Photographs from around the world
Focus On Felt Website updated
Sep 3rd
Just updated the website focusonfelt.co.uk for local artist Andrea Hunter, with some new images of her work in the latest work gallery. Pop over and take a look, the pictures are absolutely stunning. Great colours and images created just from wool.
Lens
Just taken my broken lens to Wilkinson Cameras in Kendal, hopefully their engineers can fix it and I can avoid the cost of a replacement one. Apparently Nikon no longer make this lens and a similar replacement 24-105 I think is only part of a body bundle. So I have been googling and possible the 16-85mm VR lens could be a good replacement but it sounds tohave better optics and focus than the currently broken one, which I suppose it should as it costs a fair old chunk of money. Not sure if I should go the Sigma or Tamron route instead. Still the lens came up with an error code in the view finder r21 or e21 I seem to remember so hopefully this will be easily fixable!!
Roll on the phone call to let me know the damage!
***UPDATE***
Just had the cost of the repair and apparently the silent motor mechanism is broken so it will cost almost the price of a new lens to repair. So I have taken the plunge and bought a Nikon 16-85 VR lens. Hopefully get some photos taken soon.
Nikon lens disaster!
Aug 3rd
My main 18-135mm Nikon lens`s autofocus has stopped working, so not sure when I will get some more photographs. The lens focuses ok manually but it looks as if the autofocus motor has stopped. Luckily I have a 75-300 zoom and a small Nikon compact but its just not goig to be the same. So its off to try to get the lens repaired. If not it could be time for a replacement which looks like it could be expensive.
Not sure whether it should be like for like or to go for something like a 24-105 with VR, the camera is a Nikon D80 so any Nikon or possible 3rd party lens could be a possibility. Comments would be welcome on a good replacement.
Cheers
Bees
Aug 3rd
Just out in the gardn and heard the buzzing of bees and noticed they were all over these yellow flowers, so I thought I`d try a bit of bee photography, unfortunately my auto focus has packed up on my lens so going back to manual focus was a bit slow for me and these were as good as I could get before the heavens opened with some really heavy rain.
It always seems to be raining or really overcast at the moment, so I don`t seem to be getting many vibrant pictures, it may be a time to have a play with HDR, so I`ve ordered a cable remote and am checking out the functions of Photoshop CS5 to see if I can produce anything decent.
Grouse Beating and the Moors
Jul 5th
Just a few pictures of Grouse Beating on the moorland above Hawes, taken around and over the years.
As you can see the season goes from summer to winter, starting on the glourious 12th of August and finishing on the 10th of December, hence the snow.
Usually involves being taken up on to the moor in Land Rovers or other off-road vehicles often of an ex-military nature. Then being divided into teams of beaters, whilst the guns get in to their shooting Butts, the beaters walk around the moor and line out, then at a signal start walking to bring the drive in, walking in a line waving flags and making noise to scare the Grouse towards the shooters. Once within a few hundred yards a horn is blown to tell the guns (shooters) to only shoot behind their butts, so that no-one is shooting towards the beaters. Then when the beaters have finished, the shot Grouse are picked, using dogs to find the shot birds in the heather. Shot Grouse are counted in brace where a brace is a pair of birds.
Updated WordPress to 3.0
Jul 4th
Just updated WordPress to verion 3.0, amidst much confusion and finger biting, first time I`ve had to do this manually. Then got an error 500 while trying to reactivate my plugins, which was fixed by creating a .htaccess file and adding the following lines:
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
I use 1and1 as a host and this seems to have fixed the error, along with turning off all my plugins and then reinstalling them one at a time. Thought I`d lost the whole site there for a moment. Thanks to google and WordPress help for that fix.
Half term
May 29th
Finaly it`s half term holidays, hopefully I will get some time to look through some more od photographs and put them up and if the weather holds get some mountain biking in with some photography as well. At the moment its windy and wet and a good 20 degrees colder than last weekend. 
Dalesmedia
May 8th
Just made a few layout and cosmetic changes to my own little company website, dalesmedia.co.uk
Apart from taking the photographs on this website and on dalesmediaphoto.co.uk, and doing a day job, I also run a small computer business in Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales helping the local people with their computing problems. Designing and updating websites and all the usual things that get done when someone knows your good with computers.
So if you`re based in the area and like what you see from my websites, keep me in mind if you have any computing needs.
John
Focus On Felt
May 3rd
UPDATE: 06/05/2010 New Focus on Felt site is now updated and live. Please take a look: focusonfelt.co.uk
Andrea Hunter – Felt Artist
I`ve also been revamping a website for one of my clients, Andrea Hunter of Focus On Felt. So thats taken quite a bit of time resizing photos, checking links and text. Still its looking good, Andrea is doing some final checks so hopefully the site should be live any day soon.
Andrea Hunter is a felt artist living and working in Hardraw in the centre of the Yorkshire Dales, she is currently writing a book and has appeared on the BBC a couple of times. Take a look at her website at FocusOnFelt.co.uk
A quote from her new website:
I am inspired by the dales landscape, its inhabitants and particularly in the dramatic contrasts that the Dales weather brings. I like to think my work has always had a strong sense of movement and that my monochrome images in particular capture the wildness of the fells. Creating light within the imagery through artistic skills and use of materials, has increased the dramatic content of my work and is yet another step, I hope, in pushing the boundaries of felt making.
A few example of her great work, amazingly all created using wool.
