I had a long day on Sunday photographing the Virgin London Marathon for an excellent charity called Bliss who provides vital support and care to premature and sick babies across the UK.

My day started early in Greenwich park to get some shot of their runners both individually and as a group.  Then it was off to the Highway, near Shadwell, to join the first of the two Bliss cheering points where there were lots of supporters to encourage the runners.  The wheelchairs led the way, followed by the elite women then the elite men and finally the masses.  It was quite difficult to pick out the Bliss runners and get good photographs but I got better at it as the day progressed.

Next I moved from the Highway to the second Bliss cheering point on the Embankment near Cleopatra’s Needle to get some more photographs.  Again there was great support to provide that final encouragement to the runners to make those final miles to the finish in the Mall.  I have got some really good shots which I am now in the middle of post processing which is going to take me a few more days.

Thanks to all the Bliss staff and supporters for a great day … I hope that you will like the photos when you get them next week.

I have decided to enter National Geographic Traveler’s “The Great Outdoors Photo Contest” and have selected my photograph from the Moroccan Sahara.  There is a People’s Choice category so please vote for me and hopefully I might do quite well.

At the weekend, Helen and I took a trip down the River Thames to Greenwich.  The weather was perfect and it really felt like spring has arrived.  As always there seems to be loads to do after shooting – I have imported all my photos into Adobe Lightroom and have made the initial selection.

Now I have to make any adjustments that are necessary which I hope will be minimal but that depends on how good I was with the camera.  I don’t like to do much other than to make minor adjustments so that the image looks like I remember it!

On the software front, I am still waiting for Adobe to release Lightroom 3 which has a bunch of cool new features including better noise reduction which will be great for low light photography.  Yesterday saw the release of Adobe CS5 which has a mind-blowing number of different products and appears to be as expensive as ever.

I tested my new Blackrapid RS DR-1 Double Strap today but with only one camera. It very cleverly can be turned into a single camera strap which is how I used it today and I must say that it is very good. I feels very comfortable and allows you to get the camera from rest position to shooting very quicker. Great product and congratulations to Blackrapid.