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This is my first Winter in Pembrokeshire for many years. Thankfully it's been fairly mild, but unfortunately mainly grey, so not many great days for photography.

One fine day we did have, I took a wonder up to the Preseli's near Newport in search of the Wild Ponies that roam across the hills. I managed to track them down, and there were some moments of good light. I managed to capture one half decent shot which can be found in the Nature & Wildlife Gallery.

The weather has actually been great the last couple of days and yesterday we walked across the boardwalks that meander through Goodwick moor, across Goodwick seafront and out to the end of Goodwick breakwater.

Earlier today, we drove out to the Gwaun Valley in search of a waterfall that my father had told us about. We managed to find the waterfall ok and very pretty it was too, but due to the ground conditions i.e. very wet and muddy! It was nigh on impossible to get a good vantage point and attempt photographing it. Saying that there some shots from the last couple of days in the Landscape Gallery.

In 2 weeks time, we head off on our what seems to be becoming an annual Winter escape. This time we are heading off to Rajasthan in Northern India for 6 weeks. If I don't come back with a good number of decent photograph's, then I think it's probably time to start looking for a new hobby!

I was recently contacted by the Australian author Brian Brennan who asked if he could use my photograph of the property boundary sign found at the Herculaneum site near Pompeii, Italy in a book he was working on. My Herculaneum photograph will be published later this year in Brian's new book 'Herculaneum A Sourcebook' a collection of translations of the inscriptions and graffiti found at Herculaneum put into content.

A photograph I took last year from Garn Fawr looking towards Strumble head in Pembrokeshire was printed in last weeks edition of the Western Telegraph 'Pembsthroughalens'.

Also last week, I was invited to take some photographs at a Charity fashion show in Newport Pembrokeshire. This type of event is not really my thing, but happily went along to do what I could. I've never shot anything like this before and for a first attempt I was reasonably happy with the results. A few photographs from this shoot can be found in the People Gallery.

I have recently paid a visit to the South West Wales Wildlife Trust park on the outskirts of Cardigan hoping to spot the resident Otters. After parking and making my way towards the park, I came across an interesting derelict Fuel pump. Unfortunately there was no sign of the Otters on this occasion, but there was a reasonable amount of other Wildlife around.

In my last News update, I mentioned some photographs I had taken of a very friendly Heron at the Stackpole Estate in Southern Pembrokeshire. Two of these photographs have since been featured on the BBC Autumnwatch website.

We arrived back in Pembrokeshire at the end of August after a 3 day road trip from the South of France. I don't know why, but we have taken on yet another renovation project, so have been very busy trying to get our new home ship shape and comfortable. We are almost there and have just started on the actual renovation work.

Unfortunately yet again, I have had very little time to get out and about taking photographs. There are a few new shots from a day trip we did a couple of weeks ago around the Pembrokeshire Coast path past St Justinians, near St Davids and a more recent outing to The Stackpole Estate in Southern Pembrokeshire. We were hoping to spot the resident Otters, but unfortunately no luck this time around, but there was a lot of birdlife around and I captured a couple of reasonable shots of a very friendly Heron. We also stopped off at Stack Rocks near Castle Martin where we spotted a couple of Seal Pups.

After a frustrating few weeks, we finally completed on our new home in Pembrokeshire today and will be heading back to Pembrokeshire in a couple of weeks time. We are both very happy.

On the photography front, every year in a nearby village called Murviel Les Beziers they have their 'Petetas Fete' where lifesize mannequins depicting the villagers occupations are placed all over the village. It's great to see, but also a bit strange in some ways.

I also managed to make it down to Meze for the French Water Jousting Championships. I think Water Jousting is fairly unique to the Languedoc and well worth a look if you are in the area.

We also made another trip to my favourite place in the area, Bages. I never tire of visiting both Bages and Peyriac de Mer near Narbonne. I would love to move to Bages, but it came as no surprise really that property in the area is very expensive. We will have to continue with our day trips for the time being!

Photographs from these outings can be found across all Galleries. The next batch of photographs should be coming out of Pembrokeshire.

Here in France, every year we have the same? pair of North African Swallows mating (and making a mess!) in our Courtyard behind the kitchen. The first year we were here they had 5 chicks, last year only 2 and this year 4. I have been photographing them every few days, following their development. Today they all fledged, well at least as far as one of our plant pots! There are a couple of shots of the Swallow chicks and their parents here on my website, but if you are interested, you can view a larger selection of photographs shot over a period of time on my Flickr Photostream. We also had our annual Street party last weekend and a few shots from this can be found in my People Gallery.

It's been a busy couple of months since we got back from our South East Asia trip. We had already decided late last year to move back to the UK from France, specifically back to my home county of Pembrokeshire and not intentionally we have actually ended up with a property in my old hometown of Fishguard. So, we have been trying to finish off the ongoing project that is our house in the Languedoc, whilst also visiting Pembrokeshire to view properties. Very luckily, we have found one that suits us pretty much perfectly, so we are just waiting for it all to go through now and should be heading back to Pembrokeshire early to mid July. We will also be keeping our house in the Languedoc, so will be in the very priviledged position of being able to spend time in both Pembrokeshire and the Languedoc.

So what has all this got to do with Photography? Well basically I have had very little time to get out and about taking any Photographs!

I have been to the beautiful La Cite in Carcassonne twice previously with visitors, but Ruby has never been as she was always elsewhere when we visited previously. So yesterday we headed down to La Cite so Ruby could finally have a look around. There are a couple of shots from the trip in the Urban & Architecture Gallery.

We have been back from our 3 month trip to South East Asia for a couple of weeks at the time of writing, but I have only just been able to find the time to sort through all my Photographs and upload some of them to Simon M Turner Photography.

We had a fantastic time, taking in Kuala Lumpur, The Cameroon Highlands, Melaka, Penang, Kuala Terranganu and Cape Rachado in Malaysia along with Phuket in Thailand.

The highlight of the trip for the both of us was Penang. We both fell in love with the old Colonial trading port, so much so, that we ended up staying in the Unesco World Heritage site of Georgetown for 6 weeks. It's an eclectic blend of old, ultra modern buildings and several ethnic groups that somehow all seem to fit together perfectly. The people of Penang are very friendly, the food is amazing, probably the best in Malaysia with major influences from of course Malaysian cuisine but also Chinese, Indian and Nonya. During our stay in Penang we were privledged to witness the amazing Hindu Thaipusam festival and take part in the Chinese New Year celebrations. There is so much to see and do on Penang Island, we would highly recommend a visit.

Of course we also enjoyed visiting other parts of Malaysia and briefly Thailand, with the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur, the old Colonial trading port of Melaka which is also a Unesco World Heritage site, the cool highlands and tea plantations that are the Cameroon Highlands, the beautiful beaches and islands on the East Coast of Malaysia, Old Phuket town and finally witnessing the tail end of annual Raptor Migration at Cape Rachado.

Photographs from the trip can be found across the Galleries here on Simon M Turner Photography and the full edited batch of Photographs can be found on my Flickr Photostream

Just before Christmas, we decided to go to one of the many French Christmas markets and chose the market held in the ancient Languedoc capital of Pezenas. It was an enjoyable afternoon and very atmospheric. Just by chance, we bumped into the legendary Spiderman - Alain Robert who lives in Pezenas. You may have seen the documentary about him on Channel 4? What an amazing guy, it was a real honour to meet him.

I said I was going to go back and I did, but to be fair sooner than expected. It was another trip down to the Beautiful Bages, but this time also taking in Peyriac-de-Mer. The weather wasn't perfect, being a bit overcast but I was eager to get out and test a new camera body I had recently aquired. We hadn't actually gone into Peyriac-de-Mer previously, so were pleasantly surprised to find that they have built walkways out onto the Etang which enables you to walk a ciruit around the Etang and also allows you to get very close to the Wildlife.

A few days later we headed up into the Haut Languedoc to do some sledging, but I also took my camera gear along as well. We found plenty of snow and had a great time sledging. On the return trip we came across some beautiful frozen lakes and lots of naturally formed icicles.

It was a beautiful day again yesterday, the sun was shining, so we made a return trip to the Camargue. Unfortunately when we got into the area the wind was very strong, so not ideal conditions but we still had a great day out. You couldn't help but have some sympathy for the poor old Flamingos who didn't look like they were enjoying the bitterly cold wind at all!

Images from these outing's can be found in the Galleries. That's going to be it for a few months, as we are off on a long trip to South East Asia this coming weekend. Hopefully we will have some great Images to share on our return.

I've been meaning to get down to the Canal du Midi for some time and attempt photographing it, but for some reason have never got round to it until now. Well yesterday I did finally get around to it. It's an amazing piece of engineering and very beautiful, a tribute to the 12,000 men that worked on building the canal. It's very easy to follow the route of the canal from the road by following the line of 250,000 trees that were planted along the 240km canal. Canal du Midi and Canal boat images can be found in the Landscape and Urban Galleries.

The latest outing was to Bages a very picturesque Languedoc circulade fishing village which is located just outside Narbonne. The road between between Bages and Peyriac de Mer runs right across the local Etangs which are full of various types of wild birds including Flamingos, Cormorants, Egrets, Coots & White Storks. It's almost like a mini Camargue and less than an hour from where we live, so we will definitely be going back at some point. Hopefully it will be a bit warmer next time though! It's unusually cold in the Languedoc at the moment for the time of year. Images from the trip can be found across the Galleries.

It was a beautiful day yesterday, so we took a trip down to the Camargue National Park which is approximately 2 hours away from where we live in the Languedoc. We have been to the Camargue before, but not with the right camera gear or obviously to the right places! This time round we hit the jackpot, finding a dirt track that meandered 7 kilometres right through the heart of the Camargue wetland Etangs away from all the traffic and tourists. We managed to get very close to Camargue Bulls (but not too close!), the famous White Horses of the Camargue, Flamingos and Egret's. It was a fantastic day seeing all the wildlife so close up and at the same time enjoying the stunning scenery. As a bonus, we also had a fantastic Seafood lunch in one of the local restaurants! Images from the trip can be found in the Landscape and Nature Galleries.

As you may have seen from my brief biography on the Homepage, I am originally from Pembrokeshire, Wales. I was born in Haverfordwest and brought up in Fishguard, but left the area over 24 years ago. I have never really spent any quality time in the area since, so I thought it was about time I did.

I can't believe I have stayed away for so long. I'd forgotten just how absolutely stunning the whole area around the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is. Granted we were very lucky with the weather which probably helped quite a bit, but even so... I did my best to record the beauty of the area through my Photography and many of the Images can now be found across the Galleries. It really is a Photographers paradise and I will definetely be returning soon. Enjoy, I certainly did...

Visa Pour L'Image is a Photo Journalism exhibition held annually in Perpignan, close to the Spanish border. It was great to see such a varied and diverse selection of Photography. It was well worth a visit and certainly encourages you to strive to improve your photography. The outstanding photographers for me personally were William Albert Allard and Kazuyoshi Nomachi.

Whilst in the area, we also finally managed to take a train ride through the Midi Pyrenees on Le Petit Traine Jaune. I only had the Lumix TZ6 compact with me, but still managed to capture a reasonable shot of the train crossing one of the many bridges. You can see the image in the Urban Gallery.

We have just returned from a 4 day camping trip to the Gorges du Tarn, Gorges de la Jontes and the Cevennes National Park. Absolutely beautiful scenery and lots of Birds of Prey. Vultures were once upon a time natural inhabitants of the area, but were sadly wiped out. They have now been successfully reintroduced and are once again thriving. Images from the trip can be found across the Galleries.

We decided it would be a good idea to drive all 650 miles from our home in the Languedoc France to Umbria Italy in one day. Very tired and 13 hours later we arrived at the campsite in Assisi. We spent the next few days exploring Assisi itself, Perugia the beautiful Monte Sibillini National Park, plus some of the other sights in the area.

For the next leg of our trip we headed off down to the beautiful Amalfi coast just south of Naples. Whilst in the area, we visited Naples itself, Herculaneum, Pompeii, the amazing little visited Greek temples at Paestum and trekked up to the crater of Mount Vesuvius.

Heading back up through Italy, we stopped off in Rome for a five days and took in the sights including St Peter's Basilica, The Spanish Steps, The Colosseum, The Pantheon, Villa Borghese and of course took in the wonderful general ambience of Rome itself.

On leaving Rome, we briefly visited the beautiful Siena, before continuing up to Florence where we spent a couple of days before heading back home. Images from the trip can be found across all Galleries.

June has to be one of the best times of year to visit the Pyrenees, it's warm but there are still remnants of snow on the high peaks. But best of all, there are not too many tourists around.

We spent 3 days camping on the edge of the Pyrenees National Park, basing ourselves in Lourdes and making day trips out to various locations. The whole area is spectacularly stunning and during our brief stay, we visited Lac Gaube, Cauterets and Gavarnie. The weather was excellent and the scenery was amazing. There is so much to see and all so breathtakingly beautiful, we will definitely be returning soon. Images from the trip can be found across the Galleries.