This is a photo that was actually taken about 15 minutes before my last Skywatch Friday entry (spot the roof of the building below in the other photo!) This is one of the few times that a photo has actually captured both the beauty and the gentle illumination of the clouds accurately. Normally what you see in person, while striking, doesn’t actually look like the photos you take — photos of sunsets are usually overexposed or burned out, swamped in yellow light. It might not be unpleasant to look at, but it probably doesn’t look a whole lot like the sunset you actually experienced!

This one though… this sunset is perfect. Every time I look at it I want to be back in Florence, standing on the Ponte Vecchio bridge — at over 1000 years old, by far the oldest structure I’ve ever stood on. I want to walk through the old, dilapidated, rustic streets. I want to kick back in one of the lovely pizza parlours with some olives and a bottle of Chianti — and of course, some crusty bread, oil and balsamic vinegar.

I look forward to sharing a few more photos from my trip to Italy with you all, my fellow sky-watchers!

This photo was used in another entry on my blog, but I’m going to write a little bit more about it — and, also, you might want to just look at pretty photos, rather than trawl through a whole blog entry. Though, there’s a podcast, if you want to listen to a Brit rambling on about not much in particular, and another pretty photo of Venice.

Anyway, the photo, taken in October 2008 from the banks of the river Arno in Florence. I think I’m standing on Ponte Vecchio, unique in its age and incredibly good condition. Famously, Hitler spared the bridge, when all other bridges were destroyed. Possibly because it’s so beautiful, and so full of charm, lined almost exclusively today with jewellery shops.

It’s 900 years old, in its current form, and there’s been a bridge there in some form for over a thousand years.

Enjoy the photo; it’s a rather remarkable sky, suitable for Skywatch Friday!

Here are two photos from my short trip to Poland in 2008.

If you want more info about Poland, or my fun stay there, and more pretty photos, you can read one of my stories that I posted earlier today!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

Another of my standing-in-the-middle-of-a-field photos. This one is special though, because it was taken during a blue moon!

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ before, but I doubt you know what it means! A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month — a rare occasion, because of the 28-day lunar cycle, and the only slightly-longer calendar month! Because of the 11-day difference between the lunar year and the calendar year, over 3 years those days accumulate until a ‘bonus’ full moon arrives! And that’s the blue moon.

It’s not actually blue, unfortunately, and the ‘blue’ prefix is apparently steeped in folklore. Anyway! Here’s the photo, taken around 3am. You can see just how bright this particular full moon was, helped by the fact that it’s very low in the sky. Many people don’t even believe me when I say it’s the moon! If you can’t see the grass, your monitor is too dark!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

Phew, I almost missed Watery Wednesday! Well, here in the UK anyway — I guess it’s still the early evening over in America. And if you’re in the Far East, well… sorry, it’s Watery Thursday!

This photo was taken from Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the home of Turkey’s sultans for hundreds of years. Then Turkey became a democracy, and it’s now just a tourist attraction.

As I was walking around, a HUGE storm descended, and within a matter of minutes, a beautiful, blue sky was replaced with, as you can see, a very angry looking cloud indeed. The massive flow of the Bosphorus instantly peaked up, ready for action. And that’s when I took the photo (which is incidentally, one of my favourite photos!)

If you’d like to see some more photos from my trip to Turkey, have a look in the gallery!

You can find more watery, and alliteration-friendly photos over at Watery Wednesday.

This week I want to share one of my first — and perhaps still one of my best — ultra-long exposures. It was taken at university, in my ‘early years’ so to speak, long before I developed a decent technical understanding of photography. I was just beginning to work out what did work — and what didn’t. For a few months I only took photos that were exposed for 30 seconds or more!

Today I am still a huge fan of very long exposures, and you can see quite a few dead-of-night landscapes in my Sussex photo collection (page 2 and 3). Not only do you capture some great sights that might go unnoticed by the naked eye, it’s also quite fun to stand in the middle of no where, in a night as dark as pitch and just… be.

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

I caved and went for a stereotypical seaside photo for this week’s Watery Wednesday: the western coast of Seattle, USA. As if to make sure I ticked all the boxes, I also made sure the sun was setting.

Hopefully you like it though. I think it’s interesting enough to warrant more than just a quick glance!

If you like this one, there’s a few more in the series, over in the USA gallery!

You can find more watery, and alliteration-friendly photos over at Watery Wednesday.

The photo I’m sharing today is a photo taken from the highest point in South England,Leith Hill in Surrey. It’s a hill just south west of London that commands an awesome view of the landscape around it.

Atop the hill is some kind of ancient Gothic tower where you can take some of the best photos in all of England! This photo itself was taken from the base of the tower — I loved the light, and the family having a nice picnic, obviously enjoying the lovely, unseasonal sunshine!

If you like this photo, feel free to poke around the rest of my photo collections!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

Welcome! This is my first addition to the ‘Watery Wednesday’ photo assignment.

Everyone seems to do sea-side photos, so I thought I’d break out of the mould and show you a fun photo of mine!

I was experimenting with incredibly fast shutter speeds, on a very rainy day, in good light. Such a combination let me capture the rain in such a way that it almost looks like snow! I took a few other photos of the same kind, but this one is by far the best! It was taken in my garden, in Sussex, South England.

Enjoy, and come back next Wednesday… or check out some of my other photo collections, if you like this one.

You can find more watery, and alliteration-friendly photos over at Watery Wednesday.

This is a recent photo of mine, taken on some heathland in Surrey. For some reason (which I still don’t know!) a herd of Highland Cattle had been transplanted to this heathland in the South of England — some 600 miles away from where they’re meant to be.

Anyway, the focus of the photo is undoubtedly the cow, but it just so happened that the sky decided to spoil me at the same time. It may not look very real, but I assure you it is!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.