WES this year was, as always, excellent. We got access to many of the people we wanted to talk to, including sessions with the co-CEOs of RIM, talking about the future of Blackberry and the role of the smartphone in a connected contextual world. It's left me with a lot to think about and the inklings of a thesis I want to explore in articles and blog entries over the next few months.

WES, also, was self-contained, and we didn't leave the air-conditioned halls of the combined hotel and conference centre from the moment we arrived (escaping the dodgy taxi driver who stiffed us $30 while accusing us of under-paying) to the point nearly four days later where I had to go ask the folk at the rental car agency just how to release the parking brake on the mini-van they'd just upgraded us to (there's a lever above the foot pedal for the parking brake that releases it)...

So we drove west, across the narrow peninsula, to one of my favourite coastlines, the white soft beaches and azure seas of the sand keys of Florida's Gulf Coast.

Currently we're on Anna Maria Island, where I spent a pleasant sunset chatting to a local photographer and twitcher about the various sea birds that made their way along the beaches. Coal-black frigate birds drifted effortlessly overhead on long thin wings, while brown pelicans bobbed their way up and down, alternately skimming the waves and soaring.

The stars of the show were the skimmers, with their strange asymmetric beaks - the lower portion much longer than the upper - and their striking black and white plumage. It was when the beaks hit the water that you could see why they were shaped the way they were. Open-mouthed the skimmers shot across the surface of the waves, leaving a wake as they aimed to catch fish swimming just below the surface.

Alone they were impressive, in formation they were amazing. Banking sharply they wove around each other, all the while skimming the waves.



If you're ever in Florida, this part of the Gulf Coast is well worth the two hour drive from the tourist hotspots of Orlando.

Parakeet flying over Richmond Park. The aliens among us squawk and screech their torrid affairs from the tree tops...

Richmond Park, London
May 2008

My 3,000^th image on Flickr comes from a walk through Richmond Park's Isabella Plantation at the height of the azalea season.



The park is one of my favourite places for photography, so it's fitting that it's the source of a milestone image.

Richmond Park, London
May 2008

A nicely atmospheric shot of Fort Ross, a 19th century Russian trading post on the Northern California coast, between Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg. It's a really rather beautiful, but very isolated place - but the sea otter pelts were tempting.

The day we were there, the whole of the place was being used by several families worth of Russian re-enactors, all in a mix of historical and modern dress. It was slightly odd watching a group of peasant children singing modern pop songs while using toy guns as air guitars.

Fort Ross, California
April 2008

marypcb at the Chandelier Tree in Leggett, California.

And yes, I did drive a car through it. And through another tree further up the Avenue of Giants. Yet more trips to Roadside Americana so you don't have to. Actually driving through a tree is pretty cool, and remember, P.J O'Rourke applies^*.

^*"There's lots of argument about what kind of car drives best. Some say a front-wheel drive car. Some say a rear-wheel drive. I say it's a rental car. There are things you can do with a rental car that are just impossible with any other kind of vehicle."

Fireworks over San Francisco Harbour

April 2008

Sunset over the dunes at Moss Landing.

The sky was an amazing colour, and as I walked up the dunes to take some photographs of the clouds, I saw a man on the path ahead of me. He stood, silhouetted against the orange sky, and I couldn't resist taking just one shot...

I've been using digital cameras for nearly 10 years now, and it's hard to remember the hassles of buying film and sending it off to be developed. I do remember trying to find the "Kodak moment", as I husbanded my way through the meagre 36 shot roll of 35 mm film in my OM 10.

Saturday afternoon we were on the Californian coast, in the little fishing village of Moss Landing, one of my favourite photography locations (and the fact that you can get a decent fish supper there doesn't hurt!). There were three sea otters in the harbour, one feeding by breaking mussels on a stone. Then there was the sea lion stunting with the surfers on the beach, in amongst the spectacular breakers. And after dinner the sky lit up with a spectacular sunset.

The grand total for the day? 292 images. That's the equivalent of more than 8 rolls of film in three or so hours. I hate to think what the processing would have cost! Now all I have to do is stick the 8GB SDHC card in my laptop, and the images are ready for me to edit and upload.

A fun few hours, and I got my halibut too...

Heart-shaped rockets explode high over San Francisco Bay. I never knew you could get fireworks this shape...

San Francisco, California
April 2008

Walking up the stairs to our room in a Santa Monica motel, we found ourselves standing by the shimmering neon of the welcoming MOTEL sign. I found the E somewhat more alluring than the rest of the sign. It might have been the jet lag, or it might have been that it was in just the right place for an interesting photograph.

Santa Monica, California
February 2008

With snow showers flurrying their way through London and the news forecasting direness for us all, here's some real wintry weather - snow covered mountains and bright winter skies near Lee Vining, the little town that sits on the western edge of Mono Lake.

The cirrus rainbow in this one is rather beautiful, especially the way it illuminates the rest of the cloud around it.



I rather like this second one, with the bright sun just behind a thin layer of cloud and contrails.



Mono Lake, California
March 2008

Mono Lake is one of those places you have to visit. The wide salt lake slops slowly under the shadow of the Sierras, the dense water damping the ripples left behind by the wind. At the edge of winter the snow still lies all around, leaving nothing but silence. Walking down the boardwalk to the lake you start to see the strange towers of the tufa pinnacles.



Some are still in the water, while others sit in the sagebrush. Left behind when Los Angeles stole the lake's sources and the water level dropped, the tufa are fossilised springs - the calcite crystallising as the cold fresh water met the saline solution of Lake Mono.

Many will disappear soon, as Mono begins to refill after a conservation campaign started to end much of the water extractions. It won't be to its 1940's height, but it will reduce the increasing salinity of the lake, returning an important ecosystem to the dry lands on the west of the Great Basin.

Lynx at San Diego Zoo.

San Diego, California
March 2008

Looking her most Michaelish, Pebble managed to squeeze herself into an empty space in the shelves by my desk.

A rusty fence runs off into the sunset, alongside a road somewhere in the hills between California's Central Valley and the coast.

It's cherry blossom time in the leafy streets around Putney. We may not have hanami here, but the fragile white flowers are a sign that spring is just around the corner...

One thing I look for in my photo-editing tools is the ability to produce large collages alongside traditional panoramas. After a little experimentation, I was pleased to find out that Windows Live Photo Gallery did just that (I suspect it uses the same stitching engine as the Expression family of professional design tools). I threw it at three images of the Canyon De Chelly, to get a bigger picture of just how the Anasazi folded their homes into the red rock walls of the canyon.

It seems to work quite well...

On our last full day in the US, we stood on the edge of the stormy Pacific and watched yet another storm system roll on to shore. The winds whipped up the waves, and torqued the gulls around the sky.

Pebble Beach, San Mateo, California
January 2008

A raven flies past the Antelope House petroglyphs in Canyon De Chelly, Arizona.

The canyon is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America, mixing modern Navajo farms with Anasazi ruins. It's also one of the most peacefully desolate places I've visited, made more so by the silence of a January desert snowfall. The red walls of the canyon dropped down to the flat fields of the floor, and the frozen meanders of an icy river.

More images in my Canyon De Chelly photoset on Flickr.

Canyon De Chelly, Arizona
January 2008

A dramatic (and high resolution) image of the Space Shuttle approaching the ISS.

Good desktop image material!

We spent yesterday at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I met this fine bird.





She's a Laysan Albatross, one of the North Pacific species. Sadly she's been injured so, can't fly.

Monterey Bay Aquarium
January 2008

...if a woodpecker could peck telegraph poles?



A woodpecker with a bright scarlet cap, seen on a pole in Paso Robles, outside the delightful Norman winery, home of the cracking Monster zinfandel. If you're nice to us we might just let you try some...

Paso Robles, California
January 2008

Raven in the mists.

Photographed near Keene, in the Tehachapi Mountains, California.
January 2008

In order to prepare for the swarming mass of humanity that is Vegas during CES, we first spent a few days in the still and the silence of the Arizona desert, exploring landscapes that had echoed through our reading.

One place we visited was Antelope Slot Canyon, on Navajo tribal land near Page. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, a narrow ribbon carved through twisted layers of sandstone, worn away by the wind and the dust. This is what nature's sandblaster can do, given a few million years.







We will be back, some spring day when the light is at its best.

All the best for 2008!