I turned around and one of the two baby goslings had fallen and managed to wedge himself stuck in a tight gap. Not distressed at this point, but very clearly stuck.

 The Egyptian goose family had been walking up a ramp after a morning swim a few moments before when I’d last seen them.

So I’m assuming the young 2-3 week old gosling who can’t fly yet decided to take a short cut – somehow trying to jump the gap between the ramp out of the water and the side:

The gosling tried his best to escape but couldn’t un-wedge himself. Mother goose then approached cautiously, but looked rather confused and unsure what to do other than quack even more territorially than she has been.

Baby gosling at this point was getting fed up and squawked loudly for father goose to come and help him.

Father goose joined them, but other than quack aggressively and puff his feathers, the Egyptian goose parents did nothing but stare. 

I tried to get close and help, but Egyptian geese can be aggressive at the best of times, so with an increasingly distressed gosling, things were getting tricky as they didn’t want me anywhere near them.

Next to Shadwell Basin Activity Centre, I thought a kayak paddle might help, so a minute later I returned with a very helpful member of staff equipped with a kayak paddle.

But in the time I’d been gone, the gosling had freed himself, falling safely into the water below. The rest of the Egyptian goose family had got down to join the gosling and they were swimming along happily.

Peace didn’t last long though and resident rivals, the swans couldn’t resist an opportunity to try to catch the young goslings.

The kayake paddle was put to good use, separating the swans and they eventually swam off, looking rather put out.

The two goslings, together again came to the ramp, got out of the water and pruned themselves for what must have been the third time in half an hour.

Looking as cute as ever, the little gosling who had no visible injuries other than a few scuffs to the back of his legs, stretched his tiny wings and wandered off. All this before 9am, what a morning!

Many thanks to Shadwell Basin Activity Centre in Wapping for helping out so quickly – please check them out at www.shadwell-basin.org.uk.

That’s what I was told yesterday, 27th March, just before 11am by the Mace construction site banksman whilst I was taking a photograph of the top of the 60m south cable car tower at the O2 in Greenwich:

Rollers at the top of the south Thames cable car tower

Photographs of the Thames cable car are not allowed

Why? I was standing on the pavement of East Parkside which is just outside the Mace construction site entrance.

I explained I was in a public place and was allowed to take photos but the banksman  would only elaborate to add “management say no photos” and “No, no photos, people have been taking advantage of it”. 

After a minute or so of getting nowhere, he had to deal with a lorry entering the site so I finished taking the photographs I wanted, then short for time, left, having already planned to go back when the light was better.

The white south tower I was photographing in North Greenwich by the way is 60 meters high and will weigh about 568 tonnes when it’s finished. It’s the tallest and the only one of the three cable car towers that is built in the Thames itself. It’s huge and you can’t miss it!

North and intermediate cable car towers – as seen across the river from North Greenwich

The right to take photographs from public places

Everyone has a right to take photographs from public places, but there are more and more people like this banksman (and his management) who just decide to make up the law.

As I was leaving North Greenwich I tweeted to @phnat that I’d just been told I couldn’t take photos of cable car construction from the pavement.

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist (phnat) are campaigning against this sort of nonsense which continues to infringe on the basic rights of anyone with a camera – especially big ones! Please visit their website at www.photographernotaterrorist.org to find out more.

Phat retweeted my original tweet and I’m extremely grateful to both them and everyone who replied or contacted me – all confirming we have a right to take photographs from public places. It’s not the first time I’ve been stopped in a public place and unfortunately for many of us, I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The construction of Emirates Air Line crossing (aka cable car) is such a significant part of London 21^st century construction history.

But as phnat say, photography is under attack and risks becoming a part of that history, rather than helping us to record it.

I’ve always loved the brightly coloured lights on each of the floor sections. They look their most stunning at night when you can really see all the tiny detail in the huge construction.

Top of The London Shard & tower crane at night – 11th March 2012

The light on the tower crane wasn’t pointing in a particularly helpful direction yesterday, but after wandering around Wapping for a while I managed to find a reasonable angle. And it’s certainly looking like there’s not far to go now…

Top of The London Shard & tower crane at night – 18th November 2011

Compare this to a similar photograph taken on 18th November 2011 when many of the glass windows weren’t in place and the coloured lights and structure were even more clearly visible:

“Alreet to Shardie!”

Love it or not, The Shard must be one of London’s most photographed buildings already and it’s not even complete.  For more information see the official website www.the-shard.com or just search google.

Personally, I’m with @AlreetYorkshire who tweets on a very regular basis: “Alreet to Shardie!”.

Having gone for a late night walk with friend and fellow Wappingite Mark Baynes I’d already got cold hanging around as he took his gorgeous picture of the canal under snow which you can see here. And Mark here in action with snow flurries coming very down hard around him – courtesy of my iPhone (which I’m rapidly growing to love again).

My local bridge – Tower Bridge

We walked onto Tower Bridge through St Katharine Docks – a private estate where big cameras or tripods aren’t allowed.

The snow was now coming down really hard and as we looked up at Tower Bridge it almost disappeared behind the snow. I took a quick iPhone pic and it looked awesome, so I decided this was my picture for the night …but freezing cold and with the tripod patrol out in force, it’s not that easy.

The answer? Borrow a nice 16-35mm f2.8 lens from your good friend, get the camera ready under cover out of the snow, then point, shoot and disappear as fast as possible.

Just as we decided enough was enough and that tea was calling, the St Katharine Docks dolphin fountain caught my eye – it looked so pretty with Tower Bridge disappearing behind it.

This is the same photo everyone takes, but that night it looked gorgeous and really soft because of the snow falling – so this was my second point and shoot of the night:

Yes, they’re a bit noisy because of the lack of tripod and dark, bad weather. Also taken at -1EV to avoid a silly ISO, but I think that both kind of add to the snow effect and atmosphere.

Total time to change lens and take pictures: 1 minute. Time to process in Lightroom: 30 seconds.

Job done and I’m pleased with the results – more so as I managed to get a couple of Tower Bridge pictures that have not already been taken hundreds of times before.

Oh and this post was very inspired by Baynes Media’s slackers guide to fireworks photos by the way (read that here).

Testing inserting image flash

Testing inserting gallery

So how exciting when the tower crane decided to join the festive spirit last night – and decorate itself in colourful tinsel and baubles:

Photoshop …what’s that?

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been involved in and even written first versions of countless websites for other people, but continually neglected my own. But starting today, 14th December 2011 my new website is officially under construction …

5th December 2011: looking at Waterloo Bridge and tower cranes from London's South Bank

The problem

If I just wanted a blog I’d settle on fully hosted wordpress.com or blogger. Easy to setup and if they break it’s not your problem – someone else will fix it!

I want more than a blog and need the functionality of a fully integrated photography site, as I’m increasingly spending a crazy amount of time fiddling with photos. Taking them is fun, but the rest most definitely isn’t.

A picture’s worth a thousand words. I’m a user and consumer of other peoples photos as well as being a photographer in my own right, so this is the plan:

Requirements

I have many photographs that I’ve either taken or have use of from someone else, so this is what I’m trying to achieve:

• Store photos in a single repository and avoid the need to upload them to multiple places
• Display photos in galleries, both here and on other websites and blogs
• Show photos either publicly or with restricted access and hidden from search engines
• Give people an easy and efficient way to order prints without me needing to be involved
• Give me an easy way to order prints for uses involving very large sizes and custom dimensions
• Make it hard for people to take and use photos without my permission
• It absolutely must be fast and easy to update and maintain 

If I was in the US it would be a lot easier, but the options, especially with printing for the UK are limited. I’ll be blogging about how I get there – partly to help anyone else with the same need and also to stop me giving up!

Inspiration

My friend and fellow Wappingite Mark Baynes is ongoing inspiration for all things web and photography related so please check him out at www.baynesmedia.com.

…to be continued.