Richard Thomas' Photo Blog

So far all the photos I’ve added to my site have been ones I’ve taken at various times over the last 7 years, but today I have something different. I spotted this large Praying Mantis sitting on the flower stalk of my banana tree on Saturday afternoon. I took some photos straight away but the light wasn’t too good and I didn’t get anything I could use. It was still there on Sunday morning, in bright sunshine, so I grabbed my camera again and this was the result. I have to admit to a strong liking for these insects (despite their close relationship to the cockroach family!), and was pleasantly surprised to find them reasonably abundant where I am living in Spain. However, this is by far the biggest example I’ve seen outside of a zoo, it’s approximately 10cm from head to tail (excluding antennae). I’ve just checked again and it’s still there, 48 hours after I first saw it, if it sticks around much longer I’ll have to give it a name and everything!

One thing that strikes me is that my lens (Nikon 18 – 200 “superzoom”) isn’t strictly a macro lens, but I’ve been able to get really close at the maximum focal length and get a clear photo with loads of detail. I’d appreciate comments from people into macro photography as to how much difference a “proper” macro lens would make to shots like this.

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 200mm. Shutter speed 1/250th sec, Aperture f/8

View photo page on main site

Here’s the second photo in my occasional review series. Most people take a couple of seconds to work out what this is due to the unusual angle… I was on a balloon trip with my family in September 2007, we took off from Ronda at about 8.30 on a Saturday morning but there wasn’t much wind so we didn’t go very far. Another balloon (the one in this photo: Balloon over Ronda) that took off with us went pretty much straight up and straight back down again, but as we were paying customers and our flight had been postponed several times (ironically because it was too windy!) the pilot persevered, changing height until we got some lateral movement. After waking up half the population of Ronda by flying just over their flats (cue lots of sleepy, half-dressed people coming out on to their balconies to find us waving at them), we crossed the main road and headed into the campo.

After a while the wind dropped and at one point the altimeter and GPS confirmed that we were completely motionless, just hanging in the still air. We couldn’t land where we were as the ground was covered in trees, so we had to descend to pick up some momentum from the wind nearer the ground, then ascend to give us enough height to reach a clear field we could see ahead behind a couple of houses. As we were doing this for the third time I could see a couple of cyclists coming up the track that was just ahead of us. I thought that if we kept moving I might be lucky and they might pass directly beneath us so I got the camera ready. And this photo was the result! Being early in the morning the sun cast long shadows which I think look really effective from this angle. I wondered why they were going so slowly as the track looked flat from above, but once we had landed I realised it was a reasonably steep incline.

Our balloon trip was with Gloventosur.

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 200mm. Shutter speed 1/250th sec, Aperture f/8

View photo page on main site

(Updated as some of the text was missing from the version originally published. Still getting the hang of this blogging lark!)

OK, let’s get this blog on the road – literally. Since my friend started selling prints of my photos on her market stall this is the most popular one by far. First some background. When I left the UK last year I had been working for my then employer for nearly 10 years, and when I left I was given a fantastic present – a ticket to the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona earlier this year. Obviously I took my camera, and from my vantage point in the stands attempted to take the kind of photos that you see on all the F1 websites and in the magazines, you know the ones where the car is in sharp focus but the wheels and the background are slightly blurred so you get a sense of movement. I must have taken nearly 100 photos of fast moving cars over the 2 days I was there, and this was the best one. The rest were either blurred, off target (car moving faster than the camera!) or someone waved a flag or stood up in front of me just at the wrong moment – especially true when it was Alonso going past, given the fantastically partisan nature of the crowd.

So there you have it, the first featured photo on my blog, I await your comments (good or bad)…

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm VR lens at 150mm. Shutter speed 1/400th sec, Aperture f/7.6

View photo page on main site