Home at last

Back from a not so good journey, from the delights of Conakry in Guinea. The flight unfortunately stopped in Noukachott (Mauritanea) on the way to Paris, where Air France happily filled the Plane completely up, and once again, just like winning the lottery, I got a Mother and Baby in the middle seat next to me......Now I don't know why this happens, but I have an unerring skill in making Myself completely attractive to the likes of the local Village Idiot, who wants nothing more than to chat, normally very loudly. The Drunk, who thinks I'm his new best friend, and finally screaming Babies, with Mum's who actually don't give a Flying Toss (not an intentional pun) about their Fellow passengers sat next to them on a 7 hour journey. It was so bad, that I actually couldn't wait to get to Paris's CDG airport.....I mean just how bad does it have to get, to wish for that to happen ? Its the worst Airport in the World, staffed completely by Neantherdals of the lowest order; but for me, after that journey it was like entering Nirvana, an oasis of civilised calm, as soon as I stepped on to the Air Bridge, and off that damn Aircraft.

For those of you who live in my little part of the World, you will know that its been very clear these last few days, especially at night, and when the wind dropped....a rare combination in Angus ! So to clear the head from the travel woes, I headed to the beach at Easthaven, and tried to capture something of interest using the available light at 01:00 am in the morning. All I can say, is that they are different, and they have given me a little push to keep trying and see just what I can photograph in the middle of the night.....next time though, I'll try not to do it in -4 degrees C, it's a bit extreme when I have been somewhere for the last five weeks where it never got below 30 degrees C !

What to photograph from a Boat in the middle of Nowhere.

Well what can i say, its certainly been an interesting few days exploring the blog, playing with the design, trying to understand the new buttons and gizmo's etc and basically catching up a little.....it all makes you feel a little inadequate. I thought frikking technology was meant to make your life easier for Christs sake; feck knows what would happen if i turned on one of these new "dynamic" templates they (Blogger), offer by mistake. There must be a heck of a lot of seriously clever people out there to design this shit is all I can say, or there's a lot of people with a fair amount of time on their hands.....nice work if you can get it, or in my case understand it.

So what have I been doing these last 2 years you may (or most probably not) ask yourselves, firstly, no I have not been spending time at Her Majesty's Pleasure, but thanks for asking anyway....I have however continued to sail around in this wonderful world of Seismic that I have unfortunately found Myself unable to escape from. But hey, who would, when you can travel to such exotic locations as Gabon (Corrupt and ruled by a Dictator) , Cabinda (Completely corrupt and ruled by who the Feck knows), Guinea Conakry (Trainee corrupt as the Officials still smile as they rob you blind), and finally Norway (Tax Thieving Bastards). Norway gets the special mention, as they consider Foreigners who have the misfortune of sailing in their waters, should for that privilege pay their Countries NI contributions, which are set at something like 130% of your salary. Remember that when you vote for the buggers at next years Eurovision Contest, that's if you rather sadly watch it of course.

Anyway, photography....You are on a Boat, you don't see land, there's not a lot of Wildlife, especially if you are in the North Sea....so what the hell do you photograph apart from the Muppets you work with. Sunsets and Sunrises thats what. For me its a bit of a challenge, as you are on a moving boat ,so shutter speed has to be quite fast (that's as technical as I get), there's no point having a tripod either as you are going up and down; and to try and get a half way decent shot of some spectacular clouds and light you normally are shooting at either end of the day and therefore the ISO is up, which can create a graininess, which sometimes adds to the feel of the Photo.

The 1st Photo should be titled "Polution can be pretty" and is of an FPSO at Sunset about 100 miles offshore Aberdeen, on a fairly rare calm day. The 2nd is an early morning shot in the Moray Firth when we were sheltering from some bad weather....Yup the Bird was a fluke, and No it wasn't added in later as I am not clever enough for that shite; and the final picture was taken at the end of some fairly heavy weather we had had, which made for a pretty dramatic skyscape....just a pity the Tanker is not on the left of the picture, as that would have helped the composition a little.