Love is the key

Mongewell abutment: Today

12 May 2014

9 December 2013

25 April 2013

Meanwhile, on the Winterbrook abutment - MOJO

EVADE

Jay/Steven :-)

Detail

Killa

World peace

You matter - go vegan

Meme :-)

Be grateful

Love is the key

Little Wittenham to Dorchester

Click photo to super-size 

...or download the 127cm x 27cm printing file here.

Melt

Flowering rush

I just stumbled on this picture of not-that-common flowering rush I took in June 2014. The best of the bunch has camera shake. This was the sharpest but badly exposed and the colour was off, so it has been retouched. This stand of flowering rush won't reappear very soon because the Thames' bank at this point has been scraped clean to make a less cluttered get-in pontoon for members of Oxford Brookes Rowing Club.

Coming along nicely

Today

9 December 2013

25 April 2013

Thames in flood

Benson weir

Work in progress...

From 25 April 2013

Today

DYS

Good to see some fresh tags under the bypass. I was going to call this photo 'Frontloader' until I realised it is probably a conservatively-drawn PA amplifier.

This bridge is a perfectly positioned canvas.

1. Fairly flat and easy-ish to get to. 
2. Just far enough out of town to be out of sight of CCTV and the driving public, but near enough to walk or cycle to. 
3. Great daytime viewing figures from boaters, dogwalkers and ...passing snappers. 
4. Aesthetically, much more in harmony with the location than the brutal shuttered concrete the painting obscures. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with the yellow calligraphy, it looks unfinished but promising.

Benson Lock - Boxing Day 2012

Under normal river conditions the lock and weir at Benson provide a 'step' in the Thames of 6ft 2in.

Flood plain

Panorama of Winter floods from Wallingford Castle supplied by Panoramic Earth

The actual composite image which the interactive panorama is based on (gets bigger if you click it)

Crowmarsh

Water level now falling. 6" below 2007. Didn't quite reach 2003's level.

The cloud is man-made, courtesy of Didcot power station.

I was going to thank the lady in the knitted had for providing the foreground interest but she'd left by the time I packed my tripod away.

Panorama of Thames in flood at Crowmarsh Gifford supplied by Panoramic Earth

Prayer flags

Osier (Salix viminalis)

Boudoir

The pen of the pair of mute swans (Cygnus olor) which had its nest swept away in the flood - again.

Hard to walk past without taking a few snaps.

A passage to Chatham

Morning Star - May 2012 - Images by Rob Bowker

TS Morning Star of Revelation is a concrete hulled 62ft gaff ketch. Saturday 0800 UTC 26.05.2012 to Sunday 1300 UTC 27.05.2012. Return leg of an abandoned cruise due to engine failure and following a newly fitted Perkins engine. From Wolphaartsdijk marina, Veerse Meer, Holland to Chatham, Kent

Morning Star website

Abingdon Spring Head

Abingdon Spring Head 2012-Div01 - Images by Rob Bowker

I just worked out (assuming I get my decimal points in the right place) that yesterday I spent 8 hours on the banks of the Thames to produce less than 3 seconds work. That's 1576 photos at roughly 1/500 second each. This got whittled down to 852 photos, so the fruits of my labour amount to under a couple of second's worth of action. Then there's the next 8 hours editing, uploading and marketing...

Just goes to show how your mind wanders between divisions. Mental maths doesn't keep you warm, but it takes your mind off the biting North wind.

Speaking of which, Divisions 2, 3 and 4 will be live online before noon today.

Results on Abingdon RC's website

PS: 10% of all profits from the sale of these images goes to Wallingford RC's Weights Shed Appeal.

Shillingford Bridge

Panorama of Shillingford Bridge, Oxfordshire supplied by Panoramic Earth

Benson Lock

Panorama of Benson Lock weir, Oxfordshire supplied by Panoramic Earth

 

...and on the way back home we saw George Harrison, Bernie Eccleston, Ben Fogle and Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall... and Dave!

Thanks to Anabel for carrying the tripod.

Straight eights*

At last, sunshine! Saturday was Reading University Boat Club's Head of the River Race - against the clock. All boats are eights, a format that's all wrong for full-crew photos, you can end up with a lot of background before cropping.

See photos of all crews.

*Not to be confused with Straight8 - the Super-8 film making project.