I’m always up for a nice walk around some National Trust grounds (member for quite a few years now), so when they announced a ‘Fungal Foray’ at Calke Abbey we signed up for a couple of tickets.

This wasn’t a walk intended to show us which mushrooms were edible, it was to show the variety of fungi that exist in the Nature Reserve. I have done one of those at Calke before, but that wasn’t organised by the NT. The walk was guided by one of the rangers who was a pretty keen amateur mycologist but she was keen to correctly point out that she couldn’t 100% identify everything and to trust nothing. I decided to take the DSLR along as it’s been a while since it’s been used.

The walk was very informative. Specimens were a bit sparse due to the glorious weather we’d been having, so there were some points where the leader had to produce one she’d found earlier, or in a couple of occasions had moved from another site.

So here’s some photos from the day:

Another year, another trip up to York for the annual Yorvik Viking weekend. No photogenic snow this year, and no buying of new cameras either. And as usual, I mostly got pictures of the birds of prey show. It was the same

No owls this year, and a lack of falcons as well. But a good display from a Bald Eagle, various vultures and some caracara for light entertainment

Pretty happy with these snaps. All taken on the 30D with a sigma 70-200 2.8 EX and then fettled in LightRoom.  One regret was not taking a tripod along, but I didn’t fancy carrying it around York all day. Might have helped get some of the action shots a little sharper:

Though it’s not too bad as is :).

All the birds were supplied and flown by http://www.birdsofpreydisplays.co.uk/ who seem to do this event every year. So it’s always a decent show as he knows what he’s got to work with.

Photos of actual vikings (or of actual accountants impersonating vikings) to follow:

Been thinking about moving across to Lightroom from bibble recently. I’ve never really completely got on with the layers in bibble for some reason, but find the localised adjustment system in Lightroom a little more logical. So going to be working with both for a bit to see what happen.

Also just got some new lighting kit, so been having a play with that. So here’s my hand in all it’s glory.

More from my trek around Wollaton Park in the snow on Saturday morning. And looking out of the window at work, it looks like I might be getting some more snowy photos at this rate this week:

Woke up this morning to find that my dreams of heading out on the bike had disappeared under the snow. Other people seemed to be OK on bikes, but I’m attached to my one piece collar bone so decided that discretion was the better part of valour so headed out with the camera to Wollaton park instead. Unfortunately only 1 deer fancied being photogenic, the others wanted to huddle en masse in the trees and didn’t look like they fancied meeting photographers.

Now to try and thaw out a bit before working on the others.

Oops, been getting a bit lax about posthing these up with one thing and another. So quickly getting the last 2 bands out of queue.

So here’s Nachtmahr. Didn’t really know much about this band, but I’ve caught L’Âme Immortelle a few times over the years (Nachtmahr being a sideproject of Thomas Rainer from L’Âme Immortelle)

Fornost Arnor playing at The Old Angel, Nottingham

Twilights Embrace playing at the Old Angel, Nottingham

Some photos from The Old Angel last Friday. Playing that night were Fornost Arnor, No Love Lost, Twilight’s Embrace and Bahamut.

Not too many photos as I was having a few kit problems so kept having to find somewhere better lit to have a look at things. Good sets from all the band on, nice mix of styles as well.

Fornost Arnor – http://www.myspace.com/fornostarnor
No Love Lost – http://www.myspace.com/nolovelostdoom
Twilights Embrace – http://www.myspace.com/twilightsembrace
Bahamut – http://www.myspace.com/lairofbahamut

Moving swiftly on through the Sunday lineup we get to Ayria. Good fun bouncy ebm tunes and plenty of energy coming off the stage

Website – http://www.ayria.com
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/ayria

As Flickr doesn’t appear to be letting my flickr gallery stuff work properly at the moment, here’s a direct link to the other Ayria Photos here

Moving on up throught Sundays bands and we get to Patenbrigade Wolff. Pounding rythyms based around a stage show that seems to be based on German Road menders. Though as it seemed to involve lot of wandering round swigging beer I’m not sure how true to life it was :)

Website – http://www.electronic-music.org/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/patenbrigadewolff

These guys I did really enjoy (and would be enjoying right now if I’d managed to get to their merch stall, and if failing that MusicNonStop had decided to take less than 4 weeks to ship me a CD!). Good old fashioned shouty stompy political stuff always goes down well, even first thing in the afternoon.

And they were the only band over the weekend I felt like breaking out the film camera for as well, though those photos probably won’t appear for a bit as I’m working through a backlog.

Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/concretelung

And moving onto Sunday we start off with one of Saturday’s bands. By all account Parralox had a hard time making it to the stage, but a hastily rearranged set saw them opening up on Sunday afternoon

Website -http://www.parralox.com/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/parralox

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

On to the Saturday night headliners Rotersand.

Website – http://www.rotersand.net/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/rotersand

Moving on up through Saturday lineup we get to German “Industrial Terrorists” [X]-Rx. Nicely photogenic and a pretty good noise coming off stage, certainly got the crowd up and moving.

Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/xrxindustrial

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

As we clambered into the Press pit we were warned “It might get messy”, oh and how right they were. We had fake sperm and fake blood aplenty with Agonoize.  We got very good at spotting when the singer was ‘plumbed’ up for some blood action, and it went a fair way (you can see the pressure it was under in the photo up top)

Website – http://www.agonoize.com/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/agonoize

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

Next up on the Infest bill were Danish band Memmaker. Good electro sounds and good high key lighting as well :). Keep an eye out for a reappearance by one of the members during the Ayria set (photos to come).

Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/memmaker

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

And moving into day 2 of Infest the opening band were Northern Kind. A nice laid back start to the day, which had been a bit of a bizarre start thanks to all the police horses that’d been drafted in to keep the EDL ****s in order.

Website – http://www.northernkind.net/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/northernkinduk

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

And moving onto the first headliner for 2010, De/Vision. Not a band I’d heard much by, but the crowd certainly seemed to be enjoying their synthpop stylings. Good upbeat way to finish off the first night.

Nice lighting on stage, but I wish I’d had something wider on the 30D as the band we pretty spaced out around the stage so was hard to get them all in from the stage edge.

In other news, I’ve just been asked to submit some of my photos from Infest for publication. So here’s hoping they like what I’ve sent them. No names yet, just in case they don’t ;).

Myspace  – http://www.myspace.com/devisionmusic

Website – http://www.devision-music.com

Infest 2010 archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

And on to the next band of Infest, Heimstatt Yipotash, the first of the Hands bands. Great noise coming off stage, but unfortunately as is a hazard for all these type of bands there’s not a huge amount going on stage.

Website – heimstatt yipotash
Myspace -http://www.myspace.com/heimstattyipotash

Infest 2010 archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

Taken a bit longer today as had to the drive back from Bradford. But here’s a couple of previews of photos coming from Day 3 at Infest. From the top we have Project Pitchfork, Ayria and Concrete Lung

Pitchfork really finished the festival off brilliantly, and Concrete Lung were really impressive. Unfortunately I spent so long faffing around trying to find people that I didn’t get a chance to pick up their CD.

Day 1 Previews – Infest 2010 photos day 1
Day 2 Previews – Infest 2010 photos day 2

And so day 2 of Infest’s first pass of photos is done. 1 each for Agonoize, Memmaker and Northern kind.

About to head up for day 3, starting earlier as Parralox have been rescheduled for 3, so it’s going to have to be a fast walk up the hill

Day 1 photos from Infest 2010 here