Photography by Sharon Curran

As a member of Flickr I spend quite a lot of time looking at pictures that others have posted and am quite often in awe of some of the amazing pictures posted by photographers on there.

I find myself drawn to some images and wishing I could achieve those results but am sometimes limited by my equipment. For instance I love macro pictures – close ups of things such as flowers, insects and everyday items which look totally different when shot using a dedicted macro lens. Unfortunately I don’t own a macro lens although I do have one down on my ever increasing wants list! However recently I discovered there are cheaper ways of achieving similar results to a macro lens in the way of macro filters.

These filters which are sold singularly or in a pack of four in varying strengths screw on to the front of any ordinairy lens quite simply and are easy to attach and remove. Ok so they aren’t as effective as a dedicated macro lens but for those who are on a budget who may wish to experiment with close up pictures they are a good starting point.

My husband brought me a set of four macro filters for my birthday and I admit when I tried them to start off with I found them difficult to use and they got relegated to the back of the cupboard. However this months assignment for the DSLR Skills Course I am doing was centred around macro shots and they showed you how to use the filters so I thought I’d give them another try.

The kit contains four filters in strengths 1, 2, 4 and 10 magnification. The 10 is the strongest and gives the greatest amount of magnification this is the one that I have used in most of the pictures I took. When you’ve screwed the filter onto the front of the lens you’ll find it completely distorts everything when you look through the viewfinder – this is what threw me the first time I tried to use them.

When using macro your depth of field is greatly reduced so it can be difficult to get the background looking correct too much blur and it looks silly too little and it doesn’t show the macro to it’s best. I just kept playing around and taking shots with different levels of depth of field to see which ones I liked the most afterwards – this is usually the best way to experiment with new equipment.

This shot is of a pink flowering hedgerow, I liked the bright colour of the flowers and thought it would make a nice shot. As you can see using the 10x filter does create quite a heavy amount of blur around the edges of the picture (this is the depth of field) I think it works ok in this image but something is slightly lacking for me.

I carried on walking, keeping my eyes peeled for some interesting looking flowers or shrubs. After a while I came accross another flowering hedgerow which had some shoots which were an unusual shape so I thought I’d try getting a shot of those.

I really liked this shrub because the shoots were a really interesting shape which worked really well with the macro filters. Unfortunately the background in this picture is a little too busy for me with the stem of the shrub which looks a little distracting. The shoot was so close to the branch that I couldn’t easily get a photograph without it looking quite noticeable in the background – shame as this such a brilliant plant to photograph.

Next up I thought I’d try a dandelion shot. These are really popular subjects and I wanted to try something different to the usual full dandelion that most people tend to photograph. I looked around and spotted a half blown dandelion so got down on the ground and started composing my shot – this is whe I really found out what the macro filters are capable of!

I was rather impressed with the above image as it really shows the detail on the head of the dandelion and on each little seed head.

Macro shots work well with flowers and that is what I would use such a lens for if I had one. I love a nice bunch of flowers and they look so different in close up. I thought I’d have a go using the filters on this flower which was almost like a daisy but with purple petals – no idea what kind of flower this was but it made a nice subject.

It was a very bright sunny day and this has caused some shadows on the petals. I’m not sure if they are a little distracting – ideally I would’ve liked to have used a reflector to eliminate them but it was a rather off the cuff trip out with the camera and unfortunately I didn’t have my full kit with me.

In the end I decided to submit the following shot for my homework assignment this month. I spotted some pinecones underneath a massive tree and wondered if they would work in a macro shot – most people have entered flower shots for their homework piece and the consensus on Flickr was that this shot stood out as it is an unusual subject.

So as you can see the macro filters do work to a certain extent, ok they aren’t anywhere near as good as a dedicated macro lens but for those on a budget they are a more affordable option at around £10 – £20 for a set of four on Ebay – much more wallet friendly if you want to experiment with close up shots but don’t want to pay out for a seperate lens.

You may find that once you get them that macro isn’t for you or you will find that you slowly become engrossed in the weird and wonderful world of close up photography and then feel that a dedicated lens may be a good investment for your kit. I’m not going to say which bracket I fall in to but lets just say I had better start saving up!

This coming months module for the DSLR Course is ‘Portraiture’ so I am looking forward to getting stuck in and trying my hand at some shots. I do like taking portraits so hopefully I will enjoy this and get some good photos as a result.

Many thanks for reading. Don’t forget you can also follow my photography through my Flickr account and on Facebook

All comments and feedback appreciated.

For those who have been reading my blog for a while will know that back in November I took a few shots at Benjamin’s Christening. Ben is now 6 months old and I’d arranged to go and visit his mum for the day and take some pictures while I was there.

The drive up to Manchester was rather rubbish as the weather couldn’t quite decide what it was doing but I soon arrived at my destination. Unfortunately Ben was teething and was a little grumpy but with the help of his play mat I managed to get some nice shots, helped by the natural daylight coming in through the window.

He is so active now pulling himself around and starting to learn how to move accross the floor so keeping up with him was sometimes quite difficult. He is a proper little poser though stopping every now and then and just giving the most perfect look – it was just making sure I was ready and waiting when he did and unfortunately I missed quite a few shots but this is the joy of photographing children you never know what they are going to do next.

Bens mum showed me how he loves playing in his Jumperoo, his face was a picture but it was impossible to get a shot whilst he was bouncing up and down. After a while he was a little tired out so he went off for a little afternoon nap which seemed to do the trick as he came back a lot more smiley. By this time it was dark outside and so I got to test out my new flash which I’d only recently brought, this was my first time of using a hotshoe flash and I really like the difference it made to the pictures.

I got some amazing smiles from Ben which I caught on camera and some really cheeky little faces too. I especially love the expression in this next picture.

All too soon it was time for bed and for me to head back home. The drive back was atrocious as I got caught in a blizzard and in some of the worst fog I think I’ve ever driven in during my seventeen years of driving so I was definitely glad to get home. I don’t want to put up too many pictures as these are a bit of a taster of them for my friend and her boyfriend but I can’t resist putting this last one up as I love it – I just hope they will too.

I’d just like to say many thanks to Colette and Dave for letting me take some photos, Ben is definitely one of my favourite subjects to work with as he is such a happy, smiley little boy. I really hope that you both like the pictures.

Next weekend we are off to a wedding and I am going to be taking my camera with me to try and get some shots so I should have some more photos to share with you all. As always many thanks for reading, your support is appreciated – please feel free to leave comments as I enjoy reading them.

Have had a lot of stuff going on over the past few weeks but I realised I hadn’t updated my blog for quite a while so I thought it was about time I picked up my camera and headed out to get some shots. Trying to find a subject was proving to be difficult though what with the dark nights and busy weekends but I was given the perfect reason a few weeks ago.

As we entered 2010 along with it came some of the coldest weather the UK has seen in a number of years and the first snowfall of the new decade. When I awoke last Wednesday and I looked out of the window I was greeted with snow covering our street, just like a lot of the country.

Luckily for me my workplace was closed and I ended up with a day off. Instead of curling back up in my nice warm bed I decided to don my polka dot willies, gloves, hat and scarf and head off in search of some photographic opportunities.

One of my favourite places in Milton Keynes is the Peace Pagoda and I have been wanting to get some pictures of it in the snow for a while now so that was where I headed. The roads had not been gritted and were pretty atrocious but I just took it nice and slowly – after all there was no rush snow like this was not going to melt in the 15 minutes it would take me to drive there.

I got there in one piece and parked up the car, as I left it parked solitary in the vast snow covered car park I hoped I would be able to get it back out but hey I’d deal with that when I left! Off I walked along the deserted pathway usually full of people walking their dogs stopping occasionally to take a picture.

The snow was light and fluffy just like icing sugar, perfect fresh snow which had been sprinkled overnight from above. There had only been a few people walking along here as their footprints stood out imprinted into the white blanket below me. You could clearly see the pathways which had been more popular with pedestrians…..

I carried on walking and carefully climbed the steps, popular with photographers but hardly recognisable covered in snow apart from the handrail running up the middle. When I reached the top I looked and the trees created a lovely frame to the footsteps running up the middle of the snow covered ground.

As I reached the usually green grassy hill the I was greeted with the crispest blanket of snow covering the whole whole area. It looked almost magical. There wasn’t a soul in sight something I have never seen before as this area is usually bustling with people – joggers having their daily run, people walking their dogs, couples out for a stroll…..never have I seen it totally empty, just me and my camera.

This is where you find the Peace Pagoda. Officially opened in September 1980 the Peace Pagoda is a central part of the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji Order in the UK. This is where Buddhist monks hold ceremonies to mark specific occasions such as memorials for the Hiroshima victims among others.

Unfortunately the sky was totally white, obviously more snow waiting to fall held within it so I didn’t get the picture I was hoping to achieve but the Pagoda looked so beautiful I couldn’t resist.  Typically later on that day the skies cleared into the most beautiful blue colour which was the exact picture I wanted to get.

As much as I love snow pictures they can look a little samey so I’m not going to post a lot of shots as one looks very much like another but one thing that did strike me is how a sprinkling of snow can make something that would ordinarily look pretty boring look totally different like the branch of a fir tree.

So simple but yet for some reason I really like this picture.

Now the snow is starting to melt and it doesn’t look anywhere near as beautiful as it did a week ago. I think that most people are starting to get rather fed up with it now and will be glad to see the back of it. Unfortunately for some reason the UK really doesn’t seem to cope well with snow even though it seems to be a more regular occurrence, we could definitely do with some lessons with some of the countries who are seasoned pros at dealing with it.

Anyway after my expedition out in the snow I’ve realised how much I’ve missed picking up my camera, even though it was freezing cold it was nice to get some nice pictures before all the snow got trodden into slush. Afterwards I went home and enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee………while my husband decided to top up his tan in the back garden…….

This blog is late going up as I’ve been so busy – I promise to make sure I update my blog more regularly from now on!

With that I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read, subscribed and commented on my blog in 2009 your support is very much appreciated. I’d like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year and that I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2010.

I thought I’d do a little update on what I’ve been up to with my camera recently as it’s been a while since I updated my blog.

I’ve now started my photography course which is going well, the first few weeks have been covering the basics such as composition but we are now moving onto the more practical side. The course is only 6 weeks long but it has given me a few pointers on areas I could do with working on which was the main reason for me going on it so hopefully it will prove to be helpful. One of the things that the tutor has shown us was Adobe Lightroom 2, a programme I hadn’t had any experience of previously which can be used to post process your images – with great effects.

Up until recently I mostly used a combination of Picassa 3 and Photoshop to edit and process my images, though I tended to use Picassa more regularly. I had intended on trying to learn how to use Photoshop but since being enlightened to Lightroom I am now going to concentrate on trying to teach myself how to get the best from it instead. Hopefully this will have a positive effect on my photographs and I’m hoping that my images will be improved as a result.

Unfortunately due to a bout of illness I haven’t been out on many photographic adventures recently, this combined with the absolutely rubbish British weather really has cut short the opportunities that may have been available to me. However I did have the chance to pick up the camera last weekend when some friends invited my husband and I to the christening of their son Benjamin. I had wanted to try and get a few shots for them but knew the conditions wern’t going to be great as photography in churches can be very difficult due to the difficult light conditions. This would take a little research so I turned to Google and a few photographic forums for advice and inspiration!

After a relatively easy drive up to Manchester we arrived at the Parish of St John the Evangelist in Failsworth, we arrived within plenty of time so I had a chanced to assess the inside of the church and was pleased to see that it was extremely well lit so I hoped any pictures would come out relatively well. I had already done some research and found out there would be no photographs allowed during the ceremony so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures inside the church beforehand.

There were three children being baptised, Benjamin and two others. It had been a while since I had been to a christening so I was unsure of the procedure but the ceremony was relatively quick and all of the children were very behaved, there were hardly any tears even after the priest blessed them with the holy water at the font.

The priest agreed to a few posed shots at the font with the parents and godparents after the ceremony, he even mimicked the actual baptism to enable me to get a picture so I was very appreciative as from what I understand not many priests are happy to do this. Although obviously with three families all trying to get their pictures he wasn’t going to stand there all day so I quickly got my shots before he changed his mind.

After the service we all decamped to a nearby pub for some refreshments. By this point little Benjamin was starting to grow quite weary, even if he was the most popular boy in the pub – everyone wanted to have a cuddle with him including his granny and auntie.

Unfortunately the lighting conditions inside the pub wern’t so great and my photos have a little bit of blur on them, one of the pitfalls of poor lighting conditions – this is definitely an area I need to work on as I am not particularly happy with the pictures I took there. I must admit that once we got to the pub I was so busy catching up with people I hadn’t seen in a while that my camera took a back seat while I chatted away but I was quite happy as it meant I got to speak to friends I don’t see enough.

After a few hours of chatting it was eventually time to leave, we had a long journey home and so we hit the motorway after having a lovely day. I was a little annoyed with myself for not getting more shots and I was also rather disapointed at the shots I took in the pub but I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy with the available lighting and at least I had a go, I always like a challenge and it is part of the learning curve – if you don’t attempt these things you can never get better at them.

So thank you to Colette and Dave for inviting us to celebrate Benjamins special day with you.

So that brings my blog to a close for today. as always many thanks for reading, if you have enjoyed this then please take a moment to leave me a message, they are all very much apprecaited.

As autumn falls over us with a blanket of brown and gold leaves on the floor it appears my opportunities for getting outside and taking photos is diminishing with every passing day. Almost gone are the lovely sunsets of a few weeks ago and it seems that each day becomes drearier and colder outside and the evenings are darker earlier – boo! As someone who loves spring and summer, autumn and winter are my most dreaded times of the year and I have a feeling that this year we are in for a harsh one.

Because the evenings are darker it means I am less able to get out and to take photos after I finish work as by time I get home and sort myself out the light is fading away faster than an Olympic sprinter off the starting block, so that only leaves the weekends for possible photographic outings. This would be fine except weekends are precious as I am sure most people would agree and I find that when Friday evening comes I have so many things I want to do and only two days to do them all in before the working week starts again. This sometimes photography has to take a back seat at the weekends so I can fit in everything else or because our unreliable English weather throws a rainy day our way which thwarts any plans I may have had for a trip out with the camera. I do love photography but I don’t love getting wet!

Last weekend though I had the perfect opportunity to put my camera to some use, by arranging to do a photo shoot of a friend’s son. He had recently celebrated his first birthday so I offered to do the shoot as a present as I thought it would be nice to try and get some lovely pictures to commemorate the occasion. Plus I could then try my hand at children’s photography and get some shots for my portfolio. If you’ve read my blog before then you are probably aware I like to try all different kinds of photography and this would definitely be different to anything I’ve done so far.

Having looked up on the internet about what kind of settings I should be aiming for and hints and tips on how to get the best results I packed my equipment bag and headed off towards Nottingham where the shoot was taking place. After a nice easy drive I arrived and acquainted myself with my subject Shay a lovely smiley young man with a great personality. Once sure he seemed comfortable with me I slowly got out my camera and started taking a few shots.

There was a slightly shaky start which was to be expected as Shay hadn’t met me before, but after a short while he really settled into it and was pulling pose after pose for me and even gave me a demonstration of his dance moves every time some music played, which was extremely cute. He seemed to feel more comfortable with me using the camera around him as after a while he just ignored what I was doing and carried on as he would normally playing with his toys and bounding around the room.

I was aiming for a nice natural photo shoot at home in his own surroundings, using nothing other than the available natural light rather than a more manufactured set up as personally I feel the candid style really suits this kind of photography as you can really capture the child’s personality when they are just being themselves. Shay was just the perfect subject as was such a smiley happy boy and he has such a great little character.

Now I’m not going to put too many of the pictures on here as I am still in the process of sorting through them all and I don’t want to spoil it for the parents as they are still to see the full set of images that I took so I’m just going to include a final picture which I think is one of my favourites from the day.

I really enjoyed doing this shoot, so much in fact that I would love to do some more and I’m in the process of putting together some advertising leaflets to try and get some bookings for children’s photo shoots. However to any of my friends that’s may be reading this through Facebook who may like me to take some pictures of their little one (or ones) please contact me as I am looking for a couple more children to photograph to add to my portfolio.

I have to say lastly a massive thank you to Liam and Loz who allowed me to come and take pictures of Shay – he is one adorable little chap and he was a pleasure to photograph.

As always thank you for reading – all your comments are appreciated. If you are reading this through my website then don’t forget you can subscribe to my blog – it only takes a couple of minutes.

I haven’t written anything in my blog in a for while so I thought I’d take some time to keep everyone updated with what I’ve been up to.

The first piece of news is that I have finally pulled my finger out and enrolled on an evening photography course. For the past couple of years I’ve looked at the brochure for the local Adult Continuing Education department and thought about doing one of the photography courses but instead of just going for it I’ve procrastinated about it for so long that I’ve missed the enrolment date, then six months later I just do exactly the same thing. This time around I was determined not to miss the boat and so I got myself into gear and actually enrolled. The course runs one evening a week for 6 weeks and covers quite a few different topics including the history of photography, camera modes, aperatures, shutter speeds, lighting, night time photography, flash photography, faces, places and how to mount your pictures for showing at exhibitions etc. The course doesn’t start until 3rd November so it’s still a few weeks away yet but I’m really looking forward to it.

I decided that I wanted to get out and about with my camera so I took a couple of trips up to a local lake to take a few pictures. It was early evening and the sun was setting behind a pub which sits on the side of the lake, the pub was designed to look like a windmill when it was built in 1992 using real parts from Holland and it is a great setting for photographs. Having never been up to this particular lake before I took a little walk round to try and find the best spot, stopping off every now and then to try a few shots before moving further round.

The lake is quite large and has lots of different areas where you can take photographs, it’s a nice little walk as well and is popular with joggers and people walking their dogs. I wish the nights wern’t drawing in as it really nice to go walking round some of the lakes in Milton Keynes after work in the early evening sunshine – unfortunately there is less and less of that every day now!

I find it very frsutrating that when you tell someone that you come from Milton Keynes you usually get the same response….”it’s like a concrete jungle there, it’s got no soul” I always get a little but annoyed at people when they say stuff like that because they probably haven’t seen all the beautiful lakes and areas we have which are a far cry away from the shopping centre that most people remember when they think of the town. We have so many lovely lakes and country parks where you can take a picnic and just watch the world go by and whenever we have friends visiting for the weekend we try and take them to at least one of them. Places like Caldecotte lake……

I love going out for stroll and taking in all these beautiful places that are right on our doorstep, they give plenty of fantastic opportunities for photographs too which obviously gives me even more reason to visit them.

I think my favourite shot from my recent trip up to the lake was this shot below, I just like the silhouette against the sunset and the way the sunset is coming through the windows in the body of the windmill so they look like lights.

Even though I love my SLR and have been constantly impressed by the difference in quality of the pictures it takes in comparison to my little compact digital camera I still use my point and shoot occasionally; mainly because it is smaller, lighter and easier to carry than my SLR but in some situations it actually takes better pictures. One of these situations is when shooting in Macro mode.

Even though my SLR has a macro mode the shots don’t always come out that well. I think that’s because to get the best results from an SLR you sometimes need to be prepared to invest in extra lenses as they do a lot of the work. I would love to have a macro lens but at the moment funds just don’t stretch to one however if I happen to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow it would be one of the first things on my list of wants. I love looking at Macro shots especially of things like flowers, and even though they make my skin crawl some of the insect shots taken with a dedicated macro lens I’ve seen are amazing!

The macro on my little point and shoot works quite well and sometimes the result I get with that is better than if I were to try the same shot with my SLR. An example would be when I was messing around last weekend – I was going out and decided to try and take some macro self portrait shots of my eye with my compact camera. I worked out that if placed a mirror behind the camera I could check whether I’d got my eye in the correct position using the preview screen. This gave an extra little detail to the picture….

If you look at this shot above you can just about see a reflection of me taking the picture in the centre of my pupil which I thought was pretty cool.  I wish I could’ve managed to get the very tips of the lashes in but to get a good close up of the eye was my aim which I think I managed.

They say that your eyes are the window to your soul…..well in that case I definitely was destined to get into photography looking at that picture!

Anyway thats enough from me for today I think.  As always many thanks to all of your for reading and subscriving to my blog. If you have enjoyed it please leave me a comment – they are always appreciated.

Urban Exploration (also known as Urbex) is the hobby (some might say sport) of exploring derelict buildings, underground bunkers, disused hospitals, asylums, schools, subterranean tunnels, abandoned factories and other such forgotten structures or pieces of land.

My husband is into Urbex and has visited a few different places including an abandoned lunatic asylum called Cane Hill and a hospital called Hellingly. Ever since he told me about the places he has explored I’ve been intrigued and have been looking at pictures of other peoples Urbex visits on the internet as I find them extremely interesting.

It is a common belief by most people that those who are into Urban Exploration will break into buildings to gain entry and is it assumed that any resulting damage inside the buildings such as graffiti, mindless vandalism and even arson is caused by them. However this, in the majority of cases is not so, serious Urbex enthusiasts abide by certain rules such as no breaking and entering, no vandalism or graffiti and no stealing. A well know phrase adopted by lovers of the hobby is “Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints”.

Most mindless damage to these buildings is actually caused by drug addicts bored teenagers, yobs and trouble makers who use empty premises as a meeting place.  Those into Urbex usually have just one aim, to quietly look around the inside of abandoned and derelict places to see the architecture inside and the amount of decay caused by disuse, occasionally taking photographs to document their visit.

On Sunday my husband told me we were going on a secret photography afternoon. I had no idea where we were going when we headed off in the car and once we got close my husband told me that we were going to look round an abandoned nursing home a moderately short distance away from our house. My first reaction was a mixture of fear and excitement, having only ever read other peoples reports I had no experience of my own to go on – I was entering the unknown in more ways than one.

The building we would be exploring was built in around 1934 and was originally used as convalescence home housing inured war veterans and patients from the local hospital recovering from operations – there was also an adjoining mental hospital wing. The building itself is apparently listed however permission has been granted for redevelopment in early 2013.

The first problem of the day was actually finding the place; my husband had done his research and had armed himself with some directions. We programmed in the sat nav but when it said we had arrived at our destination there was no sign of the place, Google maps kept taking us past it too. After a few drives backwards and forwards we saw a possible access point and parked up. The actual building was nestled in amongst a forest so we made our way through the trees and soon we saw the grand building and were assessing the area. Hiding in the bushes we stayed well clear until we knew there were no security guards patrolling the site then seizing our chance we legged it towards the building.

We were in the building, we’d got the hard part out of the way, we were in and the exploring could begin, my heart was beating ten to the dozen, a mixture of excitement, fear and anticipation sweeping over my body.  Once inside we were met with a variety of rooms with a corridor separating them down the middle. The place was a mess, stud walls smashed to pieces in places, every window was smashed, there was peeling paint, graffiti tags sprayed all over the place, certain rooms had a large amount of fire damage inside obviously by junkies or arsonists since the building closed in 2006.

It was obvious that this place had been easily accessible for quite a while due to the amount of damage. After our trip I did a bit of research on this building and found a few other reports from people who had done previous Urbex visits to the site it was amazing to see how rapidly the building had gone downhill since the last documented visit I could find which was just 8 months ago.

We explored the ground floor, treading carefully as we went because of the amount of rubble and debris over the floors. By time we got to the middle of the building my heart rate had more or less returned to normal, I was starting to get into it and was really enjoying looking round. In the middle of the building was a large staircase starting on the ground floor at what I think may possibly have been the reception area and leading up to two further floors. My husband went into a room while I was taking some shots of the staircase…..

When I looked round I spotted what looked like a figure in the distance. Unsure of my surroundings I couldn’t quite work out if it was actually my reflection in a mirror or if there was actually a person there. I stopped and looked for a possible hiding place but I was right in the open with no place to hide away. My heart jumped into my throat at this point after all I had no idea who this person was and here I am in a rather eerie deserted building. I whispered to my husband that someone was coming and he quickly appeared from behind a half demolished piece of plasterboard which at some point would’ve been a wall. It turned out that there were in fact two people, walking towards us from the other end of the building.

The two figures reached us and it turned out they were two teenagers, I don’t think they were Urbex enthusiasts as one them a girl aged around 16 /17 said she was local to the area and that the place had become a bit of a hang out for the local teenagers (culprits for the damage quite possibly) after a brief chat we said goodbye and went on our way and we didn’t see them again. I must admit for a couple of seconds I was rather scared when I realised there were other people in the building – aaah well at least it made the visit a little more exciting!

We continued to explore and found a door with a hole kicked in the middle of it. My husband havingbeing more experienced took the lead and climbed through the hole, we came to a room with a few pieces of old furniture which had Christmas decorations strewn all over the floor – obviously used to give the residents some seasonal cheer. There were a variety of old records scattered across the room, some still in their original sleeves and some vinyl’s smashed on the concrete floor – classics like Elvis Presley unplayed for years with footprints all over them.

Through another door at the end of this room and we stumbled across another room which looked as if it was once the kitchen area, maybe the old gas cooker and tiled walls gave its identity away.

It was at this point we found this amazing piece of graffiti which luckily had evaded the spray cans of the taggers across the tiled wall. Now I know that graffiti is a nuisance and costs millions of pounds to clean up each year but personally I have to admit that as much as I hate stupid tagging which has no point or skill to it I do love seeing graffiti like this. To me these kinds of pictures created with spray cans are amazing pieces of artwork using a different kind of canvas and I love looking at them, I had to take a picture of it as it would’ve been rude to the artist not to have done.

So after taking in the kitchen we carried on as there was still so much to see. There wasn’t a piece of glass in tact and the whole building was completely wrecked inside, there were doors hanging off and faded curtains half hanging, ravaged by the tests of time and the elements streaming in through the gaping crevices where once window panes had been. We walked up the stairs to the top floor; the staircase was quite well preserved apart from the lack of front to the building which had mainly been all glass windows previously. When we got to the top floor the right hand side of the building had obviously been torched and suffered a huge amount of fire damage.

However the corridor to the left had remained untorched (for now). The picture above and the picture below are actually the same corridor but separated by the landing at the top of the stairs, the fire damaged one above leading off to the right and the non fire damaged one below leading off to the left – you can see the difference in the two.

I love the picture above; I think it looks so eerie with the curtain blowing in the breeze which ran throughout the building. I certainly don’t know how people explore these buildings at night it was spooky enough during the day!

By this point I must admit I was starting to think we were pushing our luck, we had been inside the property for well over an hour and so we decided to head back to the car. Looking back now I wish we had looked round a bit more as there was still plenty left to see but I think my nerves were starting to get the better of me a little – after all this was my first time exploring in a totally derelict building.

It was a really enjoyable experience and I am definitely glad we did it, I found it really interesting if not a little nerve wracking at time and a little scary but I would definitely like to go and look round another derelict building in the future it’s just a case of finding a place to go now.

As always thanks for reading and lease leave a comment if you have enjoyed it.

Now for the final part of my visit to the WHF.

This is a little overdue; I have been so busy that this is the first opportunity I’ve had to write it up so firstly apologies for that but hopefully it will be worth the wait. 

The rest of the day was free time for us to walk around the centre and go back to the animals we wanted to get some more pictures of – except the leopards as they are so quick and unpredictable you can only visit them with a keeper. I had a walk around and revisited some of the cats that I had already seen to try and get some additional pictures of them starting with the Pallas cats then working towards the tigers. This is when my favourite part of the day took place.

When walking towards the main tiger pen there was a solitary tiger in an enclosure and he was laid down right next to the fence and when I say right next to the fence I mean literally against it. Realising this was the perfect opportunity as there was no other visitors anywhere near me I very quietly sat down next to the fence right next to where the tiger was sitting and said hello to him. I couldn’t quite believe that I was sat about 6 inches away from a tiger chatting away to him telling him how absolutely beautiful he was!

 The next thing I knew just as my own cat at home would do he rolled upside down onto his back and pulled in his paws in towards the centre of his body and let out a little noise, not quite a purr but quite similar to one. So I slowly got out my camera and took a couple of shots……

After a couple of minutes he rolled back over and lay against the fence so I took the opportunity to get a close up picture of his eye……

He repeated this about four or five times, rolling onto his back and posing for me some more before rolling back and relaxing again. He kept making these little noises exactly how my cat does when she is ‘talking’ to me but obviously a lot louder than my pet does! It was such an amazing experience – I mean how many people can say they had a ‘chat’ with a Sumatran Tiger?

The very last animals I met on my visit to the WHF were the Kings of the Jungle – the Lions. They have three lions at the centre Tiny, Kafara and Manzi who are all brothers who were born at Woburn Safari Park, the brothers had to be moved to as the from Woburn as they already had resident male lions in their pride.

Now admittedly on the day of our visit the lions didn’t really do much except spend most of the day asleep in the sun! Occasionally they would get up for a short while to turn over or have a yawn with their huge mouths but most of the day they seemed like they hardly moved.

The African lion is the only big cat not endangered, being listed as a “threatened species”. This means there are some restrictions in international trade of lions and their parts. Lions are found through out sub Saharan Africa inhabiting savannahs, grassy plains and open woodlands. Their life span is on average 15 years in the wild with captive lions living up to their late twenties.

Lions are the only social member of the cat family living in groups known as prides consisting of related females and their young and 1 – 2 males. It is the females who do most of the hunting, running at a maximum speed of 30 mph over 50 yards. They are 1 of 4 of the big cats that can roar. It is said that a lions roar can be heard over 5 miles away. The biggest threats to the lion population in the wild are poaching and hunting of the animals and through disease such as canine distemper and FIV which is the feline version of HIV.

Another group of people came to the enclosure who were being shown round by a keeper; they weren’t a photography group as they didn’t have cameras. They may possibly been a group of people who were attending one of the afternoons for animal adopters to visit their chosen adopted cat. The keeper explained that lions like the smell of lavender; she then got some lavender oil out of her pocket and applied some to the back of her hand. More or less immediately one of the lions (I think it was Tiny) jumped down off his wooden platform and came over to the fence. He started rubbing himself up against the fence the same way a household cat rubs itself up against the furniture – he loved obviously really did love the smell of the lavender oil. The keeper then let us stroke the lion through the bars which was fantastic! The fur on his body looked as if it would be very smooth but it was actually very wiry and his mane was really wiry and dry not at all how I expected it to be, not that I ever really expected to ever get to physically stroke a lion!

Before I knew it the day was over and it was time for me to start the drive back to Milton Keynes, I must admit I didn’t want the day to end it had been amazing from start to finish. It wasn’t just about the photography for me but I actually ended up enjoying seeing the cats close up and hearing about the work the Wildlife Heritage Foundation are doing at trying to save these spectacular big cats from possible extinction.

I am definitely going to be returning to the centre again, they run photography days throughout the year and I know that the Talk Photography Forum are planning on running some more days next year so hopefully I will be able to make one of those. I would definitely recommend the photography days for anyone who would like the opportunity to get up close to these animals for themselves – the money raised also helps the centre pay for the upkeep of the cats that reside with them so it goes to a worthwhile cause.

I’m also considering adopting one of the cats through the adopt an animal scheme run by the WHF. For £50 a year you can adopt a cat of your choice and you get invited to visit the centre on adopter’s day so you can see the progress your animal is making.

For more information about the Wildlife Heritage Foundation please look at their website http://www.whf.org.uk

So that brings my big cat’s diary to a close but before I go I want to share with you my favourite picture from the day……

Please if you have enjoyed reading my blog feel free to leave a comment they are all most appreciated.

I love cats, all kinds of cats from your average household moggie to the beautiful big cats that live in the wild. Over the weekend I got to combine my love of cats with my love of photography by attending a Big Cat Photography day organised by the Talk Photography forum.

The day was taking place at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent. A charity which is UK based who are working hard to ensure that the big cat species of the world are protected from extinction. They are an active partner in the European Endangered Species Breeding Programmes (EEP), as well as setting up education programmes for the people that share the habitats of these wonderful cats. The WHF is also raising awareness and funding for big cat projects around the world.

Having checked that I had a good supply of fully charged batteries and empty memory cards on the Friday evening I got all my camera equipment prepared for an early start on Saturday morning. Up at 6am to get ready before leaving home to travel down to Kent I was so excited about what the day would hold, I’d read such great reports from people who had previously attended the WHF I couldn’t wait to get there and experience it for myself.

After a nice easy drive I arrived at my destination in plenty of time and grabbed myself a drink from the refreshments tent. I met up with a few other members of the Talk Photography forum and introduced myself to a few of them who had already arrived, I was also asked to sign an indemnity form and read through the safety guidelines – basically I was signing away my life, if I got eaten it was all my fault! Once everyone was in attendance we had a short safety briefing – do not put fingers through the bars (really?) do not poke the animals etc seemed like common sense to me but we all know that not everyone has that in abundance!

We would be shown around the centre animal by animal and be given time to take plenty of photographs as we were there. The warden would give us information about each one and would answer any questions we had. First off we saw the Pallas Cats – these had a small head and a long tail. They look not very similar to a household cat in the face but have a lot of hair which comes out from their neck towards their face.

They have two Pallas Cats at the WHF Tula is female and Wei Shand who is male. The species is near threatened, it is unknown how many of these cats remain in the world but a lot of this species are killed by humans each year due to poison put down on farms as a side effect of rodent control. These little cats looked very cute but can actually be quite vicious; they have the most beautiful faces though.

We then travelled to see the tigers. In total there are ten tigers currently residing at the WHF we visited Indy, Puna, Asu and Bawa who all share a very large enclosure.  Indy is a hybrid tiger which means a cross breed (Bengal with Amur) and came to the WHF from Paradise Wildlife Park where she was hand reared in her early years.

Puna is a Sumatran tiger, the smallest of the species and came to the WHF from Heidelberg Zoo where she had been hand reared. When she arrived at the centre she had forgotten how to be a proper tiger and so she was housed with Indy in the hope she would pick up the animal instincts she would naturally possess in the wild. Puna is playing a vital role in keeping the gene pool of Sumatran Tigers alive in captivity as an active member of the breeding programme along with Nias who she is paired with – they successfully produced two cubs in 2008.

Asu and Bawa are the two cubs born at WHF in July 2008. At a year old they are almost the same size as their mother but still display the playfulness of cubs. It is hoped that once they reach 18 months Asu will be moved on to another facility to become part of their breeding programme. Unfortunately Sumatran tigers are critically endangered and may disappear within the next 10 years this is why breeding centres like this play such a vital role in the conservation of these magnificent cats.

The picture below shows just how tall the tigers are when they stand on their back legs – these are actually the smallest types of tiger but they still stand at a good height when they stand up like this.

Due to the sheer amount of breeds of big cats housed at the WHF I’m going to break my blog down into separate parts as I want to make sure I do each animal justice so my last section for today will be about the next species on our visit – the Amur Leopards.

We saw four of the Amur Leopards on our visit – Artur and Xizi the breeding male and female and their two male cubs Argun and Anuy who were born at the WHF in October 2008. Artur has to be kept in a separate enclosure to his mate and offspring as if he was to be placed in the same pen his natural instinct would cause him to try and kill the two cubs.

The Amur Leopards are the world’s most endangered species of cat and this breeding pair are at the fore front of the conservation work at the WHF. It is estimated only 35 Amur Leopards remain in the wild and it is envisaged that some of the off spring born in captivity under the EEP programme will be released into the wild in the future to try and stop them from becoming extinct.

These cats certainly were the liveliest of the day. We had been warned that they could stretch their full front leg through the cage, and they were very likely to do it, we were to be on guard at all times and if the keeper shouted “get back” we had to move faster than lightning! Xizi especially would run straight towards us with a loud growl and a snarl which made for some great pictures.

It was very difficult getting pictures of them as they just didn’t stand still plus trying to hold a camera, check the focus and get a shot with one eye whilst keeping the other eye open for a leopard charging towards you with it’s rather large teeth heading straight for you is a mean feat I can tell you.

One of the cubs was so absolutely adorable as he made a little squeaking noise rather than a growl at times it was hard to believe that these animals are so deadly and dangerous. The keeper was able to feed Argun and Anuy through the cage and they even gave his hand a little lick though he said in a few months there will be absolutely no chance of him being able to do that…..funnily enough he didn’t try and feed Xizi by hand.

Even though Argun and Anuy are only 10 months old they are a good size and not much smaller than Xizi. This picture shows just how big their paws and the length of their claws – I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with any of these guys!

The Amur Leopards were stunning animals, the power in their bodies was spectacular and they are amazingly beautiful, almost mesmerizing. I certainly hope that the work being done by the WHF and the other centres in the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme can go some way to help protect them from extinction as it would be such a loss to the animal kingdom.

Anyway that’s it for today. Tomorrow I shall tell you about some of the other animals we met on our visit to this amazing place. I will also be uploading more images from the day but please bear with me as I have taken 700 photographs and need go through them and decide which ones I want to upload to my gallery.

Many thanks as always for reading – all comments appreciated. I hope you will check back to read my next instalment once I have written it.

So the beginning of a new week is upon us and as usual I’m wondering where the weekend went, Mondays just come round far too quickly for my liking! This weekend we were quite busy but I still didn’t get everything I wanted to do ticked off my list.

On Friday evening my husband Dave and I took a trip to the fair, there was a travelling fun fair in town and I wanted to go and try taking some long exposure shots of the rides.  I love the kinds of pictures you can get from them with the trailing lights in different colours creating a blur accross the dark sky. I did a bit of reading up before we went on what kind of settings I would need to use as it would be my first attempt at this kind of photography and it would also give me a chance to try out my new remote shutter switch which was one of my birthday presents.

When we arrived at the fair I was a little disapointed as it was quite small, there were only a few rides and most of them were aimed towards smaller children, were quite tame and they didn’t look like they would give the kind effect I was looking for. There was a Twister/Switchback, Waltzers and a ride which has a long seat where the riders sit in a line and swings from left to right before finally going all the way over the top and back down the other side. We were there already so I decided I may as well have a go!

My first attempt was at the Twister. I set up the camera on the tripod only to discover that I seem to have lost one of the securing bolts! Luckily this didn’t render the tripod useless but it’s something I need to sort out sooner rather than later.  I had a play with the remote shutter switch and it was really easy to use, definitely something I can see myself using in the future.

I got myself all ready and then I just had to wait for the ride to start moving which took a while as it was quite quiet. Once it started I just tried a variety of different settings to see how they altered the resulting photographs. Even though the pictures from this ride have come out quite well I think you get a better result from the rides that tend to go up in the air rather than the ones that stay at eye level. Here are a few of the shots I took, you can see how they vary.

As you can see the longer exposure creates a series of coloured trails from the lights on the various parts of the ride.

This wetted my appetite to try some shots of the other ride as I had a feeling it would give a much better effect, the ground was quite uneven and these could do with a bit of levelling in Photoshop but you get the general idea.

As you can see the lights on this create a circular effect as the ride goes up and over, the second picture has a shorter exposure so the circles aren’t totally complete. I much prefer this effect than the trails on the Twister – what do you think?

Lastly I tried taking some shots of the Waltzer – my favourite ride. This didn’t really create many trails due to the lights being fixed and not moving with the ride. I did get some nice star shaped bursts from the static lights though.

In this one below you can see how the ride is moving a lot faster as the cars where the riders sit appear to be blurred. The ghostly images in the foreground of the picture have been created after some people came and stood in front of the camera before moving away whilst the shutter was still open.

After this I decided to pack up the camera and enjoy the fair by going on the Waltzers. As it was almost the end of the evening the ride seemed to go on for much longer than usual and by time we came off both Dave and I were staggering around and feeling dizzy hahaha!

Now I’ve had a bit of a practice and feel a bit more confident about which settings I need to use I definitely want to try this again but next time for a full evening shoot. The next time the fair comes to town will be the end of October time ready for the local fireworks display, it will be  better then as it is a much larger fair with better rides so I am already looking forward to that – hopefully I will be able to get some better pictures next time.

I shall update you on the rest of my weekend tomorrow as I think that’s enough for today. As always thank you for reading and please comment if you’ve enjoyed it.