Weekend in Barcelona

It's been a while since I blogged, but unfortunately it has not been time to it. But last weekend me, my wife and couple of friends went to Barcelona to visit other friends who live there. We left a rainy, cold, Leeds on Friday morning and landed in a hot Barcelona. Since we were there quite early (15.00) so we had plenty of time to wander around the very first day, first we were and took a few drinks and then later in the evening we went to Montjuic (Montjuic is translated as "Jew Hill 'in medieval Catalan) and it is is a mountain and park area in Barcelona, ​​which is really nice especially at night when they start all the fountains. The second day so it was time to visit the Sagrada familia, a very large church and was designed by the famous Antoni Gaudi. Its construction began in 1882 and is scheduled to be completed by 2026, which many doubt. But as we got there rather late, we had little sleep;) so the queues was of course enormously long so we decided to skip that step in and those who wanted to go there on Sunday morning instead.
So we went down to the beach instead, to watch people and drink some beer. We guys had planned to visit the Camp nou which of course is FC Barcelona's home ground, so went there and got there in the last minute but we had half an hour for us to check out the museum and the stadium and that was enough. Camp Nou is Europe's largest stadium and the eleventh largest in the world. attendance record of 120000 people, but more normal UEFA matches will take them into 98 767 pers. On Sunday some of us went to Sagrada Familia, then we met at La Rambla, which is of course the famous pedestrian street, where we visited the other big fine church in the gothic quarters and little else round about and then go down to the harbor and eat paella, it was really good and it was very much, no one could eat them.

In the evening we were to visit Park Guell which was also designed by Antoni Gaudi, the park must be visited it is really cool with all the buildings and stunning tiling and mosaics. The view from here is amazing, with bacelona and the sea on the horizon

 

Click on the pictures to enlarge them ;)

 

Sagrad Familia

Montjuic

Montjuic

Montjuic

Montjuic

La Boqueria

La Boqueria

La Boqueria

Gothic Church

Santa claus on his way :)

Camp nou

Dragon

Nice ship





Park guell

view from the of park guell



Lavendel and Gaudi building

Gaudi art

Gaudi, Park guell

Entrance to park guell

Evening colours

 

A little walk at Lady Bower

Today I took the bus to Lady Bower, it's been a while I was there last. The goal was to take pictures of the beech forest, but once in place it looked so dull and dark so I tried to find something else to shoot instead. So I put on the macro lens and started looking for insects, but it was not so easy to find them either, found some bug.
 I dont know but today it was hard to find motivation and imagination was not the best either. : (
Then I went down to River Dervent because there I have seen a small waterfall, which I thought might be able to get a good picture off.
But it was not so good that either, the waterfall was very bright, compared with the rest of the surrounding environment. So I tried with gradient filters but it still was a bit over exposed. But so it can be when taking pictures in the middle of the day.
Now I had been out for 4 hours and the bus would come soon so I went to Lady Bower inn and took me a beer before I went home. But in between I walked through a field of flowers and there i tried to find some butterflies, find one that i had to chase after, because every time i came close it flew away.
After i while a came close enough, it was not the brightst colored butterfly i have seen but still nice :) :)

Click on the picture to enlarge them!!

Monster

Nice patterns

Some kind of fungal

The Water fall

The Butterfly

 

Camouflage

Yesterday I took with me camouflage to Redmires Reservoirs and the purpose was to lie down on the shore and take pics of wading birds. Went to the middle reservoir where the water starts to disappear a little more so that I could lie down on the sand and rock instead of the grassy bank, which would have made that I would have been higher up giving a weird angle. Because I want to have the bird and the camera at the same height, it tends to give a nice blurry foreground and background. Another reason that I chose it is that it was simply where wading birds were. ;) I lay down on a sleeping mat 5m from the water and put on my camouflage, then it was just wait for the birds to come closer. Which they did after half an hour, there was no unusual birds except little ringed plower which is somewhat unusual in the inland and so high on the moorland. I followed them from beneath camouflage for a few hours. Then my back started to hurt a little bit, for it is not so good laying down on a thin mattress with head up all the time. After that I went to the Golden plower but they are difficult to sneak up on, trying to stay a while in camouflage there too but if you have scared them once so they would not like to come back to the same place. So I gave up after an hour and then went  on a  6km walk but found nothing special. Had now been out since 15:00 and now it was close to 21:00 so I decided to go back to the bus.

Click on image to make it larger!

Some kind if Orchid



Young Swallow

Little ringed plower/Mindre strandpipare

Pied Wagtail/Sädesärla

Common Sandpiper/Drillsnäppa

Old spooky house

Lazy calf, with uncomfortable sleeping position

Common Sandpiper looking for food.

Stanage Edge (Peak District)

Last night, despite the bad weather, I decided to take me to Stanage Edge again to try to shoot the ring ouzel. The weather forecast showed that it could be sunny in the evening. Took the bus today, and then went the last 5 km walking to the site, it took an hour in the pouring rain and fog: ( But when a was at Stanage edge so it stopped raining, but the fog remained.
Could see a slight improvement in the sky but it was short-lived. Took out the camera from the bag, today I had the D90 and 200-400mm f4 lens. Took that  kompinationen because it givs 300-600mm f4, and this is not entirely wrong when you're shooting animals and birds. But unfortunately, so is the D90 completely useless when u haft to have high Iso. I took the pictures today at ISO 1000 which is not so much for today's cameras, but with the D90 then the images are noisy.
Found ring ouzel directly but they were not quite where I expected, so now I was doing some climbing after steep slopes to access the birds, which was not so fun. Because the rain made ​​everything slippery. 
But some pictures I managed to get anyway even if they're not super. The image I was after, was that the bird would be in a place with low grass which was wet by the rain and because of that the foreground and background should get very nice water droplets Bokeh and then some last glimts of sun to that. That would be a dream picture. ;) maybe next time then.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Ring ouzel/ringtrast

Ring ouzel

Ring Ouzel

Ring ouzel

Foggy Stanage Edge

Low clouds

Ångra ändringarna

One day in York

Yesterday my wife and I decided to do some sightseeing in a small-town an hour's journey by train from Sheffield, the town  known as York. The city was full of tourists, which is not surprising with the history it has. Founded by the Romans in 71 after christ and in 600's it was christened by king Edwin of northumbria. In 866 it was attacked by a large Viking fleet and they remained there until 954, as that year the city was taken back by the Anglo-Saxons. As u can read there is a lot  of history, but i will not go in to more details. The city's most touristy place is the great church (York Minster) it date from the 1230's. And it is quite impressive, especially inside. Like most old churches it has its cool features, columns and nicely patterned glass windows. We spent 2 hours in there, and while we're in there there was also a wedding. Though the section was closed then, but you could see everything if you wanted to and heard all through the speakers. After that we took a walk in the old part of town, where we stopped at the leaning houses (Scrambles) which are also photographed extensively. As a last thing we walked around the city wall that runs almost around the entire city.
I can recommend this small town if you want one-day-sightseeing.
The pictures are taken with D90 and 10-24 wide-angle lens.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Funny looking goose :)

Flooding

York Minster

Inside York Minster

Chapter House a part of York Minster

Chapter house roof

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster the highest point of the roof

Leaning Houses

Flooding