Flying High

 

Over the August Bank Holiday Weekend I was able to enjoy the Air Show at Rhyl and one of the attractions was the ever popular RAF Display Team the Red Arrows. I was lucky because the weather was perfect and the sky almost totally cloudless. The flying display was superb and luckily for me the team got to complete the full display, the following day it was cut short due to a bird strike smashing the cockpit of one of the jets although fortunately no one was hurt and the pilot was able to get back to base with one of his colleagues providing an escort.

I have lots of images of the Red Arrows on the day so narrowing it down to just a few is incredibly difficult. I will share some over the next few days showing different manoeuvres, and while the still image doesn't really do justice to the skill, the drama and the overall spectacle they are still pretty cool.

Given that these are famed as the Red Arrows and the planes are bright red you might wonder why the first image I have included in todays post is black and white. Well the answer is simple I was experimenting, and to me at least the image works really well. By increasing the contrast slightly I have been able to emphasise the speed of the turn and I think it highlights the swirls in the smoke trails to great effect.

The next two images are more traditional colour shots which look great but of the three I think my favourite is the first image. Let me know your thoughts.

Gold Face

I haven't posted anything to my blog in a little while and I certainly haven't been as regular as I had intended when I started it but I do intend to post more regularly. I went to Bodnant gardens recently with the intention of getting some beautiful shots to share to get things started again.

I was fortunate that the weather was good and there was excellent light and lots of beautiful flowers on display so I took lots of pictures that I will be going through to select the best.

Given that there was so much to see and photograph you might be surprised that the first images I share from that day out are of a disgusting Horse Fly. I say disgusting because they are annoying buzzy bitey things ( I got bitten on my elbow by one)  but  since I had my macro lens attached I thought I would take a closer look at the fly that settled on the bench behind me.

I was surprised to see that it has a shiny golden mask around bright red eyes that don't exactly make it a thing of beauty but is quite spectacular all the same.

Apparently it is the female flies that bite and they will travel large distances to find a suitable food source. Unlike mosquitoes that pierce the skin and suck blood from the host horse flies have jagged saw like teeth that slice the skin and they release an anti-coagulant so they can feed on the blood that pools in the wound. I said they were disgusting...

Fabulous Fountains

One of the things that Versailles is famous for is the array of fabulous fountains and so for today's offering I have chosen a few shots of some of the fountains in action. They are not turned on all the time so it was a case of being in the right place at the right time to get these shots. That's often the way it goes with photography and many opportunities can be missed if our timing is off...