Weather: DRY

This past month the weather has been pretty dry with only small light showers hitting the Lake District meaning very little whitewater boating for myself and others however I have been utilizing my new home to its advantage, being that I live roughly 20m from Lake Windermere. So I have been getting out in the long evenings and practicing techniques such as my C to C roll, Back-Deck roll, Double Pump and from the double pump have been attempting to bow or stern stall which is proving tricky.

The photo above was captured by myself. It shows Pete K and myself in front practicing on the flat water. This was taken along with many other photos from a static camera on the bank of the lake set to capture images with the intention of creating a timelapse however the idea did not turn out as planned.

Twelve Hour Timelapse

This week has been a busy week for me mainly due to my new part time job at the Sands Center, Carlisle where I help build stages for concerts and theater productions. Its tough work and sometimes late hours but good pay to fill the car up with petrol so I can go Kayaking!

Unfortunately, since my last post, I have managed to get out kayaking only once and it wasn't the most successful trip to date either. The trip has been named as "The Reconnaissance Session". Our intended plan was for paddling on the River Kent (Kent Gorge to Force Falls section). However unforeseen problems lead to our team arriving at the river later then planned and with the now winter sun starting to set around 1630, getting on the river that you have never run before around 1500 wasn't ideal. However we carried on paddling the top three rapids. Portaged the weir "you really don't want to run". Then ended up portaging the rest of the rapids on the river due to the light levels, the fact that none of us had run these rapid before and weren't overly confident running them anyway. Not a total fail of a trip as we now have inspected the rapids and different lines we might want to run in the near future hopefully.

I had another go at creating a time lapse this week. Inside this time. The time lapse was over a period of roughly twelve hours and was during my work time. I left my camera to capture the building of the stage for the band Rizzle Kicks. The clip has come out well and I'm just waiting for approval from The Sands Center to add some music to it then they plan to pass it onto the company SJB that manages Rizzle Kicks's tour, could be beneficial. Video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvLU285v6Mw

Tuesday night was spent in Kendal watching a presentation by Dom Bush about his inspirations in the adventure film making industry and showed some his own work. A good chilled out event.

Today again I spent my time in Kendal at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. A great event where i was representing my university in the its yurt that had been setup to promote the uni. I also manged to escape that and watch a few ski films. Interviewed some adventure and media freelancers for my D..d...d.... (I dare not type it). Ate a load of free samples and gained a many freebies from the stalls there. The best freebies being the coat water-reproofing spray and wash which will save me £30. Brilliant!

Photo Boating

My boating is finally getting up to scratch. Yesterday I spent half the day on the river kayaking with friends Tom and Mike. We paddled the River Greta, a river i have paddled a number of times now and voted in the top 50 rivers to paddle in the UK. Having paddled the river a number of time I have now grown the confidence to take my camera along for the ride. I used my waterproof Peli-case to transport my camera between my legs as we traveled down the river. I would then descend the rapids, staying in line of sight, to a point where I could take photos of Mike and Tom coming down the rapid. This was very interesting as this would be Mike's first real taste of white water kayaking and has taken a steep learning curve to get to the level the river required that day. Luckily Mike was very determined and if he capsized he would wait for Tom or myself to quickly assist him preforming a eskimo rescue.

Below is a sequence of a time Mike went over.

That evening I attended a university residential teaching the first year students on Adventure & Wildlife Media the basics of how to use and look after the equipment they would be using throughout their course. After this had finished Carrie, Ross and I stayed up till 2.30am trying our hands at capturing a time lapse of the stars that went quite well. Below is one photo from the sequence that shows a shooting star. 

Like to full timelapse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKP4ZneihSg