Twenty Five Years
of Island Images - April 2000 - 2024
    
    
    
    
    
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18/4/25
We've been away for
around five weeks and arrived back last Wednesday to a cloudy and wet island.
The following day however, the sun was out and winds light so I decided
to take one of the drones out for some aerial photography, with the first
flying location being at St John's.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 17/4/24
   
    
  
  
19/3/25
My second stop on Thursday's
outing was to do some test pictures for a commission that I'd received
whilst I was away. The brief was to shoot a set of pictures to be
used as a backdrop for a model railway construction featuring the Manx
Northern Railway Peel Road station at Poortown. Although being interested
in model railways myself, I'd never tried doing this before, so it may
take another flight before I get what the client is really looking for.
These are jut a few normal pictures of the station area, plus the stitched
linear panorama for the backdrop, finishing with a 360 degree panorama.
The linear panorama covers way more than will be actually needed (I think!).
There is more information
and a good photo of the station buildings on the 'Disused Stations' website
Here.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 17/4/25
    
After shooting the Peel
Road pictures, I had time and batteries left, so after a quick consult
of the tide tables I decided to head down to Niarbyl.
DJI Mini 4 Pro
17/4/25
    
  
21/4/25
From time to time I
shoot aerial pictures for local publishing company Loaghtan
Books, they've even published a small book just of my early aerial
shots, 'Man
with Altitude'! Whilst I'm shooting their pictures I'll usually
try and do some for the website as well. Yesterday morning I was
getting some shots of the former Falcon Cliff Hotel to go into a future
edition of their 'Past and Present' series of books and shot this panorama
from overhead Douglas Beach. If the technology had been available
and this panorama had been shot in the late 1800s, it would have included
two magnificent ballrooms, The Palace and the Falcon Cliff, with another
just visible at Derby Castle down at the far end of the promenade.
Sadly, all were demolished, the Falcon Cliff one didn't last into the 1900s,
but the Palace Ballroom was only demolished in the early 1990s.
DJI Mini 4 Pro
20/4/25
After shooting the Falcon
Cliff pictures, I continued to my main destination of the morning, the
Manx
Aviation and Military Museum at Ronaldsway, to visit the restored BAe
ATP aircraft, that has just been opened for public viewing at weekends.
Owing to the continued shortage of qualified air traffic controllers at
Ronaldsway, there was a 'window of opportunity' to get some aerial shots
between 11:00 and 11:35 when the airport was closed, and after checking
with ATC I was able to shoot the first section of pictures here, before
having a look around the aircraft. Ivor, Mark and the team have done
an amazing job of restoring an aircraft that was basically just waiting
to be scrapped and a gutted shell. It had also been converted into
a freighter (although without the big cargo door fitted to others) and
had to be restored to a passenger layout.
DJI Mini 4 Pro &
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 20/4/25
    
    
   
22/4/25
On Sunday afternoon
we went to Peel, had a stroll around and finished with some lovely ice
cream from Gelatory
there!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
20/4/25
    
    
    
23/4/25
Yesterday morning I
was out in the Douglas area, shooting some more aerial pictures for Loaghtan
Books. The first location was at Douglas Head and I took the opportunity
of the nice weather to shoot some pictures for the website whilst the drone
was in the air!
DJI Mini 4 Pro 22/4/25
    
    
 
After shooting the Douglas
Head pictures, I moved on to the second location requested by Loaghtan.
This involved flying over the outer harbour area.
I didn't shoot any conventional
pics for the website but did do two 360 degree panoramas.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 22/4/25
 
25/4/25
I hadn't created any
videos for quite a while, apparently since January, so on Tuesday afternoon
I had a visit to the lovely Ballaglass Glen, hoping to find the Bluebell
in bloom. I think that I was a week or so too early, there were some but
no a lot. Anyway, I enjoyed shooting and editing the video, you can view
it by clicking the button!
DJI Osmo Pocket 3
22/4/25
I'd seen photographs
of the bright yellow fields of Oil Seed Rape growing north of Jurby on
Facebook, so I set out yesterday afternoon to try and capture them from
the air. I did try shooting a panorama, but the breeze was just too strong
for the mini drone and DJI Fly app and it gave up after just a few shots.
DJI Mini 4 Pro
24/4/25
   
    
26/4/25
Yesterday afternoon
I decided that I needed some fresh air and exercise, but as it was mid
afternoon I had to choose somewhere reasonably close at hand and settled
on Laxey. I started my walk at the Laxey Glen Gardens (that aren't
actually in Laxey Glen!) and then walked along side the Glen Roy River
before returning.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
25/4/25
    
    
    
    
    
    
28/4/25
Regular website visitors
may have noticed that I bought a new phone in January and have been using
it quite often for website pictures. Compared to the one I had before
it's very versatile and has a selection of focal lengths (zoom) available.
Yesterday afternoon I decided to do a test of the pre-set zoom distances,
looking across Douglas Bay from the Steve Hislop memorial on the headland
by Port Jack. The pictures here are the result, not really a technical
evaluation as the pictures have been downsized to my usual website values,
and after the first two the levels and saturation edited to try and reduce
some of the effects of haze over the distance of around a mile and a half
from my location to the lighthouse. I've appended the EXIF data to
the individual pictures for my photographer friends. Focal lengths
are 35mm equivalent.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
27/4/25
 
    
Whilst shooting the
test pictures from the other side of the bay, I noticed that there were
a lot of people walking on the beach and realised that it must be the RNLI
Tower of Refuge walk. This is organized when there is a suitably
low tide and provides full safety cover for the walkers, plus raising money
for the RNLI. I decided to drive down to the Sea Terminal to get
some pictures from there, including two panoramas shot using different
techniques.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
27/4/25
   
29/4/25
A trip out yesterday
afternoon to visit a few businesses around Douglas ended up with us finding
a parking space on the Promenade for a bit of shopping in town. I
just shot these phone pictures on arrival and then a couple of times later
when we were back at the car. I was just lucky on the timings for
the Steam Packet sailings!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
28/4/25
    
     
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