Learning new things

I've only had my camera for 18 months. Today I discovered Auto Exposure bracketing. WHich then led me into finally getting around to some tinkering with HDR processingMy other 'first' attempts are here. Which was fun!

I have been practising to be a Headteacher the last couple of days- no not by sitting and reading the newspaper and practising my golf swing - but by going around school making a nuisance of myself when I haven't been teaching. I don't mean in a bad way. The senior team took a bit of an (undeserved) battering a couple of weeks ago - implications that we weren't doing enough. So, instead of sitting in our offices on our arses - which of course is standard practice because we don't do anything else), we have been going around to classrooms, dropping in on lessons, getting out on the corridors and challenging kids and keeping a close eye on all activities around school. (Note - we do this anyway, but we're doing it mob handed at the moment - partly to make a point to one particular year group who have gone a bit 'off the wall' recently. But it serves a useful purpose in terms of monitoring the general atmosphere of the school, finding hotspots and being able to confirm that things are as they should be. Its like spying, except that its what staff want...high visibility senior staff). This of course is all well and good, except that my marking pile isn't getting any smaller and I have a mountain of jobs accumulating ...but I'll just do those in the evenings and at half term, as usual.

Had a rare treat today - normally we have staff development (training) on Wednesday's, but we had built in an early finish today to pay the staff back for parents evenings done this half term. So, normally on Wednesdays the kids finish at 2.30 and the staff stay on ...however, today, by 2.45 the school was a ghost town, and it turned out there was only me and about 8 or 9 other staff there! So I came home - I've not been home before 6pm any night since Christmas. More often than not it has been closer to 7pm. My joy was unbounded when I arrived home by 3.30pm!!!

Did a bit of tidying up and then packed up my camera and tootled off to Risley Moss for half an hour. What a glorious afternoon - warm enough not to have to wear a coat ....thats the first time my arms have seen daylight in months!

So, this is the pond at Risley - its my first attempt at HDR ...so those of you who are expert, please forgive my crude attempt! Feedback would be good though.