This week we have a varied collection of articles some of which is linked and some others that offer a continuation from other weeks, plus a look at the magic of Merlin in time for the start of the TV series this Saturday.

Merlin, is a BBC TV programme that is to run Saturday evenings starting this week at 7:30pm, and is produced in similar style to Dr Who and the Robin Hood dramas. So its fiction based around the names of some ancient characters that may have existed, or may not, and if they did were not as many believe. We have looked before at the places connected with King Arthur, and what we could believe about this section of history as well as who both Arthur and Merlin may have been. We have feature guides for many of the locations. This week we have a new article looking at the magic of Merlin, and how magic was viewed and used through history, as well as a little on the TV series.

Carried over from last week we have an article on how to photograph rainbows.

When I say we are covering Viewpoint photography this week, I hope you are not disappointed when you get to the article as there are two meanings to this term, and we are only covering one of them. Our article looks at scenic viewpoints, how to photograph them and the many aspects of scenic photography of views. A second article looks at Finding viewpoints.

The picture of the week, a picture of Gloucester Cathedral was taken from the top of a church tower in around 1900. It's one of the many photochromes we have on this website. To get to the photochromes select the Locations button on the left and then Photochromes Project button. Use the county map within this to get to see what is available. Currently we have nearly a 1000 old images online covering most English counties, we still have to get around to adding most of the Welsh and Scottish ones.

Building a master list of all viewpoints in the UK would be a massive project, and rather than attempt this we will get to the same objective by listing viewpoints by area, from time to time, and we start this week with some very close to us, with a list of viewpoints in Gloucestershire.

We also have a list of attractions in Gloucestershire and have added some location guides relating to some of them.

This brings us to the other theme of the week, Photography in your home area. We have looked before at the many advantages of  local photography, here we move from the local being where you can drive within 20 minutes or so, to your home area, where you can walk to conveniently from home. We look at the type of opportunities available and then at a project to photograph your home area over a year, producing both interesting work, but also giving you a chance to expand your skills. This will also become a project that is being used on the FREE Photo Skills Photography course, which will have several projects running each year.

The Photo Skills course will start in a weeks time on Saturday the 27th, but being online you can take a look when you want, and start at any point over a three month period. This is completely free, has no registration, and is completely available online. We will be closely working with this, so a lot of the material used by the course will be articles and projects that appear here, and every time they want to suggest a topic for people to photograph they will be able to find the locations within our guides. This has benefits for them, in that we have already done a great deal of what is needed, or have it in hand, and its beneficial to you and us in that it means we will have even more articles and coverage over the next few years. Yes I said years, this is not a simple course but one where everyone should get to take better photographs within a few months or so, and then go on expanding their skills and learning new techniques as they put them into practice. As you don't register and don't have any cost, its up to you to decide when you know enough and stop. In some cases after getting through the first year, some people may look at the course as it progresses, looking in detail at the areas of interest and missing those that are not. So working along side us, it will provide other parts plus taking many of our jigsaw pieces (articles), it will allow you to put the full picture together.   Although to start there isn't any advertising, as it progresses there will be some advertising on the edges of pages, but never in the middle of articles or other material. This is what will pay for the course for you, so you don't have to. A bit like watching ITV, programmes are free, but have some adverts to pay the costs.

We will also shortly start to have some adverting, so far we have operated by the project being sponsored, this has allowed us to grow independently fast, but in order to let more people know about what we have available we need to do a lot more advertising and PR than we can on our existing sponsorship. Rather than split our time between developing this site, training and marketing advertising, we have done a deal to allow others to do the marketing of the advertising. This is being set up in a way that allows people working from home to set up their own team business, later each team can become a company.

We have also updated the introduction section of this website, more a case of catch up than anything terribly exciting, but may be of interest to those who have just started to visit us.

Finally where does the River Thames start? We have also produced two location guides, covering both places where the Thames is said to start Thames Head,   and Seven Springs .

The Magic of Merlin

How to photograph rainbows

Viewpoint photography

Finding viewpoints

Photography in your home area

Gloucestershire Viewpoints

Gloucestershire Attractions

See information above on the Photo Skills FREE photography training course

Straw sculptures - a windmill has been created out of straw bales - see www.snugburys.co.uk/sculpture.htm , apparently they construct a new straw feature each summer that is visible from the A51 near Nantwich in Cheshire.

NEW Photoshop CS4 - On the 23rd, we are expecting to see the launch of Photoshop CS4. We will bring you more on this when it happens and we get to see what differences there are.

The Cerne Abbas Giant has been re-chalked, so somewhen soon would be a good time to catch this feature. You may have seen it in the News, Countryfile this coming Sunday is also going to be there. We covered this before in a location guide. We also have many more hillside features featured.

Cotswold Farm Park, Gloucestershire 

Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucestershire

Seven Springs, Gloucestershire

St Briavels Castle, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire

Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire

Thames Head, Gloucestershire