Situated in a quiet Valley near the village of Chard in Somerset is a magnificent 12th century Cistercian monastery, now privately owned. Over thirty acres of gardens with magnificent ponds are an added attraction. My goal is to visit more out of the way historical houses and gardens that I have not previously done. The light was beautiful with wonderful cloud formations and I spent some time wandering the grounds.

Every time I visit Dorset I love to explore the Jurassic Coastline and the beautiful bays that are an integral part of this area. Lulworth cove is one of my favourite spots. It is an incredibly pretty cove and I never tire from visiting it. However, to find a day that suits colourful images is quite hard. There are many sunny days at this time of the year, but most of them are extremely hazy due to the moist air that the sun pulls from the ground and then mixes in the atmosphere. It rained the day before and there was some wind as well, so I knew the next day would be great…if the sun returned, and it did. I had a two hour window to work the scene and walk around both sides of the bay and get these shots before cloud came in and the lovely light disappeared.  Most photographers love the first light and dusk as I do, but I have these kind of photo’s from previous trips here and I just wanted colourful bright sunny images that just simply sing and show it off! The 30 second image was just an added bonus… it was the last one I did and it worked as cloud cover moved in and gave me the time and light that I needed.

In the next issue of the Australian Digital Photography Magazine (volume 38) I have written a four page article with photographs of my review of the latest micro four-thirds camera from Olympus. I took the Camera to Norway in mid-winter and as the article explains, it performed beautifully. A really fantastic camera with so many options, bundled into a very small body. This camera comes highly recommended to any photographers who are starting to have weight issues with their gear, particularly older and female gender enthusiasts! I use this gear on any serious walk or hike and its my first choice for all street and photo-journalistic photography.

If you would like to read the article in larger format, just click on the PDF here:   094-097_DP38_Olympus EM1_GB

All 25 participants of the Photographic tour through the Central Otago area of the South Island of New Zealand said it was a huge success! We were blessed with wonderful weather as the group travelled and photographed their way through the Autumn colours, Lakes, mountains and Coastlines for 11 days. The weather even turned it on for us in Milford Sound. Almost too blue a sky day, we were extremely happy never-the-less  as our morning had proved totally amazing, stopping at the Mirror lakes in time to see the Sun kiss the tops of the mountain range in a deep red glow. The autumn colours especially, were at their best and Arrow-town the stand-out as the damp conditions made the tonings even richer. I would like to thank all participants as we had such a great time…. and I hope everyone came home with loads of beautiful images. I have not had time to process many of my images, but I have posted a few to give all an idea of the splendid images that we all saw and captured.