Coalville Noir…

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Guthlac

Cold, damp and a bit exhausted. Welcome to a damp wintery dawn at Coalville.

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Ashby de la Zouch by the Sea…

Posted on January 29, 2026 by Guthlac

You either know or don’t know what the meaning of the title. I suspect if you are curious some light Googling will move you from one state to the other.

Yesterday found me pounding the pathways and parks of Ashby de la Zouch, a town I have a VERY long history with. This was part of the Paradise – Consumed project. A damp, cold milky morning – what was not to like?

I did discover a major supply shortage scandal! The Ashby M&S store has not had a delivery of Eccles Cakes in some time. I’m sure it must be Sir Keir Starmer’s fault. According to an awful lot of the screaming media everything else is so why not add this to the list? I can report that I visited my local M&S store there were supplies but they were low. How will the country survive?

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Not Sure What is Happening…

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Guthlac

I seem to be in the middle of some automated scraping of my blog. Over the past week I have had a huge increase in the number of visitors to the site.

When I break this number down it would seem that only page that these thousands of visitors have looked at is the ‘home‘ page. After that nothing. The visits to the other pages are at the usual numbers. Perhaps Open AI et al have finally got around to saying hello? Perhaps. Maybe it is some other actor. I don’t know. I think the only thing to do at the moment is to monitor the situation.

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A bit of GAS?…

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Guthlac

Do I suffer from G.A.S? (1). I’m not sure. I have just replaced my venerable 70 x 200 mm zoom with the latest version. The reasons for this were simple. The old lens was starting to struggle with the resolution of 61 MP. Last summer I found a similar problem with my old macro lens. They have been with me since my switch to Sony over around 10 years ago. The new Sony 70 x 200 mm should address both of these issues.

Lets see if I haven’t wasted my money. Only time will tell.

FN (1) Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS)

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No Title to Mention…

Posted on January 18, 2026 by Guthlac

An uneventful day in Coalville. However, I have scouted out some more interesting photographic sites.

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Parsley, Sage, Rosemary…

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Guthlac

Another day. Another early start. There was a time when shooting in the dark or early dawn light meant tripods, hope, prayers and grain. Now? Breath out and let the camera do the rest. The first two images were captured using an iPhone. The reason for this is because I had left my super wide in the car and couldn’t be arsed to go back to get it. (So much for artistic vision and integrity.)

The rest were captured with my main camera hand held. I just ensured that I exposed for the brightest part of the image and the pulled everything back in post. Simple really. Does this make me a bad photographer or just lazy. I don’t care. I have sufficient skill combined with first rate equipment to captured the images I want.

So what was reason for this nightswimming? Capturing images from Castle Donington, Hemington and Lockington for the Paradise – Consumed project. Did I need to get up early? Well yes as it started to rain just after dawn and I didn’t fancy being caught out in that! (Actually I was later on and it wasn’t fun.)

At this rate I might actually finish the project in under a year. This would be something of a record. Now there is tempting providence!!!

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Something Old, Something New…

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Guthlac

Storm Goretti came and went. I had great plans: Get up at dawn and capture some heroic images in the local park of the snow covered trees. It was looking so good when I went to bed 3 or 4 cm of snow on the ground and more falling. What could go wrong? Well the British weather for one thing! Instead of delivering significant snowfall the snow had turned to slush and was rapidly being washed away by the driving rain.

Then of course I started reading about the hardship and loss in other parts of the country and I felt a bit of a self centred prat! So instead this weekend I’ve been doodling and remastering images from the archive. This time from January 2007.

I used to think I knew a lot about photography back then. With the benefit of almost 20 years experience I can safely say I didn’t. Will I ever?

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Awaiting Goretti…

Posted on January 8, 2026 by Guthlac

So I had plans. Good plans. Then I bottled out because of an oncoming storm. Over the past 24 hours I have consumed everything I could about Storm Goretti. I followed the advice. Canceled the aforementioned plan and now I await its arrival. It’s a bit late. Currently it is raging over the West Midlands like Alioth. By 16:00 hrs we should have the first lashings of rain then maybe quite a lot of snow. Time will tell.

Wish us luck.

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Welcome one and all …

Posted on January 7, 2026 by Guthlac

In life nothing is permanent. As Shelley wrote …

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

When I was growing up Coal was King. Now it is no more. In 20 or so years time the final memories of a world passed will be no more.

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Be Very Careful…

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Guthlac

So at the start of December I mentioned that winter’s are not what they used to be. One month later it seems winter heard what I had to say and thought:

‘ you know what see what he has to say about this!‘

Well having frozen my proverbials off over the last few days I can say that yes winter has won. Its bloody cold. (East Midland’s standards applies – I’m sure if you lived somewhere in the middle of the Grampian mountains you might beg to differ!). Just to prove I’m a puny human, winter has decided to rub things into my cold face:

Storm Goretti is due on Thursday and, to quote the Met office, “… likely to bring heavy snow…’

Winter’s just taking the piss!

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