I was pleased to get two opportunities this week to photograph triumphant PLA teams who both come first in their respective competitions.

The first photo shoot down at Denton was with the guys (& Sam the passenger) from the rowing team who’d come come first in the Port of London Challenge, rowing the new cutter ‘Centurion’. It was the first time PLA had won the race since it was started in 1996 by Betty Boothroyd, the then Speaker of the House of Commons. The photos were taken during the lunch-hour on Monday and it’s hard to believe that the guys were keen to get back to work rather than have their picture taken ... but then sanity returned,  as soon as they got on the river with the sun and cool breeze they wanted to stay there all afternoon. It was a bit of a challenge to take the photos in bright sunlight but I was happy with the results. My favourite photos are the ones with the oars the air. Typical ... when the team saw the all the photos the next day they were more concerned with their technique, who was in time and the position of their backs ... and I thought they’d be more interested in analysing the quality of the photographs!

The other winning team were the guys who’d won the MCA Challenge in the waters off Southampton and the Isle of Wight earlier in the year.  Due to various tales of woe the (now) PLA engraved trophy had only just arrived for the team to get their hands on and there was more woe to come ... firstly the trophy, which was in the shape of a sailing boat, had a mishap shortly before the shoot (the mast fell off!) and then as we gathered by Royal Terrace Pier it became obvious that one of the crew had worn the wrong shirt (shock horror) ... how was Captain Ed going to cope with one of his shipmates improperly dressed? ... answer ... with the help of Doug and a bit of technology ... I’ll say no more.

Now,  having photographed two winning teams I thought that it was about time I was in a winning team so I took the first opportunity ... which was walking with the PLA’s Float in the Northfleet and Gravesend Carnival Procession and preparing myself for us coming first as the best commercial vehicle. But, shock horror, we came second! ... last year we won it because we were the only commercial vehicle - this year they must have given first to the other commercial float. Still we had a good walk, waved at plenty of people and reflected that it would be nice if the Lord Mayor’s show was in the summer! I only took a few photos whilst we walked along, most of which didn’t warrant uploading to the blog, but they do show a few people turned out to see us along Gravesend High street and also there’s a photo of Lee, the engineer responsible for designing and building the float, sitting on a wall! I’ve been working with Lee on the design of our new Lord Mayor’s Show Float and I’m really excited about what we plan to do ... watch this space.

last Sunday I decided it would be a good time to take a panoramic picture of the front at Gravesend, taken from Tilbury. The light was just about right in the late evening but what I hadn’t banked upon was that my software couldn't deal with 36 hi-res photos stitched together, however, I eventually reduced it to 24 lo-res and I got a great result with the Gravesend river-front looking unusually good! Hopefully I’ll find a way or displaying he photo in it’s full glory on the website.

Whist I was at Denton, after taking the Rowing Team photos, I had a wander around and took some  pictures of buoys, chain, boats, cranes, the old Shornemead lighthouse etc  all of which looked good in the bright sun.

And finally a bunch of odds and sods ... a Comma butterfly,  Dragonflies mating, a grasshopper (or is at a cricket?) found in the house, the Prinsendam back in at Tilbury ... etc  etc .. all in all a good week for photography!