Don't drink the water

A while ago I was offered the chance to test a new piece of walking gear, one that it was claimed would save me money, keep me safe and help save the planet, while still be small enough to carry in my rucksack. Well now I’ve had time to play with it I can at least confirm 3 of the 4 claims.

The product in question is the Aqua Safe Filter Straw, a plastic tube not much thicker than an AA battery and just a bit longer than a DVD case. This light weight marvel can filter 500 litres of water, equivalent of 2,000 250mls bottles, saving loads of money on bottle water while on trips and saving the need to manufacture said bottle, there by cutting down on the estimated 100 grams of carbon gas is created with each bottle manufactured.

Now I can confirm that it will save me money, one strew costs way less than 500 litres of bottled water, I can confirm it will keep me safe, I drank the water and am still here, and I can confirm it fits in the rucksack, a lot better than 500 litres of water ever would. Now for the saving the planet bit I will have to trust the manufactures, but they were right about the rest.

My use for this item is quite straight forward, it has no best before date and is expected to deal with 500 litres before failing, so for me this is going to sit in my rucksack as part of my survival kit, as running out of water is one of the biggest dangers I am likely to face. It’s very easy to carry extra food and clothes but water is very heavy and I always tend to carry too little rather than too much.
Over all this is a great product and will always be part of my standard kit from now on.

With all this talk of water I think we need a boat, this was taken last week at Derwent water, it was sunset and there were quite a few photographers trying to capture the same image, so I thought I would try for something different.



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Now playing: The Specials and Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics
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Flying high

Well where to start, for once I’m spoiled for post topics and photos. So I’ll start with the thing that cheered me up the most

POLER GIRL IS BACK!!!!!!!!!

As some of you will know I known her in real life and it took me by surprise when she finished her blog and when people started asking what had happened I was not in a position to give any answers, well she is back and all you need to know is here.

The next item of good news is that I photographer a christening a few weeks back and the images have just gotten the thumbs up from the customer here’s what the proud granny (she looks way too young to be a granny) had to say

"Brett the photo's are absolutely ace, there are some an absolutely fantastic captures, brilliant, Lea and Eddie are really chuffed with them. The one of Leanne on her own is stunning, sooooooooo natural brill, fantastic, brill, stunning, brill and brill and brill and brill I luv it do you get my gist. A massive thank you Brett you have done us proud."

As you can imagine I feel really pleased with such great feed back especially with some of the decisions I am making regarding my future.

On top of all that I have just finished a new post on my photography blog all about close up photography, which just happens to fit in with today’s picture, a hover fly, in mid flight.




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Now playing: U2 - Beautiful Day
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Blog of the week - Awkward family photos

Just got back from a weeks holiday so lots to do, trying to read over 100 emails, sorting out all the photos and catching up on all the other blogs. The holiday was great but something went in my back and I spent nearly 2 days immobile, still the rest of the time I was fine and we managed to do what we wanted.

Getting back was even more fun as we had to leave Kep at home and we had both missed him loads. Kep is well on the mend and is nearly back to his old self, although he can not manage the stairs yet.

As its Monday here is the blog of the week, this blog has not been going too long and is a bit of light relief in a world that seems to be getting more and more depressing (post holiday blues!). The blog is Awkward family photos, and as the name suggest that what it’s all about, those really bad pictures you just want to keep hidden or not as is the case here. This could be a real how not to take portraits site, lots of thing you should avoid when photographing your family.

Photo today is from last weeks holiday, it is of Friar’s crag on Derwent water.




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Now playing: Moby - In This World
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Who am i?

Again just a quick post as my back is still playing up.

How do you quantify fame?

I ask this because my doctor asked me if I was famous and I told him that I did not think so and asked him why? The answer is that he was reading the local paper and inside was a quiz and along side a photo of me was the question “do you know who this is?” (Top marks for all those that answer Brad Pitt). So am I famous, I might just be a little bit!

Photo is another from the close ups taken last week.



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Now playing: Siouxsie the Banshees - Spellbound
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Blog of the week - Photoshop disasters

Time again for the Blog of the week and this award makes me a bit nervous as I could be inviting a lot of close scrutiny to my photographs.

I first found this site last year and keep popping back every few weeks to see what been posted, it’s a sort of guilty pleasure, its also a way to lift my spirits when I’m have problems editing a shot. When I do get round to visiting the site I find I’m there for hours just looking back over the old posts, even now I have spent ¼ of an hour I’ve not got looking at the latest few posts, its quite addictive. I would now link to Photoshop disasters and to my favorite post but there are so many I cannot pick just one, so you will just have to dig in and have a look yourselves.

This photo is untouched, just as it appears on the slide, so I won’t gat caught out by any silly errors.



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