Strawberry cereal by the seaside?

I moved from Newhaven to Brighton back in December. While Brighton is a lovely town with lots of things happening and plenty of diversity (and Newhaven has none of the above), I do miss the areas near Newhaven every now and then.

Today we decided to go to Tide Mills so that Zebedee can have a swim in the sea and we can enjoy the seaside grasses and other plants near the sea on this hot day. Tide Mills is the main beach area in Newhaven nowadays since West Beach closed to public a couple of years ago.



Zebedee was loving it!






But I noticed that someone was spying on him from a distance.



Well, not really. Just enjoying the beach, too.



Zebedee hadn't swum for weeks... I bet it felt good.






Seaford Head in the distance.



After the swim, Saana and I went to shoot some plants.



These flowers and grasses reminded me of Country Crisp Strawberry Cereal.






Lovely grasses...



Saana with her long lens... inherited from her grandfather, my father.









Then I decided that we should go to Piddinghoe so that Zebedee can wash away the sea water by swimming in a lake. There were more grasses by the lake... looking lovely in the evening light.



...and a very wet, very excited dog!



I love summer!

Cacophony of Oddity

Went to the exhibition opening of Quarter to 5 Artists today at the seafront with Tigger in the bag. I met one of the exhibitors, Peter Gosbee, by chance the other day at the Northern Lights, and when I found out what he does, I got my broken spec frames fixed by him. That kind of work is not all he does, though... I heard that he is an artist, so I wanted to go and see what exactly he makes! Here are some shots of his artwork:





















Here's Peter himself, with another of the five exhibiting artists, Miss Aniela (wearing one of his hats).

Brighton Naked Bike Ride

Some shots from today's World Naked Bike Ride in Brighton... we only went to see it briefly with Tigger in the bag. Next year I think I may go and mingle with the people - should be more fun!

New hobby

I got my shiny fabulous new musical instrument today!









Guess what it is, yet?



Saxophone! It may be a second hand sax, but it's all new to me. Can't wait to start learning to play it!



(...and when I have time, take some better photos of it!)

Mobile walk in the woods

Taking care of Tigger (including writing his blog ;-) and managing a flat renovation project is taking a lot of my time so I haven't been taking that many other photos recently. I'm getting more into taking photos with my mobile phone, though, and use it often when I walk Zebedee in the woods.

Here are a few from today's walk:

More woods

A few snaps from today's walk in the woods...

LRPS distinction

I went to Bath today for the assessment of my Licentiate Distinction panel of 10 photographs. This is a representation of my panel:



Licentiateship is the lowest of the three levels of distinction by The Royal Photographic Society. I printed my photos A4 size and made 50cm x 40cm mounts for them.... errr... the night before! Nothing like last minute, eh?

I was happy that I got the LRPS distinction ("licentiateship"... does that mean that I have a licence to shoot, now?), and pleased that they asked to keep my panel for a few months so that they can show it to people on distinction advisory days. Now I'm itching to start putting together a 15 photo panel for the next level of distinctions!

Death of a tree

Went for a walk in Ditchling Beacon this evening...



...and couldn't believe my eyes: my favourite tree wasn't there! It had been cut! Why! Oh, why? There was only its stump where this lovely tree had been before... I didn't have the heart to take a picture of the stump, I'd rather look at the photos that I have taken of the tree while it was still alive.















Unlike me, Zebedee didn't seem very upset.