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