A UNESCO world heritage site in the centre of Japan, sunshine and the first snow of the year - what more do you need?  Shirakawa-go is a village near Takayama and is a popular tourist destination with distinctive thatched houses with a steep rake, looking very much like a swiss chalet.

Old and New - a young girl in a bright kimono at the steps to a shrine in Kyoto surrounded by locals in western dress.

Prayer flags in Bhutan

Prayer flags are a common sight in Bhutan where it's windy, white vertical flags are placed to commemorate the death of a person.

Simon - Charlie Wrights International Bar

Simon on Rhythm and/or lead guitar, Fernandes can tell you which. Minus Kangol hat which is a bit unusual...

1/100s at f/2.0 100 mm ISO 1600

Ian - Charlie Wrights International Bar

Bit of an advert for the band Realta who had diversified from playing in Soho and were, in this case, in Hoxton at Charlie Wright's International Bar.

Fernandes is doing his thing here and, I noticed, hogging the best light on the stage. Guitar player in background. Very little light so used a fast, prime lens and a wide aperture. Keep it up guys.

1/100s at f/2.2 ISO 1250 100 mm

Chateau de Chenonceau

OK long time since an update, so here we are with "The western face of the graceful arches of Chateau de Chenonceau reflected in the gentle waters of the River Cher. The grand Florentine gallery was added by Catherine de Médicis. Loire Valley, France." It's a standard shot of this chateau, yes, but you can also see why. The famous gallery which extends across the river though is actually pretty empty which is somewhat of a surprise. Apparently it was used as an escape route between Vichy and German controlled France.

Sunset brought great light and also a reduction in crowds and boats on the river. Well worth the visit, though I remember they charge you through the nose for it...

1/40s at f/13 40 mm ISO 100

Chateau de Chambord

Tourists in a rowing boats on the River Cosson looking southeast towards the northern façade of Chateau de Chambord at sunset, Loir-et-Cher, Loire Valley, France. Chateau de Chambord, famous for its size, a double helix staircase and the 365 chimneys on the roof. It's in the middle of a huge park and on the northern face here three of the four large towers can be seen.

Light, as you can see, was excellent, taken at 1908. Though the price was that we arrived too later (around 1800) to be able to go into the chateau itself. Still, you are free to wander through a lot of the grounds which is good.

1/50s at f/14 47 mm ISO 125

Bourges Cathedral Sculpted Portal

This is one of the five sculpted portals on the west front of Bourges Cathedral in the Loire Valley. The projections are gargoyles. Though you can't see it here the cathedral is famous and unusual for having four large side aisles, a lack of transepts (the projecting areas to the left and right of the nave that make a church cross shaped), lots of flying buttresses and an asymmetric west face.

This photo was taken mid afternoon, the sun is quite harsh but the light reflecting off the cathedral gives it more of a warm feel. Taken lying on the ground.

1/50s at f/14 24 mm ISO 100.

Azay-le-Rideau

Azay-le-Rideau, described as a jewel on the river Indre, I think it looks better on the outside than inside. It feels quite small but from the river side it looks very good, the water is so still that you can get good reflections. This photo was taken late, late afternoon when the light was golden, being very considerate, the architect obvioulsy positioned the building to receive the western afternoon sunlight on the river side. Trees frame it quite nicely and the boat leads you in. This angle also reduces the likelihood of other tourists getting into the shot.

1/50s at f/11 ISO 50 24 mm

Chateau Villandry - Love garden

Chateau Villandry is one of the main chateaus in the Loire Valley and famed for its formal gardens, especially the potager or vegetable gardens. There's a whole collection of others though, music, water, herb and in this case the love gardens.

A Maltese Cross can be quite clearly seen here on the mid right hand side of the frame, the other two are the Pays Basque and Languedoc crosses, though in this case you need to close one eye stand on one leg to make it out. The splashes of lilac at the back of the frame are the lavender bushes of the music garden.

Even if you are not a massive garden fan (esp. formal gardens) the layout, scale quality is quite amazing. (It's also a pretty convenient drive from Tours airport.) We spent a good few hours here and were rewarded by the sun breaking out in the afternoon.

Should have stopped down the aperture a bit more here though had a circular polarizer on.

1/80s at f/9.0 65 mm ISO 100

Flying Off

Well the market is going south and photoshelter has also gone down (pemanently) which means all the links from the previous posts need to be redirected...

Took this leaning out of the window of my flat when I noticed that the clouds were turning an amazing pink during the sunset. Luckily the day was good for contrails as well which allowed me to get this jet on heathrow approach against the pink contrails.

1/100s at f/ 7.1 100 mm ISO 200

Gulf of Fethiye

Dawn, looking from Kucuk Sarsala towards Gocek, on the north end of the Gulf of Fethiye, Turkey. Fethiye is on the south west coast of Turkey and very popular for sailing. Fethiye Marina can be seen here. The rising sun made the hills surrounding the bay a gentle shade of blue. I've always liked the shots of layers of hills and colours and here was my attempt. I think the silhouette of the tree gives it a oriental landscape feel as well, though the swing hanging off it doesn't help.

I think this was taken off the bow of our yacht but the sea, as you can see was very calm which But I still had to worry about the boat's motion when taking this photo. However, as the sun was quite bright I could push the shutter speed up and still have a decent aperture.

1/250s at f/14 99 mm ISO 160

Sunbeam Marrakech Souk

Pretty happy with this one when it came out; I skipped lunch to have a look at the souq as the sun was quite high and should have been right for creating sunbeams. The only tricky part then was to find the right place with just the right number of people and room to put my tripod down, which is not that easy in such as busy place as Marrakech.

In addition, the Lonely Planet states that Moroccans rate tourists in order of gullibility, with the Japanese heading the list. Talk about bees around honey... "Hey Japan Japan!"; "Konnichiwa! Konnichiwa!"

"Je suis anglais" et "je suis chinois" didn't really convince anyone. However, I have to say that once people realised that no, I didn't need a carpet weighing two times my baggage allowance or a silver teapot, they would chat to you instead and have a look at what you were doing in a friendly manner.

This was the second best shot I should have taken - the best one unfortunately had the rather large posterior of a lady in it which unbalanced the frame. Long exposure time to get the sunbeam and dark souk interior lit. The point sources of light also show the eight bladed apeture of the lens.

5.0s at f/22 28 mm ISO 100

Nissan Figaro

This doesn't really look like a shot taken in London but it is just north of Sloane Square. It's in Pavilion Road and is a nice, quite quiet street with a lot of mews houses. I had to look at multi-map's bird's eye view photos to make sure I had actually got the right road. If you have not seen it, it's different from the Google/Multimap aerial photo view as it is i) closer in and ii) at an angle.

There was another figaro parked next to it but this was my better shot. It's a quite a nice postcardish shot, though maybe I should remove the single yellow line. No polarizer (which may have removed the reflection on the car) as I was at too wide an angle to use it.

1/100 s at f/14 25 mm ISO 100

Pink Nissan Figaro

Pink Nissan Figaro outside the pink Indian Summer Shop on the Fulham Road. There is a single yellow line on the street so this shot is only possible on a Sunday. Passed this scene a couple of times before I remembered to get my camera. Had to be a bit careful about getting my reflection in the windows as my side of the street was sunlit.

1/50s at f/5.0 35 mm ISO 100

Houses of Parliament

The Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace and the River Thames early summer's morning, you can see Big Ben shows the time as 0605. Roadworks/refurbishments were or are in process at the moment which meant that photos were not possible on Westminster Bridge which necessitated a quick dash to the other side of the river whilst the light was this good. Wonderful warm light and blue sky - who said London's weather was all bad?

The problem here of course is using a wide lens on a building: any angle that you have positioning the camera will result in converging verticals, here though I think that the effect is not too bad.

1/80s at f/16 32 mm ISO 100

St Paul's and Millennium Bridge

Great blue, cloudless sky in this photo. This is the Millennium Bridge taken from the Southwark end (where the Tate Modern is), with St Paul's in the background. It's amazing the number of joggers who are up running along the bridge (at 0600...), phased such that as one leaves the frame the other one comes into it. I though that this was a little odd until I saw a group around a corner queueing up to do this...

The bridge makes a great contrast to the dome of St Paul's and frames it well, I left the tower cranes in this photo as I felt it helps frame the shot. A newspaper on the ramp has been removed as well as a cup. Normally I find removing litter myself is easier than trying to clone it out but ony had a moment to take this with only a few people in the frame.

1/100s at f/10 24 mm ISO 100

Westminster Abbey - North Entrance

The north transept and visitor entrance to Westminster Abbey, early morning about 0650. The large round window is a Rose Window. Grounds were nice and quiet early in the morning though there were a couple of commuters wandering around in my frame, also rather unusually a small group of Oriental tourists with their luggage. I had no idea where they were going at that time in the morning but they were in my way.

1/40s at f/22 ISO 160 20 mm -1EV

Buckingham Palace

This was taken early morning a few weeks ago when the UK was having a bit of a summer. I got up at 0500 to get the second tube to Embankment, then walked from Trafalgar Square down the mall to Buckingham Palace. It was great to be able to see such a popular tourist attraction with no one there and the morning sunshine was fantastic.

Buckingham Palace is, of course, one of the residences of the Queen of the UK. She was in that morning as the royal standard is up, though there was no wind so early in the morning so it is just hanging off the flagpole. As the morning wore on the wind picked up and you can see it flying here. The big monument on the right is the Queen Victoria Memorial, she is out of shot and looks down the mall towards Trafalgar Square. You can also see the lampost on the far right bent slightly to the left due to the wide lens angle.

1/60s at f/10 ISO 100 32 mm circlar polarizer

Intense Blue Ice Cave - Antarctica

Blue ice is formed by compression of snow in glaciers. Air bubbles are squeezed out by the pressure.

We saw this iceberg cave whilst sailing between icebergs in a Zodiac boat in the Gerlache Strait, just looking to see what we could find. One iceberg had a couple of crabeater seals resting but this blue ice cave was easily the highlight. The day was overcast and this brought out the colours of the ice.

The Gerlache Strait, 64S 62W, is wider and east of the Neumayer Channel.

1/160s at f/13 ISO 100