The WeatherNet prize winners…..and a crowdfunding plea

Hello!

I thought it was about time I ought write a quick message to post the images that won me a few quid the other day and will feature on the 2016 WeatherNet desktop calendar. However, before I do, have you visited my last post to see the video of the whale? You should. Just scroll down a bit to the previous post and the link is there. Thanks.

Anyway, time’s a wasting. The two pictures that the judges chose are (once again, not the ones that I would have, but who am I to complain?!) in the first instance….

An Autumnal leaf, still with a fleck of Summer colour left on it….

…and then, this little fella. You can almost squint and see him shivering. Maybe.

Frozen mushroom anyone?

There you have it, I best make tracks and take some more images fit for next year hadn’t I?! My moment of fame is inching ever closer. Hmm, a likely story.

However, before I go I have a huge favour to ask you as my subbies, please read the bits below this, you may help launch a brand new product in doing so!

A little while ago, a friend of mine sent me a link for a product called a Tempescope, as she knew about my nerdy interest in the weather. This is, essentially, a slick, tangible, modern day barometer that interacts with a supplied app to show you physically the weather for your home town/area or even foreign climes if you wish. If you click on the link above, this is explained in much more detail with some impressive videos.

If you are even just a teeny bit interested in the weather (which we Brits famously are) why wouldn’t you want one?!

Right, now, the rub. This product is not yet a reality, but the gent who wishes to develop it, Ken Kawamoto, has start a crowdfund on Indiegogo which you can access and keep up to date with by clicking here. He is nearly 60% funded at the time of writing and the minimum amount you can pledge is a measly $5 (about £3.10) but you can opt to take up a “perk” and receive the product direct to you once it’s made! I have even contacted a weather science company who sees this as a possible marketing opportunity and may wish to support it….

Whats that? I can hear rumblings of “I’m not paying that for something that doesn’t exist”. Quite right, that would be silly. This is why you need to read the terms which clearly state that if the fund doesn’t attain a target, you get your money back.

What is there to lose?

Read the blog, watch the videos, look at the home page and the supporters and I hope that you might consider a pledge to make this a reality. I’m personally pledging to get a perk of the entire kit, I so want one!

Thanks for dropping by and listening, see you soon

More competition wins? Why, thank you!

As the above title would allude to, this post is veering somewhat off the recent topic as I had some recent news via email from those kind people at Weathernet.

As some of you who have followed this blog for a little while may know, I submit a number of weather related pictures ever year to this company to see if I can win £20 for them using an image on their calendar that they send to customers around the country (and maybe even THE WORLD…mwuhahaha). Anyway, I received an email the other day and I have again managed to make it into the calendar not once, but twice. As per usual, I wouldn’t have chosen the images they did but, hey, who am I to complain, £40 and a free copy of the calendar is pretty good for two pictures!

As I say, this post is off topic for those of late, but please find below the two images that they chose. Before anyone asks, I’m unsure if I am Mr October/November/December or whatever on the calendar, I shall have to wait until it arrives in the post. Firstly, a little spiders tent, covered in dew….

Luckily, to keep up appearances, the grass had been cut just days before!

And lastly, a close up of some hailstones I took after a quick shower in the Autumn. I suspect it was the cousins of these little blighters that did for the bumper on my car last year too….

Nowhere near the size of the hail in the US, but still hard and noisy

There we are, a competition winner again. I still don’t think I could win anything too much more technical than this though, if only for the fact that the “proper” landscape photographer needs a wide-angle lens and the cheapest I have seen is around £500! Second-hand. I know where to aim my talents and this is just fine by me.

Thanks for dropping in, see you soon.

Again with the WeatherNet prize

Whatto!

Just a short one this time, mainly to boast of my second year running winning of a prize from WeatherNet on t’interweb for one of my fab weather themed photos. Some of you may remember the grizzle I had not so long ago saying I can’t have won anything…yeah, kind of ignore that. There’s my impatient streak showing. It appears that the mad British weather of late (it’s been so windy my sailing was cancelled due to risk of watery accidents) has kept them occupied and I only got the email a week or so ago.

I’m beginning to get a theme from what wins moolah now too, as this new image is more of an effect of the weather, rather than the stuff I really like such as rainbows, storm clouds and all that shizzle. No matter, I shall be a whopping £20 richer for it and I will be able to my some hi-viz gear so I can go riding at dusk without being run down. Seems I’m darker in my stuff than I thought, according to my Dad!

Talking of Dad, he was the one who suggested I send this picture, so special thanks to him and I may have enough change for a coffee left out of the prize fund. Anyway, enough rambling, this is the pic…..

I wasn’t thinking of prizes when I took this image to be honest

For anyone interested, this was the dry cracked floor of a disused slate quarry in Scleddau, near Fishguard. I’m guessing but this may very well appear around the Summer months on the calendar, so I’m quite chuffed. Wonder if I can make it three in a row? I’m sure I can get something from the archive.

If any of you good people fancy a copy of the calendar, just go to the website at www.weathernet.co.uk and follow the instructions; I seem to recall you need to call a number to order one and I think the calendar is free, but you just pay a little more for the call.

Anyway, I shall now sign off to bask in the warmth of my photography talent….or something….but will be back in the near future with another post, where I shall be back to some weather phenomena.

See you soon I hope!