A bit about my project.

I'm working on a photography project that entails me having to get up before dawn and hustling into Corfu before the sun rises! The idea is to get ethereal photographs of interesting parts of the town. In an earlier post I put up a first attempt at capturing Saint Spyridon Church just before sunrise. Well, as I was setting up the tripod, someone, perhaps an unknowing priest or a time-clock, switched off the lights that lit up the dome of the tower. So, I had to content myself with what was there. Undaunted, I went out again last Monday morning and took this -



Now it's just a matter of me getting to bed early and getting out more often!

Back to normal (ish)

I think we're just about back to normal, whatever that might be. Bought a proxy TV viewing option yesterday so we can now watch British TV via a laptop. No need for the satellite dish (for the time being!)
There are some workers doing up the next door house and they park opposite our house in a spot we vacated last week preferring to walk 100 meters to a safer spot on the advice of our lovely neighbours. They'd had their car smashed late last year at a cost of €5,000 yet to be reimbursed by their insurance company. We'd had two incidents when skidding cars had narrowly missed ours, so we took the advice seriously and moved. Two hours ago we heard a double thump and looked out to see the workers car had been almost written off by another skidding driver. We believe it's being caused by a water run-off along the road on a corner, supplemented with an algae-type growth that makes the corner very slippery, especially if the tyres a a bit thin!

So, HELP!!! - we moved just in time. Now, B is concerned that we didn't warn the workers from parking where they did.

I see this coming weekend could have good photo taking weather in the early morning, so it's up at 5:30 a.m. and see what I can get.......

Not quite "Now the TV"

Must be getting old - went shopping on Saturday, bought all the goodies for "Clean Monday" - first day of Lent to anyone who doesn't know these things - stood for ages in the check-out etc etc, then promptly forgot that today is the holiday. Only seeing our neighbour who should have been at work wandering about his verandah in his PJs brought it to mind. So, no satellite searching, more like visiting some of the villages to see just what people get up to today......

Now the TV

Having tried with a limited amount of success to get BBC and ITV using a proxy server in the UK, we've decided to go the satellite way. Should be fun trying to figure out what services are available without resorting to a 2.4 meter dish (€1,500 can you believe?) and SKY TV. Our neighbour tells us they had BBC Prime until they started charging for it. Tomorrow morning we go knocking on satellite dealers doors trying to get the best deal, plus filling up with heating oil for the freeze we've been promised over the next week or so - snow in Athens, for God's sake and near freezing temperatures here. Not content with looking at the snow on the mainland mountains, we're possibly going to get some of our own - help! After 7 years in China, one year in Hong Kong snow is as foreign to us as China was when we first arrived there. Mind you, that was Beijing and -15C and plenty of snow, but after one year we went south to Canton to some heat and humidity (100% plus some).

Anyway, we're loving living in a house that doesn't have white fungus growing through the paint in the bedroom and no back up of stench from the septic tank, plus water that was corroding our stainless steel cutlery and made our glasses go a milky white - and we were washing in this stuff - we actually thought that was how people had to live here - worse than living a country environment in China - and that's saying something. BUT, here we are in the lap of luxury looking over the sea from our front windows with now clean cutlery and milky-scum-free glasses!

I must say that some of the people who read this blog have made some lovely comments about my photographs, so here's a chance to say thanks and that I hope to create a calendar for 2012 containing some of them - sometime before the summer starts proper. Another little project to keep me busy.

Back again

After almost 5 weeks without, we now have our phone and internet reconnected. A new life starts in our new home and not having had my camera to hand I can only say that 2 weeks ago we saw our first dolphins about 100 meters from shore, doing the classic dolphin arc through the air and back into the water. A beautiful welcome to our new home. We're just about fully unpacked - record time - and had only this mornings efforts from the electrician to connect the inside of the house to the outside phone line - DONE!

More photographs to come as I am now preparing a portfolio of sorts, hopefully to sell during the summer when the visitors arrive to Corfu.

Moving again.........

Well, knock me down with a feather - we're moving house again! This time, hopefully, for the last time! The house we're in has developed many problems during the winter months, the rain storms etc, and has become unpleasant, not to say unhealthy, to live in. We're heading for the seaside this time and will be just yards/meters from a very nice little beach.

Our negotiations are complete, lease signed etc and all that remains is for us to make the move and the phone company to get their finger out and relocate our phone number and the internet connection that goes with it! Might take all of 3 weeks to do that!

So I will keep the blog updated with photos and comments as we progress through our latest move. As and when I can...... Just as well that we're in Greece as that is now in the hands of the Gods.

My new project

I've started a project of taking photographs around Corfu in early morning light. My first attempt was in the previous post - the picture of St Spiridon Church. For anyone who's interested I'm using the HDR technique, taking 3 photographs at different exposures and using Photoshop to merge them into an HDR image. If you want to know more about this - contact me. These are two I took today - it's the Old Citadel from across Garitsa Bay and the Windmill at the opposite side of the bay.



And the windmill.



The view across to the mainland.