it got some likes and attention. It was kind of .. fitting .. in a way towards what it is that I intended to do.

I will not say any more about what it is but with my professional camera and my knowledge of post-processing software for RAW images, Serif Affinity Photo, I should get some much better, much more dramatic and much more fitting .. photographs. Fingers crossed.

Probably rain for the next two days which would be about par for the course with my luck.

Very close by to my target is a couple of other things that involves some very old walls and a gate and I am hoping a couple of other things besides.

There is also a nature reserve nearby I used to frequent a fair deal.

However I have to think about weight and I forgot to ask what buses go by here, if any at all?

The nature reserve really requires a second lens and .. it is kinda .. heavy. Though I do have new ways of carrying this stuff which I have not put to the test so will see how it goes.

Unfortunately I do not have all the lenses I intended to buy .. really could do with a Sony 70-400mm f4 and a Tamron 90mm Macro. Could achieve so much more with those two lenses but .. well .. life and all that. Maybe in time something can be worked out ..

Provided these damn conditions or government does not do me in, in the meantime?

I also spotted a Passion Flower right outside the door sitting atop a wooden fence so that will likely be photographed tomorrow morning, if I am up early, or tomorrow night? Hmm .. maybe I should check the weather?

Yup supposed to be sunny tomorrow and partly sunny Wednesday and Thursday.

I should have the pictures up between Friday night and Saturday night on my various accounts ..

• Flickr
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• Pinterest

I am hoping that if I push through this and I get a goof few days I may able to add a fair few photos, maybe between 100 and 200? Mixture of architecture and nature and I might even get some night time shots?

As I want to build up many more shots on my professional camera I have decided to not even bring my Nikon Coolpix P900 Bridge camera along. I will be too tempted to take it along with the other camera and will just end up weighing too much.

I also think I will be too distracted, and I am at the best of the time due to various symptoms, from concentrating on what would make a better photo with the pro level camera.

I always thought I had an eye for a photo and have started looking at things in a new light but I never expected that I would get good photos from day one so am still experimenting and getting used to the camera and menu system.

Often I think I have a good shot but when I have it in post processing I then decide I do not like it and cannot do much with it. Sometimes I get shots I do not think I can do anything with and might end up with three or four pictures from it?

Sometimes I get back and I look at a photo and think “Ooooh that angle was just .. wrong!” Southwark Cathedral springs to mind. There was one I liked and one I hated.

But therein lies another problem. When I do this I am thinking ..

• Poster
• Large Wall Picture
• Book Cover
• Magazine Cover
• PC Wallpaper
• Must try to think of other uses for pictures

Except what I like others might have a different taste and what I do not like .. others may well like?

So I try to take various images at various angles and even in post-processing if I think it looks a little bit cool or very cool .. it gets turned into a jpeg and uploaded.

Though I am getting better at this while I am becoming more choosy about the way I take pictures as well as what it is that I upload.

So hopefully from here on in I will get more hits than misses from my shots and this I think can only be a good thing. With a good base already it allows me to build something up.

However .. I do not the right subject matter of course and I am not always sure what I am going to find.

For instance in Kent recently we walked a but of a way to our first .. beach though more estuary and there were these chest wader boots hanging from a frame. I was not really feeling up to the job but was there. I had left the pro camera in the car and only had the bridge camera. Took a shot with the bridge camera and that has been looked at four times more than any other shot I took in that 24 hour period?! Go figure.

Though it was too far of a walk I wished I had gotten shots with the pro camera .. but then I would not have got shots, admittedly bad, of the Oystercatchers.

Oh dear ..

I had planned to write this over the night I was here .. then the following night after I had managed to get out and get at least some shots with the camera. Only I am typing this the following morning because something odd .. happened. I will also need to check something out, which I am now recalling but not sure, when I get back later.

I got up this morning and descended some stairs and stepped out of the flat to have a cigarette as I cannot smoke in the flat.

Only as I started smoking I noticed I felt a little .. weird. Could not work out why at first but the feeling became stronger and I realised I was nauseous.

After another minute or two I also noticed that my legs felt very wobbly and the last minute or two of smoking my dreaded roll up I actually thought I was going to go .. down!

Now though this has happened many times previously it has never happened quite like this. This normally occurs when I am standing up from a seated or crouched position and does not always occur. In fact I seem to go through phases where I can have nothing at all for a series of days and then several times per day for a series of days. I have never managed to figure that one one out and neither have several GP Surgeries nor hospitals purely because they did not bother, did not really want to find anything and had part of the puzzle staring them right in the face.

Now two things about this ..

• Chomping at the bit, so to speak, to get photographs
• Worried now something will occur while out
  • Though I do have the use of a mountain bike, thank God
• Had alcohol last night to calm palpitations
  • Seem to recall alcohol has a negative effect on .. something
    • Hypomagnesemia?

Jesus .. this is a good start! The first morning too!

Just watching Frasier right now while waiting for my phone to finish charging and thought I would just type this out regarding the nausea as I would likely forget later. Unless of course this ends up incapacitating me for the day in which case I am unlikely to forget!

I have decided to not carry weight and so the Sony A99II is fitted with the Sony Zeiss 24-70mm f2.8 only. Others will be left here.

Fast Forward and it is now 16:40 on Tuesday 3^rd July 2018 and Sweden are 1-0 up against Switzerland. Not long now before England play Columbia.

Yikes that was great .. and .. that was a .. nightmare at the exact same time.

Bike had a rusty chain but was OK but seat a bit low for me and not quick release. Had to pump the tyres up some too but despite hesitating about going out .. it was not far and would be a piece of cake if not for that bloody .. hill!

Get down there .. get a few shots before I move onto my old target, which I am sure I can get a couple dozen pictures from when post-processing. Should cause a stir as it did the first time I published the picture of this .. subject over five years ago? Many more people visiting now and the will likely see the same .. symbolism, let us call it that, they did previously. I will wait and see.

Massive headache from searing heat and long and also dry batches of grass everywhere. I used to frequent this area a great deal .. not seen grass this long nor this high.

So .. after a winter and spring with a lot of rain and hence the very long grass it is now immediately obvious we are in a period of drought?

Lots of old walls and lots of old .. entrances. Photographed! These ancient walls also provided me with more subjects vie little islands of plants growing on the old brickwork.

I walk around a corner and .. lo and behold a whole line of different flowers of different shapes and colours. Well this is a bonus as I have not even made my way to the garden I know is there yet! A dozen photos.

Then I find the garden .. another dozen or so photos.

Then I am at a shop to buy some drinks .. a Root Beer and a Ribena, one for now and one for the bottle holder. Outside I grab the bike and start to walk .. oh wait a minute, this is not my bike?! I look down .. no bottle holder!

Into the dragonfly sanctuary I am buzzed by a flash of metallic azure blue as a bird flies across my path! What the hell was that?

Looking like an escapee exotic bird I did wonder if it was a Kingfisher but it seemed far too big and the blue far too dark?

Trying to photograph butterflies with the wrong lens I am then buzzed by an overly large yellow butterfly. Way too big to be a Brimstone or a Clouded Yellow Butterfly .. I suspect I know what it is and that it is not a butterfly at all but instead a moth. No photographs this time but I have shot this species previously.

My head is starting to hurt. I hide in the shade, camera on my lap awaiting a butterfly to rest for more than a microsecond? Naaah!

I decide to come back but stop at a rock carving feature and then an Abbey. Few more shots.

My head banging like a thunderclap and a sharp long incline beckons. I do not make it 100 metres of the 400 metres or so and am off the bike, under a tree onto some grass and I am down. Might as well roll a cigarette if I am down?

I decide to walk for a bit until the hill levels out. Which bloody road was it? Ah this one? Hmm I do not recall that name? Maybe I should just carry on going after all I might see somewhere else I can visit with my camera tomorrow?! Oh .. there's another road? This one looks more like it and .. what is that? How the feck did I forget the name of this God damned road?! Dumb-arse!! On let me cycle down to that roundabout was I am sure there is something along there? I am sure I walked around some footpath or other with my brother a few years back?

I find a footpath to my right but keep going, what's that? Red? Poppies? I will look on the way back and when I do there are a few wild flowers. Through the gate with the bike and .. ouch!! What the f …?! Ankle high socks and I think I just hit a big batch of stinging nettles?! That is smarting!

Dozen more photos and I am back in the car park outside the flat where I am looking after a dog and a flat! I made it and I have not died! Though I have to say it feels like my head is going to split in two!

Ooh that Passion Flower?! Couple more shots and .. oooh those red flowers in the car park?! Few more shots.

Hmm I wonder how many photos I took today? Thirty at least .. maybe as many as fifty? Actually ow that I think about it must be closer to a hundred? That must get me a couple hundred pictures right there?! Day one of three .. not .. bad!

Pounding head and umm yeah .. look up Hypomagnesemia and alcohol?!

Done. Doesn't make sense as any talk about alcohol dropping your magnesium levels only seems to apply to alcohol abusers. Well .. alcoholics basically which is something I have never been in my life.

I had worked my way through a couple of cans and had thought that my wobbling legs this morning had some link to the alcohol from last night?

Which would have been kind of ironic as I was using the alcohol to calm any heart palpitations and it also calms the anxiety too. The only thing I have ever had that does have a positive effect on both these things and as I have been screwed over backwards over and over and over again by the NHS, because basically they can with no come backs, happy 70^th NHS, and currently without a GP I have no choice. If I need to get anything done .. which I need to do.

I am stuck here currently because of my health and would like to get things done I did not get done last year, but am being held back because of my health.

Today I should have a portfolio of .. let me check .. 4,000 plus photographs on my Flickr account which many early ones do not count as they are not of professional quality and were mostly just shots of various animals and plants.

I currently have 2,400 plus but I think if I get a good day I may be able to raise this up by a few hundred over this weekend?

I also have around a dozen photos from around three months ago I did not finish post processing .. from my visit to London Bridge on the day of the London Marathon.

In something of a twist I had planned to visit the city are of London to get a few dozen shots but that plan went south when I picked up my front wheel and the tyre was flat. Seems to have developed a pretty bad puncture around the valve area, which are normally not fixable. I did not remove the inner tube to inspect it .. I just heard it hiss from that area.

So I have a few photos currently but once again I am down again. I am pleased at what I got today but only in as far as that I had to force myself to do it and work through various symptoms to get what I did.

On any other day and had this been just a few years back this would not have bothered me as doing this would have been fairly easy. Today it is not.

I am at the top of the hill while my targets today were a couple hundred metres form the bottom of said hill. This was an area I visited twice a week just two years ago and I could easily have visited had I been fit enough and not bogged down with these damn symptoms.

Not even going to bother mentioning the Fibromyalgia crap I have had to deal with for years that I am not even sure is linked to this or not yet.

So it is kinda strange to think I am really happy to get to a spot that was actually fairly local to me just a few years ago and take bloody pictures and get back again.

Weird...