London Christmas Lights

In London, Christmas and the Oxford Street Christmas lights seem to go hand in hand. There is always a celebrity-attended stitching on party, while locals wait to see who has won out on the year – film industry gaudiness or decent, seasonal lighting. This year the latter has won out and, while still obviously promoting a film, this is really only noticeable around Oxford Circus.

360 panorama of Christmas Lights on Oxford Street, ©2009 Peter Watts

The main theme of the lights this year is wrapped presents and what looks like umbrellas, seen in the picture below. Perhaps this reflects a combination of the shopping frenzy expected in the run up to Christmas and the need to be prepared for the British weather.

Just of Oxford Street was an entirely different set of lights on South Molton Street, where shoppers walked through a series of blue, lit arches decorated with stars. A very much more relaxing feel.

360 panorama of Christmas Lights on S.Molton St London, © 2009 Peter Watts

Taking panoramas of Christmas lights on streets is quite a challenge, the low light requiring long exposures. Thankfully on Oxford Street traffic is stationary long enough, even at 8pm on a Sunday night, that the cars remain sharp and still throughout the multiple 5-second exposures needed to create the shot. Next up will be a visit to Regents Street.

Sand, Sun and Sea – oh to be Back in Phuket

So, pictures speak a thousand words – looking at some panoramas from Phuket, it is a shame they can not also clear slate-grey skies and raise the local temperature by, say, 10 degrees! It was a few years ago now that I zipped round Phuket for a couple of days whilst there taking some panoramas of beaches, gibbon reserves and the like. For me, a good beach should be quiet, surrounded by interesting countryside, have rocks and stuff for snorkelling, a lack of speed boats and a lack of hotels.

360 panorama of Patong Beach in Phuket, © Peter Watts

I think my favorite beaches on Phuket must be Surin Beach and Yanui Beach. Both are quite small, relaxing and away from the vast crowds that swarm around Patong. I did not manage to get to Freedom Beach, which can only be accessed by boat, but did enjoy visiting Paradise Beach, which is just south of Patong Beach.

360 panorama of Yanui Beach in Phuket, © Peter Watts

While most people, it seems, move little further than the sunbed in front of their hotel, Phuket has quite a lot to offer away from the sea. There are numerous old temples, various elephant rides and a fantastic Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre set in the middle of a national park. I never got to the 45m high Buddha statue, maybe one day…

360 Panorama of elephants at an Elephant Village on Phuket, © Peter Watts

Well it would be fantastic toget back there and complete the collection of 360 panoramas of Phuket’s beaches, but I guess that until someone offers me a ticket, I will have to content myself with memories, and the grey, autumnal skies of London.

Corfe Castle, ‘The Slighted’

Corfe Castle beckons visitors from the top of a hill in a gap in the Purbeck Hills of Dorset, England. As a children we used to roam the mound and scramble among the ruins of the castle, admiring the views of the surrounding countryside. The views and castle ruins are still much the same, but the site is now managed by the National Trust, so entrance fees apply, various parts of off limits and countless signs warn of everything from steep slopes to uneven surfaces – not that you’d expect either on from a ruined castle on a hill.

360 panorama view of Corfe Castle, (c) Peter Watts

These panoramas show some of the parts of Corfe Castle and the surrounding views taken in September 2009, on a day that was fantastically warm and with the same great views over Corfe Castle village and far beyond. While there a steam train chuffed along the track back to Swanage and children rolled down the hill (that, at least, is still allowed).

Ruined keep of Corfe Castle, (c) Peter Watts

And why ‘The Slighted’? Well this is a reference to the damage done to Corfe Castle by William Cromwell. The castle was never defeated, holding out against siege and frontal attack, it’s defence orchestrated by Mary Bankes. Sadly, she was and the castle were betrayed by one of the garrison members. After it’s capture, Cromwell ordered the castle ‘Slighted’ – a process of blowing it up with gunpowder. What remains today is the result.

360 panorama of Corfe Castle gate. (c) Peter Watts

Strength of the British Pound…

…really comes out in the wash. Literally. Thankfully, British bank notes are now so designed to survive a good old wash cycle, coming out intact if, at times, a little crumpled. So I confirmed once again the other day by forgetting to take a £5 note from my trousers before putting them through the machine.

It is said that most notes today are tainted with traces of illicit drugs, so this has to be the ultimate in clean money – until I put it back in my wallet.

Other things that have been reported to be this robust include Compact Flash Cards and DCs.

Pink Toes at Revive!

Every year Ichthus Christian Fellowship holds Revive!, a church camp at a beautiful country estate near Battle in the UK. Most of us camp on site, and enjoy a relaxing and enjoyable week – especially if the weather is favourable. This year it was, with 2 blazing hot days resulting in numerous water fights.

Revive! 2008 Camping - 360 Panorama.

For the last two years I volunteered to help out with Popcorn, the club run on site for children aged 5-10, giving the parents opportunities to attend the various meetings and seminars that happen during the week. It can be exhausting work, generally requiring naps to be taken in the afternoon.

This year, however, I learnt that it is wise to be aware of one’s friends while napping, as otherwise you might end up with Barbie Pink toenails…

Naturally, no-one on site had any varnish remover, though I am not convinced they were just hiding it. Oh well, no lasting damage done, but this will have to be remembered for next year…

Story of Great Kindness

It is not often that a complete stranger does something so unexpected that you wonder how you managed to be on the receiving end of such kindness. I recently had an experience of this when visiting Mallorca in June 2009. Mallorca is well known for it’s beautiful beaches, but this story relates to one of the cave attractions, Coves de Campanet.

While there I went round the Coves de Campanet which contain some beautiful stalactite and stalagmite formations. The next day I returned to shoot this Coves de Campanet 360 panorama, taken inside the Romantic Chamber of the caves. It had taken about half an hour to do in the low light levels.

Coves De Campanet

Then I mad a huge mistake. Having put the camera gear back in the hire car I closed the boot. Only to then realize that I had left the car keys inside. Along with all my money. And all documents.

The staff at the caves were very helpful, contacting the hire company, asking what could be done. The hire company insisted that I had to go to Palma Airport to pick up spare keys. A bit difficult with no money and no public transport!

Then the amazing happened. One of the workers simply handed over her car keys and allowed me to take it to the airport and back. And she had only known me for about half an hour. I mean, how often does that happen? Thanks to her kindness, this total nightmare was quickly turned into only a mild inconvenience and a bit of an adventure.

I very much doubt that I would have the same help from any of the larger caves on the island. Nor could I have wished for a better traveling companion, who considered the whole thing quiet exciting!

Snow Stops London February 2009

360 panorama taken from Westminster Bridge

panorama (c) Peter Watts – all rights reserved

Second of February 2009 and London came almost to a standstill. Snow had fallen and with it came the collapse of most of the public transport network, airports and closure of schools. Once again the people of England were advised to stay at home. And so many Londoners headed out for the parks and hills of London for a spot of snowman building, tobogganing and snow fights.

Taking pictures in Regents Park, London, after snow.

I took the opportunity to walk around parts of the city with a camera in hand taking some 360 panoramas of some rare London snow scenes. This started in Regents Park in the morning with most of the soft snow still untouched and fluffy. About a couple of centimeters rested on top of the tree branches, making the pictures look like some black and white study. The water in the Boating Lake had partly frozen over and St John’s Lodge Gardens looked a dream.

Later in the day a group of three of us headed off for the West End finding Chinese Lanterns in China Town each capped with a dusting of snow, still up after the recent Chinese New Year celebrations. Yet more snowmen waited for us in St Jame’s Park, and various snowball fights ensued. The walk then progressed onto Westminster Bridge (see the picture at top of post) before retreating to a coffee shop as the cold evening closed in.

They promise more later in the week, so maybe there will be another chance at London snow scenes. In the meantime, a number of 360 panoramas from the day have been loaded up onto Panoramic Earth and can be found in the London Panorama Index.

Keeping up to Date

I have just found a couple of tools that will allow people to keep up to date with what I am doing. These are RSS feeds. My new panorama feed lists all my new 360 panoramas that I add to Panoramic Earth. There is also a Panoramic Earth site feed which lists all new panoramas added by all users to the site. In addition to that I have added two feeds to the sidebar of this blog. One is my own new panorama feed, which just gives the titles of the new images I upload, simply click on them to be taken directly to the right pages. The other is from another relevant blog about panoramic pictures.

So now you can keep up to date in yet another way with what I am doing. I guess it would be possible to create a feed of even this blog to put somewhere else and keep the chain going.

Visiting the Googleplex

It was not possible for me to stay in Palo Alto, home to the Silicon Valley, and not visit a couple of the local ’shrines’. One of these was Google HQ, known as the Googleplex as it is a conglomeration of separate buildings on a couple of blocks. Strictly this is in Mountainview, which is just south of Palo Alto itself. I took a couple of panoramas from there, which can be seen by following the links to the Googleplex HQ Panorama and the Beach Volleyball at Googleplex. In the latter one you may just about be able to make out the Google Dinosaur, a model of a T.Rex skeleton (or is this now the G.Rex). One wonders whether this is a warning to all the workers never to stand still and thus become extinct, or a subversive view that Google has of it’s competition.

The other is the Hewlet-Packard Garage, which stands on Addison Avenue, not far from Stanford University. The garage was set up by a Stanford Professor, Dr. Frederick Terman, who conceived the ‘Silicon Valley’ concept as a means for graduates to set up their own hi-tech companies in the area instead of leaving to go elsewhere. Little did he know…Or perhaps he did.

Ten Thousand Black Needles

panorama (c) Peter Watts – all rights reserved

I spent 2 weeks on the Fijian islands of Vanua Levu and Viti Levu islands taking 360 panoramas of Fiji. The one shown above comes from a lagoon on the coast of Vanua Levu between Savusavu and Ngigi.

There are many things to say about the time I spent in Fiji in early February. It was the rainy season so there was a lot of, well, rain. Short showers that at times extended into whole days of dripping greyness. So dripping that standing out for about 5 seconds would provide a reasonable shower. Dirt roads turned to mud layered on ooze and deep holes hidden by pools of brown water. Paved roads fared no better, being either washed away in some cases. They are full of potholes that, in some cases, become reasonably sized paddling-pools. I could have titled this ‘Ten Million Raindrops’ and would probably only have underestimated the number that hit me during the time.

There are the roads, whose condition has been alluded to above, that mean travelling 30km in 3 hours is an achievement, which I did one day with members of the Rotary Club of Savusavu to fix a water system at a school in the village of Vunilagi, which is shown in the panoroama below. Yet the local buses continue to plough through where lesser mortals would fear to slide, often the only link between remote villages and the outside world. You know the conditions are bad when the buses stop. This is the point at which the government normally decides something ought to be done and carries out temporary repairs.

panorama (c) Peter Watts – all rights reserved

Then come the mosquitoes. While Fiji does not have any poisonous insects or reptiles, it simply makes up for this as the numero uno production plant for one of the few creatures I would like to ask God, ‘So what was that about?’ Any statement that they only come out at dusk is, well, simply wrong (maybe because with that much rain cloud it always looks like dusk). They come in the morning, they come in the night.

There are small, fast black fighter mozzies that home in silently and are gone again with a fresh payload before you can blink, leaving small, itchy marks as a departing gift. Then there are larger critters, bomber mozzies with long, curled tail feelers striped black and white. These move more slowly, and are slightly easier to splat, but carry a much higher payload, so squishing them on departure is likely to result in a bright red smear. However, worst of all is the sound, the deathly silence mocking in the darkness. It comes just after the high pitched ‘nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn……’ around your ears and leaves you just knowing that somewhere on your body…another of the ten thousand black needles has been artfully inserted.

The people of Fiji are, in spite of all the difficulties they face, very helpful, friendly and resilient. If it is golden sand round a beach resort you are looking for then head for the Yasawa group of islands and you will find it. But you will miss the genuine Fiji, full of fantastic people, small villages and tonnes of fresh fruit straight off the tree. This is the part of Fiji I really enjoyed, and would go back for. I got some interesting photos, and had interesting times getting them. Lets finish with a classic Fijian scene, a sandy beach, blue skies, palm trees and an island, though in this case the nearest resort was about an hour away.

panorama (c) Peter Watts – all rights reserved