In late October I paid a visit to Oxford, my first since last year. Despite it being half term the city was not really that busy. Tourist numbers were much less than usual and I was able to photograph landmarks without waiting for people to move out of shot. Here is a selection of images from my outing.
I recently treated myself to a mirrorless SLR. Having used Nikons for as long as I can remember I went for a Z6, I couldn’t justify the cost of a Z7, and purchased the 24-200mm lens rather than the “kit” one usually offered with it.
So far I am extremely impressed with the quality of the images even when I have pushed the “film speed” ISO. In the past with my D800 I tended to shoot at as low an ISO as possible – 100ISO in order to achieve the quality I was used to when I shot slides in my pre digital days.
I thought I would experiment with a higher ISO and these are two of the results.
The wall at the front of our house collapsed overnight…….
The booklet has now been published and is available from me at a cost of £4 plus P&P of £1.50. It has 48 pages with OS maps inside showing the routes. The cover is shown below.
Recently I have been using Seek, a free app by iNaturalist to identify plants and other wildlife I encounter on my walks. It works really well without needing to be online whilst using it. I took a photo of my elderly labrador and it told me that he was a Domestic Dog canis familiaris.
I enjoy writing articles about items I have researched. Most of them are linked to my family history research. A recent one about William McGill, born William Nelson, can be found under the Genealogy section on this site.
One of the picture libraries I submitted images to suggested I write about some of the subjects I had photographed. They say that if you can produce words and pictures then you have a greater chance of making sales. I wrote several articles and submitted them to the library but they never saw the light of day. I did submit them independently to magazines with better success and two such articles can be found under the Articles – Fact section. They are Child Farm Workers and Window Tax. Admittedly they were written a number of years ago and hopefully my style has improved in recent years.
Work on the revised walks booklet is progressing and we hope to get it printed in August. Colour maps will be a feature. Here is a map showing all eight routes. All of them start at St Peter’s Church.
Recently I have been testing the walking routes that will be in the revised Walks around Hooky booklet the local history group are producing. Here are a selection of images from my travels.
I’ve already made two planters for the garden. Having found an unused set of wheels for my tool chest I thought I would make another that can be wheeled around. It is large enough to accommodate a grow bag if we decide not to fill it with plants.
I’ve been setting up my “workshop” before I make anything else. YouTube is great for getting ideas. In recent weeks I’ve made a table so that I can use my jigsaw inverted. As I bought a trim router table from the US my table can be used as a base for it too. Using battens and thumbscrews it makes a solid base. A circular saw track has also come out of the workshop. Now to look at YouTube again to see what I can make – a bird box is on the cards…
