Charlie's WorldSummer in England 2015 – part 6: Camber Sands
Posted on September 19, 2015
Sometimes the summer in England really delivers.
The forecast was looking really good, so my sister and made a plan to go to the beach early and make the most of it. After all, in England, you never know how long the sunshine will actually last for.
Once again – off we went complete with a packed lunch, to the old favourite, Camber Sands. Read More
Summer in England 2015 – part 4: Wellington Rocks at Tunbridge Wells
Posted on September 13, 2015
After a few hours scrambling over the rocks, it was time for food.
The kids decided that they didn’t want to eat in the High Rocks pub (fussy buggers, the food choices looked awesome) so we drove off in search of a cafe or something similar.
We wandered into Rusthall High St and settled on a little cafe called ‘The Daily Bread‘ – which was small and new and looked interesting. Read More
Summer in England 2015 – Part 1: Arrival.
Posted on August 29, 2015
It’s that time of year again when I go back to spend some quality time with the kids in England.
English summer is a magical time and really shows off the country to its absolute best – if you’re going to go – then July and August, even though it’s probably the busiest time, is probably the best. Read More
Summer holiday in England – final part
Posted on September 9, 2014
My time with the kids was coming to a close, so we went back to our favourite place – the woods – for another walk around and one last go on the rope swing.
These woods are a part of me, having grown up there and spent so much of my childhood and teenage years criss crossing every nook and cranny. And for my children to love it as well gives me great pleasure. I can’t even describe.
Back to England – part 6
Posted on October 1, 2012
I’m stringing you all out here with my England stories! Mostly cos I haven’t done anything of any significance since I got back apart from work and buy paint for the bedroom walls. Aforementioned paint is still safely in its tins – sickness has meant that Chez Charlie has been keeping a low profile for a couple of weeks – a lot of that low profile spent in bed, making painting doubly hard. Ah well.
Now, where were we.
It was another beauty of an English summer day, so we decided to go for a little walk rather than go on another long drive. My parents live in a beautiful village, so I thought we should explore some roads we didn’t know and look at the old houses and take in some clean air. Read More
The tale of the kite and the moon
Posted on December 11, 2011
It’s been a while since I went down to Safety Bay and took some shots of the kite surfers – winter isn’t the best time for them to be out (we only get that reliable sea breeze once the daytime temperatures start to hit the high 20’s) and I’ve been busy with other stuff.
I had some time yesterday whilst Jay was doing some study for her degree so I popped down camera in hand to see who was about
Kent
Posted on September 11, 2011
As regular readers would probably recall, I grew up in Kent (south east England) and it’s still a very special place for me, especially in the summer.
You see, I had great summers in Kent.
As a kid, we had endless hot summers, playing in the garden to the smell of freshly cut grass.
As a teenager, I had more freedom and I remember mountain biking down the bridleways and paths, hanging out with my friends in pub beer gardens, walking through hot and dusty fields and generally having a good time.
As an adult – well, I didn’t really live in Kent much, but coming back, I loved walking through the woods with my kids, having pub lunches and visiting the beautiful towns.
Brrrr, its a bit chilly
Posted on December 19, 2010
Yes, it’s cold, I might even have to put some jeans on.
All of you in the Northern Hemisphere, up to your necks in white global warming, are probably thinking:
“Ha, yeah right, you’re in Perth, I’ve watched some cricket (ok, it’s pretty unlikely that any Americans would say the last bit as cricket is as foreign to them as baseball is to the rest of the world) – it looks pretty warm down there”
Ok, I’m being a wag, I’ve just had the old crappy useless evaporative air conditioning unit replaced with a new big monster one and it’s a bit efficient. Perhaps a bit too efficient for its own good. Jay is sitting at the desk in a one woman huddle, pretending it’s all fine. Being a hot person (I know, you all want me, right?) like I am, this chill suits me just fine!
We all took the doggy for a little walk along the beach (yup, the one that, I have to remind all of you repeatedly about) at the end of the road. I think the dog actually took the girls for a walk, rather than the other way around
Anyway, with all these digs and jibes at your chilly snowy weather, what I’m really doing is setting you up for some photos to give you all some Christmas cheer, so here for your viewing pleasure, are the dreary surrounds of suburban Waikiki.
And Piper, as special as ever.
I know, its a hard life.
Ok, for balance, there are some downsides – being 40C hot in a suit is no fun and it might rain tomorrow for a bit.
There, happy now, snow people? :p
first shots
Posted on March 28, 2010
As I mentioned previously, I bought a B+W110ND filter – a wondrous thing which is basically a piece of very dark glass that reduces the amount of light into the camera by 10 stops.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about – a stop on a camera is, for example, like the difference between a shutter speed of 0.5 and 1 second.
So if your camera was going to shoot at 1/125th second, adding a 10 stop filter means you have to shoot for 8 seconds to let the same of light in. Which means you can have quite a lot of fun at sunset when exposures are already down to a second or so without the filter. You have to check the exposure based on the aperture settings you want, frame the shot, get it to focus where you want, switch the camera to manual everything (inc focus), screw the filter in, which is so black you can’t see anything anymore. Then work out the correct exposure with the filter on, set the remote timer and basically leave it to do its thing for the 200 odd seconds that is needed.
Anyway, all this technical mumbo jumbo is all well and good, but the upshot of the camera being open for at least 3 minutes is that the ocean is totally smoothed out and the camera has captured the clouds moving.
Like this:
And yes, I am pleased with the results!
Next step, more location scouting and to start thinking in black and white…
Monday Monday
Posted on January 26, 2010
So good to me…
Just like the Mamas and the Papas, my Monday ended up being awesome.
Work was boring, nothing happened at all all day, as this year, Monday is an odd day between the weekend and the public holiday for Australia Day (today). As a consequence, I was done early and “helped” Jay make pizzas for dinner and we went out to take sunset photos at Point Peron
We’d had a hot day, compounded by the aircon having given up the ghost and deciding that it was only going to blow hot air from now on (*sigh*) so it was lovely to get out to the beach.
Was a gorgeous evening, the girls had lots of fun, we saw a big brown seal lazing on a rock and lots of crabs in the rockpools
What more can I say other than to show you photos..
And to top that, if it were even possible, I went and got some wine.
Mondays, not always bad.
Charlie's World 
