England Netball v Australia - o2 Arena, London

With the series drawn, this match was the decider.............

I had to top up my oyster card to get across London, seems the last time my card got used was this time last year for the England v Jamaica test!

The atmosphere in the o2 is always good and tonight was no exception. It didn't seem as full as I would have expected but you couldn't tell by the amount of noise emanating from the netball fans.

Those that know me, know I am bad at remembering names. I get there in the end but I do struggle. Worrying then that I can name the England Netball Team and now most of the Aussie players too as they take to the court.

The match was amazing, especially the last 15 minutes, I don't think I have ever been so gripped by any sporting event ever. The levels of panic creeping in as Australia pulled back England's lead to draw lever and then inch ahead in the last few minutes. The hope in the last ditch surge by England to try and pull it back level, the final whistle.......

England lost and I was gutted, along with all the England fans and players for that matter.

Images of the 3rd match can be found here from page 8 onwards.

Enjoy

England Netball v Australia - Nottingham Trent FM Arena

Sunday saw me up in Nottingham to cover this match. The players were marking each other so closely it made it very hard to get some good shots.

Good in netball terms is defined as two players, in isolation, colliding mid air, looking at you with the ball in hand.

OK so those shots don't come along very often but when you get two teams playing at this International level the 'in isolation' bit is very hard to come by. There is always a random leg/hand or player in the shot somewhere.

Images from this match from page 4 onwards.

Enjoy

England Netball v Australia - Echo Arena Liverpool

Before we go any further, wooohooo, England beat Australia! In the last 52 matches played between these two netball nations, only twice have England ever beaten Australia. Here's hoping that they can capitalise on this win going into the next two matches of the test series.

Images from the match here

I got to test two new bits of kit at this match, Manfrotto monopod and Sandisk 8GB (45mb/s) CF card. 

The Monopod was/is great but it didnt get used, I didnt feel it gave me the freedom of movement I normally had. Daft statement I suppose when you think about it! I need to do some further testing at a less critical match. Find out if the reduction in freedom affects the quality/quantity of images captured.


Smoking is the only word to describe this Sandisk card. I have hit the camera/card buffer limit before and then watched as I missed shots waiting for the buffer to clear. That extra bit of transfer rate certainly made the difference last night when needed.

Busy Busy

It all started with a spot of netball superleague action on Saturday night in Walsall and I haven't stopped since.

The netball was great and even better still was the fact that the match was being played here in the West Midlands. Covering a match normally involves a few hours round trip, so a match up the road in Walsall was most welcome and not to be missed. Images from the game here

After much deliberation I spent some of my Christmas money on a Manfrotto 680B monopod for my camera. It should see some action next weekend with a bit of luck and I will let you know how I go.

Scantastic

I have finally finished scanning the 1st family album!

Whilst down in London for Christmas I started to peruse the family albums in depth. To cut a long story short, in a moment of madness, I decided to scan the whole album rather than the couple of images that took my fancy.

Some six weeks later, all 260 images have been scanned, a few tweaks to levels and they should be ready.

Its quite amazing to look beyond the people in the images, those curtains, that toy or piece of furniture in the background. All stirring memories of childhood moments that you had almost forgotten about but that now come flooding back.

Its been a mission but well worth the memories.

Finally a blog!

It had to happen sooner or later and it was later rather than sooner :)

Over the last few weeks I have been working through all my images and getting them 'online'. There is still quite a way to go but its looking promising so far.

Watch this space.