A Quick Question,

without looking any further what is the image below? as the article mentions it may be a fruit, but this shot is taken in the dark, the camera shutter is open, but recording nothing as there is no image to record, a bank of flash guns meanwhile is waiting to be triggered, not by some one pressing a button but by sound, photographer Edward Horsford decided he wanted to take a picture of how water would look at the moment a water filled balloon was bursted with a pin, but with no success until he hit on the idea of firing the flash guns when the sound a balloon makes when popped triggers them to work,

this picture is more of a give away, 'as it's a rather messy process, I have to shoot outside,' said Mr Horsford, 'the irony of the shoot is that while they are bright and colourful I spend all this time working in the dark,’ the pictures are taken at an incredible 1/40,000ths of a second, not the speed of the camera or shutter but the duration of the flash, another big factor is luck, all balloons burst differently, and the water goes in different directions, he said, 'if I have a specific image in mind, it might take quite a few tries to get what I imagined,' what a fascinating idea to have sound trigger the flash and for me great pictures.

Every One Knows How Colourful The Tropical Reefs Are,

but below are 4 of a set of pictures taken off the UK coast, from the North Sea, off Norfolk in fact, above a Long-Spined Sea Scorpions change colour to disguise themselves so they can ambush their prey,

a smiling Tompot Blenny,

an adult sea slug sits atop a ship wreck, it belongs to a group called Nudibranchs, Latin meaning exposed gills, one of the hall marks for this group is their striking colours, thought to be a defense by proclaiming they are poisonous to eat,

and last but not least, just half the size of your little finger, the Lightbulb Sea Squirt uses its glass-like clusters to filter seawater and extract plankton, I know I said four pictures, but below are five of my own, these are not in the North Sea, they were all taken in the Philippines in the late 80's, above is a sea squirt,

some tunicates,

and some more,

and a close up,

and a Crinoid, a ancient type of sea-lily, all of my pictures were taken using a Nikonos 5 and a set of Sea & Sea close up lenses, but there are no details of what was used in the shots from Norfolk, great fun!

When You Are To Tired To Swim Home Cadge A Lift!

that's what it looks like here, as 6 cygnets hop on board Mum, the photograph was taken by Richard Meston on a visit to Bicton Park Botanical Gardens near Sidmouth, Devon, Julia Newth, of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, said: ‘Mute swans are very protective of their young and will vigorously defend them from any threats, but this one is definitely showing the gentler side of her instincts in giving her young a lift on her back, in the title I used the phrase "Cadge a lift" which I thought was a term used in falconry, not so! the 'cadge a lift' theory is certainly wrong, that phrase isn't known until the 19th century, well after falconry had become uncommon and, in any case, that 'beg/borrow' meaning of cadge was in use as a general term for 'obtaining without payment' and only later became used in 'cadge a lift', cadger eventually became 'codger', it is the begging sense of cadge rather than the falcon transport meaning that is much more likely to be linked to 'cadger' and later 'codger', the earliest meaning of 'cadger', which pre-dates the naming of falconry cadges by a good two hundred years, was as the name of itinerant dealers who traded in butter/eggs etc., which they transported by pack-horse, this dates from the 15th century and was referred to in Robert Henryson's The Morall Fabillis of Esope, circa 1450: "A Cadgear, with capill and with creils". (horse and baskets), so now I know!

A Very Good Friend Of Mine, Steve, Went To The Airshow At Biggin Hill,

we both went together the year before last, well he has very kindly sent me some of his pictures that he took there over last weekend, I have not made any comments, but would just like to say a big thank you to Steve for taking the trouble to send them, enjoy!

for the technical they were taken on a Pentax K10D with a 50-200 Pentax zoom lens, I just wish I was there, but next year hopefully we will be, we are now off out, so I will finish the blog tomorrow, oh the pressures of being retired!

I Was Looking At Some Of My Pictures The Other Day,

and found a few of flowers I took in of all places London,

the event was in one of the horticultural halls near Victoria train station,

as you may have now guessed it was a orchid show, I must admit that orchids are one of my favorite types of plants,

I was using a 35m.m. Cannon T90 camera,

at the time I had two bodies and a bag full of lenses, one camera body with black and white film and one with transparency film,

in truth I can not remember which lenses I used, but I hope you enjoy the snaps.

Every Time We Watch A Movie With Snow In It,

Diana always asks about snow, well these are a couple of shots of snow taken by Kenneth Libbrecht of CalTech, using a specially-designed snowflake photomicroscope, they show real snow crystals that fell to earth in northern Ontario, Alaska, Vermont, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, the one above is a Stellar dendrite snowflake with branches and side branches,

whilst this one is a hexagonal prism, if you want to see more click here, the pictures for me are truly amazing for a number of reasons, the subject is so small, it melts, heat from lights must be a problem although I guess a flash could be used, in any event I really enjoyed looking at them.

Hey, Look No Parachute Or Bunge Cord!

Kerry Skarbakka, makes a death defying leap, or does he? apparently it is all done with wires, though to be fair I think I would have used Photoshop! the American daredevil has been creating the portfolio of falling pictures since 2002, and has been exhibited across the world, Kerry has tried to get models to pose for his work - but everyone he's asked has preferred to stay grounded, leaving the 38-year-old with no option but to take the plunge himself for more examples of his work go here or for his gallery, http://www.skarbakka.com/.

Two Stunning Picture, Volcano's Lightning,

for the first time, scientists have been able to “see” and trace lightning inside a plume of ash spewing from an actively erupting volcano, above the Restive Redoubt Volcano in Alaska in the daytime,

but using a system called a Lightning Mapping Array, scientists have been able to “see” and trace lightning inside a plume of ash spewing from an actively erupting volcano, Paul Krehbiel of New Mexico Tech said "The lightning activity was as strong or stronger than we have seen in large Midwestern thunderstorms, the radio frequency noise was so strong and continuous that people living in the area would not have been able to watch broadcast VHF television stations."

Redoubt hasn't finished making noise yet; after quieting down for a few days, Redoubt exploded again, scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory expect the eruptions will continue periodically for weeks to months, so hopefully more stunning pictures to come.

I Enjoy Looking At Photographs,

and I have just found some stunning ones,

these were taken by Jason Hawkes in 2008,

Jason shot these images with a camera attached to gyro-stabilized mounts from a Eurocopter AS355, hired out at around £1150 (GBP) per hour, using Nikon gear and either a 14-24mm or a 70-200mm lens, for me absolutely stunning, if you want to see more go here.

Now That's What I Call Cold!

the picture below makes me shiver!

it was taken yesterday in Lancashire, spray from passing cars had frozen on to the tree to make a real Christmas tree,

and the ducks above came in for a hard landing at Dartford in Kent, it appears Great Britain is heading for a cold spell, good job we have global warming or it would be really cold! for more UK winter pictures go here.

Driving down the street,

going on the short cut from Third road to Pattaya Tai, I noticed this shop house, I have seen a few wild coloured shop houses before but none with as many colours as this one!

Volcano man's hot photos

Great pictures, but to hot for me!

Stunning ... lava exploding from the south side of Pu’u O’o cone,

flowing ... lava river,

bright ... Pacific coast,

Pacific ... lava rolls off cliff face,

fury ... Kilauea Volcano explodes,

amazing ... lava flowing into the Pacific Ocean,

moving ... lava flowing down to the sea,

bang ... lava exploding as it enters the Pacific Ocean from the Kilauea Volcano,

boiling ... Pacific Ocean heated by lava flow,

incredible ... Kilauea Volcano,

burning ... lowland tropical forest from Kilauea Volcano,

scorching ... hot pahoehoe flowing from Kilauea,

glowing ... lava ’spatter cone’ on the west side of the Pu’u O’o vent, the pictures were all taken by American Brad Lewis he has travelled the world photographing some of nature’s most awe-inspiring scenes. Known as the “Volcano Man”, Brad has put himself in many death-defying situations to capture the natural beauty of one of nature’s most powerful phenomenons.