TOUGH DAY AT THE BEACH

Well .. it was actually good and very, very .. cool!

But it was .. tough!

My health condition is doing its best to try and kill me .. one way it lets me know this, though it did not yesterday when I went on this trip, and another way has no damn warning.

Plus it likes to throw me some curve-balls and often two ore more at once.

I was in a .. very nice bed and breakfast with a very nice owner down in Minster on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

Brother suggested we do this, the one I can talk to, has a car and does not perform like a child depending on the conversation topic. Lol. We went down with two nephews I had not seen in a while, one almost 18 while the other .. umm .. very young? Lol, I have a terrible memory but I would suggest he is three .. give or take a couple of months. Probably less.

Yeah on the evening I had a nerve wracking drive down, a panic attack once there and extremely uncomfortable feeling. This led to some trouble sleeping but I got there in the end.

The feeling persisted in a weaker form the next day .. finally disappeared after a pint of shandy and a couple of extra pills after my thighs started to ache. Up until this point I have only used my jpeg only Nikon P900 and had neglected the Sony A99II as I was not feeling particularly artistic ..

Full size images provided with a link and I sincerely hope people enjoy them .. they are also not all here and there are many others I took on the day as well as all my previous photo outings on my Flickr account ..

https://flic.kr/p/Ls4cH3

 https://flic.kr/p/27unEr1

https://flic.kr/p/28vtjCL 

https://flic.kr/p/28wMLSN

Then just prior to a helping of magnesium, vitamin B's and a little alcohol we spotted something rare when We drove under what I knew was a bird of prey and told my brother we had just driven under a Kestrel. We stopped, got out and I was just thinking how weird the Kestrel looked while squinting in the sunlight when my brother said .. "That is not a Kestrel! That IS a Merlin!!"

https://flic.kr/p/27dCcDv

Then I started to feel fine after a small quantity of alcohol and some extra magnesium and vitamin B's due to pain appearing in my thighs from my health conditions ..

 https://flic.kr/p/JVZ8wn

 https://flic.kr/p/JWaoDr

 https://flic.kr/p/Ls65Pu

 https://flic.kr/p/25PUSZJ

 https://flic.kr/p/27dbJCr

https://flic.kr/p/27dbnAM 

 https://flic.kr/p/27uzynd

 https://flic.kr/p/27uzzGh

 https://flic.kr/p/JWaoDr

https://flic.kr/p/27db84v

THE OLD ROAD & OLD PHOTOS

I had intended to do this for awhile. Ever since I had gotten to .. some grips with my RAW photo editing program .. Serif Affinity Photo.

Not used Adobe's Lightroom and not used anything Adobe for a number of years. I really, really, really dislike this new trend to rent everything out. No. Just .. no! Shame .. I used to like Adobe's software and used them a lot back in 1998 onwards while doing my degree in Applied Computing.

Yeah .. I know how to do a fair few things in post processing, though I am keen to see what the 'lens' altering process can do. See how they can make a difference. Maybe transform something I deem is unusable because I do not like it, usable? We will see if I ever get the focus and mojo back.

I have no focus nor mojo and have not had for a while now. Most of this is rushed .. not done in the ideal environment .. not even processed on a proper monitor, let alone one I should be processing the images on. Using a TV and a crap one at that!

Also my PC only has four slower cores. I had planned to build one with ten or twelves faster cores which all have multi-threading. Meaning they would work like 20 and 24 cores respectively.

I ran into a series of disasters .. domestic violence, Police, Local Council corruption and lies .. same with other public services including the NHS .. moved home 250 miles away .. then was forced back again .. now trying to go back .. unsuccessfully I might add. But I cover all that in another blog.

What I am endeavouring to do is battle against a number of 'demons' to try and do what I was supposed to last year.

So I am trying to build up a portfolio of photos in different genres which, in my mind, needs to be a couple of thousand of this type. I am half way there.

Hopefully my eye and my photos along with my post-processing will improve and therefore so will the images?

By the time I have the other thousand photos I might have gotten some notice? Fingers crossed. Well .. I actually had two vitally important people notice me already Maybe more? One is a pro photographic studio based in Germany who liked a number of my images. I was also asked by a pro on Flickr if a group could feature a couple of photos.

So I went through some of my first photos with this pro-level camera to see if there was anything I could play around with in post processing to create something .. appealing .. interesting?

Oh .. and if you have come here because of the nature aspect ..

I am a British wildlife, Orchid and Reptile, Amphibian and fish expert and have blogs and photos regarding all of those .. on my Flickr account below.

In the case of other interests I have a dozen blogs in total I try to take picture for each. The corruption one is a bit tricky to get photos for .. unless I take up a little photojournalism and start running around after protests and marches and the like?

Flickr link ..

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/fj26C1

A FISTFUL OF PICTURES (Part Seven)

Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Millenium Wheel and that mobile phone looking building are among others I could see were not far away but .. I simply could not risk getting to .. even just one.

By the time I had spotted and recalled the Tower of London I was at H.M.S Belfast which I took pictures of. So looked temptingly close while also being a little out of reach.

Despite my orthotic Salamon shoes and Pregabalin .. this would have been too much as I am dogged by tiredness, knee and back pain and my shoulders would have hurt before I got back to the bus stop.

Extremely .. frustrating.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/340a86

 Photography involving sculpture is something else I want to get into .. Museum visits too which I keep wanting to do but have not managed as yet.

A FISTFUL OF PICTURES (Part Six)

I managed to get out again as I had planned ..

I saw many things that I wanted to get to with the camera .. I mean in line of sight that would have only taken ten minutes .. but I could not.

Some pictures I took did not turn out as I had imagined, funny how that works, and no matter how hard I tried I did not create anything I really liked.

But then I was getting tired, was in pain, had chest issues going on and various things on my mind .. like death for one over two people.

I wanted to do this while I was here because the bus journey is dead easy and I will be doing it again .. hopefully .. but like this day .. only on a Sunday and, of course, if the weather is good.

Along with my many symptoms I have been dogged by a new one that seems to have something to do with .. balance and I noted that many pictures were a little skewed. This has never been a problem before and unfortunately I have no one to speak to about it .. GP wise as I currently do not have one .. long story .. NHS' fault as ever. I have been trying to correct this but NHS England are being their usual idiots selves.

Anyway here are a few more pictures ..

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/340a86

Where it should have ended three years ago but did not .. omitting a couple of things they stated to me from the letter .. I half expected so I recorded both lol

A FISTFUL OF PICTURES (Part Five)

Some more selections from a series of photos I have acquired from a coupe of shoots recently .. I wanted to be somewhere not too far away getting some landscape stuff but .. no sleep and in some difficulties with health.

No sleep really does mean no sleep, lol.

As stated I am previously getting a feel for everything and despite knowing a few things there are many post-processing techniques I am unfamiliar with.

I have realised that due to the types of pictures I am branching out into .. some of these techniques are going to have to be learned! Sheesh .. something else to learn?! Well .. nothing wrong with that .. if I can get back to a comfort zone at some point I am well away from right now?

I cannot think of any more right now .. though I am bound to go out in the next couple days and after sleeping tonight, fingers tightly crossed, I have other RAW file photos to go through to see if there is anything I have missed?

There are also several dozen others I could put through post-processing that I had previously not done before, other than adjusting exposure, saturation and vibrancy.

All others can be found here ...

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/K3T8hY

I am an animal and wildlife expert so there will be many photos involved with animals over time but also what interests me now is ..

• Wildlife Photography (have British Wildlife Blog)
• Reptiles, Amphibians and Fish (Guess what I have on that?)
• Orchids (Guess what I have on that?)
• Japanese Maples (Guess .. oh you get the idea!)
• Corruption (Yesss ...)
• Landscape Photography
• Architecture Photography (though I am somewhat biased into liking certain .. pictures)
• Flowers
• Macro Photography
• Bokeh Photography
• Scenery and Forest Photography
• many others

A FISTFUL OF PICTURES (Part Four)

And another selection from the many pictures I have taken ..

As ever the rest of the pictures, if you are curious so, can be found at ..

https://www.flickr.com/gp/89426160@N05/25691N

Remember I am currently messing around getting familiar with my post-processing software which is rather good and NOT Adobe.

Sorry .. I am BSc Applied Computing and I really do not like the idea of monthly rentals, which is spreading like the proverbial plague and I wonder if anyone will actually own anything any more ten years from now.

I would have otherwise used Adobe Lightroom but I am currently using Affinity Photo by Serif.