Quick peek - motorbike ride from London to Dubrovnik

I haven't yet processed all the photos from this trip - it's been hard to find time as we've just moved back to the other side of the world! - but I couldn't resist putting up these two photos for now. The trip wasn't really about chasing spectacular photos, it was all about the motorbikes and enjoying the roads. Nevertheless, I did manage to find some moments to take some 'prettier' photos.

Hopefully these two photos highlight the contrasting scenes we came across on the trip.

More photos will come shortly!

Midnight Sun in Finland

We just got back from an amazing week in Northern Finland. This week was all about meeting new people, eating great food and having a drink or two. A huge thank you must go to our amazing hosts who showed us how how those living in Lapland celebrate their never ending summer days!

With all the festivities, it was actually rather easy to stay up late enough to see some beautiful colours creep into the sky. The first two photos below of the the Ounaskoski River were taken around about midnight. All four photos have been added to my best of Continental Europe album.

Summer days in Amsterdam!

Wow...it's been ages since my last post. I had a feeling it had been a while but I didn't realise that I uploaded my Cornwall photos in April. The reason for my lack of photos is pretty straight forward really....I've just been generally in lacking motivation to take photos!

So...on our recent trip to Amsterdam I tried to find some different scenes for inspiration, and I also played around with a different editing technique similar to that described on this page "how-to-give-your-photos-a-retro-analog-effect". I'd love to hear your thoughts on the effect (good/bad or otherwise!).

Here are a couple of my other favourite photos from the trip and as always, the full album is over on my website.

We came across some excellent musicians in Amsterdam's Dam Square. There's a bit of info on these guys, who call themselves 'The Famous Unknowns' over here.

Sun, Sand and Blue Sky (hmmm..that doesn’t feel like England)

It’s safe to say that spring is definitely in the air over in the UK at the moment. Flowers are in full bloom, sun is coming out more and more, and we even had to put on sunscreen the other day.

Rupert and I thought we’d take advantage of the nice weather to go on a roadtrip and see more of England. Over 800 miles (roughly 1500kms) later, we had circumnavigated the south west coastline of the country. I’ve added the photos from this trip to the 'England'Album on my main website so make sure you check them all out.

Probably one of the best things about this trip was that each day was completely different from the last, one day we’re visiting the national seal sanctuary and the next we’re kayaking through the Atlantic Ocean!

One major constant in the whole trip was the dramatic coastlines. They certainly made it worthwhile getting up at sunrise!

Now, being from Queensland, Australia, which has some of the best beaches in the world, we weren’t really expecting much from the English beaches. Boy were we wrong…The turquoise water and the golden sand on some of the Cornwall beaches blew us away.

On the one day it wasn’t gloriously sunny, I took the opportunity to play around with some black and white photos.

One last sunrise photo to finish off this post, it was taken at a town called Westward Ho! (the exclamation mark is actually included in the name of the town) – and yep, the fisherman in this photo is Rupert, he was nice enough to get out of bed and brave the cold with me that morning.

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A little Moroccan seasoning ..??

It's a bit hard to know where to start with this post. Rupert and I recently had an amazing visit to Morocco but arrived home to some sad family news. I hope these photos might bring a smile or small moment of enjoyment to close family and friends. I'll let most of the photos do the talking but hopefully you get the idea that Morocco really was a feast for our eyes, ears, tastebuds and noses! As always, the full album is over here.

The Jemaa El Fna Place during the day and night




A lone boy in the Jemaa El Fna Place


Food and fabrics for sale in Marrakech


Street Performers


Sights from the town of Essaouira


And lastly....Aram the camel!

Not a bad back up plan

Wow! Well it’s been a while since I updated this blog and it’s certainly been a busy time (when is Christmas not!). Our plans to spend Christmas in Finland were thrown into turmoil when Heathrow airport was snowed in. Despite most other northern hemisphere countries managing just fine when snow falls, everything in the UK seems to go completely CRAZY. The one plus side of all this snow was that everything around home looked absolutely magical! Oh – and I love the way fresh snow seems to bring this surreal silence over everything. It’s like someone hit the mute button.

Anyway, enough rambling about snowflakes, we managed to book some very last minute flights to Munich for Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with some new and old(ish) friends and had a wonderful time in the Beer Halls with traditional music, pork knuckle, canoodles, pretzels, jaeger and of course steins of beautiful German beer.

One of the things I found most challenging about taking photos on this trip was getting interesting photos in poor light. You may have noticed by now but I tend to take lots of photos as the sun is setting and everything is bathed in really pretty golden light. Unfortunately this sort of light tends to be pretty limited in European winters – nice photos in not so nice light means trying to get interesting compositions. I think I got a few nice photos but probably not as many as I hoped, the full album is over here.

On a positive note, I’m now motivated to try and try and take some interesting photos in the drizzly English weather – starting tomorrow! I’ll post any results that are worth sharing.

I really hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year break and that 2011 is a special year!

The photo below is of the Castle Hohenschwangau and the village of Hohenschwangau in Bavaria, Germany


Neuschwanstein Castle - the castle that inspired the Disney Castle!


Munich Skyline


Goods for sale in a market


...and of course, some pretzels!

The small joys of winter

So despite all my worries about winter in the UK, it turns out it’s not that bad. Now by not bad, I don’t mean not cold, it’s freezing (literally). What I do love is the fact that houses are actually heated properly over here and that when we don’t want the heating on we can light the fire place in the living room! We’ve been going for walks in the countryside, playing on frozen lakes, and even falling through into the water :) luckily only our feet got really soaked.

I also love warm winter drinks – I’m not talking hot chocolate here but rather yummy drinks such as mulled wine. One the stove right now is a simmering pot of Pimms, apple juice, apple and orange wedges and cinnamon. It’s soooo good and extra yummy after falling into a frozen lake!

Despite the rest of the country suffering the earliest winter snowfall in decades, we welcomed in winter with really clear blue sky days (though I think the snow is about to hit)*. I thought I’d take advantage of these and get some photos of the sun setting over a local park. By the time the sun actually set I couldn’t feel my toes but I think it was worth it! Hope you enjoy them and as always, please put your email in the subscription box if you want to subscribe to this blog.

(*edit - woke up this morning to find everything covered in snow!)