Emirates

So after a toughish start to the year, my Dad was finally able to make use of his birthday present - a tour of the Emirates stadium! It was a very enjoyable day out (even if one of us supports the Gunners rivals). Photos were taken, and souvenirs were purchased. And this time thankfully the tube station was only a few minutes walk away (unlike the Olympic park!) 

As to be expected with my blog posts, the photos are all in the wrong order and all over the page. I will try to figure out how to sort this at some point (maybe).

(And after downloading a dodgy version of a free photoshop type programme I have now found a new photo stitcher to use :) )

A small K4 challenge!

I lent my camera to one of the Falcon supporters for the Reading K4 race. It was our first K4 race as a team and lead to 5km somehow being completed and a few arguments in the boat. Team Falcon put out quite a few teams, these are the photos that the kind supporter took for me, thank-you.

iPhone

So am trying this app out on my new phone (ok so it is only a 4s and not a 5, but oh well). Have taken a few photos already and am thinking about updating my shuttercal with photos from my phone for a while. Ok, here are the results from the last 3 days :)

Olympics day 13

Day 13 of the Olympics for the my family meant a trip to the Olympic Park in Stratford, London. It was a blistering hot day which meant that we were often hunting for a little bit of shade. The site was bustling with excitement and pride from people representing a huge variety of countries.

The aquatics centre was the venue for the final of the women's 10m diving competition. We had seats high up in the stands, which gave the 50m pool the illusion of being a small paddling pool. Difficult to believe this was where  gold medals had been won.

The diving was amazing to watch, it is really difficult to understand how someone can do a handstand on the very edge of a 10m drop. After some spectacular dives, the gold medal went to a Chinese athlete. Due to flash photography distracting the divers and the distance of our seats I took very photos of the actual event, but managed to take quite a few outside of the arena.

Olympics day 11

An early start to the day, an hour long drive south towards Slough via Abingdon and tickets to see the canoeing and kayking sprints at Eaton Dorney. Very exciting!

Being a paddler of the more stable kayaks and knowing how easy it is to end up in the water, I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed not to see any capsizes.

Here a few photos of the day. I did try messing with various elements during the morning, so hence so photos are 'better' than others. But, please bear in mind that my motivation is still not where it should be, but it is slowly, slowly increasing.

Mens K4

The underdogs for the C2 were very much the Angolan team.

Spot the Swedish supporter

Womens K2, slow shutter speed

Mens K4

Mens C2

Must be a Brit on the water

It was a great morning out and a fantastic atmosphere. Thanks to my navigator (who would now like to try her hand at sprint canoeing) and the people that didn't take up the offer of a free tickets. 

I would like to suggest to the BCU, that perhaps we can hold the Hasler kayak marathon finals here, I am sure we can find 25,000 people to cheer us on!

Motivation?

Due to recent situations I haven't updated this blog in a long while. I have to admit that I lost all motivation to take photos and wasn't sure when any would return. I think that slowly, slowly it is coming back.

I now have my very own GoPro and have been trying to think of new 'angles'. There are plenty of good photographs (and videos) taken with sports cameras from a variety of positions: body cams, helmet cams, boat cams, pole cams, so I tried for something 'new', a paddle cam.

I have taken the camera out twice and mounted it on the center of my paddle, on my first attempt the battery ran out half way through my trip, on the second attempt I ended up getting my paddle stuck in a tree (ie, I moved in my boat under tree, my paddle didn't move with me), thankfully, I now know that a paddle with a GoPro still floats!!!

(My apologies for the poor layout of some of these photos, I still become very frustrated with Blogger for not allowing me to do exactly what I want with this blog)

'Is that a camera on your paddle?!'

View looking towards bottom of River Thames

Time trial start (yes, a bad start from me)

On the hips

Sometimes, just sometimes, when you feel the need to try/do something different, give shooting from the hip a try. Ignore the quizzical looks, the non discrete noise of the shutter and the wonky angles that you may get, give it a go and see what results you get - oh, I do love autofocus (even though sometimes it doesn't quite work as I hope).