I went out on Sunday as I believed it was going to be the final opportunity after my knee procedure, which was carried out yesterday.

Although I was meant to be resting my legs I found it terribly boring sitting in front of the television, where nothing was on and decided to take my camera kit in the van down to the new forest to photograph a bridge surrounded by some of the most stunning colours I think I have seen in a long time.

Having had the surgery now yesterday! I today have spent the entirety editing the photographs and video for the blog which is due to go up this Saturday morning on my YouTube channel. (I’ll put a link below to the channel if you’re interested)

I’ll share one of the photographs on here to give you an idea of what I was able to capture, but I am not going to share with you the best images for that you will have to watch the Vlog! :)

http://www.YouTube.com/@paulwbakerphotography

New page added to the website of Herringfleet Mill in Norfolk.

West Pier in Brighton is unused and basically rotting away. It is a fantastic subject to photograph. Here are some of the images I took on my visit to Brighton. Click here to view the images.

I took the NIKON Z8 and the Nikon Z 105MM F2 .8 S lens out to the new forest area to do some macro photography. You may not buy some of these photographs that it is clearly not my strong point, but I would like to share some of those photographs with you now and I look forward to your feedback.

Click here to view the page.

Today I uploaded the images taken in the New Forest , Hampshire to the website. I have also included on that page a link to the Vlog if you would like to watch that. Just click here to go to the page.

My new Benro Geared Head has arrived today, I hope to be out with it later this week. I may add a review of it to the YouTube channel if you are interested.

The photographs taken in Poland, both Kraków and Auschwitz/Bernell have now been added to the website. You can access those by going through the menu Poland/Auschwitz – Birkenau.

We recently took a trip to Poland as I wanted to photograph Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau camps.

It is recommended when you go to visit and pay your respects in these places that you employ a guide so that you learn more whilst you’re there and obviously they know their way around.

We took their advice and went with a guide however being disabled, it was rather difficult to keep up and I missed a lot. The guide seemed to want to get the tour over and done with and was moving at pace and I personally believe missed a lot of the camp out.

I say this, as I have spoken to other people that I’ve taken the same tour and I’ve seen photographs of different areas of the camp, not included in our tour and facts that were given in the tour to others, not given to us.

Although the guide was informative, I have to say his ability as a guide, if that’s the right word, was found wanting. He clearly in my opinion, wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

I am not saying do not take a guide on these tours because I do believe it is required however I would suggest if you’re going to take a tour you return on a second day by yourself without a guide so that you can go around once again, looking at things that have probably been omitted from your tour for whatever reason that may be.

Today I found myself buying a smaller tripod, something I never thought I’d do. For years I’ve relied on sturdier, heavier tripods made by IFootage (I have 3) — reliable tools that give me confidence in all conditions. But the reality is, they’re getting harder and harder to carry onto a flight with all the restrictions now in place, we are also doing this as economy and therefore do not want to pay extra just to take a tripod on board especially on longer trips and when travelling light.

This new one is tiny. In fact, it’s so small that it will probably fit in my coat pocket. Made by Neewer, it extends to about 20 inches when fully set up, and when collapsed it’s only around 7 inches long. That’s a huge difference compared to what I’m used to.

The big question is reliability. With its light weight, I’m not expecting it to handle strong winds or heavier camera gear with ease. Still, it feels like a practical compromise, especially with a holiday coming up where portability is more important than anything else.

Will it stand up to the test in real-world conditions? Only time will tell. For now, it’s a handy little addition to my kit — not perfect, but perhaps exactly what I need for the kind of photography I’ve got planned.