The temperature and air pressure dropped rapidly that day. One minute we were sunning ourselves, the next we were running for cover. A very British summer indeed!

Often in life the most exciting things come for free. Jumping is one of those things. Here is a picture of my boy discovering the Joy of Jumping.

This post is inspired by my favourite jumping-related photoblog: Jump Fly Leap.

I’ve just won the “Newbie” challenge on the Pentax SLR forum at DPReview on only my second attempt! Forget cash prizes, there’s nothing better to me than peer-recognition. The winning picture was taken of my son flying his kite.

Russ Houston made some perceptive comments about the picture: “I … suspect that Ed didn’t take this picture thinking of winning a contest, but knew how to crop it to make it into a winner”. Well, that is indeed the case.

Here is the rather lacklustre original…

… and here is confirmation of the result.

I was lucky enough recently to spend a weekend in Bangkok. One of the must-see spectacles in this city is Muay Thai, otherwise known as Thai Boxing, at the Lumpini Stadium. Before each bout the boxers perform the Wai Khru dance as a homage to their teachers. This is accompanied by a brass band who play constantly throughout the evening; the tempo and volume of their music matching the action in the ring. Each bout consists of five rounds of three minutes each and the winner is judged on their demonstration of technical skills, although obviously, the more hurt and tired your opponent is, the less technically able they will be. The overwhelming sensation of the evening was noise: noise from the crowd, noise from the band and above all of that, the thwack and accompanying exhalation of air as the kicks and punches hit their target.

Here’s my favourite picture. It was difficult taking pictures there due to low light and fast action, so I tried various combinations of flash and wide aperture to avoid camera shake. I think this one was a mistake as I don’t remember purposefully using red-eye reduction as an effect, but I think that is what is going on here. If I knew it would produce this staggered movement I would have taken more like it.