Oh the clocks have gone back!

It took me a whole day to realize that the clocks have gone back this week.

For me this week has gone slow. I've been sat at home the majority of the week attempting to read for my dissertation and have also been learning to use the program Adobe After Effects. I succeded in what i wanted to achieve with this program and this was create an animate outro sequence to add onto the end of my Online videos to show that it was me who created them. See the develoupment of the outro here.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HARTridethestorm

I also this week had my second Adventure Travel Writing lecture. This was a very useful discussion about how in the future for the module we will be needing to keep a blog to get marked on. Therefore expect the content of my blog to become slightly more focused and thought-out over the coming months.

Below is an image of a screen shot of what Adobe After Effects looks like, technical.

Dark Nights Week

Autumn is definitely here as I'm having to clear my cars window before I use it each time to get out on adventures. Managed to paddle a rocky low Upper Derwent and good level Greta on Friday. The Upper Derwent was ok, mainly very scrappy however had one good areawith a strong eddy line to play on that flushed out into a pool. I managed to swap into my friends older Pyranha Inazone it has a really slicey stern to it allowing me to throw down some pirouettes on the eddy line which helped practicing my support strokes. After doing the Upper Derwent the Greta ended up being quite challenging. Having already been paddling half the day to then go onto paddle a fast pushy grade III. Whilst also having to lead my friend Mike down the rapids. This was made harder as he was in a faster boat then me so I was having to blast it in the amrs to keep in front of him.

Last night I spent on the west side of Ulswater sleeping under the stars with just our cameras and sleeping bags. This was super fun and I had my frist attempt at getting a picture of star trails. A picture that shows the path of the stars across the sky in one image. The night was fairly clear and constellations were easily visible with the help of an App on Carrie's smartphone. The was also the planet Jupiter visible (white stream to the right of the picture).

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

Boating, Finally!

Wow having a car makes such a difference in ease to getting out paddling and with there having been plenty of rain in the lakes this has lead to plenty of paddling in the past week, super. Sometime before all this rain hit I managed to dig out some footage of my friends Mat and Pete paddling on the Upper River Swale and using my new laptop have created four very short videos showing four of the five main drops on the river. These videos can either be viewed on my Youtube or Vimeo channels. Dont forget to Follow or Subscribe.

Youtube > http://www.youtube.com/user/HARTridethestorm
Vimeo   > https://vimeo.com/hartrts

Before returning to Uni

After having returned home from America I spent a short time at home where I actually managed to get out kayaking once at Bournemouth Pier surf kayaking, it was very strange and the first time in a long while I had been paddling on the sea, it was awesome. The waves at the pier ranged between 3-5ft. Mat and I had picked a great day to go out. Managed to catch some good waves and then usually ended up getting whipped out which was great for practicing my roll in moving water in a relatively safe environment I.e where I'm not going to smash my face in... again. However I did manage break one of my GoPro attachments, how I do not know.

Following my time at home I then ventured forth In my expensive go-kart to West Snowdonia, Wales. To again meet Mat and spend the next two days camping and walking based out of the Ogwen Valley. The third day was spent climbing in the morning then kayaking in the afternoon. We paddled a section of the River Dee. I did well on this grade III descent no swims, one roll, at Town Falls when everyone was watching. That afternoon got me reacquainted to wearing clothes again whilst paddling as had spent the last fourteen weeks paddling in just boardshorts, BA and lid.

The next two days were what our trip was all about, Pyranha Fest 2012! From last year i have definitely improved my boating. This year again on the Tryweryn, I felt a lot more comfortable giving it a good effort and making a lot more eddies then last year, a few rolls and only one swim on the last quick run of the weekend. Now I've got my car I should be able to also keep getting out (whilst doing my work, dad) and keep my ability up and hopefully get some more footage of my adventures. Looking forward to the uni year ahead.

Yeeeeehhhhaaarrrrr #2

So I've spent the last 10weeks over the pond in North East Pennsylvania at a camp called Camp Shohola. I was part of a two man crew taking children off of camp on trips to do different adventurous activities in real and challenging environments. Some of these activities included Kayaking, Canoeing, Rafting and Climbing. My whole time at camp was a great experience putting me in lots of new important decision making situations for the group I was helping lead. The best trips for myself were the kayak and canoe trips where I was able to not only improve the campers ability but also my own at the same time by setting specific goals for myself when on the rivers.

My final week in America was spent, not working, at a small town called Ohiopyle in South West PA. This town is built up around the Ohiopyle Falls and was comprised of either food or kayaking venues, superb. The waterfall (Ohiopyle falls) is 18ft and on the Youghiogheny River a lengthy river that has rapids ranging from class II to V. Mat and I spent the week kayaking on the sections named "The Lower" and "The Loop" These sections consisted of high class III rapids and took about 3.5hours to paddle at a steady rate. The first day of paddling here I was a little nervous still from my confidence being knocked after my nose break. However the morning of the second day I had managed to put it all behind me and from then on my paddling confidence and skill was back up if not improved. To the point where on the last day there we paddled the waterfall. I'm hoping one of my new found highly talented friends Jesse will have snapped a few photos of myself running the falls as I did quite well. A fantastic week, I strongly recommend anyone who is into their whitewater and in the area to venture there.

Below is a photo I captured on my GoPro on the back of my kayak going down one of the rapids called Cucumber. For more photos from the whole of my trip, like my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/HARTridethestorm

Stephen Forster Photo Submission

I recently entered one of my favourite photos into the Stephen Forster Photo Challenge. My photo was posted on Bomb Flow Magazine's website which I'm quite pleased about with it being one of the leading media drivers on the white water kayaking scene at the moment.

http://www.bombflow.com/archives/stephen-forster-film-photo-challenge-premiers-at-the-teva-mountain-games

Last Post of Second Year

Well that flew by. Last Friday saw me hand in my last piece of work for the second year of my degree. The piece was a 10minute film (link below). I'm not particularly proud of the final piece as it was a last ditch attempt at getting a grade as my original plans to make a whitewater kayaking film ended up failing due to plans falling through and not creating solid enough links with the Carlisle Canoe club YET. My film "follows CRAIG CHARTERS and GAVIN HART's week long mountain biking expedition around the Seven Stanes of Scotland." 

However its the summer now and am looking forward to working as a paddling and climbing instructor in the USA! So keep up-to-date on here and my facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/HARTridethestorm )  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2BM96GoL9M 

Yeeeeehhhhaaarrrrr

I've spent the last few days securing my visa for working in the USA. I should now be able to work out there over the summer now. Super excited.

My friend also finished editing his film this week that I helped film. A film about how Miles Hickey is dealing with being diagnosed with cancer and his adventures in the outdoors. The film is on Youtube at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwd9xJ60AXU&feature=youtu.be&a

Rheged Exhibition #2

This morning I helped frame and mount photos at the Rheged centre. The exhibition is called "Into the Wild" appropriate as the photos were all taken by adventure/wildlife and media students from my University. Below is a photo of the main wall of photos and me next to my favourite of mine.

Broken

On a personal level I've had a eventful past week. I firstly managed to get out kayaking on three occasions the later resulting in a broken nose on Friday 20th. I managed to take a smiley picture when I was checking my teeth were all there, which they are. It was then my 21st Birthday which was excellent. The morning after my 21st I was filming Adam Hocking, one of the UK's top rock climbers with university. I was still quite wobbly when dangling on ropes on the crag but it quickly cleared my hangover. We also spent some time setting up and using a tyrolean traverse. Haven't seen any of that footage yet. Then on Thursday 26th I had a check up appointment at the hospital to decide the fate of my nose. I then ended up having an operation that night resulting in me staying over. I then had further operation the following day to try and sort my nose and returned home in the evening with vital painkillers.

Rheged Exhibition

Had a bit of luck with some more photos in a competition this week. My photos were selected to be shown in the Rheged Centre along with other photos from students studying on either the Adventure and Media or Wildlife and Media courses across all years. Students were allowed to enter one photo into each of the three categories which were available. I entered three photos and had all three selected to be shown, must be doing something right.

The three categories and my photos were...

 Adventure

Landscape

Wildlife

This is my blog

Just to make people who view this blog aware.

For more frequent updates on what is happening in with HART ride the storm. 

Visit http://www.hartridethestorm.co.uk/contact.html for easy links to Follow and Like HART ride the storm. 

River Swale

On Friday this week I did some filming of my friends kayaking on the River Swale for my 10minute film project for uni. I also managed to take some photos which worked out quite well here is a sequence of shots I edited together to show Pete's line down the Upper Kisdon drop. I'm thinking of getting it printed as I believe its one of my best pieces recently. If the second and third pictures of Pete had been a split second apart would have been even better to reduce the slight overlap of his arm.

Uni and Skiing

Not a lot has been happening for me recently mainly been completeing university assignments. However the pressure to do them has eased off slightly and last week I went on a short trip to Gleenshee Ski area with a few friends. The snow wasnt the best but enough to have a good time. I have also recently updated my website http://www.hartridethestorm.co.uk/ on there you can also find links to my Twitter and Facebook.

Below are two snapshots from video captured on my GoPro suckerd to my friends snowboard.

Return to Uni

A bit behind but I returned to uni on the 8th of January to ice-climbing, mountaineering, ice axe breaking and all that other dull stuff you have to do normally.

I tested out my GoPro in the chilly weather we had for three days up in the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. The highlight of the three days was constantly being told by our leader Stuart from climb365, "don't fall now else you will die". This encouragement made it an incredibly exhilarating few days. Below is a photo captured on my GoPro after having climbed up one of the snow filled gullys which was about 350m high at plus 60degrees.

*New* Portfolio Website

Hello admittedly things have been quite slow on the blogging, photography and video side of things at the moment. However i have been creating a new portfolio website I am quite proud of.

To see it visit    http://www.hartridethestorm.co.uk/

Make sure to visit the Contact page to follow links to my Facebook and Twitter pages after of course looking at some of what I believe are some of my best photos.

Lock Shiel, Scotland Expedition Snaps

Fabulous creative media doesn't seem to be flowing at the moment so finally tweaked a few photos from our expedition to Lock Shiel, Scotland. Not the best photos with major over-expose in the sky due to the clouds, but a great expedition. Short video will get put together some time soon hopefully but has moved down the list of priorities.

Tyne Tour

Spent the day at the Tyne Tour event today. I feel I can say I was the producer and director with Ellie Percival on this one, filming to create a promotional video for the event. Most filming was done by our technical team, third years Jack and Steve who actually knew how to use the twenty grands worth of filming equipment the uni lent to us. Hopefully something will come of the footage. Which is planned to be edited on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also to be edited together is the Canoe trip in Scotland which was fantastic.

There Will Be Kayaking Ahead

The weekend just gone I spent at an event called Pyranha Fest organised by the kayak moulding company Pyranha. The event involved mass paddlers (Kayaking people) and their boats (Kayakers refer to their kayaks as boats.) converging on the River Tyweryn in Wales. This grade 3 river was a fantastic kick start motivator for myself, although slightly late as its starting to get chilly, but has made me dream of the potential kayaking mayhem the future could hold for myself. For the event I found my wallet and purchased my first new paddle a Werner Desperado good quality blades that I used first time at the festival they definitely float and I've nearly lost them four times already but luckily I have good friends to pick them up. Also finalised a price on my own kayak this week one year old Fluid Detox M which I'm very eager to get out and use... Lets go!