Owner: Dave's Photo Blog URL:http://davelicence.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 15:48:57 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: My favourite photos as I take them from my travels and general life, plus various musings Site statistics:Click here
Thought they were weeds 2007-07-08 13:55:00 I've had some plants growing in the garden for a couple of years now that I always thought were weeds - mostly because they generally looked a bit messy. I've been pulling them up every time I'm doing a bit of gardening and have seen some. Recently I haven't done much work in the garden and the 'one that got away' has had a chance to flower. Looks like I have been wrong all this time. I don't know what they are exactly, but here are a couple of shots from yesterday. Nikon 105mm VR Macro1/60sec, f/16, flash 1/160sec, f/5, flash
Isle of Man Weekend 2007-07-16 15:47:00 Last weekend a friend and I went to the Isle of Man to ride the famous TT course - a 37 mile road circuit taking in some of the best, and fastest (there is no speed restriction outside of towns) roads in the country. After the awful weather we have been having here for the last couple of months we were a little worried about our prospects, but we were incredibly lucky, with sunshine for both days (until arriving back in England that is).I haven't had a chance to go through my photos properly yet, and only had my phone with me to take shots with, but here is the first - my Suzuki GSX-R600 on the mountain road, with a view towards Ramsey. Read more:Weekend
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club 2007-07-21 11:09:00 A while back I had a little rant about the additional charges applied to ticket prices when buying from somewhere like Ticketmaster. Well, the event for which the tickets were purchased finally arrived this week - BlackRebelMotorcycle
Club at Somerset House. For some reason I neglected to put a reminder in my diary and I almost forgot about it. Fortunately I was reminded in time. We were (again) pretty fortunate with the weather - Somerset House is an outdoor venue - and we had a perfect evening with not a cloud in the sky. The gig was amazing - an hour and a half of all BRMC's best tracks.As seems to be happening more often these days, I didn't have my camera with me, so had to make do with the Nokia N73. It did surprisingly well considering it was dark. Read more:Black Rebel
, Motorcycle Club
, Black Rebel Motorcycle
Eight Things About Dave 2007-07-20 09:18:00 I have been 'tagged' by Livingsword. Normally I would ignore these things and move on, but this one I'm going to do - if only because I am off work with a cold and it has given me something to do.First, there are some rules to this game:Each player must post these rules first.Each player then posts eight random facts/habits about themselves.At the end of your post, you should choose eight more people to tag - list their names.Leave the eight people a comment telling them they’re tagged.So, here are eight things about me that you may not have known already.1) I used to smoke. I don't think I was ever really addicted in the same way that many people are - I could go hours, days or weeks without thinking about a cigarette - I just liked a smoke. Some months I would smoke a lot, but I was never anywhere near a 20-a-day guy. All of a sudden a couple of years ago I just went off them - no idea why, but I haven't smoked since and have no desire to again. One thing I do know though is t Read more:Eight
More Manx 2007-07-19 11:52:00 Some more shots from last weekend's trip to the Isle of Man - from which I still haven't fully recovered after the long wet ride home.Here are two shots from different areas of the island - firstly a view of part of the wall surrounding Peel Castle in the west, and secondly a shot of the old fog horn attached to the lighthouse at the Point of Ayre in the north. Here's another link to a page that contains a map of the island so you can see where these places are in relation to each other.
Crane Skyline 2007-07-23 16:01:00 Cranes dominate the skyline over Somerset House - I liked the pattern and the colours at sunset. Read more:Skyline
Splash (staged attempt) 2007-07-26 13:45:00 My last post about trying to capture a rain drop as it hit the ground reminded me of a similar shot I got a couple of years ago. I had just got my first digital SLR and was playing around - so this shot was staged in a pan in the kitchen sink with the tap dripping constantly. I think I only took ten or so attempt
s to get this one and it turned out lovely. That time I did pop the flash so froze the action completely.Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm, 1/500sec, f/16, flash Read more:Splash
Splash 2007-07-24 16:43:00 What with all the rain we've been having in the UK recently there hasn't been the opportunity for rambles outdoors to capture nice summer images. So, instead, one day last week while the rain was hammering down on the conservatory roof I sat just inside the door for a while and attempted to get a shot of the raindrops splashing onto the patio outside. This really is just pot-luck - its very difficult to time a shot like this: by the time you register a moment it's gone. It's simply a case of firing off a load of shots and reviewing them later. So, how did I do? Not great - this image was the best of over one hundred clicks, and the drop is just out of focus. Next time will be better - and maybe I'll remember to use a flash.Nikon 18-200mm VR at 200mm, 1/90sec, f/5.6 Read more:Splash
Arachnophobia 2007-07-28 18:09:00 I was busy the other day with some DIY - putting together some new furniture - when I noticed a spot on the wall ... only small but it hadn't been there before. I guess it depends on the size of your monitor, but the spot was probably not much bigger than this O. As I got closer I realised it was a spider. I'm not a big fan of spiders, but I don't mind them too much - just don't want them crawling over me. This one looked friendly enough though, so I thought I'd get in closer for a better look.I could be wrong, so excuse me if I'm mistaken, but I think this is a jumping spider - they are the most common type of spider in the world though so maybe that's a safe assumption to make. It never moved while I was watching it though - let alone leap in the air - so I can't confirm that.Nikon 105mm VR, 1/60sec, f/20, SB-600
File it Under Crazy? 2007-08-02 15:39:00 Quite often when people find out you're about to have your first child they offer some advice - a common piece of which seems to be 'cram in as much sleep as you can now, you'll need it!'Now, while you can't actually store sleep as this advice might suggest, it has made me think about sleep in general. Sleeping lots more than necessary wastes time and usually makes me just feel really drowsy for the rest of that day. I often sleep too much at weekends and am never good at getting up in the mornings. However, whenever I do wake up later than 10am I always feel a little guilty and I don't really 'get into' the day as I would like.So I've been wondering whether its possible to train yourself to need less sleep. It's known that some people need more sleep than others, and the recommendation is eight hours. But ... if your body knew it was going to get less sleep, maybe the sleep you gave it would be better taken. Hmmm. I found this story after a quick search and it seems that it Read more:Crazy
Bug Month 2007-08-08 15:13:00 It must be bug month or something - here's another insect image. The other day I spotted a fly sitting on a curtain. After thirty minutes or so it was still there, so I got the camera. I think it was getting old - it didn't seem to want to move very far, much preferring to walk than fly anywhere. This is a common housefly - a female. The way to tell its a female (according to Wikipedia anyway) is by the eyes - females have a much larger space between their two eyes than males. Its amazing what you can learn on the internet.Nikon 105mm VR, 1/60sec, f/11, SB-600
Read more:Month
Monday News Story 2007-08-06 05:13:00 This is a bit of a departure from the norm, and I promise the next post will be back to photography, but I just spotted this news story on the BBC and it has made my Monday
morning a little more bearable - hopefully it will do the same for you. Just think, only a few days left until the weekend.
The Fly II 2007-08-10 14:55:00 Here is another image of the same housefly as shown in my previous post - this time much closer. Be afraid, be very afraid.Click on the image to get a larger version, and you'll be able to see the pattern in the eyes. This image almost makes it look like the fly is some kind of robot - the front of the head at least looks like it is made of metal.Nikon 105mm VR1/60sec, f/22, SB-600
Matthew Has Arrived 2007-08-17 09:36:00 A while back I mentioned that I was soon to become a father. Well that day arrived on Monday with the arrival of Matthew
Christopher (which might help to explain the lack of posts in the last week - been a little busy).After a bit of um-ing and ah-ing about whether he really wanted to be born on the 13th, or try to leave it for a few more hours, he decided he would enter the world on his exact due date after all - looks like he has his dad's sense of punctuality at least. Lets just hope he doesn't suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia. I've also been told by a number of people that he has my nose, but I don't see it myself.I guess there will be many more posts in the coming months with photos of my little boy, but for now here are the first couple - one taken just after we got him back from hospital on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday. Sigma 30mm1/60sec, f/3.2, ISO-800 &n
Visitors - the aftermath 2007-08-22 10:03:00 After all the visitors we've been entertaining over the last few days, both Matthew and his Dad are tired and take a nap.Sigma 30mm, 1/30sec, f/4, ISO-450
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Visitors (2) 2007-08-21 11:20:00 Of course the Granddads are just as excited as the Grandmothers when there is a new baby around (although maybe they try not to show it as much). Here are a couple of shots of them so they don't feel left out after seeing the last post. Sigma 30mm1/30sec, f/5, ISO-500 1/20sec, f/2.8, ISO-360
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Visitors (1) 2007-08-20 03:47:00 When you have a baby you get a lot of visitors and in our case the first were the new grandparents. For both my parents and my wife's, this is the first grandchild, so there is a lot of excitement all round. Lots of presents for the new arrival too - Matthew probably now has more stuff than me, we'll soon need to move to a bigger house.Here are a couple of shots of Granny and Nanny (names they have chosen themselves). Sigma 30mm1/80sec, f/2.2, ISO-640 1/40sec, f/5.6, ISO-100
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Monday Mystery Matter - Revealed 2007-08-28 15:35:00 Here's the answer to yesterday's little quiz. Congratulations must go to Neil who got the answer spot on (although I'm wondering whether it was actually his wife's suggestion) - the mystery object was indeed the inside of a petal of a lily - an auratum or similar. Below is a photo of the whole flower.Nikon 105mm VR, 1/60sec, f/18, ISO-360
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, Mystery
Monday Mystery Matter 2007-08-27 03:38:00 Here's a small quiz for this Monday
morning. To the right is a close-up photo of something in my house at the moment - any guesses as to what it is? I'll post the answer in a day or two.Click on the image to get a larger version, which might help. Nikon 105mm VR1/50sec, f/25, ISO-450
Read more:Mystery
Roses 2007-08-30 12:17:00 My wife received some roses last week for (nearly) being a bridesmaid at her friend's wedding. I appropriated them for a short time for some photos.The spiral pattern you get with the opening petals is quite cool to look at, but - even better - they seem to have their own inner light making the centre brighter, which I can't explain. This can be seen especially well in the image below but the photo on the right is my favourite. Nikon 105mm VR1/200sec, f/14, ISO-200Nikon 105mm VR, 1/80sec, f/16, ISO-200Lastly, thanks to LivingSword for nominating this blog for the following award.
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A Milestone and a Conspiracy 2007-09-24 17:12:00 Dave's Photo Blog is (or very soon will be, depending on when you are reading this) 5000 visitors old! Blimey.Like many bloggers I pimp my site a little: pro-actively trying to reach a larger audience. Sites like Blog Explosion get me quite a few hits, as does commenting on other sites that I find interesting. However, the majority of visits to the blog come from Google, and its been quite interesting monitoring the statistics to see how people find my posts.Unfortunately, I'm not able to see the search-term used when a hit comes through Google Images, but here are some examples of web searches that often find me:Dave Licence - before I started blogging, a search on my name would only have returned you with instructions on how to install a piece of software onto your Macintosh. The same search today will return my sites first, although this blog has actually dropped to third for some reason (see my conspiracy theory below). Unfortunately, a search for David Licence only returns my Li Read more:Conspiracy
Creepy 2007-09-21 16:31:00 I was out doing a bit of tidying in the garden the other weekend - just cutting back all this year's growth rather than doing anything amazing with an herbaceous border or installing a shrubbery (OK so that's two links for shrubberies. Sorry. I did look for something amusing on herbaceous borders but am easily distracted). There is a bramble on the lane behind my garden, which keeps trying to loop its way over the fence and find an extra foothold. As I was battling with it I noticed another plant that seemed to be thriving by winding and tangling itself around the bramble and pretty much everything nearby. The shapes and patterns made by this plant are quite interesting to look at as it really does wriggle around to cling on to whatever its near. This observation resulted in some more macro shots (I'll try to photograph something full-scale soon, promise). The plant could be some kind of creeper, hence the title of this post, but I really have no idea. Nikon D200, AF-S 105mm Mi
Rope Light 2007-09-10 15:43:00 I have a rope light strung up along the handrail of the stairs in my house. It looks pretty cool when it is switched on, but that tends to be only for parties - most of the time it just sits there not doing much but collecting dust.The other night I had the lights on while taking photos of moths - seen in the background of the first picture in last week's Creatures Of The Night post - and wondered what the rope might look like on its own. Here are a couple of shots from my experiment. Nikon D200, AF-S 105mm Micro VR1/200sec, f/7.1 1/80 sec, f/8
Oak Bush-Cricket 2007-09-06 15:34:00 Here is another night-time interloper into my household. An oak bush-cricket - a male (noted due to the lack of a pointed ovipositor).This guy is less common and certainly more unexpected than the moths of my previous post, given that I don't live too close to woodland. I did spot a speckled bush-cricket in my back garden last year though while pruning the greenery so maybe the speckled bunch invited some of the oak gang over for an intra-species parley and this one got lost - photographed here hanging upside-down off my ceiling a few nights ago.Nikon D200, AF-S 105mm Micro VR, SB-6001/80sec, f/20, ISO-200
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Creatures Of The Night 2007-09-04 11:55:00 Having a new baby in the house has meant that I have recently become familiar with some hours of the night that I haven't been acquainted with for a while. This also means that I have seen many of the creatures that roam the halls when the lights are normally dimmed - the most common of which are moths. They seem to find a way in no matter how tightly you draw the curtains or shutter the blinds, just to be near an energised light bulb.Here are some photos of a couple of recent visitors. Unfortunately, there are nearly two and a half thousand species of moth in the UK alone, so I haven't been able to identify them. Any lepidopterists in the audience?Nikon D200, AF-S 105mm Micro VR1/100sec, f/5.6, ISO-220 Nikon D200, AF-S 105mm Micro VR, SB-6001/250sec, f/22, ISO-200 1/200sec, f/25, ISO-200
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Licence Licensed 2007-09-30 17:35:00 A recent comment-conversation with Rebecca and post from Ming reminded me that I needed to do something about clarifying the status of the images I post to the internet. I do not sell my images (I had a few on iStockphoto, a stock photography site, but the returns are too low to bother) so wouldn't be losing any money if someone decided to 'appropriate' an image from this site for their own use, but at the same time I would hope that no-one did that without asking.To make things clearer I have created a license for my images using Creative Commons.The license means that anyone is free to share and use any of the images I post on this blog in a non-commercial manner, as long as they do not alter the images in any way and I am given credit, either via name or a link back to this site.The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the images you see here are usually around 800 by 600 pixels in size, while the majority of my work is shot with a ten mega pixel camera. That means if you d
No Parking 2007-09-29 17:14:00 This appeared sometime in the last week and I spotted it the following day on my walk to the train station on the way to work. It is perhaps most pointless set of double yellow lines I have ever seen. OK, so it is next to a driveway and it is opposite the (footpath) entrance to a church, but this is a tiny road and here is the only stretch with any form of road markings. Either a resident has taken it on themselves to police highway code item 243 or our local council doesn't have enough to worry about. Made me chuckle anyway.Nokia N73
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At The Drive In 2007-10-06 17:00:00 I don't like to watch much crap TV (my wife might disagree here), but weekend mornings are great for channel surfing. This morning, after catching the end of Robot Wars, and discussing the feasibility of the plot of Xena Warrior Princess I noticed a film with the title Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. Who could resist?OK, I'll admit it, the film was laughable - but a chuckle is never a bad thing is it? Here is a brief synopsis:In 1998 a manned-mission is sent to Venus. A meteor hits the spaceship and everyone dies. Oh well. A second mission is sent. This one crash lands on Venus, stranding two astronauts and 'Robot John' (a robot called John who everyone calls Robot John so we don't get too attached to his strangely-dexterous, but sadly hydrophobic ways). A third mission is sent to rescue the men from certain space-suit rash. This one lands without problem, but where are the rescue-ees? In a journey across the planet to find the stranded crew members, the rescuers (in th
First Smiles 2007-10-03 14:14:00 Matthew has now been with us for seven weeks, and while that time has flown past so quickly we almost don't realise how long its been, its also difficult to remember or imagine life before having him with us.He is certainly growing fast. He might be just above average weight for his age, but last week he hit the 98th percentile for height. He's currently as tall as an an 'average' baby twice his age!Apart from being lanky like his dad he also started smiling a couple of weeks ago and is now more interested in things going on around him. Taking photos of a baby that has just started smiling with a massive SLR is tricky as they mostly react only to another smiling face, and the camera tends to cover that up (a small P&S that is also able to shoot video has been ordered from eBay and is in the post). However, here are a couple I managed to capture last weekend. Nikon D200, Sigma 30mm f/1.41/30sec, f/2.8 Read more:First
, Smiles
Licence Licensed 2007-09-30 17:35:00 A recent comment-conversation with Rebecca and post from Ming reminded me that I needed to do something about clarifying the status of the images I post to the internet. I do not sell my images (I had a few on iStockphoto, a stock photography site, but the returns are too low to bother) so wouldn't be losing any money if someone decided to 'appropriate' an image from this site for their own use, but at the same time I would hope that no-one did that without asking.To make things clearer I have created a license for my images using Creative Commons.The license means that anyone is free to share and use any of the images I post on this blog in a non-commercial manner, as long as they do not alter the images in any way and I am given credit, either via name or a link back to this site.The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the images you see here are usually around 800 by 600 pixels in size, while the majority of my work is shot with a ten mega pixel camera. That means if you d
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