...to all

Hope you all have a very Merry  Christmas (if you celebrate it!) and prosperous 2012.

I'm off to cook my first traditional "English" Christmas dinner for my other half and her family.  Being Spanish, they don't know what to expect, which is probably a good thing, as it probably won't turn out much like a traditional Christmas dinner

Happy holidays...

Cheers
Brian

Sadly I haven't had much time to use dA lately, but am starting to wade through the 2,000 or so deviations in my inbox and catch up on comments, s and s - all of which are very much appreciated even if I haven't had time to get back to people!

Nothing exciting to report though - just been swamped at work, decorating my flat, trying (in vain) to sell it, and taking motorbike lessons (vrooooooomm vroooooommmm excellent stuff).  Oh and planning my escape next year - hoping to do a "round the world" trip, starting off by driving down the west coast of Africa and back up the east side.  If I have any money left, I'll go on into Asia...

Anyway, thats next year...

Well, who'd have thought it?  I noticed a few new s on my U-2511 stern shot this morning, which surprised me a little as I hadn't seen much activity on that for a while, then a few more, and a few comments, and then one congratulating me on the DD - which came as something of a surprise to me!

I'm quite chuffed, as you might imagine

Many thanks are of course due to *the-arkz for suggesting it, and ^Timothy-Sim for featuring ; and of course, to everyone who's commented or d it to date...

I think this warrants a doughnut

So its been at least a month or so since my last 'big' dive trip (I've actually been diving since, but the photos weren't that great, so they haven't gone up on here (yet?)) so its most definitely time for me to plunge into the water with the camera again and see what comes up...

This time, I'm off up to the north/east of England, pretty much the border with Scotland actually, to a place called the Farne Islands, home to (according to wikipedia) a colony of around 5,000 grey seals, many of whom seem to take a keen interest in the activities of divers in their 'back garden' and come down to play with us...  Sometimes, if they're in the mood, that is...

I went there at roughly the same time last year and the weather was awful, so we only managed 2 days' diving out of 4.  Hopefully the weather will be better this year...

I'll be taking one of our corporate gnomes diving too, as our marketing department want some photos of 'him' underwater.  Serious business... wonder if I can claim the whole trip on expenses?

So, hopefully there'll be a bit of this and a bit of that going on at the weekend...


Anyhow, hope you're all well, as always...

Cheers
Brian

Only 2 hours or so of work (I say 'work', what I mean is 'sitting at my desk, doing anything but work) then I start heading north again, this time to Ayr (Scotland) and from there, hopefully, across to the northern coast of Ireland - Malin Head.  

Malin is well known in diving circles as being some of the best diving you can do in the the UK, some might say the world ; the wrecks are deep (typically around 65 metres / 215 feet down) but big, largely intact, and impressive.  There's a battleship, an old White Star liner (the RMS Justicia), various other wrecks, and lots of submarines, from Operation Deadlight at the end of WWII.  

Some pictures from my last visit there are already up on dA:

Hanging Around II
U-2511 bow
U-2511 conning tower
U-2511
U-155
A helping hand
Ominous omens

and of course, I'll be taking my trusty dive-station-signing-in-buddy:

Dive buddy

as he'd get annoyed if I left him at home

Anyway, the upshot of this is that:

a) I won't have internet access so can't your stuff in the next week, much as I'd like to
b) I might come back with more pictures of the wrecks - I'm taking a tripod down with me this time which I'm sure will be entertaining.  We only get 25-30mins max on the bottom, so I'll have to be quick when setting it up...
c) I can't think of a 'c', but felt obliged to have one anyway.

Have a lovely week, everyone
Cheers
Brian

A couple of recent deviations (like the shot of Duart Castle and Old Man of Storr) have attracted more attention than I'm used to (partly perhaps because I've been a bit of a 'group whore' ) and I'd just like to thank everyone who's d any of my pics recently.  I'd dead chuffed

Off diving this weekend, hopefully, and will be taking my tripod underwater for the first time.  I've absolutely no idea how thats going to pan out.  More worried about my rebreather working right now, to be honest...!

Next weekend I'm off to Ireland to try and get some more shots like the ones in my gallery of the submarines from this time last year (eg U-2511 etc).   I shall start praying to the weather gods right now, but frankly, its got to be better than my last attempt off the coas of Scotland!!

After several months off from diving, I'm finally getting back into the water again this weekend, and what a way to get back into the water - a week's liveaboard charter diving with some friends, around St Kilda, a remote archipelago off the north-western coast of Scotland, about 45 miles beyond the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean.

St Kilda is sometimes referred to as the "holy grail" of UK diving, probably because (a) its virtually untouched and (b) being so remote, its quite hard to actually get to unless you have good weather conditions.  So, we're hoping for just that, otherwise we'll be diving around the Hebrides instead and will be just a little disappointed!

St Kilda, a World Heritage Site, is home to a large population of seabirds (including an estimated 30,000 pairs of puffins, and 50,000 pairs of gannets), and hopefully a few seals and maybe even some dolphins and whales passing by, you never know.  It remains Britains most isolated location, and was populated until the remaining 36 residents abandonned the island in 1930 as the community was deemed no longer viable.

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Obviously the cameras will be going and hopefully I'll get some decent shots to share on my return...

Wish us luck

I'm off snowboarding in Alpe d'Huez (France) tomorrow - must admit, I can't wait to get there!  Of course, there is the usual nonsense of getting up at 4am to get to the airport a million hours before the flight to get through the check-in process and the obligatory OTT security checks, but hey, such is life.  

Hopefully the fact that it hasn't snowed there since the end of January won't have too much of an impact on things - looks like a bad start to the season across the board (if you'll excuse the pun).

So, have a lovely week, everyone

...thanks to anyone who watches me and adds my work as s ; I just don't have the time to reply individually and I know some many prefer not to have their comments littered with such 'thanks'.  

So, take it from me, its always nice to see that someone, anyone, other than me, likes my pics

Going snowboarding in a couple of weeks, can't wait.  The longest black run in the world awaits... as, I suspect, does a trip to the nearest hospital...

Ok, it is already 2011 in some parts of the world, but not here in the UK for another 2 hours.  So now would seem an opportune moment to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year ; hope you're all having a great evening (if you recognise this as the start of the New Year, cultural/calendar variations exist, I'm sure)

Right, come on Gandalf, there's a beasty in Moria you need to fight...

So after the work laptop died recently they finally got around to buying me a new toy, which isn't anything fancy (Intel Core 2 Quad, 8 GB memory etc) but certainly brings home to me the difference between editing photos on a laptop vs a desktop with a decent sized monitor.  

I'm quite horrified by how much noise and crud there is on some of my previous submissions now I can view them on a proper monitor   Guess I'll have to go back and tidy them up...

It might also go to explain why sometimes I've submitted stuff to groups which I think looks ok only to have people reject it saying that there are artifcacts and noise and such that I just couldn't see... ho hum!  So, if this has happened to you, perhaps you need a new monitor

On the plus side, its giving me some idea of how well the image editing software will run on this spec... not too bad - far better than my laptop, but not earth shattering...

So, I'm getting a bit fed up with walking around the local attractions (we have many, including things like Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury etc, all worthy of exploring, granted) and I won't be diving much for the next few months (even I have to draw the line sometimes in that respect) so I think its time to come up with some 'projects' to keep me going.

Something different to my 'usual' subject matter (if there is such a thing?)...

So, anyone done any projects that they felt worked for them, and if so, care to share ideas?

Ta
Brian

The inevitable finally happened - my laptop (or more accurately, my work laptop) has died and I finally have to think about getting my own computer at home...

So, what sort of spec computers are people out there using for photo processing?  

I'm sure plenty of people will suggest getting a Mac, but really?  They're double the price of other systems and have lower specifications, so I just can't see the point...

I'll almost certainly be going for a desktop unit, rather than a laptop...

I was thinking of something like a quad core, 2.8ghz (or thereabouts) Intel system with around 8gb memmory, 1-2TB disk, low/mid range graphics card (as I don't do games, no time for that!).  

Open to suggestions for monitors but I'm not made of money

Anyone out there running linux?

Needless to say, given the fact that my computer is bust, I won't be uploading any new pics for a bit...

Have a great weekend everyone...
Cheers
Brian

Ok, maybe not *quite* what the Bard had in mind, but...

Like many, it seems, I'm struggling to keep up with the activity here on dA.  I try and thank as many people for any s but its hard to keep up - not that I'm flooded with them, or anything, but I just seem to have less and less time for such things.

So whats the normal behaviour?  Are you 'expected' to say thanks or is it taken for granted?

I would make this a poll, but I'm apparently unable to do so as I haven't subscribed.  Boooo...

So, thats that then...  Getting up to the summit was, well, hard, frankly, especially the last few hundred metres.  Took us about 8-9 hrs to get to the summit (5895m) from base camp (4600m) ; getting down was much easier and quicker!  Anyway, made it to the roof of Africa, and thats what counts - highest free standing mountain in the world.  What next....hmmmm?

Spent a week lazing around in Zanzibar after coming down off the mountain, and am now back at work.  Joy.

I've got some 2,000 photos to sort through, many of which I'm sure will be rubbish, but hopefully a few will make an appearance in the not too distant future...

...don't know when I'll be back again...

Which of course isn't entirely accurate, I'm away until 15th Oct... hurrah!

Flying out to Nairobi tonight and from there on to Kilimanjaro International Airport... I think we begin our trek on Friday and its about 8-9 days from there up to the summit (just shy of 6,000m) and back down again.  Pretty much all that time we'll have no washing facilities - ewwww....

After that its a hop across to the island of Zanzibar off the (western) coast of Tanzania for a couple of days of lounging around, maybe visiting spice markets and historic sites, followed by a couple of days diving off the atoll/reef there.  

Clearly there might be the odd photo resulting from all of the above...   Thats if my camera batteries last, of course!

In the meantime, I almost certainly won't have internet access (I don't think its likely on the mountain, nor frankly am I going to be trying!) so if you're reading this, have a good couple of weeks and I look forward to catching up with everyone's submissions when I get back!

All the best

Brian

First off - apologies if you've favourited or commented and I haven't replied - work has been somewhat manic lately and I just haven't had time.  I will catch up with them, honest!

I've got various photos from diving trips (with seals!!) and so on that I'm sorting through at the moment, so hopefully they'll make an appearance soon.  I'm sure you're all waiting, holding your breath... or maybe not!

However, most of that is on hold as I spend whatever free time I have packing for an attempt on Kilimanjaro next week - followed by a few days sitting around on a beach and doing some diving off Zanzibar.  Its a hard life sometimes

So, pics of a big volcano will, no doubt, soon be putting in an appearance, hopefully one of which will feature me at the summit....

In the meantime, I hope everyone is well

A week away and I come back to 10,000 messages, although of course 99% are submissions from groups etc.  I'm not *that* popular, sadly!  I've managed to get that down to 5,000 so if I haven't replied to a comment or similar yet, I apologise and will try to do so asap

The diving last week (northern coast of Ireland) was excellent, the weather was quite poor but it didn't quite manage to stop us getting into the water.  Actually, it sort of encouraged us, as we were all feeling quite seasick by the time we were ready to get in, and its a delight to get off the boat at that stage!  Getting back on board, now that was a different challenge entirely

Visibility was superb, probably in excess of 30m, and we were lucky to get the chance to dive on a couple of WWII u-boats which were scuttled after the war, as part of Operation Deadlight. On top of those wrecks, we dived the Laurentic and Justicia, two liners.

Some video clips for anyone who might be interested:

U-155

[link]
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[link]

U-2155

[link]

I'll be going back next year, armed with a tripod this time - not quite enough light down at 65-70m to take hand-held shots without bumping the ISO up to stupid levels... You live and learn

Hope everyone had a great week...

Just in time for the holidays.... my uber wide angle/fisheye lens

[link]

Can't wait to try it out

I've been a bit busy lately so unable to keep up with the submissions from people I'm watching and the groups I've joined lately... so much good work out there and just not enough time to fully appreciate it!

So if anyone has commented or added a photo of mine as a favourite and I've not said thanks - take it as read that I'm grateful, and I just haven't had time to say so personally!

Anyhow, I'm off on holiday next week, but won't have a laptop or any internet access or, for that matter, any mobile phone signal.  I will however have my SLR, my underwater camera & housing, several books, and a pile of diving equipment which hopefully will see some use... weather permitting!

So I hope anyone reading this has a wonderful weekend/week, and I hope to catch up with dA when I get back.  You never know, I might even have a photo or three to submit...