Caged

Caged, a photo by jazz_dalek on Flickr.

Another image captured at this years Liverpool Lantern Festival. Its probably one of the best events in the Liverpool calendar and a credit to all the hard work put into setting it up. Image – Digital Olympus Pen E-P1, 17mm f2.8 pancake lens.

Liverpool Lantern Festival 2011

The meeting, a photo by jazz_dalek on Flickr.

Taken using Olympus Pen E-P1 during the Liverpool Lantern Festival held in Sefton Park each year around Halloween.

Via Flickr:
Lantern Festival Liverpool Sefton Park 2011

To the mountains of Mourne and back.

A Mersey ferry overtakes us on our way to the channel.

Over the last few years I’ve been sailing my Robber 3e on the river Mersey and the Irish sea. She’s a small IOR boat and measures in at just over 24ft in length. Well this year we went on manovours and set off for a lap of the Irish sea. On board were my friends Ray and Brian, a lot of fuel,  plenty of grub and beer. We left Liverpool on mid Thursday afternoon and set sail for Douglas, IOM. It was to be quite a long crossing, 70Nm at night in a small boat is quite an adventure.

After locking out of Liverpool marina we set sail down the Mersey and before long were passing New Brighton with its perched Rock fort and accompanying light house. With Perch Rock on the stern we were soon pushing our way up the Queens channel past the well known Crosby beach, the iron men and onward towards Burbo Towers and a course to the IOM.  The going was slow with the wind on the nose and a good swell in the channel, we tacked most of the way until the channel swung west and then once past Q2 it was time to swing the compass northerly. There was no turning back, the tide was on its way out and off we went off in search of the distant horizon.

It was great to be heading out towards the gas fields, over the last year with time spent working etc, Peterman had spent a lot of time tied up in the mariner and thats not what boats are for. Id even started to think I was becoming a “flat-earther”,  thats the name Brian gives to the sort of individual that clings to the land, who never ventures too far and runs for home at the slightest puff of wind. Well I certainly don’t  want to be know as a flat-earther so off we went chasing the horizon, although its very strange, no matter how fast and far you sail you never seem catch it.

It was great to be out on the sea,  away from the noise and triviality of city life and sailing along whilst watching the sun go down. Peterman was sailing well and we were on our way. However soon the wind died and it was on with the engine. We motored on  for a good few hours passing the brightly lit gas platforms until eventually in the morning light the outline of the IOM could be seen on the horizon. We ended up spending all night out on deck, a problem with the fuel tank breather had  rendered the cabin uninhabitable, that was until we had burnt off enough fuel to drop the level in the tank. I must remember to fix this problem before the next trip. After what seemed like a long night we pulled into Douglas harbour, it was 8am in the morning, just in time to get the kettle on for a nice cuppa and some breakfast.

The plan was to have something to eat, get cleaned up and get our head down for a few hours, however you know what happens to most good intentions. After a well deserved cupa, a shower and some grub,  it was off into Douglas for a couple of jars so to speak, a great end to the first leg of our journey.

Leaving Liverpool with Brian the helm.

Night navigation

A long awaited sunrise in the Irish Sea

Arriving in Douglas with DDA on the helm.

 

 

A very small looking Peterman moored against the sea wall in Douglas.

 

Time for a few jars, well deserved after a long night at sea.

 

 

Cape Wrath or Bust – A 4pm start – in theory anyway.

Leaving our grub stop

My alarm went off at 3:30am, I’d only had about 3hrs sleep as I’d been up the night before getting the bike packed and giving the bike a once over, you know the score, check and top up the engine oil, check and top up the gearbox oil, check the brakes, set the suspension, sort out the tyre pressures and then after a couple of small bottles of Tuborg, off to sleep. Well 3:30 didn’t seem so bad after a cuppa and some grub. The plan was to set off down the M62 and onto the M6 northbound. On previous trips we had always arranged to meet at Lancaster or Charnock Richard services, however this time with a good number of miles to cover we decided on a rolling rendezvous.  As the lads were riding up from Stafford I would give them 20mins head start and then set off. In theory, I would join the M6 in front of them, slow down and wait for them to catch up. So at 4am I was sat outside the house waiting for the call, it eventually came at 4:18, my brother John had overslept and had been awoken by Giles throwing stones at his window. Well despite Johns best efforts at derailing the plan it did in fact work and we met as planned. Not having to stop saved a lot of time and we made swift progress up to the lakes before stopping for fuel.

The next few hours saw Glasgow come and go,  then up along the banks of Loch Lomond and on to the Green Welly Stop at Tyndrum. Just in time to replace the headlight bulb in the Zeppelin that had failed down by the Loch and attempt to get JWs Super Tenere running on both cylinders again. The rain had got to it and at low speeds it was missing like a good one. Our considered engineering solution was to spray it with water displacer and rev its nuts off.  An operation that was not to go unnoticed due to its rather alarming “silencer” and the fact we had parked it just by the shop!

The next stage of the ride was great, we climbed up onto Rannock Moor and headed into Glencoe, where we parked and continued with our Super Tenere problem solving technique. Now I must admit that one of Europe’s last unspoilt wilderness in not the place to be fixing the bike, let alone one with such an ineffective silence. Soon we set off again and before long we were north of Fort William and on our way  to Loch Carron and some grub in the Waterside Cafe. The cafes a great place, its very biker friendly and serves some of the best grub in the region. Highly recommended if you just happen to be passing on you way north or south for that matter.

After our stop for food it was back on the bikes for the ride and up over the pass of the cattle to Applecross campsite and a few jars in the pub, well more than a few if the truth be known, but thats another story.

Sundial on the pass of the cattle, looking out to the Western Isles.

Scrag on top of the pass

Bikes on the pass

Beautiful Applecross bay

The end of a long days riding

Cape Wrath or Bust – 1

Well its been a while since I’ve posted on the blog. However I’ve just got back from long weekend trip to the top of the Scotland with my brother and a group of friends. Over the last 4 years we’ve had a few trips up north and have visited some of the best the Scottish Northwest has to offer, but a visit to Cape Wrath always seemed to escape us. So this years trip was setup with the Cape firmly in our sights and off we went. I’ll be posting some of the pictures from this years and previous trips over the next few weeks. But I’ve decided to post the last pictures first, pictures of my trusty bike immediately after covering the 1370 mile ride. The pictures were taken with an Olympus E-P1 Micro FourThirds camera that I used extensively during the trip and rather than my normal choice of film.

Anyway more to come soon, maybe starting with the first trip to Orkney dating back to 2007 or maybe this years trip.

A few pics from a lost film.

Well with work being busy and not having much time to spend on photography recently things have been a bit quiet round here. That was until I found three exposed films lurking in my camera bag. In fact one has been “lost” since last year. Anyway I processed a couple of them this afternoon, using Agfa Rodinal, 1:100 with a 1hr stand development. One of the films an Ilford FP4+ had a few good frames shot when out with the Fab Collective at the end of last summer on a Liverpool city centre photo shoot. Will get round to having a look at the other film later and my post some more, but for now here are a few:

FAB Jen

Fab Pete

Fab Jen and Fab Grey

Fab out and about

A few more pictures from the Dragon.

Have just been looking through some of the images from Dragon Rally and a few more caught my eye. I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing with the Pen, digital does’nt seen to work the way film does and to me the images seem a bit on the harsh side. However I must say I’m impressed with the E-P1, especially the way it handled the low light conditions. I did’nt really expect it to work so well in the field. These shots were all taken using the Zuiko 17mm 1:2.8 pancake lens. Its not particularly fast but the in-body image stabilisation seems to make up for that. One thing I have noticed is that the shots taken in the early morning all seem to be a tad over exposed and I’ve had to make some fine adjustments, I’m not sure why but I guess I’ll have to learn to work with this. I’ve just received the MF-2 adaptor that will allow for the mounting of Olympus OM lenses on the Micro Four Thirds body. I’ve had a play with it and have taken a few shots with a couple of OM lenses and will be posting the results here pretty soon. Have a look at the pics below and see what you think, comments and feedback welcome.

Red Panther in the cold morning - you could be thinking Dave loves this bike?

Red Pather fuel tank - now you know I do.

Room with a view!

Red BMW

A guess its a four cylinder machine.

BSA

Red flag outfit

Dragon and Flag

Flag at night

Heres your change

Ladies Only

Brewin up in the morning

Camping in the woods

My trusty Zeppelin

In a world of two dragons

Dragon Rally 2010

It was 0930 Saturday 6th February 2010 and it was time to set off to the 49th Dragon Rally held in North Wales by the Conwy and District MCC. My mate Stan was due to be calling round at 9:30, but as usual he turned up early and I wasn’t ready. Stan travels on his trusty Harley 883 Sportster and is always keen to get away on an adventure. I finishing packing my stuff into a pannier, got the newly repaired zepplin out of the garage and it was time to roll. Off we went down Wavertree High Street to pick up Glyn before setting off to Frodsham to pick up with Mike and his Aprilia.

The ride over to the Ponderosa cafe was a bit on the cold side and our progress was hampered by some thick fog that hung around for most of the day. The climb up the Horseshoe pass was interesting, there was snow at the sides of the road and the fog was like peasoup. The cafe soon appeared out of the gloom and into the car park we went. Short work was made of egg, chips and beans followed by a large mug of tea and a twix. My brother John arrived, he rode up from Stafford along the A roads and had made good time, 1hr 10mins to be precise, not bad considering the bad conditions. Upon leaving the cafe we headed North and took a more scenic and longer route through Ruthin and then along the B5105 to join the A5 at Cerrigydrudion. Soon we were passing through Betws-y-Coed and onward to the contol located in a layby just after Tal-y-bont on the B5106. Tickets were checked and we got our directions to the rally site.

John, Mike, Glyn, Stan and the Zeppelin at the checkpoint

When the tickets arrived a couple of months earlier, the accompanying instructions had indicated that it was going to be “back to nature”. They were right and mid-afternoon saw us arriving at the rally site, a site that comprised of a wooded hillside with some open space on top of the hill. We decided to camp in the wooded area. Well to be a little more honest, we rode up the hill as far as we could go until one of us fell off! Stan and his Harley made it a good way up the hill before coming to a stop, skidding backwards and falling off. I’m sure if asked, he’d call it a controlled dismount. Fortunately for Stan and Harley, no damage was done and they were unscarred by the experience. Soon our tents were put up in the spaces between the trees and we were sorted for the night.

Stan and Glyn checking out the Hog

Our campsite for the night.

The cold was pretty intense by this time and it was’nt long before we had a walk round the site before taking refuge in the beer tent. The tent was large, I guess it had to be the club had sold 1400 tickets!. We picked up our badges, a pack of goodies (snickers, mars, slate coaster, sticker and Bells miniature) and got fixed up with some hot soup and a barm. Then it was a swift pint followed by a another walk round the site, it was too just cold to stand drinking in the beer tent!

Walking round the site, it was immediately obvious that the regulars were well equipped. We saw all manner of ancient and vintage bikes and plenty of outfits and trikes. Some well equipped folks even bought pot bellied stoves with them. Now thats a plan for next year, I’ll build an outfit and come well equipped for the cold, I’ve had enough of this travelling light, heavy and warm, that for me.

Lovely old red Panther at the Dragon.

One of the fantastic old bikes that made it to the rally this year.

Anyway a great night was had by all, the band was great and played two sets. By the time the band finished we were full up and headed back to the tents. The next morning I awoke to an icy landscape and resolutions to buy a better winter sleeping bag and to bring a carry mat. In the morning Mike brewed up for us, the tents were packed and off we went. I’m not sure what we we thinking, but we headed back home via a scenic route, over the tops towards Abergele and then back to Ruthin for a cuppa in the cafe. The cafe could’nt come quick enough, it just wasn’t the weather for taking the long route, and my hands were cold even though the Zeps got heated grips and a large screen to hide behind. Once in Ruthin we parted company, John headed back down the A525 to the midlands, Mike headed off round Chester towards Frodsham, and Glyn, Stan and myself headed over the Clwydians,  along the Wirral and through the tunnel into Liverpool. The Zep and I were back home for 3pm, followed by nice hot cuppa and thoughts of where to go next?

All in all, the Dragon, its a great trip, but you have to be kitted out for the cold,  I think I’ll be going again next year.

An old Norton basking in the morning sun.

Bacon Burgers Sausages and Chips

Around the site in the evening.

Strange people at the Dragon

A second hand camera phone and a lot of snow

Well the last week in Liverpool has been interesting to say the least. My brother, John had just received a new phone, you know, renew your contract and you get an update to the new model, even though the existing one is just over a year old and perfectly functional. Anyway in the spirit of recycling I gladly took the old one of his hands, it’s a bit battered after living on his dashboard for a year, but it works just fine. Its a Nokia N82 and comes equipped with a 5MP camera with built-in flash. So when on Tuesday afternoon I found myself leaving work early due to the snow induced chaos that had overwhelmed the city, I had the opportunity to use it in anger. Anyway I’m really surprised by the results and will no doubt be using it again.

Liverpool in the snow

Out and about round Jamaica Street plus some introductory dribble.

Had an interesting week this week, the Zeppelins in for a new rear end after being hit from behind during the Tuesday evening commute. Not too much damage, just a new spray guard, number plate, rear transmission and assorted bits and pieces. Lucky for me I had the front brakes on and it stopped me being driven into the car in front.  Anyway the bikes now in Southport Superbike awaiting parts and repair and unfortunately there’s no other bike related news.  I guess the next travel related entry will be after our annual ride to the Dean Valley MCC’s Rallymans Rally. The Rallymans is held high up on the moors during the second weekend of January. With a bit of luck the Zeppelin will be fixed by then and fit for the trip, if not then it’s probably a hire bike and cold hands (BM’s have heated bars you know, and needing them is a sure sign I’m getting on a bit) as last years run out on my old TDM was pretty cold to say the least.  Another interesting trip coming up in the new year is the Conwy MCC’s Dragon Rally. This years event is the 49th and will be held on the 6th and 7th February somewhere in North Wales. Details can be obtained from the clubs home page, I just checked and they say that its a new site and “back to nature”.  I’m not sure what this means but its looking like a good outing already. Its prebook only, limited to 1400 tickets?? and details can be obtained from:

http://www.conwymotorcycleclub.co.uk/

Anyway enough of this dribble, here are a few shots taken with the 55mm f/1.2 Zuiko lens whilst walking around Jamaica street and the surrounding area. The images were scanned from 6×4 prints with minimal post processing in iPhoto. Camera – Olympus OM30 SLR. More OM and Zuiko images to follow.

Bar in the Nova Centre, Liverpool's centre for contemporary arts located in the newly designated arts quarter of the city

Looking through a gated alleyway, shot at f1.2.

Red paint flaking off a metal door.