Blimey.. so I’ve still got pics to do as far back as Detling… I’ve taken another 2000 at the Southport Airshow the other week and a load at a fireworks display. My lovely new 1D Mark III has arrived and I’m still fiddling around with the controls to find out where everything is. Work is frantic and I’ve been pulling long hours to get it all done… and just then my home computer explodes! (Literally!)

Fear not, luckily I have my photos well backed up but it has rather set me back a little on my schedule. It’s now back up and running and things aren’t too serious fortunately. I won’t have any time to do anything with it however as tomorrow Lunch I’m away to Scotland for a nice slow relaxing holiday and a chance to get acquainted with the new camera and see how it performs in more challenging conditions than stuck on a tripod taking slow exposures of the fireworks!

So lots to do and I’m sure this place will be packed with even more photos really soon! So till then have a little look at one of my firework pictures:

Phew what a way to end the season! Once again the Victory Show took the award for my favorite show of the year. Fantastic battle with stunning pyros and a great air display combined with that “feel good” atmosphere which seems lacking in the big shows.

Well done to Dave and all the organisers and to Paul, Bryn, Stig, Karl and Keith for all the pyro work which all came together for a brilliant show, many thanks to all involved. It was wonderful catching up with everyone, there is never usually enough time to have a good gab so it was nice to hold a few long conversations without having to rush off to the next photo op. I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

Anyway the first of my Victory photos are online, lots and lots to do still and I have the Detling backlog (and even need another look over the Beltring pictures!) so there should be regular updates over the next few weeks as I catch up so check back regularly!

The ever growing pile of photos that need sorting… is going to be even bigger! I’m off to The Victory Show tomorrow for a weekend cowering in a trench while Mr Dalby of AFRA blows the hell out of field in Leicester with massive pyrotechnics. Should be great fun!

Wow this week has gone fast! Odyssey was great fun but photo overload, once again I have to prune many thousands of photos down to a few hundred of my favorites. As this work continues I’ll be batch uploading what I’ve done, the first 100 went online today and I should have another lot ready mid week hopefully!

No rest for the wicked however as the Victory Show is only next weekend! Victory was the highlight of last years events for me and I have to admit I’ve been greatly looking forward to it all year. The battle is set to be another scorcher and I hope I get some good pics.

I’m off down to Kent again tomorrow for this years Military Odyssey. The weather looks good and Odyssey is always a cracking show. Expect lots of pictures popping up in a few days time!

I’ve finally got around to setting up a small selection of portfolio images. These are much higher quality than the images I usually upload (and much bigger file sizes!). Having to resize original images from 3000+ pixels down to 1024 and less really takes away a lot of the impact so I wanted to show some of my favorites nearer to their original quality and without my usual watermarking.

I’ll be adding more pictures when I get the time. I still have a huge backlog of War and Peace photos to deal with and Detling is fast approaching! I also have my attendance at the Victory Show sorted (thanks Dave!) so it could be a busy couple of months! Somewhere in there I have to fit in the Southport Airshow too.. Rumour has it I might have also ordered a new camera…

I know it hasn’t been long since I updated the design of the website but I haven’t been very happy with the blogging package that I was using to publish the front pages so I have decided to move over to Wordpress

I have to admit I really love the new front page design and I’m working on a few more that will rotate randomly. Hopefully Wordpress will be less flooded with comment spam. I’ve been testing it for a few days and so far, so good!

Sat in the car park using the travel inn wireless (our caravan is sadly internetless!).

I’ve just uploaded 250 more beltring pictures to keep everyone happy. I still probably have another 100+ to put online once I get home so keep checking.

The dolphins have been fairly busy this week so I actually managed to get some pictures!! If you get tired of all the gun fire and muddy Germans and fancy some smashing wildlife piccies go and have a look in the gallery.

It feels like my feet have hardly touched the ground from Beltring but believe it or not I’m going away again tomorrow! I’m off up to Scotland for a week which should make a nice change photographing wildlife and landscapes instead of dust, gunfire and tanks!

Needless to say the peace and quiet won’t last long as I’ll be attending this years Military Odyssey at the end of August!

Till then I still have thousands of War and Peace photos I haven’t looked at so I think most of my nights next week will be spent sat in the caravan huddled over the laptop.

I just got home from this years War and Peace Show. The 25th Anniversary was definitely different, I’m a little worried that people might remember it most for the rain and mud!

Here is a quick breakdown of the highs and lows from my view:

Highs

• Catching up with everyone. You know who you all are!
• Nick and Michaela’s wedding.
• Getting to ride into battle on the Stug! Wow!!
• The fantastic V2 replica on the living history field.
• Rolling Thunder putting down more amazing battles…
• ..with fred’s brilliant pyros to make them stunning!

Which led to me taking this photo:



Lows

• All that rain! I knew I’d have a wet W&P at some point but that was terrible.
• The poor re-enactors having to cope with soggy displays and gear for most of the week.
• One of my camera lcd’s packing in.. off to the service center with the poor thing..
• Some terrifying driving around the camp sites, including a bin wagon almost tipping over.
• Slipping around on muddy roads!

Which led to me taking this photo:

The show was great fun despite the weather and as always that was down to the great people involved. Many thanks to everyone, there are too many to name but I’d like to especially give an extra big thank you to:

Fred, Belinda, Roger, Jean-Luc, all the guys down at Rolling Thunder, Nick and Michaela, everyone at AFRA, Jon and the STUG III boys, Mark, Phil and Nick H