{"id":557,"date":"2010-10-02T19:53:25","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T19:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/?p=557"},"modified":"2016-12-19T09:34:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T09:34:47","slug":"be-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2010\/10\/be-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Be there"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last thing I wanted to do is to start writing about gear, especially camera gear since the web is now surely beyond saturation point with that kind of stuff. However, I do confess to being partial to the occasional gadget from time to time, the latest one being the\u00a0Suunto Core<\/a> wrist-top computer that woke me up at 5:00 yesterday morning with an ominous storm warning. As well as a barometer\/altimeter, it also has a compass and sunrise\/sunset times, which makes it great for landscape photography.<\/p>\n

Ironically, one of the reasons I bought it is that I’ve lost faith in electronic gadgets in general. After being seriously let down by my iPhone on a variety of occasions, I’ve come to view it as something of a bonus when these things work rather than anything to be taken for granted. It seems to me that the more complex and all-powerful devices become, the more they develop an uncanny ability to let you down when you need them most. The Suunto does a handful of things and it seems to do them well, so I feel it is a bit different.<\/p>\n

One thing that I do use quite a bit on the iPhone is WeatherPro<\/a>, an excellent and really quite accurate source of information that doesn’t seem readily available elsewhere. As an example, I found a small window of opportunity this morning (Saturday) to get some photography done before another band of rain, quite possibly triggering another Suunto storm warning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, the truth is that even with all the gadgets in the world, you still need to get out there, which brings to mind the wonderfully anti-gear maxim “f\/8 and be there”. It’s both amusing and depressing to see how many people on the internet seem to get hung up over the “f\/8” part.<\/p>\n

“Be there” can also be interpreted in another sense with landscape photography, since chance plays such a part that it often pays to be open to the idea of serendipity and to be receptive to the opportunities that do present themselves. Sometimes it pays to abandon preconceptions in favour of what the landscape wants to say.<\/p>\n

Even with this in mind, it surely makes sense to find ways to stack the odds in our favour; to improve the chances of being there. That is the real purpose of the gadgets and iPhone apps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last thing I wanted to do is to start writing about gear, especially camera gear since the web is now surely beyond saturation point with that kind of stuff. However, I do confess to being partial to the occasional gadget from time to time, the latest one being the\u00a0Suunto Core wrist-top computer that woke… Continue reading Be there<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[15,14,13,8],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/RG-20101002-020.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2008\/11\/the-top-of-the-falls\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":0},"title":"The top of the falls","date":"Saturday 29 November 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Around a month or so either side of the winter solstice, the rising sun finds its way straight up the small valley behind the village of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. The valley itself is unremarkable, and the single track road that undulates and twists its way along the northern flanks would be little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "places"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/RG-20081129-026.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":854,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2011\/10\/living-in-the-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":1},"title":"Living in the moment","date":"Friday 14 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"An unfortunate incident over the summer spelled the end for my iPhone, and with it a communication route that for the past few years I had pretty much taken for granted. For the first few days, managing without it felt like the metaphorical losing a limb, but sitting in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "thoughts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/RG-20110930-014.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":430,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2009\/08\/the-end-of-summer\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":2},"title":"The end of summer","date":"Saturday 22 August 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, summer seems to have blasted past what with one thing and another. I've been pretty busy, seeing friends and family, and\u2014after watching this tutorial\u2014embarking on a surprisingly time consuming project to improve the keywording of my image catalogue. Hardly exciting, I know, but it needed to be done. Photographically\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "thoughts"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Dernol-valley.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":500,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2010\/04\/spring-is-in-the-air\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":3},"title":"Spring is in the air","date":"Tuesday 20 April 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a while since I've written here mainly because photography-wise the past few months haven't been ideal. Maybe I've been unlucky but attractive light seems to have been a scarce commodity recently, and this alone has stopped me producing much that I've been happy with. The heavy snowfalls haven't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "places"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/RG-20100411-077.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":562,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2010\/12\/scotland-the-wild-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":4},"title":"Scotland : The Wild Places","date":"Wednesday 22 December 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"At the end of a long single-track road on Skye is a tiny fishing village called Elgol and a small beach where every landscape photographer in Britain\u2014and these days they are legion\u2014will, it seems, eventually stand. I've done it myself. Twice. Usually taken at sunset or dusk, the view from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/RG-20101222-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/2009\/01\/source-of-the-severn\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":5},"title":"Source of the Severn","date":"Saturday 10 January 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I must admit, I\u2019ve been quite enjoying what the media seem to have termed the \u201cBig Freeze\u201d, and this afternoon I decided to take a trip up the Severn Way to the source of the Severn. From this small peaty pool, marked with a single wooden post, the river Severn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "places"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/RG-20090110-014.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/1370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edgeofthewild.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}