mayhewblog.com » new

New Year’s Day

Jonathan — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:17:11 +0000

We love walking around downtown Portsmouth. The city has plenty of New England charm and beauty. Last night was the traditional “First Night” celebrations and outside the North Church were ice sculptures. So while everyone else nursed their New Years hangovers, we grabbed coffees from Popovers and took a walk around town.

A Day in the Life New Hampshire

Jonathan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:13:46 +0000

On 9/9/09 WMUR asked people to take photos around the state to build up a profile of a day in the life of New Hampshire. Over 9000 photos were submitted and a selection were featured on a special edition of New Hampshire Chronicle on Tuesday September 9th. I contributed 4 images from nearby Portsmouth, NH and one of them was featured on the show! Here is the image and a short video clip:

mayhew.it becomes mayhewblog.com

Jonathan — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:35:29 +0000

Today mayhew.it changes name to mayhewblog.com. All other aspects of the site remain the same.

The .it top level domain belongs to the country Italy but a few years back I registered mayhew.it for the purpose of creating a tech site (IT in this case standing for Information Technology rather than Italy). The tech site never happened and I started to host my personal blog here prior to my move to America.

Keene Pumpkin Festival

Jonathan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:18:00 +0000

This weekend we attended the 2008 Keene Pumpkin Festival! The festival is held annually in Keene, NH and has beaten the world record for the most lit pumpkins 8 times since the first festival in 1991. This year the final lit pumpkin count was 22,568.

Here are some pictures I took at the festival:

The theatre was showing free cartoons all day:

Columbus Day Weekend

Jonathan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:25:45 +0000

The weather for Columbus Day weekend was perfect. We took the opportunity to spend the entire weekend outside visiting a variety of locations.
On Friday morning we made our way to the west of the state near Keene, NH. This weekend was the peak weekend for the New England foliage which made every direction we looked in, that much more impressive. Saturday we drove to Walpole and to a delightful chocolate shop and café called Burdicks. We stopped for coffee and a pastry before buying some chocolates in the shop.

We spent the rest of the day driving around and visiting various farm/cheese shops. We also visited Alyson’s Orchard to buy some apples. Later on we also went to Bellows Falls, VT and purchased a ticket for the scenic train ride to Chester for tomorrow morning.

When we got home we went for a little walk and discovered a frightened looking racoon at the back of the garage!

On Sunday we made our way back to Bellows Falls railway station for our scenic train ride up to Chester, VT. It was a perfect day for weather and the scenery from the train was spectacular. The train travels along the Connecticut and Williams rivers and provides views of the Brockway Mills Gorge including two covered bridges and a waterfall.
Below is a video and some pictures from the journey.

Following the scenic train ride we had a Chinese buffet and then returned to the house for a 4 mile walk through the woods exploring old cellar holes and hoping for a glimpse of some deer. The trees lining the walk were very pretty. We saw deer tracks but no deer on this occasion.

On Monday (Columbus Day) we headed back to the seacoast area.

Barack Obama in Dover, NH

Jonathan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:41:47 +0000

Barack Obama made a stop in Dover, NH this morning at the McConnell Center to talk about taxes. I took a walk downtown at 11am to see if I could grab a photo of the democratic candidate. A few hundred people were outside the McConnell Center awaiting his arrival. I was stood out front at first but a few minutes before he was due to arrive we were ushered round to the back of the building in time to see his motorcade arrive. Unfortunately one of his buses obstructed the view of the entrance and about 10 minutes later we were moved back to the front of the building! By this time it was past noon and his speech was supposed to have begun but to our surprise he had not left his vehicle yet and before entering the building he came right over to greet the crown where I was standing. After a frantic change of lens from my 70-300mm to my 17-85mm I was able to get a number of good photos of the possible future president, I even got to shake his hand!

Here are some of the photos I captured:

New camera bag

Jonathan — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:35:48 +0000

It’s time for a camera bag upgrade. My current bag is the Lowepro Orion II which I got almost two years ago for subscribing to Practical Photography magazine. It’s an excellent bag comprising of a section at the bottom for my DSLR and lenses and a very roomy top section which houses my many gadgets and their associated cables and chargers!

The main reason for upgrading is the layout of the camera section of the bag. The DSLR and attached lens is right at the bottom of the bag which does not allow for much protection of the camera when you set the bag down. Many a time I have had to work my finger nail around the underneath of the lens cap to prize it away from where it has wedged itself inside the lens filter.

The bag I decided on is the ‘Lowepro Fastpack 200′ which addresses the issue explained above by housing the camera towards the centre of the bag (see image). It also allows for easy side entry access to my camera. The specification on the Lowepro website describes room for “1 DSLR with mid-range zoom lens attached, plus 1-2 extra lens or flash units, audio player and lots of room for personal gear”. This is ideal for me as I have two extra lenses aside from the one attached plus plenty of “personal gear”.

I bought it from Amazon for £51.85 which is quite a bit cheaper than my preferred supplier, Warehouse Express. It arrives this week, in time for our trip to the Lake District where I intend to put it through its paces!

The Lowepro Fastpack 200 at Lowepro.com