Woburn Deer Park

What does a photographer do when his main working computer develops a thin vertical green line from top to bottom of his screen? Although not debilitating in its own right, it could be a precursor to further problems, so it has to be taken to repairers and that means I suffer its loss for several days. It was marginally out of warranty, but Apple agreed to carry out the work under warranty, and it had been arranged that I take it to the Milton Keynes Apple Store.

When I took it in I was advised it could take anywhere between five to seven working days.

Upon this basis, I swapped out the faulty machine with a much older less powerful, though larger screened model, and connected up to those discs whose contents were the most vital for my continued working. I also made a complete clone of the Mac that was going for repair, but unfortunately it was unable to boot this older machine, so I sincerely hoped I would not be delayed too long.

Once I had worked as far as I could go, I chose to take advantage of the sunshine, and do what photographers do, I went to take pictures, and the location I chose was the Deer Park at Woburn. I arrived in the continuing sunshine and blue skies, but ominous black clouds were amassing, and soon the wind rose, and it began to drizzle, but I moved into the lee by some trees and continued shooting, and for a while it stopped raining, but the sun was shy and hid behind clouds, just occasionally casting its light on parts of the landscape, before new dark clouds arrived and the showers started again.

As I walked up the grassy path towards the House, my phone rang. Surprisingly, it was the Apple Store Milton Keynes who had only received the Mac from me the day before, to say it was now ready for collection. I thanked the chap for expediting the repair and asked when they closed, was told six o’clock, which meant I had a chance to get there just before they closed – I turned around and began the long walk back to reach my car and journey onto Milton Keynes. I arrived with half an hour to spare, and bought the Camera Connection kit for the iPad by way of saying thank you, and now have the task of putting all my kit back as it was! I would not be able to post process all the pictures till it was all up and running again, but it gave me an opportunity to tidy all the cabling, vacuum all the accumulated dust and check it all out. That made for a very long evening! I did start on looking at the photos, but after all the exertions, I had to give in and get to bed. This morning I caught up on all the email, and finished culling and the gallery is just going up.

Then I have to get off to London to the AoP Awards where I am collecting one for Martin Evening who is indisposed, where I will also be meeting up with Geoff Dann.