Bed Racin
Last weekend saw the Knaresborough bed race trundle through the streets of in all its colour and noise.
The theme for the 2012 event was Olympic Nations. Teams can base their bed design and fancy dress on anything connected with that country. Teams used history, culture, geography, landscape, social or sport to get their inspiration.
There was some impressive beds. The poor girls on Float 36 had a bad day. The person building their bed had not turned up on the day, but that did not stop them. They ran around the local shops getting donations of paint, and cardboard boxes and built their float from scratch.
All in all it was a enjoyable day, everyone had fun, despite the occasional shower. I travelled light that day, just my D7000, 85mm 1.8D and a Tamron 17-50mm 2.8. The combination of lenses worked well, 
but I found my self using the Tamron more than any other. Nothing wrong with that lense for the price I paid.
Sunday saw the same kit taken to the Valley Gardens in Harrogate for the 1940′s Open Day. Again I mostly used the Tamron 18-50mm which proved more than caperble on the D7000 body.
It was a fun day, with people walking about in 1940′s style clothing, and various re-enactments. It was a good half day looking around and seeing everyone enjoying them selves
Some of the shots, if I had taken them and given them a vintage look, would of passed for origionals 
York in manual
So I headed off to York, with one thought on my mind. To fully use my D7000 in full manual mode.
So, my standard street setup was put in the camera, and the dial put on M. Dont get me wrong, I’ve used M many times before, but nearly always found a excuse to revert back to more familiar ground in A mode.
Initially, my mind was more on the scene, than the camera and I overexposed / underexposed some of the shots. Quickly I rememberd to balance the exposure meter.
What surprised me the most, was how much more I was thinking of the overall image. Not just raise the camera to the eye and press the shutter, but actually look at the image. Where normally I’d come away with maybe 100 shots, I came home with under 50 as I was just so much more aware of the image.
I did however find that some of my subjects had finished what they were doing, and moved before I had set the camera up. No doubt it will become quicker the more I do it, but I did get rather annoyed that, in y mind at least, I was missing shots.
I did however enjoy shooting in Manual mode. And have no doubts that I shall not move it off Manual for quite a while.
I’ll post some more shots from my recent York wander as soon as I get round to processing them.
As ever, please feel free to take a wander through my York Gallery.
A Leeds Wander
So I decided to have a little street photo session and headed off to Leeds. It was busy, but there was’nt a lot going on. So I just plodded along looking for people that I found interesting. I was shooting with my D7000, and a Nikon 85mm 1.8 I’d just picked p from the Girls at Jacobs. I’d gone into Jessops and asked if they had it in stock, and they asked if that was a filter or camera! Luckily the staff at Jacobs know their stuff and no stupid question…
This Guy was watching a live music performance near albion street. I found his face interesting.
So On I wandered. Missing a few shots here and there, and then this young woman crossed my view finder, and there was no way I could have not pressed the shutter. She was so unique, with her purple hair, big hat and rather unique dress sense.
Some stupid errors with camera settings saw me drop a few images and kick myself, but I came away with some, what I consider good, images.
I walked round for hours, yet people where just not interesting, I could not find anyone displaying any emotion, or anything else. So it turned to just who I found interesting. My street photography still requires some practice…
See the rest of my images over at my photosite..
