It's nearly the end of the month, the summer's bank holidays, the sunshine, and lots of other good things. On the bright side, it's also nearly time for another OUTDOORSmagic member to win five pairs of snug Bridgedale Trekker socks. Michael Sayles' lead has been pretty convincing since day one of this month's competition, with his photograph The Storr. At the moment, it's only clocked up 35 votes though so it shoulnd't be too hard to overtake it ... erm, actually, it's starting to look like Michael might be the one with dry, wick-tastic toes in a few days' time. Still, there are a couple of days left, and it's always nice to see more mountain shots in the gallery.
We should warn you that next month the five pairs of Bridgedale socks will be divided between the first and second placed photographers, so you've got double the chance of winning. Giving someone five pairs of socks seemed a bit indulgent really, when most of us don't carry that many in our packs, so we thought we'd split them. So, there'll be two and a half pairs each, and you have to fight for the right sock on the half pair:-) Actually, the winner will get three pairs and the runner up will get two, just in case anyone's worried about having one warm foot and one cold one.
We'll announce the winner of the competition on Friday. In the meantime, here are some of the week's best photos ...
As we've just had a bank holiday, we thought a few beach photos would be appropriate, but without any of the clutter of donkeys, or ice cream vans, or ... shock horror ... people. Hamist Fenton's shot of Berneray's Caribbean-style coastline (and we mean the sand, not the palm trees) fitted the bill nicely. If it appeals, take a look at his album, the H, for three pages of Scottish and Snowdonia photos. It's the place to be if you want a face to face conversation with a beetle, and that's the Shield variety of beetle, rather than the John Lennon variety.
Berneray and the Sound of Harris, by Hamish Fenton
We could have followed a coastal theme for this photo as well, seeing as Jamie Bassnett has posted some highly rated Stoer sunsets in the gallery recently. We thought we'd head inland to catch a stray wisp of cloud around Suilven though. It comes from the Jamie Bassnett album, which is one of OM's classics - four pages of photos, none of them unrated. We particularly liked the shots of Beinn Dorain and Loch Leven, but take your pick. Oh yes, and we should warn you that there's also a rather yellow ram in there as well. Do Hebridean sheep suffer from jaundice?:-)
Suilven, by Jamie Bassnett
If there's one place that more OMers have visited than any other in the last month, it's the Pyrenees. Piglet in the Pyrenees is one of several albums from the south of France. To give us a summery feel, it's brimming with flowers, but there's also the usual alluring array of lakes, rugged mountains ... and a handful of free range pigs:-)
Pic du Midi Cow, by La Petite Porcelette
And no, we weren't lying about the number of Pyrenean albums. Here's 'Alex Apparently's contribution, from Pyrenees 06.
Lac Arremoulit, by 'Alex Apparently'
Finally, we thought we'd draw your attention to a bit of fun that OM regular Hamish Fenton has introduced to the gallery. He's set up 'The Sheep Album (open to everyone to upload their sheep photos)'. You may or may not know that there are two types of albums in the OM gallery - 'closed' albums (only the owner can add photos) and 'open' albums (all welcome). As you can see, this one's open to anyone willing to help create the ultimate OM sheep-spotters album. It sounds like a good idea, given that most of us encounter more sheep than people on our weekend walks. The fabulous specimen below was snapped on Kinder by one Jon Doran, otherwise known as the OUTDOORSmagic editor, who's contributed no less than two-fifths of the photos so far. As you can see, we really do know our priorities on OM:-)
Kinder Sheep, by Jon Doran
