Same subject, same lesson, different location

A while back I wrote a blog about a trip to London to see Lee Evans and the impromptu photo session the morning after. If you cannot recall this, or maybe you havent read it then take a look here . To cut a long story short I was advised quite early in the morning of shooting images at Canary Wharf that I needed permission to shoot professionally at this location. Well as I wasnt shooting professionally and I had no intention of selling the images I couldnt see the problem. This moved on to them suggesting that I needed permission to use a tripod and would need public liability insurances for said tripod. Well, what a mess eh? In a way the police officers were right, the land at Canary Wharf is private property and a quick look on the website does in fact state that commercial photographers will require permission.

Why does a tripod, a long lens and the actual manner of looking like you know what you are doing make joe public think you are either a professional photographer or a member of the paparazzi? Answer…A sign of the time. My comment to this…does driving a 1984 Ford Escort make you a rally driver? Answer: No.

The very nice people at Strictly Yorkshire Photography Group had arranged a tea-time meet up at Clarence Dock in Leeds City Centre. If you are not familiar with this place then take a look here…(Wikipedia). This is a great locations for photography during the day but at night the scene is set for coloured lighting, awesome reflections, rippling water and countless silhouettes. Trip Advisor, Visit Leeds and various other tourism sites have good things to say about Clarence Dock including

“The docks are nice but nothing to rave about. However from behind it there is a really nice path through the canal. You can walk to Methley and even further enjoying the landscape. I highly recommend this if you have a day off with nice weather and a picnic”

“A pleasent walk on way to Royal Armouries, one can only imagine what this area must have looked like before it was re-developed. Seemed a very busy area, people taking boat trips, riding bikes or just sitting reading. Noticed nice selection of eateries.”

But no where in any of the reviews or details does it say you are not allowed to take photographs. This got me thinking how many images must there be on the internet of Clarence Dock and its waterways on the internet. My first port of call was flickr. Where I found this image and the quote “…this is one of my favourite locations in Leeds to come and test new (or old) camera equipment!” … mmmmm

The evenings photography had already started when I arrived and a few people were stood around arranging images and setting up tripods. I proceeded to do the same and within about 10 minutes of doing so I was approached by a security guard. His words to me were “Do you have permission to take photos?” to which I answered “Do I need permission?” he then began explaining that the land was private property but we could stand further back (approximately 20ft) and that was a public highway. Now this begs the question of signage. Surely if something is private property there must be a sign telling you so. There is a public footpath along side this area over Knights Bridge and within this area are local shops and restaurants i.e. Tesco, Mumtaz to name a couple.  If it was private proprty then surely this would limit access to the shopping area?

Looking at Google Images reveals thousands of images of Clarence Dock, even at night. The BBC Leeds website even praises and hosts an image by a local photographer from the exact location we were stood at. Our latest distant accquaintance “Mr Security Guard” whom incidentally refused to give us his name but insisted he had only worked here a week had stuck to his decision and insisted we couldnt take photographs.

I was tired, my head was in agony and as much as it was ideal for photography a clear night would have been so different. As the others headed off to find a new location, I headed back to my car and a short ride home with my single image. It wasnt a total waste of time but it just felt like Canary Wharf all over again.

Unlike Canary Wharf who have a website that clearly indicates that no commercial filming or photography is allowed, Clarence Dock has very little and the only item I can find relates to a company called “Allied London” who are a property developer who originally purchased the “New Dock” site.

Maybe one day I will find out. Until then, all photographers out there, watch what you are taking…..you never when you are on private property

Well…it’s been a while..I think August got lost!

I took a holiday from No More Dead Pixels on the 28th of July this year. A WordPress holiday that was meant to coincide with our family summer vacation. This would mean lazing around in the Canarian sunshine, tanning and an occasional dip in the pool to cool off. Oh I forgot to mention the cocktails…but thats another story. I took the iPad along to watch films on the aircraft and to collect the occasional email but nothing else. I even added a WordPress app to be on standby, just in case I captured the image of the century. More of a hope than a probability, had I captured the image of the day let alone the century I am quietly confident that a quick splash in the newspapers would have been enough to make me want to phone home let alone want to write a blog about it.

I didn’t even take a DSLR with me. How is that for a shock? Well, flying Ryanair does have its restrictions in more ways than one. We decided not to take Mr O’Learys’ offer of hold luggage at £10 million per item each way and managed to jam pack four small cases that would conform to cabin baggage regulations. This in turn meant that my trusty DSLR would have its own holiday….safely locked away in a case at my mother-in-laws. Before you ask, yes I would miss it. The number of idyllic photo opportunities that would present themselves were beyond belief. I had to put faith in my reserve kit and a very “hand-luggage” friendly Canon Powershot G9. And thats where the image above comes from. Two Canon Camera Raw images stitched together and edited using Photoshop CS6. Not all bad then eh?

Lanzarote was fantastic though. Exactly what we had planned; a “family” holiday with no pressures and a complete chill-ax. Fantastic nights out with some lovely meals and visiting old friends. It feels really good to walk in to a bar and be instantly recognised then greeted with “Hello again….” or in some cases even called by name. A big thanks to all Danny, Lisa, Jamie & Lindsay at Sunset Beach Bar along with all the staff…as ever, you were fantastic.

Coming back home I managed to secure a window seat again. I had managed this on the inbound journey without contest. Booking a seat with Ryanair does have its plus points as once all priority boarders are all seated there then is an option to reconsider your current location and relocate somewhere better. Which is exactly what I did. On the flight to Lanzarote I had noticed some very large circular fields whilst cruising at 40,000ft over Portugal. I had decided to take a second look at these on the way back. I really couldn’t believe the size of these fields as some of them must have been at least a mile wide to be noticeable from the air. I wasn’t able to get a decent image of them as the wing was getting in the way but the first thing I did when I got home was to get straight on to Google Earth and try to find them.

Above is the screen grab from Google Earth. You can clearly see what I am talking about now… To answer my question and possibly some of your’s… these are created by something called large circular irrigation or centre pivot irrigation. Centre Pivot Irrigation is also called circle irrigation, it is a method of crop irrigation in which equipment rotates around a pivot and crops are watered with sprinklers. A circular area centered on the pivot is irrigated, often creating a circular pattern in crops when viewed from above (sometimes referred to as crop circles).Most center pivots were initially water-powered, and today most are propelled by electric motors. So there you go, we all need to learn something new everyday, this is my contribution.

The British summer was laughable wasnt it? Either side of our summer holidays the weather was atrocious, which is an understatement really. It was quite a culture shock to actually feel the heat of the sun on your skin on consecutive days whilst in Lanzarote. Something I could easily get used to….honest.  At the end of the eleventh day the flight home beckons and I begin asking myself questions…all of the answers reaching the same conclusion. Yes, I could quite happily stay on this island indefinitely should the funds were available. So if anyone reading this wants to support a mid-forties photographer to live on Lanzarote with his wife and family. In return  I will try  to turn out a nice photo once in a while…. then give me a call or drop me a line. I’ll give it a go…..honest.

Thanks for reading this far…only a short one, as I get back in to blogging I will write more. Trust me, I have a lot to say

Byeee..

What a week……I helped, honest I did. Oh, I even took a sunset

Ive been on a Twitter diet, a photo diet, a WordPress Blog diet. Everything seems to be taking a back seat at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a formal complaint its just a statement. A very alternative way of saying that I have been quite busy. Moving on to the whole point of this post and as I already said in the title…what a week it was. I don’t think I have spent so many hours behind my computer for many weeks. Lets work in reverse and start with the sunset last night. What a cracker too ! I looked outside at the last-minute and saw the sky. In a very bad place at the moment with my cameras, think its possible they have both joined forces and fallen out with me. Neither have batteries in them, if they did then the would be discharged of all power and be totally pointless. Two Compact Flash Cards sit on my desk with 48gb of Data on them waiting for back up so that just says everything.

I went to collect my son Scott from his scout meeting and I saw the colours. It looked quite impressive with the naked eye and I hastily pulled up at the side of the road to grab a shot with my mobile phone. The above is an unedited panorama with a Samsung Galaxy S3.  Nice colours I am sure you will agree.

So, lets jump back a few months…August last year in fact. I offered to put together a wedding album for two friends and its been sat in the “waiting to do column” for quite a while now so I decided to pull my finger out and sort it. Phil and Jan got hold of an album and I duly asked them to provide me with the dimensions of the pages. So, on Monday the huge design process began. Weddings can be a daunting scenario for any photographer and I have been in that position but what is a very strange scenario is building a wedding album using images that you didn’t actually take because you were not at the wedding. Anyway, many hours later the task was complete and my lovely friends at Pro Am provided the printing services as well as dispatching via courier too.

It has taken me two days to finish this post. I think I’ve got terribly lazy and not spending enough time behind this computer doing what I love. Time to fix the problem..get out and take some images. Kind of difficult when the rain is pouring and thunder and lightning are singing from the skies above.

Patience is a virtue. Anyway, I got one photo…even if it is a camera phone shot.

Have a nice day all..

Who turned the heating up?… A Mozzie

It was 34′ in my car this lunchtime. Memories of the Top Gear Africa Special came flooding back……this is a nice change though isnt it? Afterall, this is what Summer should be like. We have had so many bad ones over the last few years I think we have all forgotten what Summer actually is.

I think the above image just sums up the last few years in a nutshell. Lets forget the weather for a minute and talk about its side effects. You may recall my insect bite last week that very nearly hospitalised me yet again. Seeing the little blighter hanging off my leg in hindsight I should have inspected it and then wrung its neck. However, a flick of the finger cut to the chase and sent it from here to oblivion in less than a second.

Years ago, we would have only associated Mosquitoes with the tropics and jungles of the world. Nowadays it appears these little menaces have become illegal immigrants and are now residing in our neighbourhood here in the United Kingdom. How rude and inconsiderate is that. So, have the British Summers been getting warmer? Well, it appears not…you only need to take a look at the statistics and see. So what about this little menace then….

Complaints of mosquito bites are on the rise in the UK. So should Britons brace themselves for a future mosquito menace? Hovering perfectly at ear level with a lingering, bothersome whine, mosquitoes leave you with bites that lead to itchy, swollen welts. In much of the world, affected by malaria, repelling them is a matter of life and death. In the UK they are a mere annoyance, interrupting summer holidays and barbecues.

Based on a survey of UK local authorities, reports of mosquito bites over the last 10 years are 2.5 times greater than in the 10 years up to 1996. NHS Direct statistics show 9,061 calls in England complaining of bites and stings from early May this year to now – up nearly 15% from last summer. Not all bite complaints are due to mosquitoes – many can be attributed to bedbugs, midges and fleas. But conditions in the UK, particularly in southeastern England, are increasingly hospitable to mosquitoes. “The wet weather through May and June this year, along with a warm summer, has affected the population because mosquitoes like the standing breeding water,” says zoologist Michael Bonsall at Oxford University.

It’s difficult to track mosquito numbers accurately, but the UK authorities are trying to do so. The Health Protection Agency has organised the Mosquito Recording Scheme to look into where and how mosquitoes live and breed. And the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, with help from the HPA, has created Mosquito Watch, a voluntary reporting system geared towards collecting and analysing various specimens. Not only do mosquitoes swarm over pools of standing water, including bowls left outside for pets, they appear under man-hole covers and even travel on London’s Tube network.

But while mosquitoes transmit deadly diseases in many parts of the world, they do not cause major harm in the UK. They may spoil picnics in the park, but they are usually only a major problem when Britons travel to countries with malaria, dengue or other mosquito-borne diseases. But once upon a time, malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be found in the salt marshes of southeastern England.

It is believed that malaria – literally “bad air” – dates back at least to Roman times in the UK, and outbreaks occurred as recently as the years just following World War I. British doctor Ronald Ross, who discovered the malarial parasite living in the gastrointestinal tract of the Anopheles mosquito in the 19th Century, recruited teams to eliminate the larvae from stagnant pools and marshes.

Malaria in England had effectively died out by the 1950s, mostly due to the draining of much of the marshland where mosquitoes bred. But because of the growth of global travel, the number of imported cases of the disease in the UK has risen, with nearly 2,000 a year today.In many cases, live mosquitoes have been found on aircraft, or travelling in luggage, having been transported from countries with malaria. On rare occasions, people may even have contracted malaria in Europe and North America, dubbed “airport malaria”. Five of the 30-plus species of mosquito found in the UK are not native. One variety is coming alarmingly close to the UK. The Asian tiger mosquito – Aedes albopictus – known for its white and black striped pattern has been spotted as close as Belgium.

While the species does not carry malaria, it does transmit West Nile virus, Yellow fever and dengue. “It is possible that Aedes albopictus could make its way to the UK,” says Dr James Logan, medical entomologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “Because they lay their drought-resistant eggs in transportable materials, like used tyres, there is a possibility that they can be transported to a country where they are not normally found. “Some studies suggest that they could survive the UK winter, however, to date this species has not been found in the UK and the HPA are keeping a watchful eye on it.” Bonsall agrees and adds that predictive models show how malaria-carrying species could even make their way to areas such as the North Kent marshes, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Mosquitoes are becoming immune to the insecticides used to treat them – via spray or bed nets, according to a recent study from Senegal. Between 2007 and 2010, insects with a resistance to a popular type of pesticide rose from 8% to 48%. “This could be a big problem for future control,” says Dr Hilary Ranson, head of the vector group at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.But according to Dr Logan, the health infrastructure and access to drugs in the UK means malaria is unlikely to take hold and cause major problems. Unlike much of the world, the rise of the mosquito will be a nuisance in the UK rather than a serious threat.

And for me, well…..if you have Cellulitis like I do, then you have a constant reminder of them 365 days a year. They are definitely on my Facebook block list.

Thanks for reading.

Excerpts of Article from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14613140

The dreaded Cellulitis…..

In 2007 whilst on holiday in Lanzarote I suddenly became mysteriously ill. It wasn’t like it was something obvious it was just a gradual feeling over a few hours. I recall coming back from a place called “Rancho Texas” and suspecting I had been bitten by a fly of some variety. It could well have been Spanish but as flies don’t speak I couldn’t really ask it could I? Whatever it was took a real fancy to my blood and within twenty-four hours I was flat on my back, sweating profusely and craving cold drinks. We were staying at Lomo Blanco Apartments in Puerto del Carmen and as far as I can recall with only two or three days to go until our plane ride home I did nothing but sleep. Much of this was down to heaps of Panadol kindly dispensed by my loving wife Elaine but with all good intentions she wanted to get me home. In hindsight she was right, ten days in the Leeds General Infirmary has a little more appeal than being stuck on your own in a Spanish hospital 1800 miles from home. I am sure you see where I am coming from here.

After getting me on the plane drugged up to the eyeballs I managed to get home. Looking back, two things spring to mind… firstly, I cannot even remember the journey home and secondly, how in the name of all thats holy did I get away with it? It would only have taken an eagle eyed flight attendant to realise how sick I was. Once home a call to “NHS Direct” for advice seemed the right things to do. When the call was made with all the symptoms it must have come across as a little misleading to the call handler and we awere advised that “deep vein thrombosis” was likely. I think the fact that I had just stepped off an aircraft may have swayed the decision in this direction to be fair. Anyway, that was not the point… Elaine was instructed not to panic and to get me to Accident and Emergency like…rapid. And thats exactly what happened.

My home for the next week or so was a darkened ward in the bowels of the Leeds General Infirmary called the “High Dependency Unit”. Here, I lay with my feet in an awkward postion much higher than my head and drugged up to the eyeballs much like I was in the final days of my holiday to the Canary Islands.

I was very lucky really, bites like this can be poisonous and if not treated can do real damage. Since then, my legs are painful and the skin is very soft and even the slightest knock will cause them to bruise quicker than an old tomato. The price I pay for this means I have to be careful, much like I wasnt the following year when back in Lanzarote when I scraped my leg on a the rough edge of a plastic sunbed and tore a hole on my shin. What I have managed to do is stay clear of flies and mosquitoes. Two more visits to the Canary Islands and I have stayed bite free. All down to special wipes, wristbands and a loving and caring wife who obvisouly doesnt want to see me in that state again. This was until last Friday…..when the unexpected happened…in Cottingley. Yes, Cottingley del Sol.

A beautiful summers evening and the last thing that was on my mind was the dangers of the British fly. I was at the Moonlight Walk hosted by ny good friends at Cancer Support Bradford & Airedale  — if you get a chance please take a look at the great fundraising and events the friends do…they are nothing short of fantastic.  They often ask me to take photographs for them and as its my passion I never turn down an opportunity. The event was to be held at Cottingley Fitness & Wellbeing Centre near Bingley. The place has fantastic grounds including a lovely water feature and open lawns. Ideal for an event of this kind I am sure you will agree. It also appears that it was ideal for an old friend of mine, one that was to come back an haunt me with a bang. The Fly !

It had never crossed my mind when getting ready that on a beautiful summers evening I would be better covering up my legs or caking them in Jungle Formula Insect Repellent. Afterall this is West Yorkshire not the Canary Islands.  I had been taking photographs of the participants (below)

and all was going well. I was sat by one of the tables near the edge of the lawn when I felt a sharp pain in the side of my left leg. I looked down and to my horror saw a black humped shaped insect drawing blood from the depths of my calf. How rude ! Without permission too, surely that constitutes theft? With a swipe of my hand I tried to remove said creature from my leg but it was going nowhere fast. I had to physically pick it from the hole itself had created. I was left with a trickle of blood and a feeling of nervousness came over me. What if this brought back my Cellulitis?

After a few panic ridden text exchanges with Elaine I thought nothing else of it until the next morning. I woke with a slightly more swollen pair of legs than I went to bed with, a warmer and hotter (not in the biblical sense) pair of legs along with a nauseous feeling. This was the last thing I needed. Once again, thinking nothing more of it I carried on my normal Saturday morning routine and my lovely wife went to work. Within an hour of her departure something went wrong. It was almost like it was waiting for her departure to create this problem because the timing was just that. My legs started to swell and the skin started to stretch. I took evasive action and lay on the sofa nearest the window and propped my legs up on the window sill. It was there I stayed until Elaine returned home from work at two o clock.

She knew….Straight away. Women know when something is not right, they have this ability to detect problems it’s a seventh sense (lol). No matter how much I could have tried to hide it, it was never going to work. The proof was in the size of my body parts so without removing my legs I had no chance. We both mutually agreed that a trip to Leeds General Infirmary was in order….Oh no, here we go again.

Saturday afternoon at casualty is no fun, nothing compared to Saturday evening but still no fun. Five hours later and a number of potions later and I was allowed home. This was only because no matter how much they tried they could for the life in them get a drip in to me. This has resulted in numerous bruises in my arms but I’m not going to worry about that. I will have to look like a temporary addict for a few days and deal with it.

And here I am, its Wednesday and I am still sat with my feet up and resting. Top Gear has been the highlight of my week. Thanks foe reading my woes. Call back soon for more.

Fundraising is a family affair for mum of three

My Vocation….Photography vs The Great British Summer

It might be time to head indoors and try the studio for some photography. I am a wee bit miffed at the number of opportunities that havent presented themselves of recent days. But then again, why would they, it hasn’t stopped raining for days. Having said that, as I sit here typing this blog the sun is out, just not in a way that would justify a camera-road-trip. No way Jose.

After getting bored I dreamed up a WordPress site called Streetographies which in all fairness has kept me busy for the last week or so. I’ve been trawling through images on my hard drives that may of otherwise being confined to the archives. Images that one decade earlier would have hit the cutting room floor. I even lowered myself by resurrecting flatbed scans of prints, monochrome ones at that.

Streetographies has done quite well; with only a dozen or so posts so far the new “column” approach looks quite appealing and the words that follow the pictures appear to be readable. Yes, I can quite categorically say that I am happy with whats going on over there. Like I just said, I have been trawling the old hard drives for applicable images and I found some too, seventy-nine of them so far which is a great start. I currently have sixteen of my favourite street portraits up there and the comments and viewing statistics have proved worthwhile. On the back of that I scanned my Flickr photo stream and my Lightroom catalogues and discovered another eighty candidates.

As for the paragraphs that accompany the images, well…. writing is another way of expressing my ideas just not with an image. I still have no idea whether it works or not and I am waiting for a few more comments with feedback to decide whether I should carry on. I already did a little research with regard to buying the domain name for the site and hosting it with 123-reg. That was a mistake, I don’t think I can really justify £120.00 to do this just yet. Afterall, its in its infancy and very fresh and wet behind the ears.

I think I maybe sitting back when it comes to grabbing more images. The knowledge that I have eighty to do kind of puts the idea of getting more a little less tempting. Maybe I should, that would keep a constant supply going. It definitely has had an impact on the number of posts here at “no more dead pixels” as I have spent more time thinking about images than I have writing.

I understand the weather forecast for the weekend is quite good. I will believe it when I see it.

Thanks for reading my moaning…..

Neglect, Neglect & more neglect…..Did you see?

No More Dead Pixels….. there haven’t been any. The statement says it all. People keep telling me that only women can multi-task…..okay then I will shut up now. It might well be true because I have had a major problem actually writing two blogs at once. I have been so “in to” my new blog Streetographies   that I have totally neglected everything here. Am I asking for forgiveness?? Absolutley!I have even neglected my flickr pages too….but having said that there hasn’t been much activity behind from behind the camera to even upload anything that would be worth showing. The most photography I have done is on my mobile phone. End of story. Moving on…………

Did you see the article on the news and television about Nik Wallenda completing a quarter mile tightrope walk accross the Grand Canyon? If you didn’t have a watch of this lunatic !

Aerialist Nik Wallenda completed a tightrope walk that took him a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona on Sunday. Wallenda performed the stunt on a 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the river on the Navajo Nation near the Grand Canyon. He took just more than 22 minutes, pausing and crouching twice as winds whipped around him and the rope swayed.

“Thank you Lord. Thank you for calming that cable, God,” he said about 13 minutes into the walk.

Wallenda didn’t wear a harness and stepped slowly and steady throughout, murmuring prayers to Jesus almost constantly along the way. He jogged and hopped the last few steps. The event was broadcast live on the Discovery Channel. Winds blowing across the gorge had been expected to be around 30 mph. Wallenda told Discovery after the walk that the winds were at times “unpredictable” and that dust had accumulated on his contact lenses. “It was way more windy, and it took every bit of me to stay focused the entire time,” he said.

The 34-year-old Sarasota, Fla., resident is a seventh-generation high-wire artist and is part of the famous “Flying Wallendas” circus family — a clan that is no stranger to death-defying feats. His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell during a performance in Puerto Rico and died at the age of 73. Several other family members, including a cousin and an uncle, have perished while performing wire walking stunts. Nik Wallenda grew up performing with his family and has dreamed of crossing the Grand Canyon since he was a teenager. Sunday’s stunt comes a year after he traversed Niagara Falls earning a seventh Guinness world record.

Wallenda wore a microphone and two cameras, one that looked down on the dry Little Colorado River bed and one that faced straight ahead. His leather shoes with an elk-skin sole helped him keep a grip on the steel cable as he moved across. About 600 spectators watching on a large video screen on site cheered him on as he walked toward them. A Navajo Nation ranger, a paramedic and two members of a film crew were stationed on the canyon floor and watched from below. The ranger, Elmer Phillips, said Wallenda appeared to be walking like any normal person would on a sidewalk. But he said he got a little nervous when Wallenda stopped the first time. “Other than that, a pretty amazing feat. I know I wouldn’t even attempt something like that,” Phillips said. “Very nicely done.”

Before the walk, a group of Navajos, Hopis and other Native Americans stood along a nearby highway with signs protesting the event. The event was touted as a walk across the Grand Canyon, an area held sacred by many American Indian tribes. Some local residents believe Wallenda hasn’t accurately pinpointed the location and also said that the Navajo Nation shouldn’t be promoting the gambling of one man’s life for the benefit of tourism. Discovery’s 2-hour broadcast showcased the Navajo landscape that includes Monument Valley, Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly and the tribal capital of Window Rock. “When people watch this, our main thing is we want the world to know who Navajo people are, our culture, traditions and language are still very much alive,” Geri Hongeva, spokeswoman for the tribe’s Division of Natural Resources, said before the walk.

Other than that, everything else is trif !!

Streetographies…..

A new project for me

Streetographies was an idea born on my love of photography and the street portrait. When it comes to blogging I find myself in familiar territory here as writing seems to have slightly overtaken my photography in the last months. No More Dead Pixels, my regular blog is currently flourishing with over 20,000 views and still less than a year old. Bouncing off this success and introducing my passion for street style reportage photography I decided it was time to separate the two.

My name is Mark Winterbourne and as much as I use my Flickr account to display my images I find it difficult to follow-up the image with relevant text. Flickr recently introduced a new style site which allows images to come to the forefront; and why shouldn’t it. Afterall, it’s a photography site. I have opted to show street-style images and to stick to a theme. To accompany each photograph will be a text giving information about the image. This will include the ideas behind it, the details of the exposure and its creation along with post editing and finally an opinion on the end result. I do not intend to provide dozens of images from the same location or subject but portraits of individuals in monochrome with no repetition.

The whole series will be shot using either a Canon DSLR or a Canon G9 Compact. I hope you enjoy this journey through street portraiture and any feedback would be very welcome.

You can view my new site here

 

We are heading the wrong way…..

Another week where the cameras stay in the bag, the memory cards remain untouched and the great British Summer is just around the bend. This is just not cutting the mustard is it? I am well and truly fed up of drawing blanks when it comes to ideas. Don’t get me wrong here….I am by no means far short of ideas its more a fact that the ideas keep getting interrupted by the weather. Saying all this, as I sit here and type the sun comes out and the black clouds race across the horizon. If only they would do this in about 45 minutes as the sun begins to dip below the horizon. No way Jose, It aint gonna happen….recent weeks have all proved that as the evening draws to a close all the clouds chose to dissipate and leave a completely clear and bland sky, far from a photographers dream.

I really shouldn’t whine, I have had a busy schedule and found little time to just “nip” out and grab some photos. I was hoping to make the most of early mornings and late nights but it just isn’t happening. If you miss the early morning slot there is always the chance of doing it again in the evening. However, if you meet the morning slot and fancy a stab at the evening one as well that’s when the tiredness kicks in. In full clout too…. Burning the candle at both ends is not a great idea. It’s a bit like jet lag with added pzazz. I’m just not going there.

So how do I cure this small ailment of photo starvation? I know what I wont do….head to the local water feature and just continue shooting where I left off. It’s such an easy way out. It’s so local, so photogenic yet so mundane. It’s very difficult coming up with new ideas when you have about a whole Lightroom Catalog with about 8000 images just from the said location. You name it, sunrise, sunset, daytime in summer, daytime in winter…rain, hail, fog.. I have been there and done it. With no reason to return. But I do. So what choices are laid before me……hundreds, thousands, all waiting for said shutter to click. Just not as easy as you might think….

I will find another avenue, it may take time, but it shall be discovered. Meanwhile, I will do what I love and what I do best….Which is, be at home with my beautiful wife. I don’t think for one minute she will complain.

Anyway, I got so much more blogging to do, I don’t know why I’m complaining. Currently there are 12 “Draft” items in my blog.

I will shut up and carry on.

Thanks for reading folks, as always.