Stealing the sunrise

Another sleep-interrupted night, this time a neighbour's dog that had been left home alone. It woke me before 4 am and I couldn't go back to sleep so I twiddled a bit with my photo galleries then decided to go over to Bushy Park. It wouldn't be misty or frosty, but there'd be a clear sunrise. I came across Sue Lindenberg on her bike, chuffed with her new purchase, a Nikon 750D. No deer about in this bit, probably put off by the pending fun run, a regular Saturday morning event, either that or Max Ellis had tempted them over to his side of the park with a bucket of peanut butter. 

I caught up with Sue at one of the lakes, getting close up to a swan. The sun was coming up and I was trying to get something of the sunrise, paying not much attention to anything else, when Sue said a family of swans were approaching the lake, all pretty, line astern. Then dad, in front, took off with that wap wap wap of the wings that swans do. Sue's camera was set for the shadowy bit but mine (I hoped) was cranked up for the sunrise and I must have flicked on the fast burst too, giving a nice sequence against the light. I might have picked a higher shutter speed with time to experiment but I like the artiness and movement of these with sun coming through the feathers and the sploshes of water, and panning helped. The thing is, you can't be set up for these kind of shots - well, you can, but you might be twiddling your thumbs for ages before a swan decides to take off and then you have to decide what you want. 

Sue has spent a lot of time observing these swans since they were born and she'd warned me that one might come along like this, but I was away with the fairies as usual. Still, I'm pleased with this.

Not that any of it helps with a job I've got on at the moment, doing some pics for a friend who has a creative agency. He's putting together a brochure for a recruitment client and has asked me to do some pics, mostly techy and communications things. I've seen some of the reactions  of the agency boss to the first tranche of pics. No to a racing cyclist - too much associated with drugs (It's Wiggins!), no to people going down an escalator ("we want people going up in the world"). No to a bloke in sun rays ("looks like he's retired"). Mmm, that happens to be me. 

My creative agency friend didn't want any nature shots but popped in one or two for the client who actually liked them, including a swan I'd submitted. So now he can have another one until I can think up a way of doing something techie. Oh,  and thank you to all those who stopped by to say nice things about the big stag on Monday. I haven't posted since then as I've been painting and decorating (not something I enjoy). Watching paint dry. What fun!