Just a quicky. It'd be rude not to point my little black box at some of the white stuff, especially with it making so many headlines.
So since the last blog post there's been no offers of mountainous adventure, snow capped peaks, and ridiculous climbing. There has however been a turn up with the UK's favourite conversational topic, the weather. With autumn fading away into the past it seems everyone in the country is getting shocked by the fact that we're actually getting a winter on time for once. That aside, it's been a colourful and varied month.
I've always promised myself that I'd make the most of the landscapers most colourful season but I never really have... Even after a good few outings this year round I still felt I hadn't made the most of it. B+, Mr Deere, you can improve next year.
Speaking of improvement, I've been earning some geek points lately by getting lots of crazy ideas of how I could integrate my phone into my remote/mobile workflow... Then going ahead and making those ideas happen. The first thing that hit me was that there had been a lot of talk about porting every photographer's essential tool Adobe Lightroom onto the iPad, a pointless exercise one could argue since most camera bags that have a slot big enough for an iPad have plenty of room for a laptop which can pack the punch you'd need for running Lightroom... And they'll have a card reader / usb port which the iPad lacks. With that I thought about using a remote computer (i.e. my main image crunching beasty back in the office) wirelessly over a mobile connection... Using RDP (remote desktop protocol) to connect to the host computer.
Ta da! Adobe Lightroom 3.2 running on my HD2. It's pretty snappy, although takes a little longer handling TIFF files. CLICKY for video.
I branched out a little in the nightlife work this month too, moving away from the drum n bass scene for a little bit to do some work for Mantra nightclub in Windsor. It's a great venue with some cool people running the show, here's the manager Mickey celebrating his birthday in style.
Well, with the smoking ban it'd be far to unruly and irresponsible to have a celebratory cigar and risk polluting the lungs of innocent people. So indoor fireworks will have to do instead, far less harmful to the public. Gotta love HSE!
Although it wouldn't be a proper month without at least one drum n bass event, and luckily I made it back to Cardiff for another zany instalment of Aperture, this time with Hospital superstar Danny Byrd... Who got cut short by ten minutes thanks to the power completely tripping out. First time I've seen that happen.
After that brief stop off in the motherland it was back to the South East for the opening of an exhibition that both myself and Gina had pieces in. It was a pretty varied and artistically orientated exhibition so we both chose more contrived artistic pieces. I got a little bit creepy with mine though.
Saying that, I actually had interest from buyers before it even reached the wall! So I'll be a doing a limited run of those framed metallic prints, hand signed and numbered. If you're interested, contact me using the email address at the top of the page!
And so with that I draw this blog entry to a close, a lot's changed since the start. No more punchy firey colours, no more warm evenings and dry trails. It's gonna be a cold night in Gotham City...
And hell for location scouts.
Has it really been that long since my last blog post? Apparently so. A lot's happened in that time for me, events have come and gone, couples have made their vows and a certain roll of film has made it's shuttle journey across vast bodies of water. The clocks have also gone back, the trees have gotten naked and the temperature is making me want to follow the birds south. But instead I've headed east, to Berkshire, where my office now lives.
Back in sunny Wales though, I had one of my favourite shoots this summer with Droneboy Laundry. There was virtually no time, no plan, a handful of ideas, no locations and no excuses. We got busy.
We spent about an hour and a half wandering the mean streets of Barry looking for backdrops that fitted in with our ideas, shooting as we hunted. There was no time for weighing up pros and cons, just get that spark and shoot. It's time's like that when you're glad you spent so many years making the most ridiculous mistakes over the ins and outs of f/stop this and ISO that, you just don't have to worry any more as instinct takes over and creativity is free to become what it's meant to become.
The above shot of Tom sums up everything about that afternoon really. I'd get an angle or a composition in my head which I would then watch unfold further in front of me as Tom and Dave (owner of Droneboy) just did what they did, what Droneboy represents. A lifestyle that these guys are a part of, or just simply are. It felt more like I was documenting what Droneboy was all about rather than doing the usual commercial thing of plastering pristine white t-shirts awkwardly into compositions that thrust them in the faces of the viewer. It was liberating.
Speaking of liberating, Hospitality at Brixton was pretty cool.
But it's not been all drum n bass. I've had a few weddings over the last month that couldn't have been timed better. It's the same every damn year isn't it? The wonderful British summer never materialises apart from a short bank holiday in late spring and then for a single working week once the kids are back in school. One evening you'll go to bed following this:
And then wake up a few hours later to this:
Lucky for me though, wedding planners are geniuses! No really they are. It can rain all damn day, but just as you get to that slight break in the schedule where you want to nip out to take a few photos with the Bride and Groom, right on cue...
B-E-A-UTIFUL. I guess that marks the end of wedding season. Anyone want me to fly me to some nice snowy mountains for a winter of adventure?
It's amazing how the quietest patches in my diary always end up as the busiest parts of my life. When I returned home to Wales in my last blog entry I thought I was sticking around a while, I had little on and wanted to concentrate on promoting parts of my business that I enjoyed more in the form of personal projects... I guess it's all part of planning some long term career enjoyment. Although... when I say enjoyment I frickin' love my job even at the worst of times so maybe I'm just itching to try more new things once again. Diversity is in my blood.
Anyroad, less than a week after returning home I found myself being asked at 10pm one evening if I could get to somewhere 200 miles away for a several-day job by 7am in the morning. Ain't that always the way huh? Sleep deprivation and packing in a hurry are becoming second nature to me, so naturally I was there with bells on. Luckily for me it was just a couple of miles from my partner Gina's place, so naturally after a hectic half week we took a few days to relax a bit before heading down to Brighton for an exhibition opening that she had a piece in. Cue cheesy photo!
Now the one running theme in my life lately is that with nothing planned, one thing ALWAYS runs straight into another. Following on from our stint down to the south coast, we were asked to cover a wedding in Wokingham in just a few days time. There was little point in me heading back to Wales for a couple of days, that just costs money... And too much of it these days. With me sticking around at Gina's place for longer and longer there was looking to be little point in me bouncing back to Wales even AFTER that wedding as I had another two to do in Portsmouth just a few days after with Paul and Dave over at PostArt Ltd.
Shooting with Paul and Dave is always a hoot, their perspectives and ways of looking at what they're shooting and the way they work is refreshing and light hearted to say the least; these guys could have put Hitler at ease in his bunker if they were there with cameras in hand. Me and Paul spent most of the day covering Ross and Jo's wedding at St. Mary's followed by the reception at Guildhall.
Those guys knew how to do it. They even had Nando's doing the catering with a few spare meals! A hungry man is not a happy man, and I sure as hell was happy. After the speeches we bounced over to join Dave who was covering Nigel and Debbie's wedding, we had a whole new plan for that evening at the reception where we were doing our usual brand of on-site shooting and prints... Which went down a storm! Everyone there loved it, we were as much entertainment at the reception as the DJ, prints were flying out to many, many new happy customers. Job done. I did manage to take a few minutes out from processing and printing to grab a few candid snaps too.
The handheld ninja strikes again, Iso3200 on a DX sensor never looked so good... I've gotta admit I've been impressed with this D90 as much as I'd love a D3s for some of the stuff I shoot.
With all the weddings done and dusted, more county-hopping antics taken care of and an abundance of laundry (natch) Wales was calling once again. With no plans, no commitments and no excuses, me and Gina hopped back for a lot of long overdue catching up with friends and acquaintances... and there were plenty of opportunities and excuses to. New locations to recce, celestial events to witness and the fact that I'd spent less than a week at "home" in the last two months of course. First port of call was a jolly spot of location scouting... And what a location
Solid marble alter? Solid steady grip of the camera more like, half a second exposure handheld for the photo ninjas out there. Gotta love Nikon's CLS for the big help there though, Joe Mcnally is onto something.So finally, I found myself back in Wales. As much as I'm not keen on the place while I'm away, when I get back there's always something to remind me just why I live here.
No friends and loads of light pollution. Sorry, I mean no light pollution and a night spent with good friends. Spot the meteor.
I seem to be spending less and less time in Wales lately, for numerous reasons, but despite my home country's reputation for wet weather that reputation never seems to hold true... With one exception to prove the rule. It's always that last stretch of any homeward journey, just for the last 1km before my front door it hammers down without fail and yesterday was no exception. Oh and it's always when I'm on my bike, just so that I get a nice gritty spray all the way up my back and arse just to really hit the discomfort factor home.
Following some 5-6 weeks of sunshine it's only just now that it's raining does it actually feel like the start of summer, funny that. And every summer there's one thing I do that little bit more of... Shoot 35mm film. Now I'm only of those nu-skool types that taught myself photography through the advent of digital and never really touched film apart from little 110 cartridges in my Supa Snaps camera aged 7, so shooting film for me is like an adventure of novelty and magic.
It's time to pay a little more attention to my old friend:
Only this year it's got a new playmate to have some fun with. Say hello to my first and last roll of Kodachrome 64.
Hello Kodachrome.
I was given this postage paid roll of the legendary celluloid by Charlie early last summer, with a view to creating some stupendously clean, crisp and punchy colour photographs of the sunny season; but that never happened. Given that the last place in the world to develop Kodachrome, Dwayne's Photo Service in Kansas, is stopping development of it at the end of this year it's gonna be my last chance to actually make full use of this badboy and enjoy it's sweet slidey goodness by sending some 36 frames on a journey around the world in the name of art. There was only one thing to do when I got home to the rain:
Summer is over. Long live summer.
King of the road eh? Not bad for someone who doesn't drive (yet.) Once again I've been up and down the country in the name of photatowaffly (that's the new name for photography don'tcha know,) meeting people, finding new places to excite the senses and drowning myself in Mountain Dew. Yum yum.
Me and Gina spent a few days up in Northampton visiting Rikke as she's moving to Denmark next month... Of course, with a former shoe factory warehouse apartment it's just begging to have a few more explorers adorning her and Pete's pad. So monsieurs Dangerous, Dumont, Wooton, Larey and Chris joined in the fun and games.
Get down from there, you're not a sloth, you're a Dumont! You don't even have four opposable thumbs.
Needless to say, Northampton included buildering, asylums, alcohol, fine home cooked dining (thanks Rikke!) blisters, nudity and Tarantino. Cultured we are. Not to mention a real life "how many explorers does it take to change a flat" gag. Ford need to stop providing toy tools to fix flats with.
And no, calm down, that's not HDR.
Wednesday was a day that never wanted to start then never wanted to end. We woke up in Rikke's that morning and didn't want it to end, but as the day evolved it just brought surprise after surprise. Indoor beach volleyball court? Next time, indoor sandcastles!
Monsieurs Dumont and Dangerous parted ways with us after that as they had a double date with the Megabus... Turns out they both had late nights as a result wooooo! Cheap travel is strictly for the pros it seems. Although cheap fuel sold in foreign currency on our own shores is strictly for the USAF:
Withgas petrol prices doing what they're doing, I'll be heading back for sure ;)
But anyhoo, after sending comedy duo D&D on their way, me and Gigi hit the road again heading due south. That's when things took a few more unexpected twists... After a spur of the moment curbex with an old foe north of Oxford we found ourselves visiting some houses of the holy.
When I saw that last one I was kvetching like a rabbi with a hamisha up his tucchus. Oy vey!
But the day was shortening, and Reading was beckoning so we had to head off. Time waits for no man but what the hell, that doesn't mean we couldn't wrestle time's double headed ugliness out of the way for a few minutes to make the most of the last of nature's opium.
Photo by my gorgeous Gigi. Woop woop.
The day finished up with a quick catch up with the two Ali's for some dinner and a Ribena for Mr Batchelor. He's growing up so fast bless. But no evening in Reading would be complete without *some* impromptu action going on (ooh sir,) the skyline beckoned. Unfortunately so did my camera, which was in the boot of the car about a mile away. Oops. I guess the sun setting from the top of Reading will have to be shot another day, although Ali and Ali got in on the action later that night. And no, they're not that way inclined.
Tired and happy, we slept. For tomorrow was a whole other kettle of fish...
Me and Gina spent a few days up in Northampton visiting Rikke as she's moving to Denmark next month... Of course, with a former shoe factory warehouse apartment it's just begging to have a few more explorers adorning her and Pete's pad. So monsieurs Dangerous, Dumont, Wooton, Larey and Chris joined in the fun and games.
Get down from there, you're not a sloth, you're a Dumont! You don't even have four opposable thumbs.
Needless to say, Northampton included buildering, asylums, alcohol, fine home cooked dining (thanks Rikke!) blisters, nudity and Tarantino. Cultured we are. Not to mention a real life "how many explorers does it take to change a flat" gag. Ford need to stop providing toy tools to fix flats with.
And no, calm down, that's not HDR.
Wednesday was a day that never wanted to start then never wanted to end. We woke up in Rikke's that morning and didn't want it to end, but as the day evolved it just brought surprise after surprise. Indoor beach volleyball court? Next time, indoor sandcastles!
Monsieurs Dumont and Dangerous parted ways with us after that as they had a double date with the Megabus... Turns out they both had late nights as a result wooooo! Cheap travel is strictly for the pros it seems. Although cheap fuel sold in foreign currency on our own shores is strictly for the USAF:
With
But anyhoo, after sending comedy duo D&D on their way, me and Gigi hit the road again heading due south. That's when things took a few more unexpected twists... After a spur of the moment curbex with an old foe north of Oxford we found ourselves visiting some houses of the holy.
When I saw that last one I was kvetching like a rabbi with a hamisha up his tucchus. Oy vey!
But the day was shortening, and Reading was beckoning so we had to head off. Time waits for no man but what the hell, that doesn't mean we couldn't wrestle time's double headed ugliness out of the way for a few minutes to make the most of the last of nature's opium.
Photo by my gorgeous Gigi. Woop woop.
The day finished up with a quick catch up with the two Ali's for some dinner and a Ribena for Mr Batchelor. He's growing up so fast bless. But no evening in Reading would be complete without *some* impromptu action going on (ooh sir,) the skyline beckoned. Unfortunately so did my camera, which was in the boot of the car about a mile away. Oops. I guess the sun setting from the top of Reading will have to be shot another day, although Ali and Ali got in on the action later that night. And no, they're not that way inclined.
Tired and happy, we slept. For tomorrow was a whole other kettle of fish...
It's been a long ol' while since my last blog post. Far too long in fact. But I've been a very busy boy during that time, there's been a lot of things going on that would have warranted their own post while out on the road beavering away behind the lens but the fact is I've just been plain too busy!
Photo by my awesome lady, Gina. Cross-processed Fuji Velvia 50. Oh yeah!
Not long after my last updates I received an email from Roger Payne, group development editor for Archant Specialist, the people behind Professional Photographer and Photography Monthly magazines. They were launching a new magazine called Turning Pro and wanted me to write/shoot an article for the first issue. I was nervous as hell about writing for the first time, I'm crap with words which is why I take photos and leave my writing to ill thought out digital missives about my life, like the one you're reading right now. But none the less they loved what I came out with and instantly offered me more work! It's now looking like a regular contributing slot so I'm pretty chuffed with that!
Then jumping straight back into the world of sports photography I was hired by Oxford University to photograph the varsity golf match against Cambridge at Porthcawl Royal. Considering how cold (and early) that morning started out the day went brilliantly... They were all dead chuffed with the photos, which was a load off my mind given my virtually non-existent experience of shooting golf prior to that event ;)
Of course Doctor Jekyll quickly became Mr Hyde once again and I quickly re-immersed myself in an audible feast of endless drum and bass events. I've been finding less and less opportunities to go and photograph Aperture in Cardiff lately which is a shame as it's one of my fave regular events of all time to photograph, but on the flipside I ended up photographing the last ever Hospitality at Matter in London, big things! Monsieur Rodigan was rocking the Droneboy Laundry t-shirts launched earlier this year by Aperture organiser Dave Shaw... They're growing fast. Very fast. Speaking of which Dave swung me a couple of their tees, so here I am looking mighty fresh and mighty clean:
Photo by my awesome lady, Gina. Cross-processed Fuji Velvia 50. Oh yeah!Oh oh oh! How can I forget I've also shot my favourite wedding to date! Dave and Becky's Big Day was the perfect spring wedding in every sense of the word, right down to there being not a single cloud or vapour trail in the sky thanks to a certain Icelandic volcano... No wedding planner can blag you that, that's for sure. But anyway, they're the most genuinely smiley, happy, loving couple I've ever had the pleasure of pointing my camera at; it's days like that that make me love my job all the more.
Diving into another new realm at the deep end, I've been helping out my friends at Postart Ltd with several on-site event shoots, offering prints there and then on the night. It's been a whole new side of making money from photography that I'd never really considered before but it's fast paced, you meet a lot of people and I've learned a LOT from it in a short space of time. They also take it incredibly seriously. So I'd like to thank Paul and Dave for the chance to come along, cheers chaps!
And finally I've been doing more and more work for the Scout Association. With summer here there are more and more events going on including the All Wales Scout Camp this weekend just gone. It's been pretty manic but really enjoyable! With over 90 activities for the 1,300 attendees to enjoy in just one weekend there was something for everyone... I don't think I got a single photo where everyone wasn't either smiling or deeply immersed in what they were doing.
Work aside, I've been using photography more and more again in my private life. So much so I'll be setting up a new blog for all my rap-scallion escapades in the coming weeks. What ho!
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