Marsworth Pastel Reed beds

The Sunday afternoon was surprisingly warm for the end of March, but the sky was overcast with an occasional milky sun seen through the cloud cover.

Having arrived at Marsworth reservoir it was obvious many people had also decided to venture out as witnessed by the numbers of cars parked nearby, and I had my camera with me despite not expecting to capture much of interest. I was not destined to be surprised!

There was certainly much to be heard, as birdsong filled the air, but only rarely did I catch sight of the singers, and when I did the branches made capturing an image of them impossible, especially since the light was poor. I took a walk towards Bulbourne alongside the canal. Finding nothing of significance I retraced my steps and on my return the light grew less but with subtle shades of pink, orange and blue, so I took a few landscape shots of the reed beds, and later listened to a pair of raucous Greylag Geese and watched, as I believe the male, remained ashore for longer before deciding it would finally join its partner on the water.

This was a far cry from the abundance of birds I had experienced while in India, especially in the grounds of the Deo Bagh Hotel in Gwalior!

Sawston Village College Concert 2014

http://www.fntn.co.uk/rodwp/SawstonVCC14-1

Catherine alerted me to the Sawston Village College Concert, being held once again in the West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge, and this time both girls were to be in the Samba Band, and Poppy would also be playing her saxophone with the Sawston Saxophone Sound.

Last year I gave my 100-400mm its very first outing, as I only received it the morning of the last concert, but I learned from that evening that there were times when I wanted a wider view, so this time I also took the 70-200mm. As before I arrived early enough to get a position as far forward as possible on the left flank gallery, and there is fortunately just enough light to shoot at 6400 ISO with manageable shutter speeds to ensure most movement was captured effectively.

I had not yet cleared my 32GB cards of shots taken in India, so I foolishly omitted formatting any of them and chose to work with the space available, forcing me to change cards, which meant that when I started to create the gallery, I completely failed to spot I had missed most of the Samba Band shots. This means I now have two separate galleries and the chronology of the concert is lost unless I start again. I have more pressing things to be doing, so two galleries it is!

Here is the second.http://www.fntn.co.uk/rodwp/SawstonVCC14-2

Ten Days in India

For avid readers of my blog (if such there breathe?), I sincerely apologise for the absence of anything new or even vaguely interesting for the last several weeks – this is due to my paying a ten day visit to India to spend some time in the two cities of Mumbai and Delhi with my niece and nephew respectively.

I spent a mere ten days on the sub-continent, taking any and every opportunity to take photographs, but since for me I was travelling very light with no computer, this meant that only when I returned to these shores was I able to get the galleries of pictures up to the server.

Succumbing to the natural changes of diet and water also took a day out of the ten, and the knock on effect of that resulted in my only seeing Mumbai between the internal airport and the new Mumbai International, which was not really enough to learn something of the life of my niece with her work with advertising films and her Beauty School, Fat Mu.

However, I have now done some sorting and for the moment will not write anything extensive, but allow the pictures themselves to tell their own story. Here are the links in approximately the order in which they were taken.

Abu Dhabi Airport
Nizamuddin West, Delhi
The Amer Craft Colony at night
The Qutub Minar
Old Delhi
The Taj Mahal
The train journey to Jaipur
The Sheraton Hotel
A Hill Fort in Jaipur
The Amber Palace
The Deo Bagh Hotel in Gwalior
The Man Singh Palace and Fort
The Scindia Museum at the Gwalior Palace
Fatehpur Sikri Hill Fort and Palace
The new Mumbai International Airport

I was extended great courtesy by two owners of shops, one in Jaipur itself another in the Amber Palace, I hope you appreciate the photos taken in both places by way of a thank you.

The difficulty is choosing a single image to head this piece yet do justice to India, so I hope the shot of the Sweeper in Old Delhi says something about Optimism! I hope anyone looking at these images is able to sense something of the spirit of my trip and share in my enjoyment and gratitude to Virginia, Alex, Palka and Junaid.