Snapper's delight

I went to a Brighton Flickr group beach barbecue last night and had a great time. There were many good photographers there, some very interesting cameras, and some very nice actual people too. I didn't take many photos for some reason - not sure why really, perhaps I was intimidated by the sheer weight of photographic experience on that beach. Or perhaps I was just having too good a time. I did get this one though - that sky was a truly amazing colour and the clouds were swirling in the most extraordinary patterns. This doesn't do it any kind of justice but it still looks pretty good. It takes a lot to persuade me to photograph anything sunset related on the seafront these days because it's all been done before so many times, but this one seemed justified. I hope you agree.

Sunset bikes

Back on that shadow theme again. It would have been good to capture the full bike shadow image on the ramp in the foreground and maybe have slightly less clutter in the image as a whole but I do like the setting sunlight on the huts and the graffiti wall below them. I think this one would have been improved if I'd stuck around a little longer too - both to get a richer, redder, sunlight and to catch some gnarlier jumping. But hey ho, I was on my way to a bowl of chilli and a subtitled movie and missions don't get much more serious than that.

I really feel lucky about the number of opportunities there are for photography around my way - you could really go in any direction around dusk at this time of year and find something amazing within a 10-minute cycle.

Flying giant spider attacks house!

Some days all that needs to be done to grab a half-decent photo is to swivel the office chair 90 degrees to the right and look out of the window. This is just as well, frankly, because work is often so frantic these days that there's just no time available to go ambling forth, camera in hand. This little chap was ambling up my window the other night and obligingly stopped to pose for a good five minutes before resuming his journey.