What am I doing?!?

In the farmhouse bed and breakfast behind me is a pot of freshly brewed coffee and a full English breakfast accompanied by toast and marmalade, with my name all over it. Oh yeah, and Rachel. So of course I was standing in a frost laden field in just my shirt, (well not ‘just’ my shirt obviously, or the police would have been called) hoping the vibration reduction system on my lens can cope with hypothermia induced shivering.

I suspect this is a good indication of why I am a landscape photographer. You could put together one of those ‘A or B’ type psychology quizzes and this situation would be a good question. You know the kind of thing. ‘Hot hatch or Land Rover’, ‘Trendy trainers or walking boots’, ‘David Bailey or Joe Cornish’, ‘Farmhouse breakfast or frozen field’. If you answered mostly ‘B’s, then you are probably a certified landscape nut. Don’t worry, you are not on your own.

Unless of course you are not blessed with a life partner as understanding, or forgiving, as Rachel. In which case you probably are on your own. Such is the curse of the landscape photographer. Our ‘condition’ drives us to seek out places far from the beaten path at ungodly times of day or year. Holiday destinations are chosen on the basis of photographic potential, rather than the proximity of the swimming pool or nightclub. If you need further illustration take my current circumstances. This weekend was, is, a Valentines Day break and I am standing in a field while the love of my life is having her breakfast. I suspect few relationships would withstand too much of that sort of behaviour, and I admit to frequent pangs of guilt, but I’ll make it up to her.

But hey, I could have been a glamour nut spending all my free time photographing scantily clad women.

And it could be worse.

At least I didn’t ask her to join me in the field.

Dave

Monkey!

I mentioned in my last entry that Rachel and I were planning to visit Gibraltar while we were in Spain at the end of last year. I am nothing if not a man of my word so we duly pootled the two and a half hours (each way) from our apartment to ‘The Rock’. Our toy hire car still hadn’t got any faster, but the weather was showing signs of playing the game after the ‘windswept and interesting’ visit to the Alhambra the previous day.

Now the Rock of Gibraltar is famous for many things. Being a little piece of England just off a foreign shore, being a rock, but for us the key reason for visiting was the monkeys. More correctly, the apes, as monkeys and apes are apparently different. Rachel is into animals. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Rachel is a student of animal behaviour and was keen to have a look at the furry little critters that live ‘wild’ within such close proximity to their, arguably, more evolved cousins. I’m rather partial to a bit of wildlife myself. Especially if a ten minute cable car ride plonks you in it’s back yard so don’t have to embark on desert or jungle adventures for weeks on end to get a snatched glimpse through a telephoto lens.

It should be remembered that the apes are wild. This is not a zoo. And as such certain rules of behaviour are required. Should you visit Gibraltar you will have no difficulty working out what these rules are as there are signs everywhere. ‘No touching the apes’, ‘No feeding the apes’, ‘No making rude gestures behind the apes back’, ‘No making disparaging remarks about the evolutionary status of the apes where they can hear you’, ‘No making attempts to communicate with the apes by means of comical monkey noises’, etc, etc. One (real) sign advised that visitors should ‘Observe the apes from a distance’. Perhaps someone should have told the apes. On more than one occasion I found myself backing up while trying to frame one of the little beggars that was more intent on observing me at close quarters. Not a good thing to do on top of a small mountain.

For the most part though, they displayed a studied indifference to human scrutiny, regarding us with a face that said ‘whatever!’ more effectively than any teenager. But at least that made photographing them relatively easy, and they are so photogenic.

Anyway, I am thinking this wildlife photography lark is a breeze, has anybody seen any leopards round here?

Dave

The rain in Spain...

…falls mainly in Granada in my experience. I haven’t blogged in a while for which I can only offer my profuse apologies. Rest assured I have not been idle. Never one to stand still for long I have been working on a number of little projects, as well as earning an honest wage sufficient to keep my cat in the manner to which it would like to become accustomed. However, Rachel and I managed a week in the south of Spain at the end of last year which proved to be both relaxing, and fruitful in terms of photography.

We had ‘borrowed’ an apartment from a friend, on the coast about half an hour from Malaga. The idea was to chill out but explore a little at the same time. So, armed with the cheapest, smallest hire car we could find we set forth, and quickly discovered that Spain is a lot bigger than you would think. Well, probably not bigger than ‘you’ would think, but way bigger than I was thinking! Everything seemed to be at least 2 hours away. I understand time is relative and it could be due to the peddle car we were using, or maybe the change in time zone, but we certainly got to see a lot of the countryside. We had already picked a destination each that we wanted to visit. After that we would just explore. Now that’s democracy in action. Rachel wanted to go to Gibraltar (she has an affinity with all things cute and furry) and I wanted to see the Alhambra (architecture, history and a chance of snow capped mountains as a backdrop).

Guess which day it rained.

We had already been informed that you were lucky if it rained more than five days a year in this neck of the woods. We were, after all, on the Costa del Sol. If my pigeon Spanish is up to it I believe that translates roughly as the ‘Coast of Sun’. So it stood to reason that on the one day I really wanted good weather it rained like...(insert your favourite expletive here). Oh, and not forgetting the wind which was, shall we say, ‘brisk’? Was I going to let this minor inconvenience stop me getting the dramatic sweeping panoramas I was hoping for? Damn right I was. Time to invoke Plan B and ‘Go for detail’. Luckily the Alhambra is stuffed with detail. Carved stone, mosaics, water features and loads more. So I managed to come away with a good selection of images and all was right with the world. We plan to go back at some point to have a look at Seville, so I’m thinking a return visit may be in order. Lightning can’t strike twice.

Can it?

Dave


Palace of Charles V, Alhambra