Just a Landscape

GR, f6.3, 1/800, ISO 100, RAW, 21mm

What this photos shows more than anything is that my Ricoh GR is in serious need of a sensor clean.

Seaford & The Seven Sisters

I haven’t really been out of London in the past months so when I saw the nice weather today, I decided to got for a day trip somewhere.

Getting out of London and somewhere that feels like you’re out of London always takes time so the quickest and easiest for me to get to was Brighton. Since I’ve been to Brighton and it’s not hat exciting anymore, I looked for anything else around there.

In the end my decision fell on Seaford and a hike along the cliffs to the Seven Sisters.

While the weather was nice and sunny and quite warm in the sun, the strong and slightly chilly wind by the coast meant I was glad to have my jacket with me.

Seaford itself is not very exciting and from Brighton you have to take one of the crappy and quite dirty Southern trains. Still, once you’re at the seafront and go hiking along the cliffs it’s worth it and makes for a very nice day out with some nice views.

5 In London

I had to go into London to do one of the things I try to avoid as much as possible, shopping. Still, I figured before running around the shops I might as well do some photography first.

Instead of heading straight to Oxford Street, I started off at London Bridge and walked to the Tower to take some photos of the ceramic poppies they laid out before these would be taken away.

A long walk across the City and Holborn, I made it to Oxford Street and started looking around the shops. It was painful as usual and this time of the year it’s even worse with people already starting their Christmas shopping.

After a somewhat unsuccessful shopping trip, it was time to go to the LPMG social meetup and get a (well deserved) pint.

On a day like today, the GR is the perfect camera because it’s small, light and easy to carry while taking great photos.

Day 373 – More from Edinburgh

It was another nice and sunny day in Edinburgh but I decided to take it a bit easy and enjoy the city more than just take photos.

I split my time between walking around the old part of the city and afterwards going for a hike on Holyrood Park towards the evening.

Edinburgh is nice and pretty laid back, it’s not very busy so it’s nice to wander around.

Holyrood Park is a great place to ho for a hike and you do get some nice views from here, although Calton Hill does offer some more impressive views.

It was another great day in Edinburgh and a nice mix between city and hiking.

While it’s great here and I could stay a lot longer it is time to head on to Glasgow tomorrow.

Day 372 – A Sunny Day in Edinburgh

It was a great start to my stay in Edinburgh, it was sunny and warm so very pleasant to walk around and be outside.

It was also the last day of the Edinburgh Festival so there were still a lot of people around and some art installations dotted about.

It was great to be back in Scotland, I really like the people and atmosphere here. Edinburgh in particular is a very nice place and offers a lot to see and do.

While there are a lot of places to see,none are too far from each other so you can easily walk everywhere.

No matter where you are in the city, you usually get a nice view but for the best views you have to go to Calton Hill, from here you get a great view of he city but also the surrounding landscape.

Despite having been to Edinburgh before, I’ve never really spent much time around Calton Hill but this time I made sure I could enjoy the views.

Since it was the last day of the festival, there was a very nice firework in the evening in front of the Castle. I liked how they incorporated the castle in the display so it did look quite spectacular.

The rain also held bay until after the fireworks and meant I spent the rest of the evening enjoying a wee dram and pint in a pub.

Day 371 – 10 Hours in Bergen

After a nice flight with Norwegian Airlines, I arrived in Bergen early in the morning.

The first thing you will notice when approaching Bergen is the landscape which looks great. Since I had 10 hours to spare till my onward flight to Edinburgh, I took the bus into town.

Bergen as a town is small and laid back but offers enough to see and do so you could easily spend a few days here without getting bored.

After New York it was a change to go to such a small and quiet city but it was a welcome change and a good way to wind down my trip.

The weather was mixed but this created a nice backdrop for the landscape and architecture in Bergen.

I enjoyed Bergen quite a lot until it was time to get lunch and find out that everything is hugely expensive. Not just expensive compared to the US but most is easy twice the price of London.

I guess there is a price to pay for having a nice and clean city and what looks like good way of life but this is just too much and I was glad I didn’t get the idea to stay here for the night or a few days as I would be broke very fast.

Another bad thing and one of my pet peeves whenever travelling around Europe is the insistence of charging people for using the toilet. Maybe it’s not the place to have a debate about that but I find that a country can not consider itself civilized if it doesn’t offer free public toilets.

Still, I didn’t let anything get in my way of enjoying my time here and it was very nice to just wander around and do a bit of hiking to get a better view over the city and the surrounding landscape.

It was great to see Norway and spend some time in Bergen but I was quite happy when I was on the plane to Edinburgh, it’s just way too expensive here and definitely the most expensive country I’ve been in during my travels so far.
Another reason I was happy is that I was looking forward to a few days in Scotland.

Day 369 – NYC Downtown Architecture

After posting a lot of people photos the past days I thought a small change would be good for today’s post.

I started the day with a visit to the WTC Memorial Gardens before meeting a friend for lunch in Jersey.

After lunch I headed back to Manhattan and initially planned to take the Staten Island Ferry but then decided to walk to and across the Brooklyn Bridge.

I really like the Brooklyn Bridge and always try to walk across and take photos whenever I’m in New York.

It also helps that the DUMBO area is very nice to spend time in so crossing the bridge is a nice way to get there.

The weather was great again and when I started walking across the bridge, the sun started to go down so it provided for some nice shadows and light.

The DUMBO area has seen quite a bit of improvement in the times I’ve been there and has now more cafes, restaurants and the parks have also been done up.

There was also a cool and free outdoor cinema screening of Monty Python’s The Quest for the Holy Grail.

Day 368 – Just NY People

One of my favorite places in Manhattan is the High Line, a great park and great use of the old elevated rail tracks, more cities should do this and use the old industrial remnants like this.

Before going to the High Line, I did some walking around and went for a short browse to B&H where I managed to try out the very impressive Sony a7s.

When I set out to go to the High Line, I knew I wanted to post a series of photos from the High Line today.

Well, after taking hundreds of photos, the selection came out slightly different and I ended up with more people photos again.

After walking along the High Line, I started to head back towards Central Park and take more photos along the way.

I managed to also walk past the Flatiron Building, which is a pretty cool building and one of the things I really wanted to see the first time I came to New York.

Despite me thinking about avoiding it, I walked through Times Square again but didn’t spend longer than needed this time round.

BY the time I made it to Central Park it started to get dark so not ideal for photography so I set out to walk back to Penn Station and take the subway from there.

It was another fun day in New York where I walked a lot and took way too many photos.

Day 367 – Different Sides of New York

You never know what you come across when you walk around in New York, even snow in August. In order to come across something new, I decided to go to Brighton Beach and Coney Island today.

I’ve been to New York a few times before and walked down most streets and avenues in Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, been to Brooklyn, Long Island and Staten Island, even to Jersey but never made it to Brighton Beach.

Most times I’ve been in New York it was winter and cold so this was a reason why I didn’t come to Brighton Beach before.

Still, it was time to check it out and being a very nice and sunny day it was perfect to come here.

Getting here, you first notice all the Russians around and how different it feels from the more urban areas of New York.

There area  lot of very interesting people and characters around so it’s worth taking your time to walk along the boardwalk to take it all in.

I had a great time there and it was good to finally be here and see a different side of New York. Towards the evening, I decided to head back to Manhattan.

While I don’t really like Times Square and the area around it, it makes for some interesting photos thanks to the many weird and strange people you can see around.

As usual in New York I took  a lot of photos and by the end of the evening I filled up my SD card and ran out of batteries for my GR.

I will have some more time in New York for more photos in the coming days.

Day 366 – Hello New York!

After doing some more photography and enjoying a nice brunch in Boston, it was time to hop on the bus and head to New York.

It was nice to have been back in Boston but New York is the place to be in the US and I’ve always felt right at home there, so I was really looking forward to getting here.

The bus journey was comfortable but took a while so I only got to New York late in the afternoon. With my bag I didn’t want to run around too much and take photos so did a quick walk before taking the subway to Brooklyn to leave my bag at the apartment I was staying at.

I have a love/hate relationship with the New York subway, it’s quite cool in a way and you feel like stepping back in time with the crappy trains and even worse stations. It runs all night so this is cool but it takes forever to get to places even when you take the express trains.

Still, while uncomfortable and slow, it provides some good photo opportunities and is always fun to see the different people.

For no specific reason In decided to head to Wall Street and Downtown to take photos in the evening, it was fun and interesting but there were not that many people around there so I did more walking around and took some photos of the skyscrapers around.

It was good to be back in New York and I would have stayed up all night to go around take photos but I was too tired so decided to leave some things for another day.