Lots of photos from this weekend it seems but there’s a reason for that.  I’ve been eyeing up a new lens and thought I’d rent it for a couple of days to see what it was like.  It’s a Canon 300mm lens which is a stunning bit of kit but it’s heavy, expensive and I’m not sure I would use it enough to justify the purchase.  Still, it’s an amazing bit of glass and very fun to use!

So, what to do with this fancy lens for a weekend?  Well, we did go to the Roller Derby on Saturday night (and admittedly, 300mm was probably too long for that event), but Sunday was all about Birds.

To be honest, I’ve never tried to photograph birds before and it’s pretty challenging.  Birds never move the way you’d expect, they never sit still when you want them too, and they never move when you’re looking for that “in flight” shot.  Also, it’s a lot of work learning birds names and trying to identify species. In sort, I don’t think I have the patience to be a bird photographer.

Never the less, here are a couple of my shots from the day and the rest are here.

After last years Mutiny on the Mountie event, we all knew we’d have to go back to watch another roller derby event.  As the league is progressing, they’ve now divided up the girls into a few teams and at Clockwork Carnage it was the Ultraviolent Femmes vs. the Steam Rollers.

In addition to crew that came along last year, a few of my photographer friends from POTN came along for the unique (and challenging) experience of shooting a roller derby.  There are quite a few of their shots here, as well as on the Roller Girls forum here.

Incidentally, I don’t know who does the flyers for their matches, but they’re all awesome!

Here are a few of my shots from the day, and the rest are in the gallery.

I pieced together a couple of Panoramic images from the snow day yesterday.  They’re all of the Tower of London, one from the afternoon and two from the evening.

They’re fairly large images, just so you know!

All of those Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” adaptations I watched growing up as a child led me to believe that every year the city of London was covered in a fresh blanket of snow.  I can tell you that generally that’s a terrible, terrible lie.

However, starting late Sunday night the snow started to fall and it kept on falling well into Monday.  At first it was just enough snow to make it stick to the ground, then it started piling up.  Pretty soon, it was the “worst snowstorm in 18 years“.

As a Canadian, it was pretty funny to watch the city grind to a halt after the first few inches of snow formed on the ground.  All bus services suspended, the same for overland trains and most of the Underground was disabled as well.  The city was eerily quiet, not just from the lack of people but also the dampening effect of all this white stuff.

To be fair to the English, they just haven’t got the infrastructure in place to deal with this sort of snow fall.  I saw one sand/salt truck out on my walk into the office and many different implements used for shoveling snow from brooms and dustpans to sheets of wood and anything flat and sturdy enough to scoop it away.

Work was more or less cancelled but I decided to walk into the office anyways and take a few photos along the way.  It felt a bit like being back home, only not quite so cold.  It was a really cool day, and I had a pretty happy grin on my face for most of it.  That being said, I’m pretty happy that it’s all melting under the bright, sunny sky today.

I don’t think anybody should have to suffer more than a day or two of winter after all.

Photos from the rest of my journey into the office are here.

I snuck out of work a bit early last Thursday for an evening flight to Milan to visit some friends.  From there, it was a short drive from the airport to their home in Varese where I had some really yummy pizza (and a terrible margarita).

Apart from the weather, it was a great weekend with good food and great friends!  I had the camera in tow but due to the overcast skies and low fog it wasn’t ideal for taking photos, but I did get a few.  Going back again is definitely in the cards!

There are a few more images in the gallery.