Neptune and his subjects

Neptune and his subjects...Amsterdam

Just a little shot of crowds being pulled by the statue 'performers' in Amsterdam. Not much to say about this - I just like the 2 anonymous spectators looking up at the Neptune statue. Perhaps paying deference to the god of the sea, or perhaps just rubbernecking at a fool in green bodypaint. Yooooooou deciiiiiiiiiiide.......

Stone Balls

Stone Balls...Wakehurst Place

These sculptured stone spheres are located outside the international seed bank at Wakehurst Place - a National Trust-run place known as Kew's country garden. Photography wise this is a great location, and I like this shot for the shapes alone. The lines in the grass and the spheres against them particularly appeal to the kind of graphicism I like in some of my photography.

Watching the World Go By

Watching the World Go By

This one is a little experimental, and is perhaps more of a technique-work-in-progress than some of my other photos. It's a shot similar in theme to the Waiting series, shot in the National Theatre in London. I like the contrast between the lady in pink on the left and the people moving back and forth in front of her. Shot from a low angle in order to exaggerate the perspective.

Waiting...2

Waiting...2

Not a lot to say about this one...same series as Waiting. Same location - in this one I was trying to get a little bit of the 'looking to the heavens' thing that you see at airports and train stations as everyone stares constantly upwards at the arrivals/departures boards.

Waiting...

Waiting...

And now for something completely different. One of the things I do to try to add some sort of focus to my photography (no pun intended) is to have projects or themes that I'm working on. One of these is 'Waiting/Anticipation'. Whilst waiting for...I don't remember now, my sister I think...at Heathrow a while back, the usual flight delays gave me the opportunity to experiment a bit. This was shot on my Dimage A1, with the camera sitting on my lap and the screen tipped upwards, so I could shoot with some stealth. You'd be surprised how dark it is in arrivals, in photographic terms - hence the motion blur of her arm and of the person walking past in the background. I quite like it. There's a nice implication of the world rushing past as she sits and waits for her...well, whoever it is she's waiting for...!

Booster

Booster...Brighton Pier

This is the possibly the last of the Easter Weekend shots - this is shot very wideangle, in order to get the whole 100ft contraption into the frame. It's slightly silhouetted, so the foreground is a little dark, but I didn't want to lose the texture in the clouds. I also tried to get various in-action shots, when the device was swinging through its arc of torture, but the grey light meant I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. I have 1 that might be useable, so I'll show y'all that next week sometime.

Beachy Head Lighthouse

Beachy Head Lighthouse

Righty, this one had some serious tweaking in Camera Raw to get any kind of colour into it. On the same hazy horrid day as the shots below, this is a view down to Beachy Head Lighthouse from the top of Beachy Head itself. The haze/mist was so strong at this time that in a couple of longer distance shots of the lighthouse I took you couldn't even see the lighthouse!

Seagull

Seagull...Brighton Promenade

Yep, he's in charge alright. As usual with me, anthropomorphisation time again. This fella looks like he's totally in charge, this is his domain, and we're merely permitted to visit. And to feed him, should we so choose. I like the composition of this shot, but I'm not so keen on the completely hazy and featureless background. Unfortunately, that was the weather on the day, and there's not a lot I can do about it...!

Turbo

Turbo...Brighton Pier

Lookatdat! Some motion blur! Yes folks, we're gettin' technical an' clever on you today! This weekend, being the Easter weekend, we were guaranteed to have some pretty poor weather. We went down to Brighton anyway, figuring we'd get some fresh air at least. Lots of people on the pier meant that there were a few photo opportunities - unfortunately this is the only decent shot I got - and even then I'm not very pleased with the grey featureless background. At least the foreground is ok - I set a low shutter speed to get the blur in the rollercoaster train, and I like the composition with the couple in the foreground looking up to the loop.

Jersey Beach Fortifications

Jersey Beach Fortifications

On the Channel Island of Jersey there are many remnants of the Second World War Nazi occupation - this is just one of them - a beach gun emplacement on the western side of the island. The day this photo was taken it was dark, squallish and there was very little sun. Fortunately we were in such a position that we were in the right spot to take the shot when the sun briefly broke through the cloud and illuminated the tower. Click on the image to see it larger - you'll see the effect better then.

Eleven and a Half

Eleven and a Half

This is one of my favourite shots from the local area - this resident clearly decided that 11a wasn't for them, and went for a much more witty and original approach. Shot wideangle on the Dimage A1 I went for a fairly symmetrical composition. It works quite nicely I think.

Hen Cloud Climbers

Hen Cloud Climbers

My wife and I have been known to go rock climbing on occasion. The shot above is of Hen Cloud, which is a peak near the Roaches in the Peak District. This was fairly late in the day - we were walking off the hill towards our accomodation - the sun was hitting the south west face of Hen Cloud rather nicely. Also, these very considerate climbers were in just the right spot to give a rather nice composition. We give you variety here, that's for sure!

The Weather Project

The Weather Project

A bit of art today...! And no, it's not upside down. This rather amazing installation at Tate Modern is by Olafur Eliasson - you can read more about it here: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/eliasson/about.htm. This shot was taken looking up towards the ceiling, where a giant mirrored surface reflects the half-sun and the floor below, where people are lying down and adding themselves into the artwork. How's that for an interactive experience?

Swedish Tree

Swedish Tree...Angelholm...Feb 2006

This tree is outside the balcony of my swedish friend's house - it's the only shot I took of note during the weekend I was there. Simple. Effective. Tree. With sky. Thankya.

Lock and Tree

Lock and Tree...January 2005

No poncey nonsense today. Instead we have another local shot, from a lock on the canal near Victoria park. I like the way the buildings almost disappear in the background. You have this wonderful legacy of the canal era - when the canals were the highways of commerce in this country - looking freshly painted and as good as the day it was constructed. Added to that, the trees breaking into the sky provide some nice background interest.

Orange Abstract

Orange Abstract

This is where I get to go all snooty poncey art photographer...this is all about shape and form and the small imprints of the human psyche on reality and perception.

Alternatively it's just a nice abstracted shot of a sculpture in a local park.

I would guess that the patterns on the individual tiles were applied there by local schoolchildren in some sort of participatory exercise - y'know the type of thing; if they've had a hand in building it themselves maybe they won't cover it in grafitti or attempt to destroy it.

Laughing Pig

Laughing Pig

It's anthromoporphisation time again! Except this time with a pig rather than a monkey. This was taken at a local 'city farm'. The pigs there are normally very sleepy, or heads chuntering down into the ground - when this big fella looked at me like this I couldn't resist the shot.

Victorian London

Traditional Foods, Fine Wines...Christmas Day 2005

I love it when you're wandering around the local area, and you discover a scene that wouldn't have looked out of place a hundred years ago. Apart from the obvious and unfortunately unavoidable anachronisms in this shot, you could be looking at a closed shop from Victorian London. This shop is actually facing the refurbished Spitalfields market complex - the glass frontage of the refurbed bit is acting like a giant reflector. Anyway, I like it.