CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

I do a lot of flying with my job and when I head off on a long haul flight I book a window seat for two reasons.  If I want to sleep on the plane I wont get disturbed as much being away from the aisle and, more importantly, I can get a great view of the world from 40,000 feet. The latest trip is to Japan for the next round of 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship and I decided to go a few days early to see a bit more of this wonderful country before I have to go to Fuji Speedway for the race weekend.  I go to Japan on Qatar Airways, which means a change of plane in Doha, the capital of Qatar. I specifically booked a window seat on the left side of the plane because having flown Qatar Airways a number of times I know there is a great view of the city when taking off from the airport.  Because it was a night flight the city was going to be lit up like a Christmas tree and I wanted to capture this on the Fujifilm X100T. Here are the two best shots of the city of Do...

World Champions - Yoshiaki Kinoshita (Toyota), Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson Last night the 2014 season officially came to an end when the FIA awarded the trophies to the winners of this years world championships in a glittering ceremony in Doha, Qatar.   I was attending in my capacity as the FIA Media Delegate for the World Endurance Championship and had the X-T1 to hand to capture some images for the FIAWEC website, social media feeds and for the press release I had prepared ahead of the event. Our champions - Toyota and Ferrari, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi (Toyota LMP1), Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander (Ferrari GTE)  collected their much deserved silverware, as did the second placed crew from Audi of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler and the third placed crew from Porsche - Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas. I was sat in the VIP area for the ceremony and used the 55-200mm to capture some images of the presentation.  After t...

It's back to the Middle East for the final foray for the FIA World Endurance Championship before the Christmas break.  After transiting through Doha airport on the way to somewhere else on several occasions, I finally get to see something else of Qatar. We are here for the FIA Awards Gala where this evening Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Marcel Fässler, Benoit Treluyer, Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander, Toyota and Ferrari will collect their trophies from the FIA alongside the winners from F1, WRC and WTCC.  I arrived in the early hours of this morning so I took the opportunity to get up and have a wander round the complex to find my bearings before this evening's ceremony, which is being held in the St Regis Hotel.  I am staying across the road in the Intercontinental Hotel, which has a private beach across the bay from Doha. I will be taking pictures of our champions this evening so check back tomorrow for ...

One of the pleasures I get from flying is being able to view the world from up on high and over the past few years I have seen some amazing sights from nearly 40,000 feet above the earth.  This year I have taken 75 flights and I still have another 8 to go before Christmas with two flights on Monday to Sao Paulo via Paris and then two on Tuesday 2 December back home via Amsterdam.  My final trip will be to Qatar via London for the FIA Awards Gala in Doha on the 5 December. Last Sunday I flew to Edinburgh via Doha after the 6 Hours of Bahrain.  The flight to Doha was at 5am and as we approached Qatar the sunrise illuminated the Gulf with all the oil tankers lined up below us like toy boats. The second part of the journey home was a 7 hour trip on a Qatar Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner direct to Edinburgh and as we taxied to the end of the runway our aircraft followed a giant Airbus A380.  After take off the sun was reflecting off the waters of the Gulf ...