It's not all about the bike!

I do have other interests in life off the bike. One is photography, and today I was passing some of that enthusiasm on to others.

Last Friday, the Garstang Walking festival started. A nine day long festival of walking and other outdoor activities based in and around Garstang, it encapsulates all that is good about this area of north Lancashire. Along with general walks in the countryside, the festival provides opportunities for people to try out different things, from dry-stone walling, bushcraft skills, to more technical stuff like geocaching and geology.

Today though, I led a walk aimed at helping people to improve their 'snapshots' with their digital cameras. Not an in-depth photographic course, but just a few fun hours exploring how simple techniques can make a big difference to your pics.

Helped by my friend and fellow photographer Lynn, we started off with an hour or so in the cafe at Cobble Hey Farm doing a bit of 'classroom' stuff - composition, techniques etc. Then it was out into the wilds of Calder Vale to get a bit of hands on practice.

The eight punters that we had were a friendly bunch, with no 'Smart Alecs' amongst them to tell us what we should be doing. They were all very receptive to what we had to pass on to them, and everybody enjoyed a good day of taking beautiful images of people, flowers, countryside and of course, at this time of year, bluebells. There had been just one moderately heavy shower of rain, but by the time we were having our picnic lunch in the stunning bluebell woods, the sun was breaking through adding to the fun of the day.

By the finish, everyone was buzzing with the new things they had learned and posted positive comments on the 'customer satisfaction' forms. Lynn and I were happy to have passed on a bit of our knowledge to people and considered it to have been a worthwhile day.