BBC2's motoring entertainment show 'Top Gear' features a mythical race-suited test driver, 'The Stig'.  This name wasn't plucked from nowhere - here is rally legend Stig Blomqvist, now well into his sixties, just about giving his old Escort some air on the recent RAC rally.
 
 

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Sometimes I see a scene and automatically go for the most complex, technically demanding way of capturing it.  When things work out it's great but often they don't and the moment is gone, leaving me with nothing but the sour taste of wasted opportunity  This is why I'm thankful that for once, when faced with the lovely beach huts, I remembered to take my sweet time.  True I could have done with a tripod but the light was okay, the huts were in no hurry and at that early hour there was little to no chance of people getting in the way.

I've already posted one beach hut picture, typically it's probably the most complex one of them all, but faced with the opportunity to explore different angles, compositions and ideas, I thought perhaps I should balance it with one of the simpler shots from that morning.

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It was a fun weekend, all told.  A blast over to the North Yorkshire forests to watch the 2009 Roger Albert Clark rally, where historic cars once again galloped free along the muddy gravel trails that crisscross the maze of pines.  Chasing the cars from stage to stage made my own car look like it'd been taking part, poor thing.

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From there it was onto the Olivers Mount Tarmac stage, where events were prematurely curtailed after a car went off and three spectators were injured.  Whether this was directly due to the crash or in the scramble to get clear I don't know, but as the light drew in and the remaining competitors headed back into the forests we went onwards to the coast and our sea view hotel room - this view, to be precise...

 

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The next morning we took a refreshing stroll along the North Bay, stopping to photograph these charming beach huts before heading further North to Robin Hoods' Bay where, quite by coincidence, we bumped into another photo friend of mine, Stuart, and his lovely family.  Stuart clambered down the rocks at high tide to get some shots of the waves breaking, with predictable results....

 

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It may be more or less on the doorstep but I find there aren't many reasons to venture into Oldham, even in daylight.  The former cotton spinning capital of the world has been spinning itself into serious decline at the foot of the Pennines since the industry moved on, making it a grim and unforgiving place at the best of times.  Once in a while though a bright idea sparks into life there, however temporarily, like a dying animal twitching with defiant pulses of life.

Six projectors cast a 10,000 square foot image of these Flanders poppies and the word 'Remember' onto two sides of the otherwise hideous Civic Centre and the result is said to be visible over 40 miles away on a clear night.  Whilst 40 miles away sounded like the perfect place to be, I dragged a minimal amount of camera gear there last night to grab a few quick shots before the lights go out forever at midnight tonight.

An entire generation made so many sacrifices and endured so much hardship to ensure we can live our lives in relative freedom today, whilst many of us have friends and family caught up in the current conflicts.  Don't forget to remember, 11am sharp.

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There will now follow an interruption of service whilst I turn my clinically dead Vista desktop into a clean and healthy Windows 7 machine.  Time to hunt down all those application and driver CD's filed not-so-neatly around the office and hope my favourite open source apps are compatible with the latest OS.  Once up and running I'll be using the new drive imaging and backup tools in Windows 7 to ensure a running start should the unthinkable happen yet again.

Unlike the Great Hard Drive Disaster of 2007 I do have my photo collection, music and most other goodies backed up but I have lost a little working file of unposted stuff, which may never now see the light of day.  Hopefully that's not the tip of the iceberg... see you on the other side!

On my last trip through the area I grabbed a quick shot of the lovely coastal village of Staithes just as the rain set in.  The photo was deemed good enough to make it into my Pentax Photo Gallery collection, but as is usually the case I wasn't fully satisfied and ached to go back to do the job properly.  This time around there was little chance of precipitation, but due to other necessities (like having to eat) the light was already disappearing over the hills as we unpacked our kit from the car.

A bit of scuttling around to find our spot and a few test shots later, the last remnants of daylight had really fallen away and lights were coming on in the village.  After some more considered, 'proper' photography than last time (using a tripod and everything!) I began the series of seven long exposures that were stitched, blended and tweaked to produce this panorama.

Job done?  Nah, not yet.  Maybe next time...

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For a brief moment he was a God, conquering nature, towering over those around him, whooping with joy and freed by adrenaline from all the self-constructed restraints in his life.  For a brief moment the world was everything he'd wanted it to be - exciting, thrill packed and with him in a starring role.  In fact, for a brief moment he almost managed to forget that tomorrow he'd simply be 'that fat bloke in the office' once again.
 
 

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Well, the clocks went back at weekend signalling the end of British Summer Time and the start of 5pm darkness, seasonal affected disorder and increased energy bills.  It also means my trusty old K10 comes out to play, being as it is a much better long exposure performer than its younger siblings.  I'm sure there are many technical reasons for this but it does mean I can't bear to part with my K10 until Pentax resolves the issue in newer models.

So what better way to dust off the old bruiser than a quick overnight visit to Whitby?  The camera did great though I performed less well and need some more practice to fine tune my judgement again... for example I gave up on this startrail shot after around 14 mins thinking it was too cloudy for the exposure to work.  Ooops!
 
 

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I built it lovingly from scratch, creating a new look with new media, new code and new ideas.  I even got to grips with Pixelpost to create a whole new blogging and gallery system.  I was really proud of it but it failed the acid test... nobody I demonstrated the site to particularly liked it.  Nothing wrong with the feel, operation or speed of things, just the deviation from black and orange to polar opposite white and blue was too much of a leap.  Thus the original digitalCG V3.0 concept site was pretty much stillborn and I had to bin a very decent chunk of work to go back to the drawing board.

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In the end I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, that I was fast running out of time and talent, that coding a new site from scratch just wasn't an option - after all, I'm no web designer and much of my coding is time intensive trial and error.  I found a template I liked, made some modifications to suit my purpose and pressed ahead.  The result has been live all week and has proven quite robust despite some serious testing by my friends.  The galleries are still in beta but everything else is there, so feel free to go and browse through V3.0 of my site, digitalCG.co.uk
 

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