THE BIGGEST CHANGE

I am not in Enfield any longer!

Apologies for the delay but things have been .. hectic!

In fact I am still between homes but I can tell you that I am around 240 miles from the nearest London borough!

I am looking and have contacted organisations in North Wales as well as Cheshire along with a few in the area I am currently in.

I have been here 9 days and had intended to purchase a laptop to continue posting on my blogs but .. I only acquired one yesterday, bought one that was used as new laptops are a total rip-off for what essentially only have two cores, is this the late 90's?

However despite getting a hold of, surprisingly, a HP Envy laptop and this being the second used electronic device I bought from this area in a little over two months both are faulty.

This laptop seems fine except that when charging it seems to only charge slowly and at a lower rate than it discharges, even with battery savings on, and it WILL shut off, which it did yesterday evening around 7pm.

Leaving the laptop on charge while off all evening and all night I was relieved to see that it did in fact have a full charge by 9am this morning.

I had wondered if the battery was knackered, it is not an easily removable one, or whether I had been given the wrong or faulty charger?

The little light by the power socket on the side of the laptop does indeed light up when plugged in and even when the power is off. I am assuming that it is receiving some power as the light being on and when it was down to one minute remaining it still went for an hour before shutting down.

So I have to return to the cash converter store to see if the power lead is the right one and whether it is faulty or not.

I feel somewhat better knowing now I have contacted several organisations in the hope that they can assist me in what I want to do.

Oh yeah ..

This little detail about moving?

I relocated here, though I have yet to officially relocate, because my daughter and grandchildren not only need help but are also in danger and .. well .. there is not anyone else to help and do not even mention pubic services to me.

The children have many problems due to the negative affect domestic abuse has had and added to that I am now told that one of my grandchildren is autistic.

Another shows signs of this too but as that is the youngest one we are not sure if it is sure fire symptom or whether or not mimicking is going on?

Before I left and on the day I was leaving for the umpteenth time I was asked to stay, told by my landlord that if it did not work out he would happily rent to me again and there is a place if it did not work out within three weeks.

I was also told by two separate people that me leaving was the end of an era! Oddly both also called Steve but did not know each other.

When I explained why .. again I was told I was an honest and honourable man. Has to be just about one of the nicest things anyone ever said about me.

I am currently in the Wirral.

Hmm? I used to know someone in North Wales?! Unfortunately they got the wrong end of a very long stick and stopped talking to me, after accusing me of first trying to start a civil war and then a government shill.

I only hope I get a great deal of photography done over the next six months to a year? Both landscapes and wildlife.

SOME EARLY PHOTOS

Yeesh!

This is something I forgot about and while getting used to the camera and controls I have been stabbed in the back by a couple of public services that must assume everyone lies as they tried to make me out to be a liar .. again.

Unfortunately this has blown up in their faces but they think that they are safe. They are not.

Anyway .. I have also been in the middle of several other pretty major things, which will only add to the pain of these so called, aforementioned, public services. As a result I am not getting out as much as I would have liked to have done to experiment with all the photography I want to do.

But I have done and I forgot to add things in a post on this blog.

So if I remember correctly there was a size limit to the pictures I can upload on Blogger?

So I have to use something else and some links .. except there does not appear to be an obvious way of sharing on FlickR, as there is on say YouTube?

So here goes ..

Tiger Longwing Butterfly taken at Whipsnade Zoo's butterfly house ..

https://flic.kr/p/YCXwCe

Huh?! It refuses point blank to link the photo in, stating that a picture cannot be found from the shared link I provided?! Jesus Christ! Lol.

Maybe it is because FlickR is not owned by Google? Or maybe it is? Christ, they have bought so many companies it is hard to keep track!


A Postman Butterfly ..

https://flic.kr/p/Yqpwja


A Flambeau Butterfly ..

https://flic.kr/p/YqrxoR


An African Hunting Dog ..

https://flic.kr/p/YD4jBi


The real Wolverine ..

https://flic.kr/p/XoTZEi


A Meerkat ..

https://flic.kr/p/Ym9YV5


A view of the Chilterns

https://flic.kr/p/Y2Jy3Q


Getting a little more artistic now ..

A Bee on Rapeseed ..

https://flic.kr/p/Ya5Ffz


Ghosts at Sunset ..

https://flic.kr/p/X6BNsU


Dark & Purple ..

https://flic.kr/p/X6BHDW


Rapeseed in Late Summer ..

https://flic.kr/p/X6BH2J


.. and again ..

https://flic.kr/p/X6BHgm


and lastly .. to top it off and for the first and second time ..

A Kingfisher ..

https://flic.kr/p/Y61JQS


Good god, that looks rubbish with just links! Lol.

I was with another chap when I got the Kingfisher and he was frustrated at how he could not freeze a flying birds wings when taking a photo..

..so I took his Canon and showed him how. He was extremely delighted he had bumped into me and mentioned it a few times before we both left. Lol.

Happy to be of service.

THE NEW SET

Well ..

I have been a little busy .. and away for eight days.

I am still shopping but apart from some stuff inbound .. the main shopping has paused .. due to some unforeseen circumstances and a change in a particular .. destination.

A destination I have already been to once ..

But here are some pictures with my new camera ..

Bear with me as I am getting used to the controls and .. trying to remember to alter my settings, aperture and such, as the light changes.

Right then .. a few things to remember for viewers going forwards ..

• These images are shot in RAW
• Shock number 1: These are edited/processed in bad software (i.e. prob losing Image Quality)
• Shock Number 2: These are then shrunk down to 30% their original size .. yup I do not care how many times you look and think rubbish .. they ARE shrunk down to 30% - 42 Mega Pixels
• Shock Number 3: they are reduced in size in MS Paint .. yeah, yeah .. I know, I know
• Serif Affinity Photo will be purchased very soon!
• I will sort out my FLICKR account I never used .. much .. anyway
• Sony A99 II DSLT
• Sony G Series 70-200mm f2.8
• Sony Zeiss 24-70mm f2.8
• Sony 1.4x Teleconverter
• Sigma 85mm f1.4 (Incoming .. soo .. no, none of the pictures are shot with anything other than the two f2.8 lenses .. some might be at f4 or higher if I used the teleconverter)
• Two dozen 4K videos up on YouTube, see bottom
• I was with four children that were hyped up some of the time .. so could not do everything .. plus the family was kinda .. threatened so had to focus on that .. kind of still am, bear with me a couple of weeks, lol

On one shoot I met a really nice guy, photographer, who loved nature and we chatted in the hide for 3 hours. Kinda reminded me of why I do some of the things and blogs that  do .. people like him.

Now the 4K Videos ..

GAS BAGS

Well here is another blog I forgot to post and update on!

Yeah .. once before I had these big plans where everything was going to change but it never panned out and I never gt t the bottom of it or the reasons?

Yeeah .. this wasn't that.

But as it turns out the 'that' has returned from the proverbial grave and in a week from now I should have the answers I sought for so long.

Also the issue I had has been completed for the most part. Enough for e to make the radical changes I sought just over a year ago. Or was it two?

Did I ever mention that I live with various pains, a number of things that cause discomfort and anxiety and sometimes literally and I have short term memory issues. Did I mention that I have short term memory issues?! I apologise .. I could not resist that last line.

Sooo then?

Up until now my sessions have included only local areas I reach on my mountain bike? Yeah .. not any longer ..

I have a yearn for more artistic photos and am keen to really get used to spotting scenes with my eye.

Here are a few videos of what I will be using and intended for me to be more keen on the artistic side and if I was to state I not only had a raw shooting camera but that it was also fast and with a high mega pixel count it might be .. classed as an understatement?

Now I can shoot and edit in RAW but .. wait a minute .. it is taking two minutes to open a single RAW file on my PC?! Oh wait? I had plans for that?!

• Landscapes will now be sought out
• Artistic scenes will now be sought out
• Astrophotography will now be attempted at some point, have a blog for those pictures but real good ones might make it on here?
• Bokeh will now be on my mind
• Other lenses might well b acquired?

THE LONG PAUSE

I have had a serious issue going on for seven months now.

It should have not gone on this long but it did.

There was delay after delay and I am not even sure why, with most if not all of them.

As I stated on my corruption blog .. it will mean some big changes when it occurs and will mean that I can buy a shed load of things that are for professionals, like camera equipment.

But before I could buy anything else I needed something that would help me acquire these other tools, of which there is a long list.

Of course one of the other issues I have had is that I use my mountain bike for a lot of work and .. well the weather has been dreadful for me and my health condition. My condition does not like it when it is hot and humid and it was exactly that of late.

Well .. that is until it turned to rain and last night I could heard this horrendous and loud noise and I thought 'That sounds like really, really heavy rain but that kind of rain I have not witnessed before!'

I got up and looked out my window and I think many local Indian people could be forgiven for thinking they had been teleported back to India in he middle of a monsoon!

Anyway yeah so I needed the bike and as has been the case for years now .. if it is really hot, raining or even just a wind stronger than 10mph then getting anything done wildlife wise, or anything else for that matter .. is impossible!

But ..

.. not anymore!

As I stated previously .. many tools to come! Lol! Hmm professional DSLT and some top lenses and do some bokeh photography?! Yes please!

CRASH COURSES

I am about to go through a big change in what I do and how I do them.

This all changes at some point between the beginning of June this year, 2017, and August, depending on when things finalise and how long it takes me to get everything in place and effect the changes.

Oh the changes will be immediate but ... maybe not all of them and I am not sure how long it will take to implement them all entirely.

Along with this will be a whole raft of new equipment, and an effing keyboard that works, and in photography alone this means a new camera and at least three lenses.

To kind of prepare for this I am doing something I should have done last year, with new Nikon P900, and I am limiting myself to PURELY manual photography for the next month.

This is to re-familiarise myself with manual settings, familiarise myself with other settings in preparation for the very high investment, how high I am not entirely sure yet, I will make over the coming weeks.

I wont tempt fate by stating exactly what I intend to get ... though I have always had a preference for Nikon. When they work and I have not ended up purchasing something used or faulty unawares!

So I am going to just do several posts over the next month just with a few shots of me playing around taking photos of things I thought might make an interesting photograph.

Here are three I picked after rushing through them, that did not make me puke! Lol ..

THE RETURN OF THE WANDERING EYES

Well after a pretty lengthy pause forced by evil public services I am back.

Oooh boy, if you only knew what had gone on in my absence and what is about to go on from here on out.

There is now going to be a return to photographs or situations that catch my eye for a photograph that will be fairly, somewhere between semi and, regular over the next few weeks.

This will increase as I drum into myself with a hammer the reminder to look for things outside of wildlife, for my wildlife blog and YouTube channel, when I am out that would make a good photo.

As I remember more and more and do not screw up the photo as I am taking it this will increase over the next month.

Added to this and sometime around mid-June to mid-July I will acquire more tools to do this in the way of both hardware and software.

This will be inevitable due to not one inevitable thing but TWO inevitable things going on that will also serve for me to get revenge on those that cocked up my content gathering for the whole of 2016. But ... that is a subject for my corruption blog. Also and out of 12 blogs it is my most popular blog, strangely, lol.

So as I kind of get back to where I was and then powering beyond that here are a few things I like about my last collection of the first photos in many, many months ...

A Spring Sun

Flowers against water ..

Blossom ..

Tree in Blossom ..

Emerging Frittilary ..

Preening Heron Grass ...

 A Path in Springtime ..

Primrose in the Frame ..

Spring Primroses ..

Tool of Spring and Summer ..

A Modern Bike Against an Old Wall ..