i took this moments before photographing a smaller rock in sardinia bay beach in south africa.
i really need to start coming up with more original titles to these pictures. i have taken quite a few waterfall images, but i don't think that's an excuse to get up to number five. maybe it's ok if i keep to single figures. it would have made more sense to name the picture after whatever the waterfall was called, unfortunately that would rely on me remembering small bits of (seemingly) useless information which i simply cannot do. i remember it was in tsitsikamma national park, about 4km away from this waterfall... and not quite as big.
last friday i went to see the smashing pumpkins at men arena. i'd heard that they were planning to do a 28 song set so i was really excited about going to see them. then i heard that the night before in nottingham they had stormed off stage two thirds of the way through. as a result i was a little nervous that they might do the same but as it was they stayed on for over two hours and despite not coming on for an encore (they only played 26 songs) i was still more than satisfied.
this guy might not be up there with the other big animals i posted the other week but that's center parcs for you. i had a few sharper shots of this fella, but i liked the pose in this one. and i'm still amazed/confused as to how squirrels manage to balance on weak, thin branches.
i don't think i got the best shot i could have of this guy as we only stopped at this beach for five minutes. to the casual observer this just looks like a regular guy with a kite. in reality he's a mentalist who straps himself to a kite, then a surfboard, and then precedes to surf and fly along the ocean. it looks awesome, and it shits all over the british alternative!
we followed this elephant down a hill to a riverbank where he started drinking the water, and then rolling around in the mud. he then looked over at us, in the land rover, and wondered over so close that i could have reached out and touched him. now i've seen an elephant before, hell i've even ridden one, but there's something so different and amazing about seeing a wild animal. it sounds sickeningly cliché but i really felt like there was a connection there.
my holiday to south africa wasn't all going to the beach, seeing waterfalls and hanging out with a pack of lions - also spent a good portion of it in hospital. i ended up staying at plettenberg bay medi-clinic and i don't think i could have picked a better place to contract pneumonia. it had only been open six weeks and all the nursing staff there were really kind, friendly, informative and helpful. my only real criticism, and something they might want to look into, is that they didn't have super sport on the television. i mean what's that all about? it's a good job i had a video ipod and a gameboy or they'd be getting a very strongly worded letter.
this was a weird mushroom type thing growing on a tree in tsitikamma national park. it was actually growing just above head height so i just put my camera as close as i could to take a shot. i was apprehensive that it would suddenly come alive and clamp onto my hand but somehow i managed to survive.
i took this just after we'd come back from our tiring 7km hike, and the day before i ended up going to hospital. we had driven back to our hotel and i was feeling all kinds of shite. however i also saw the sun setting and wanted to take a few photographs. i had to try and justify to my mind that it would be a good idea to walk around for half an hour taking pictures when all i wanted to do was collapse in bed. i think i managed it by thinking it would be worth it when i was back at home, feeling better and flicking through the holiday snaps. and it was.
this is a close up of the stained glass in the all saints church in york where my niece was christened. there's a lot of history and stories behind this stained glass. i know this because the vicar there insisted on taking us on a tour and informing us of this history. i don't know the stories because this was incredibly boring and i wasn't paying any attention. what i do know is i'm glad we were only given the 'short' one hour tour.
the weather doesn't seem quite right for posting a shot like this, but in my defence this was only taken a few weeks ago when i went to center parcs. i ended up using very similar processing to the spiky autumn photo that i posted last year. as with that shot the processing managed to warm the scene quite considerably
whenever i fly i always find it hard to not take shots of the clouds, there's just something that i find fascinating about them. the problem is that you have to take them through a tiny aeroplane window so it's hard to get good results. this image started off as one that i could have easily overlooked but thanks to my rule of never deleting an image until i've seen it on my computer, i managed to get this from the original
she loves me. she loves me not she loves me. she loves me not she loves me. she loves me not she loves me. she loves me not she loves me. she loves me not she loves me. she loves me not she loves me it's always good to be sure
this is the amakhala game reserve, home to all of these animals. it's a big place. really big. like 7000 hectares. which according to google is 27 square miles. we're lucky we saw anything at all.
despite the fact that the headline attraction at the safari park was the chance to see the big five - i was just as excited to see the supporting acts such as the springbok, oryx, kudu and these zebras. they were quite easy to find as they tend to stay in large groups but were also quite timid so the moment you got too close they skipped away. not as scary as yesterday's beast but i think equally as beautiful
ok, i've posted a couple of light snacks already - here's the main course. we were all eager to see the lions when we arrived at the reserve, however we had our expectations levelled when we were told that we'd be lucky to come across them. the kind of news that sucks if you don't see anything, but makes it more special if you do. we had to travel for about an hour, without stopping, to the area where they suspected the lions would be, and then started looking. at first we saw the mother by herself, and then further down the track we came across the father, and then one by one the three cubs wandered over for a cuddle. it was really strange seeing them act so... cat-like. they were nuzzling, licking and yawning just like domestic cats - only much, much bigger and much, much more fearsome.
when we stayed at amakhala game reserve we had four game drives included. the highlight of the first one was the elephant, the highlight of the second were the giraffes. again they started off as innocuous orange blobs in the distance, as we got closer we saw two or three heads popping up and having some food. within minutes a whole herd of them came out and walked straight past us.
last saturday i went to york for my niece's christening. it was slightly different to the last one i went to as that was catholic and this was... er... not. i'm not totally sold on the whole idea of a baptism. i mean i think people should be able to believe whatever they want, but it seems to me that baptism is a way of forcing your belief onto a child who isn't old enough to make up their own mind. having said that, if the child does grow up not belieiving then all that really happened was being splashed a few times with water and getting loads of presents. sounds pretty good actually. anyway, here's mother and daughter walking around the church before the water splashing had begun.
a few hours ago i gave this to my boss. not in photographic form, i don't think that would have been appropriate. it's the first resignation letter that i've had to write, when i've left jobs in the past i just stopped turning up, they soon got the message. i thought i'd be a bit nervous about handing it over but actually i'm just excited (and nervous) about starting my new job next month. i've been at my current job for almost four years so it's definitely time to move on.
to go along with yesterdays photo this was the view from the other side of the balcony at our hotel in tsitsikamma. it's a close up of the sandrift river gorge which cuts through the mountains and runs to the indian ocean.
tsitsikamma was our first stop after hiring a car, leaving port elizabeth and embarking on the garden route. it really is a beautiful part of the world and due to an error when we were calculating our budget we ended up staying at an overly expensive (by our standards) hotel sandwiched between a river gorge and the indian ocean. this was the view from the main balcony - as i recall i walked out on it and just said "wow".
while we were hiking to the waterfall we came across these cute, furry fellas which our leaflet informed us were rock dassies. i had forgotten their name when i came back home so had a look on t'internet and was surprised to read that the dassie is the closest living relative of the elephant. this is a piece of trivia that is denied on the wikipedia page so i'm not sure what the truth is. what i do know is that these creatures would kick ass in a staring contest
the day before i was admitted to hospital i went for a walk in the tsitsikamma national park. there were lots of different trails which lasted from a few hours to a few days. as i wasn't feeling that great (what with the undiagnosed pneumonia) we decided to take an 'easy' one - the 3.5km waterfall trail sounded good. it turned out that the trail was (quite correctly) classed as 'difficult', it was 3.5km there and another 3.5km back and the burning sun and single litre of water may have been a mistake. i was absolutely drained afterwards but it was absolutely worth it.
this is another shot from when i went to center parcs. it was the first time that i had been to one and i figured that we'd just turn up, have a look around and do a few activities. it didn't quite work out like that as, despite it being winter, it was really busy and everywhere was booked up. bugger. managed to get to have a swim and go sailing on the lake but that was about it - i think i spent the rest of time pissed or getting pissed. if i do come back again this looks like something i might be interested in.
since i have quite a few photos from my trip to south africa to post i figured i'd break them up by posting uk only shots on the weekend. so, the weekend after we returned from holiday we had planned to go to center parcs in sherwood forest with a bunch of mates. basically an upscale version of a christmas meet up that we try and do every year. this time we figured it would be good to chase away the post christmas blues (an in our case the post holiday blues). after looking at the options we decided to spend that little bit extra and book an executive lodge. as it turned out it didn't look anything like the pictures, to the extent that i shudder to think what the 'comfort' villas are like... probably just a hole in the ground. anyways it did, as it claimed, have a sauna complete with this freezing outdoor shower. i didn't partake myself, something about sweating your bollocks off in tiny, steamy room before freezing them off outside under a shower, and then repeating the cycle didn't quite appeal to me.
this was one of the first animals we saw when began our first game drive at amakhala. our ranger, jonty, was really good at driving the land rover through rough terrain while scanning 2km ahead for small grey dots that turned out to be animals. it also helped that there were a few other rangers out who all communicated by radio so if one of them found an animal, they let everyone else know.
the day after i was discharged from hospital we went on safari in the amakhala game reserve. it was an amazing experience and a really beautiful place. it's the kind of place where i really wished that i didn't just have a compact digital camera with a measly 4x zoom. still, that didn't prevent me from getting through most of my memory cards. this here is an aloe plant which were spread all around the reserve, explaining the name as amakhala means aloe in xhosa.
ok, so i may as well get this over with. the holiday didn't go quite exactly as i planned. the idea was that we would hire a car and drive along the south coast to cape town. we were going to do some shark diving, sandboarding, go up to table mountain, visit the penguin beach. unfortunately all that went out the window when i was hospitalised with pneumonia! i felt ok at the start of the holiday, and after spending all day at the beach i felt a bit faint and feverish. i put this down to sunstroke and thought i'd just take it easy. however i soon developed a cough and when i didn't improve i went to see a doctor who ordered blood tests and an x-ray. one look at the x-ray and the doc said i needed to go to hospital and get antibiotics immediately. so they stuck this in my arm and i stayed there for five days. so... hope you like hospital photos!
we flew out from a pissing wet manchester at about 4 or 5 in the morning and arrived in johannesburg late that night. knackered from traveling we just went to sleep and woke up to find blue sky, hot sun, no clouds and no wind. nice.
well i've been back in the uk for two weeks now so i figured it was about time to post some photos from when i went to south africa. a few of them will probably require explanations but i'll start with a simple shot that i took when we went to a beach in port elizabeth. the weather fluctuated quite a lot over there, it was never cold but there were some days it was overcast, some days when it rained. this was a typical summer's day when it was just very, very hot.
on friday i went down to london to see chris rock play his last date of an eight show residency at the hammersmith apollo. i've been a fan ever since i saw a clip of his live act in bowling for columbine (the bullet control sketch) and have been eagerly awaiting his first stand up performance in the uk. he didn't disappoint, and i think i'd put him up with bill hicks as my favourite comedian. a few of funny bits that i remember (which won't sound half as good repeated here, but still) on american and british celebs "you' ve got amy, we've got britney... hey, at least your cracker can sing" on hilary clinton's election campaign "i think america's ready for a woman president, i really do... but does it have to be that woman"
this is in chilworth, surrey. i'm in a bit of a rush putting this up so that's about all i have to say.
this was taken seconds after yesterday's photo of nicklas bendtner scoring against tottenham last year. if i had the backs of bendtner's legs in the shot then i would have been very happy, as it is i'm still quite proud of this shot, if nothing else because the crowd erupted when we got the winner and i think the next few shots are grassy blurs as everyone jumped around.
we played spurs last night in the carling cup semi final. i thought that the timing would be good to put up this photo of nicklas bendtner scoring the winner against spurs when we beat them in the league last month. however last night didn't quite go to plan and we ended up getting thrashed 5-1. not only that but bendtner scored an own goal. and got in a fight with another one of our players. i believe the word i'm looking for is bollocks. as you may have noticed this is actually a combination of three photos of nicklas running, jumping and heading the ball into the back of the net. this was particularly satisfying at the time as tottenham had just missed a penalty, and the chance to take the lead, plus this was bendtner's first touch after coming on as a substitute.
still posting my pre-holiday shots, this was a brass band raising money for the salvation army outside the emirates stadium at the end of last year.
it's been almost a month since i've posted a photo which is quite a long break for me. i've spent most of that time in south africa on holiday so i suspect the next few weeks (months) there will be a south african theme to the posts. as it is i've been pretty busy since coming back and still haven't had time to properly go through the gigabytes of photos that i took so i've decided to post some wintery pictures instead. this was a thin layer of frost that had formed on my sisters car on christmas day/night.
this is the view out of the window of my dad's house in chilworth. i ended up balancing the camera on a fencepost to keep it still for the long exposure shot. i wasn't too happy with the framing and wanted more sky so i cheated in photoshop and added a little to the top. i'm heading off on a holiday to south africa today for about two and a half weeks. i've bought extra memory cards in preparation which i'm sure i'll fill up in a matter of days. i don't know when i'll next be online but i probably won't post and new photos until i'm back in the country in mid january. so... see y'all in 2008!
this is manuel almunia, the arsenal goalkeeper who played against spurs last saturday. it's taken a long time for the arsenal fans to warm to him. he has been our second goalie, behind jens lehmann, for quite a few seasons and hasn't really looked secure when he's played in the first team. then again, being a goalkeeper is a tough gig as whenever you do make a mistake it's invariably costly. this season has been slightly different with lehmann only playing the first two league games before being injured/dropped in lieu of manuel. since then he hasn't been out of the side and has been pretty steady at the back. this culminated in this match where, at 1-1, he saved a penalty that would almost certainly have surrendered our unbeaten home record. he deservedly had his name sung throughout the stadium as the final whistle went.
this is another shot of the cathedral in blackburn that i took while looking for a pub that didn't exist. certain buildings just look better at night and i think this is one of them. i'm not sure of the significance of the glowing disc shaped sculpture on the front but it looked pretty cool.
this is abou diaby chucking his shirt into the crowd after beating blackburn in a hard fought carling cup match. we were playing really well and 2-0 up for most of the first half, they then got a couple back and the second half was a lot tighter, ending with one of our players (correctly) sent off. the match then went to extra time where we nicked the winner. you could tell it meant a lot to the players, who were all quite young and inexperienced, so it was a nice gesture to celebrate with the crowd. unfortunately, with a shot like this you only get one chance to take it so you need to try not to mess it up. i did mess it up and wasn't happy with the result as it had someones hand in the frame, and another player messing up the scene. cue a fair bit of work in photoshop and i ended up with this image which i am quite pleased with, it looks pretty grainy but i had the iso quite high as it was pretty late at this stage
this was taken in the opposite direction to the happy eid decoration from the same bridge in bradford city centre. this time i didn't have to edit the image quite so heavily, although i did do a bit of tidying around the letters so it was easier to read - happy christmas everyone.
i got the train to blackburn last week when i went to the football match and planned to meet my girlfriend at the station as she had her car - meaning we could both drive back together. i got there just after six and tried follow her directions to meet up in a pub by the station. after walking around for about 45 minutes, and asking confused locals how to get to a pub they'd never heard of we finally realised that we were at different stations! apparently google maps had taken her to darwin station instead of blackburn. whilst walking around i passed this cathedral so many times i figured i may as well get a shot of it.
as there is quite a diverse population in bradford in addition to the usually christmas lights there are also deepwali and eid lights as well. i wanted to get a shot of these in the city centre however as this year eid is near christmas all the festive messages were mixed together. to get around this i edited this photo in photoshop and removed the quite prominent christmas message.
last tuesday i went to blackburn for the second time this season to see arsenal play them, this time in the carling cup. the carling cup (or league cup to use it's non branded title) is a competition that's not usually given much importance, particularly when the top clubs are challenging for the fa cup, league title and european cup. however this has changed in recent years, in my eyes anyway, as it's a good opportunity for the younger players to see how they cope playing against proper opposition. in some cases we seem to do better as youngsters than with a full strength squad - we only managed draws against newcastle and blackburn in the league but beat them both with a (relatively) inexperienced team in the carling cup.
this is a close up of the blue lights on the trees at the back of the shops in angel. strange as it seems it was quite hard to get a sharp out of focus shot as opposed to just a blurry one. i'm glad that i did as i think it's a shot that looks better the bigger it is. i really like how some of the lights end up looking like molecules... or for the purpose of the title electrons.
this a close up of one of the metal wings in angel in inslington that i posted yesterday and yestermonth. i'm not sure if i'm completely happy with the result - i played around with the image for a while but i couldn't decide what i thought worked best. still you have to get to a point where you stop arsing around and save the image so i chose this point.
i was down in london again on sunday to see arsenal play, unbelievably it was only my second visit to the stadium this season - i went to a lot more last season but am (literally) still paying for it now. i took this after the match walking back to kings cross through islington. i actually posted a shot of the exact same thing one month ago but i think i can get away with it due to the festive additions.
this is the wool exchange in bradford city centre which dispels the myth that bradford is full of shitty buildings. apparently (by which i mean according to wikipedia) it was used to trade wool in a similar way to a stock exchange up until the 60s. now it houses a few shops, including waterstones and starbucks.
this is another shot of my pint of beer when i was in the pub last sunday. this is the carling slogan that has been etched into the bottom of the glass which i'm sure i was told helps the bubbles and keeps the drink fizzy. i'm not quite sure how but i'm sure there's a boring scientific explanation for it.
this is a similar picture to the lake in wibsey park, albeit taken a month later and using a puddle instead of a lake for the reflection. this was actually and attempted hdr image, using three different shots, but i ended up making so many little changes that i don't think it really counts anymore.
i took this close up of my pint of carling during half time in the arsenal match on sunday. i was drinking cos i was sulking cos we were losing.
this is a close up of the trunk of my chili plant. it's been on my windowsill for most of the year and while the leaves are drooping a little i'm surprised to see that it's still alive. i don't really know what's supposed to happen during the winter - i assume that it won't produce any more chilis - but i'll be happy enough if it makes it through to give me another batch next year.
this was taken a few hours after yesterdays post when then sun had started to go down and reflect in the lake in wibsey park. it gives the illusion of warmth, which i accentuated a little from the original, but this is still very much winter.
it didn't seem like that long ago that i was in wibsey park taking pictures of the autumn leaves but in reality it was and now all the leaves have departed and the sun replaced by raindrops. oh winter sucks.
this is an icy box that we now have at work after one of the computers blew up. no seriously, it crashed, wouldn't restart, and then a burning smell started emanating from the tower. ok, so i suppose it didn't technically blow up, but it was getting pretty warm.
i think there's a very clear line between street art and graffiti. for example the mural on kilburn high road i think is a brilliant bit of art, the tag in the alley down the road definitely isn't. i think it's pretty obvious what category this falls into, having said that you have to admire however they managed to spray it on the top of this three storey building.
i haven't had time to take many new photos recently as i've been busy stuck at my desk, redesigning the site. so i took this one at my desk in between php and javascript headaches. the speaker that the shadow is projected onto only takes up about half of the shot so i used the clone tool in photoshop to stretch it out - i preferred it as a background to the original
i'm thinking that these hand prints belong to two different people, i mean i don't watch csi or anything but they look like they're slightly different shapes and sizes. besides if you were going to put two of your own prints up surely you'd do one of each hand? or maybe i'm thinking about it too much. anyway, they were on a wall between leeds city centre and headingley.
i've spent the last week or so working on redesigning my photoblog and you can see the result here: www.testmeat.co.uk/photos. i hope you like the new look. as for this picture, it's over a year old and i took it shortly after getting my current camera and started to have fun with light and long exposures. i balanced the camera on the fridge in my old flat in shipley and used a torch to write out my name.
this is my niece who was just over two months old when this photo was taken. i think it's her eyes that allow her to make really funny facial expressions. similar to gromit in that respect then.
last sunday i went to a friends christening in a church in haworth. it was the first christening i've been to but i'm told that the babies usually scream their heads off - so everyone seemed impressed that ethan was so well behaved. there was a bit too much jesus speak for me, i suppose that's to be expected, but it was a fun day and if nothing else just a good opportunity for everyone to get together.
when i was driving home from work the other day i noticed that the sky was looking particularly pretty so i stopped off at the park near my house to take a picture. i don't like the fact the sun is setting so early at this time of the year but it does make for interesting pictures. i warmed the shot a little in photoshop but i can assure you that it was very cold when i took this so i didn't hang around too long.
this is the view from my office window in bradford. i only took it a few weeks ago but with the weather we have now it seems like forever. it's actually a combination of 17 photos that i stitched together. i then had to do some work in photoshop to smooth some of the lines, sort out some of the levels and remove some of the reflections in the window.
there's no getting away from it, i do like a panning motion blur shot. before i began my photoblog i was inspired by a few ddoi shots. in fact one of the first pictures that i put up on my blog was my first attempt at this technique - and it looks pretty poor in hindsight. i think i'm improving but still have some way to go - from what i can tell it's a skill that requires a lot of luck - but it's good fun to try.
this is the mixing desk at manchester academy when i went to see the shins. i'm pretty certain that the people that work on these things don't know what every button does - you must have to be autistic to keep all of that information in your head. they just tweak a few knobs and press the odd button to look like their busy, i know their secret...
after going to islington when i was down in london i ended up in chinatown in piccadilly circus. i went to a pretty good vietnamese restaurant and got some sweet basil from a chinese supermarket (which is the best legal herb you can buy). even though i was travelling by bus and train my feet were killing at the end of the day - everything in london is so far apart that i just end up knackered by it all. i mean i like city life by i don't think i could handle living in london permanently - life just seems less rushed up north.
along with the pods i posted a few days ago here's another shot of the wheel of manchester. i wanted to try and take a side on shot of the spinning wheel but i couldn't find a suitable place to fit it all in shot. i also had the problem that i didn't have a tripod with me (i was on my way to see the shins at the time). however something i like about the a620 is that it has a fold out screen. this means, if you find a flat surface, you can precariously position the screen and the camera so that it balances in place. so this was taken from the pavement.
this is another attempt at an hdr shot, with a little selective blurring in photoshop thrown in. i took it the weekend before last when i was down in islington. i seem to have been putting up quite a few black and white shots recently. it's hard to say why, i don't usually like taking the colour out of an image as i think that you lose quite a lot of the picture, but in another way making a shot black and white seems to add something else. anyway, it seemed to work better for this one.
last month a from detour posted an interesting commentary to one of his photos - basically saying how every photoblogger tends to have the same set of shots in their collection. i've gone through his list and it's disarmingly accurate. i'm pretty certain that i haven't made a concious effort to take these kind of pictures for any other reason than i thought they looked good. i did however take this image to go on the list, but that's the exception... honest.
i went to manchester academy last week to see the shins again. this time they were playing at the bigger academy and i decided to watch it from a little further back then i usually do. it was a similar set list to last time, but i probably enjoyed it more as i was more familiar with their songs, in particular from oh inverted world which i bought just before their last gig. brilliant band.
these are some pods spinning around the wheel of manchester - a big ferris wheel near the arndale centre. i had a bit of time to kill so i was going to take quite a few pictures but it was so cold that i couldn't stay outside for too long. yeah i'm a wuss.
ok - this is the last firework shot as i've already posted a few. i actually bought these fireworks last year, but as i had just moved house, was feeling kind of stressed and the garden wasn't turfed, i never got around to using them so i figured that i could save them for this year. now, i don't know if fireworks have a use by date, but these rockets were particularly unpredictable. usually you light them, step back and watch them soar into the sky. these ones just went wherever they damn well felt like. at this point i should probably apologise to my neighbours who probably woke to find remnants of the rockets scattered all over their gardens. still, i don't think they did any major damage... although the shed window was lying on the other side of the garden the next morning...
this is another shot of kieran gibbs from the sheffield united v arsenal match that i went to at the end of october. i was quite excited when i got into the ground to discover that i had a seat on row a - which was as close to the pitch as possible. as bramall lane is a relatively small stadium that meant that i was really close to the action. arsenal were kicking away from me in the first half so i was looking forward to getting some shots of theo walcott bombing it down the right wing in the second half. unfortunately these hopes were dashed as the second half kicked off and a steward told me i wasn't allowed to take pictures and i could be ejected from the ground - a rule that apparently applies to all stadiums in england. well that's a load of bollocks. my girlfriend came up with a witty retort which was to inquire "if that rule only applied to 'championship' clubs?". unfortunately we were half way back to bradford when she though of it so the moment had somewhat gone.
this is a spirally brick column that is part of a mosque where i parked when i went to the sheffield united match. i was, and am still, confused as to how they created it. whether they originally built a regular column and then cut in a spiral shape, of if they had specially created bricks that the pieced together like a massive jigsaw. who knows - i just thought it looked cool.
this is another firework picture that i took in my garden. you never really know what you're going to get when taking firework shots so i quite liked how this came out. i exposed it a little longer than did with my other fountain shots - but liked the explosion of light coming out of the dragon.
the other week my girlfriends best friend came over from ireland for the weekend. we had planned to have a big saturday night out in leeds or huddersfield but when the evening came around we were all decidedly unmotivated. eventually we decided just to head out into bradford and decide what to do from there - ended up staying there til past 3am. i don't like using the flash and try to avoid it as much as possible. however, i do like the ghostly effect achieved with a flash and long exposure - that's what i did here.
as soon as i saw this picture on my computer it instantly became one of my favourites - so much so that i hardly made any changes to it at all. it's hard to say why i like it - the main subject (a rocket firework) is completely overexposed - but i just like the atmosphere. of course i can't really take too much credit as i just pointed my camera towards the darkness, lit the firework, ran towards the camera and pressed the button, and then ran back to the house to avoid getting hit by said firework.
this is another shot from the sheffield united v arsenal match that i went to - this time of kieran gibbs. gibbs is an unusual player in the arsenal team as he's english - quite a rarity these days. personally, and of course i am biased, i prefer quality over nationality so i don't really mind. that doesn't stop the opposition supporters having a go so i thought it was quite funny, after a brazilian had just scored our third goal, when we chanted to the sheffield united fans: "you need more foreigners!"
this is another shot of the dancing flower firework that i posted yesterday - this time before it really started to get going. i used exactly the settings on the camera for this one but it turned out a lot darker as there was less 'fire' coming out of the fountain.
so last night i had another go at taking some pictures of fireworks. i wasn't exactly sure what i was doing so it was fun to experiment - particularly as i like taking long exposure shots. i think that these worked best when i was taking photos of the fountains, as you get lots of different light trails, and the fountain is fixed in the same place. this one was called the dancing flower - yeah, i've no idea how they come up with the names
it's been another busy day with not much time to think about photos so while i have a little time i figured i'd put up the last of my hardraw force photos. last night i had a go trying to take some firework photos and failed miserably. the mistake i made, because it was dark, was keeping the shutter open for ages. i ended up with a bunch of overexposed or just plain white pictures. i still have a couple of fireworks left over so i'll see if i can fare any better tonight.
sorry for the lack of activity the past few days, it wasn't, as is usually the case, that i had nothing to post, more that i had no time to post it as i had a ridiculously busy week. this was taken midway through that busy week when i went down to sheffield to see arsenal beat united in the carling cup. this is our goalkeeper, and captain for the night, lukasz fabianski. he was a strange choice of captain for a few reasons, first he's never been captain before, second he's technically our third choice goalkeeper playing his second ever game for the club and thirdly last years vice-captain and experienced world cup winner gilberto was starting the match too. i'm hoping there's not too much to read into that as gilberto was very useful for us last season. anyway, enough about football, i intentionally underexposed this picture in the hope of getting a sharper image that i could then brighten in photoshop.
this is a wide angle shot of hardraw force, a waterfall that i've already posted more than one photo of. this is the first one which i think really gives a good sense of scale. in an ideal world i'd have taken this with a fancy wide angle lens. it's not though, so i took 12 regular pictures and stitched them together.
this is my second attempt at an HDR image. the previous one, which i did about six months ago, i wasn't particularly happy with. this one i feel more happy about. the differences with this is that i kept the camera in almost exactly the same place (resting on a fence) when i changed the exposure settings and, more importantly, i utilised photoshop's merge to hdr option. i still don't think that it's quite right but it's an improvement and hopefully i can get it right next time.
this is another shot taken in hardraw when i went up to see the waterfall
this is the punk that crashed into me on friday. we pulled into a nearby petrol station and attempted to exchange details which was a nightmare as he couldn't speak a word of english. this is him filling out a 'declaración del accidente', a document that was written completely in spanish, and therefore something that i refused to sign on the basis that i didn't understand it. trying to get details from him was equally as pointless, the conversation went something like this: me: do you have insurance? him: si me: can i see it? him: si (looks at me blankly) me: do you have a policy number? him: si me: what is your policy number? him: si (looks at me blankly) me: here's my number... what's your number? him: si me: aaarrrggghh! (in my head)
so i was driving home from work yesterday, i got to a fairly big roundabout and stopped at a red light in a lane going straight ahead. i looked to my left and saw a big lorry in a left only lane indicating my way, he then proceeded to act on his indication and drove into my side, crushing my wing mirror and scraping the front, left side of my car. as i sounded my horn, he stopped and i moved forward to get out and inspect the damage. my wing mirror was hanging by a thread and a big metal chunk had come off his lorry. he got out as well and proceeded to have a go at me for damaging his lorry. i think he was arguing that because he had indicated, he was allowed to change lanes so it was my fault for being in his path. i say i think this was his argument as it turns out he was from ecuador, driving a spanish lorry and didn't speak a word of english. still, i'm impressed that my little fiesta managed to come off better and take a chunk out of his truck!
these are some spiky railings near to wear i work in bradford - in fact they're round the corner from these railings. that old photo makes me think that i've been working at the same place for too long! anyway i wanted a golden, autumnal look to the photo but mother nature wasn't playing ball and the dull, overcast light made it all look a bit flat. so i had to resort to a few tricks in photoshop to get this image
i do like the different effects you can create when taking pictures of moving water. the main reason that i chose the camera i have now, a canon powershot a620, is because you can set manual exposure settings such as aperture and shutter speed. however, i now feel that i've got to the point where i can see the limitations of this camera and want to get my hands on a dslr. just need to save up a bit more money! anyway, this is the same shot with 2 different exposures - the left is a fast 1/50 second and a wide f/2.8 while the left is a slower 1/4 second and a smaller f/8.0.
i'm a bit annoyed that this picture isn't as sharp as it could have been. i wanted to focus on the flower which i saw popping out of the ground near to the waterfall. i took the shot and checked it on the lcd screen thinking it was fine. only when i came to process it did i see that it wasn't quite right. it's for this reason that i tend to overshoot when taking photos - often the pictures will look the same until you look at them up close and you can see the imperfections.
this is a close up of the rock at the bottom of the waterfall that gets battered by 100ft of water. i wanted to try and get as long an exposure as i could to give the water that satisfying silky look. i couldn't really push it much more than this without it becoming too bright - my camera's aperture only goes up to f/8. still, i got the result that i wanted.
on saturday i went up to hawes in the yorkshire dales to village called hardraw where they boast britain's highest waterfall. it was very impressive so you'll have to forgive me over the next few days for posting a few shots of it.
this is a tree in wibsey park just down the road from my house. i took this just before england (effectively) failed to qualify for euro 2008. i write this just after lewis hamilton failed to win f1 and england failed to retain the rugby world cup. it truly has been a shite week for english sport.
due to a recent breach of security we've got these hand scanners installed at work. to enter the office you have to put your hand up to the screen and this green light scans your hand, picks out certain signifiers such as fingerprints and then matches it against the database. nah - i'm bullshiting - i was just pissing around with the photocopier!
i took this after almost sticking my fingers together fixing my girlfriends mug. i didn't really like the way the original image looked so i went for a more lo-fi shot using photoshop.
i was cleaning up my computer the other day and noticed a few photos that i'd taken and forgotten about. with not a lot new to post i figured i'd stick em up. this was a couple of months ago when i fixed my girlfriends (recently broken) favourite mug. i thought i did an ok job putting it back together, although i wouldn't like to drink out of it and i did kind of glue myself to... myself.
three thousand miles north east i left all my friends at the morning bus stop shaking their heads. "what kind of life you dream of? you're allergic to love." yes i know but i must say in my own defense it's been undeniably dear to me, i don't know why when every other part of life seemed locked behind shutters i knew the worthless dregs we are, the selfless, loving saints we are, the melting, sliding dice we've always been.
when i was out in jumpin jaks in halifax there were a bunch of lads standing around this machine called the boxing champion. it basically works like this: - you have a few drinks - start feeling cocky - tell your mates that you're dead hard - you put some money in - a punch bag drops - you hit it as hard as you can - it gives you a score based on your strength - your mate tells you that's shit and has a go - repeat ad nauseam whoever owns that machine must make a fucking killing!
you know that you're in a classy joint when you have to be reminded that tables are for putting drinks on, not dancing. this is, like yesterday, from jumpin jaks in halifax.
last night i went out in halifax for a friends leaving party. we all got quite drunk and ended up in jumpin jaks. i think that's actually a requirement of entry - at least i find it hard to believe that a sober person would choose to go there. anyway this is a long exposure shot of the dance floor. i really didn't change much with this shot after taking it. there's something about the garish colours that i like, which you don't get when you take pictures with a flash.
this is another shot of the emergency exit sign outside my office. all the lights were off again this morning so i just put the camera facing up on the floor. incidentally, the title is song title from a band called ours who released a brilliant album called distorted lullabies ages ago and i haven't heard anything from them since.
yesterday i went to the emirates stadium for the first time this season to watch arsenal play sunderland. i was really looking forward to it as we've played some brilliant football so far and are currently top of the league. it was all going well for the first twenty minutes when we were all over them but then it was just like last year when we let them back in it, kept missing chances and generally started to become frustrated. luckily we managed to get the winner with ten minutes to go. this is a combination of 19 different shots taken within a minute and then combined in photoshop. if my counting skills are accurate then i make it 140 players in the picture.
here's a close up shot of the free tickets to the small turin brakes gig
this is another shot of daniel johns from the silverchair gig that i went to back in august. i don't have any new photos to post and it's been almost a month since i missed a day so i thought i'd keep it going and dip into my archives.
this is a close up shot of the strap of my work bag. i took this on the same train journey as the exit picture - yep, i was pretty bored. i liked the effect that came out and i did almost no post processing afterwards.
this is gale from turin brakes playing in trinity church in leeds. there was a certain charm to the way that they played with a very simple setup, from the tiny amp on the right of the picture to when they played a drumbeat from a ghettoblaster (announcing it as their cheapest, and most good looking, drummer yet). i was fortunate that i took this picture at the exact moment that someone else did, with their flash. that's why his left side is slightly more lit up.
i was in london a couple of weeks ago and while walking from my sisters house to my nans i passed this church on holland road. i thought it was really strange how there was a standard row of london terraced houses yet it looked like someone prised them apart and slotted a church in the middle. i don't have a wide angle lens to capture something like this so i ended up stitching five photos together. i also drastically under-exposed the original so had to use the right combination of curves and levels to get the image right.
i was bored and on the train to leeds so i took this picture of the emergency exit lettering on the window. i had to rest the side of the camera against the window to keep it steady and afterwards flipped the image
here's another shot of the turin brakes gig at the church. i managed to get a seat three pews from the front which meant that the view was pretty good but slightly obscured by the blokes head in front of me. you know, if this church wants to be taken seriously as a venue it really should start having staggered seating at different heights. anyways, the view was almost totally obscured during the encore when a drunk girl in the front row decided to stand up and block everyones view. where's a bible when you need to throw one?
this is a picture of tanya arnold, a news reporter for bbc look north, which i took about the same time as the photo of her colleague. if you listen to the news when she's reporting then you would swear that it's a bloke as she has an unnaturally low voice. when i was taking the picture there was an elderly couple next to me and the wife turned to the husband and said "look, there's the news presenter who looks like a man!". which i thought was a little harsh. to their credit they did say "she looks better in person", so don't feel to bad about it tanya
here's a shot of an underpass in leeds. i mirrored the image and adjusted the hue to blue.
about two weeks ago i got an email from turin brakes saying that to support their new album they were playing a handful of 'intimate' performances and if you pre-ordered the album in leeds you got two free tickets. sounded pretty cool. cooler still though was that the performance was in trinity church in leeds. i've been to a few random places to see bands play but i never thought that i'd go to church for a gig. i'm not sure if it would have worked that well with many bands, but given the acoustic, chilled out sound of turin brakes it created a really cool atmosphere. the light was a bit shitty for taking pictures though.
here's a closer shot of nell mcandrew at jane tomlinson's funeral in leeds. i desaturated the background in this shot to make nell stand out - although i wasn't sure if i preferred this one to the black and white version. i definitley would have proffered it if a(nother) man didn't have his head buried in her boobs.
this is a professional photographer who had just been taking pictures of nell et al in leeds. when i was working on this picture i had a whole story going along with it about how he only had a few minutes to go until the deadline, and he was impatiently waiting as his laptop slowly chugged along. this story could work fine if it wasn't for the fact that he's actually got a mobile phone in his other hand.
i got to the modest mouse gig quite early and managed to get a spot right at the front by the barrier. it was the right of stage and i was trying to work out who i was going to be standing in front of. i couldn't believe it when they came on and the lead singer, isaac brook, took up his position right in front of me. i was so close that i could even use my flash, which as gigs usually only illuminate the back of someones head. of course the flipside of this was that i didn't think about the possibility of red eye. i tried to get rid of it in photoshop but i wasn't happy with any of my attempts - they all looked too obvious. so i went the other way and increased the saturation even more.
while at leeds festival i went to the alternative stage which was basically the comedy tent. i don't usually go to these at festivals but there was no particular band on that i wanted to see so i thought what the hell. it actually turned out to be pretty funny, especially a comic called andrew bird. he had a very simple, observational style which was easy to relate to, and he told funny jokes - always a plus. he told this particular joke early on his set regarding the police reunion tour. apparantly at one stage, before sting had agreed, it was just going to be andy summers and stewart copeland from the original line up. he said they couldn't go touring around the world calling themselves the police without sting, it wouldn't be right, they'd have to call themselves the community support officers instead.
a close up of the jd bottles at the whiskey bar at leeds festival. that's a lotta liquor.
so after a long day of punting in cambridge we all relaxed in the park by the river with a few drinks. i was quite close to the path as this guy was being pushed along in a wheelchair. i glanced over, glanced back, had a sip of beer, let the thought process in my head and then glanced again. it was only stephen hawking, the cleverest person in the world! i wanted to take a picture, but i couldn't just go up and ask him, at least i didn't think i could, i'm not quite sure how the conversation would actually work. so, as a cowardly alternative, i (unconvincingly) pretended to take a picture of my friend who was standing a couple of yards to the right while pointing the camera at stevo. maybe not too subtle but i still got a photo.
ok, i know that i've already put a similar shot up here, and another nine inch nails one here (and truth be told i might even put another one up that i've done). but it did look really cool on stage when trent and his buddies came to the front of the stage and this big pixely screen was lowered behind them. so i've indulged slightly in doing a few pictures.
we're forced to listen to radio leeds at work, and i can't stand it. it's not just that they seem to play the same five songs over and over again, and it's not just that those songs are really shit. no, it's the annoying presenters. in particular liz green. she hosts a lunchtime show where they debate the days 'big talking points' which involves idiots phoning up spouting bollocks and liz green acting all patronising and self-righteous as she attempts to play devils advocate. a while back the big topic was "is it ok to pinch girls bums?" the next day it was "does god exist?". i really need to start bringing my ipod into work more often.
this is a the sign for the baja beach club in leeds, so tacky it's... well, no it's just tacky really.
this was the support band from when i went to see modest mouse in liverpool - an american band called port o'brien. i wasn't entirely sure what to make of them - i kinda liked them but not enough to go out and buy their record. in that respect probably ideally suited as a support band.
this was taken the day before our friend hopped on a plane and flew of to south africa as part of her round the world trip. we all went out to have a curry in akbars, which strangely seems to look like a nightclub in the pictures i've taken.
this is another set of shots taken after jane tomlinson's funeral on friday. this is nell mcandrew, a model and friend of janes, being interviewed. i have put up three parts to this series because i like the difference of expressions in each of the them. i wasn't totally happy with the quality of the original photos but think that i managed to save them in photoshop. it did make me think that i really would like a better camera, ideally a dslr. there was a professional there who had a lens that must have been the length of my arm. perhaps a little impractical to carry around but i bet he got some good shots.
yesterday in leeds it was the funeral of jane tomlinson. she was famous all over the world for running multiple marathons and cycling across countries despite suffering from terminal cancer. she was diagnosed in 2000 and told she only had a year to live. she managed seven and raised nearly £2 million for charity. the funeral was held at the cathedral in leeds city centre, and afterwards a lot of local tv and radio reporters conducted interview with people. this shot is of the look north presenter christa ackroyd interviewing john shanley from the sparks charity that jane helped raise money for.
my experience of ducks are that they are fairly timid animals and, unless you have a fistful of bread, they stay well clear of humans. this doesn't seem to apply to those down in cambridge who didn't seem to flinch when punts were careening towards them.
this is the piano that was in the jack daniels saloon and barbecue room at leeds festival. i didn't actually get to see it being played as i was at the main stage watching nine inch nails and the smashing pumpkins when the pub band were on. i'm sure that it would have combined with the jack daniels to make a pretty cool atmosphere.
this is the third shot from my modest mouse trio and, along with isaac brook and johnny marr, was the only other performer that i had a clear view of on stage. this was a shame as the other members were another guitarist and more interestingly two drummers playing two different drum kits. the reason i couldn't get a decent shot of them was because they were hidden from view by a plethora of amps, speakers and strange instruments, most of which were played by tom. these included this cool double bass, a trumpet, and keyboard and an iBook that he fiddled with during songs. all in all, a pretty talented dude. update as i've been reliably informed by tanner_sis on flickr this is NOT dann gallucci but tom peloso. it appears my google and wikipedia skills still need some work! sorry tom!
johnny marr has been part of modest mouse since their latest record we were dead before the ship even sank. he is of course most famous for his fractious relationship with morrisey in the smiths. they were a band which most people either love or hate with a passion. to disprove this point i just thought they were alright, they had some really good songs along with some i didn't really care for that much. i'm not exactly sure if his influence on modest mouse is that noticeable - it think the guitars on this album sound pretty similar to the last one. so on that basis i really liked it. one interesting side note, when they were playing various songs before modest mouse came on stage someone put on the morrisey single irish blood, english heart. this lasted for about a minute and a half before someone pulled the plug and skipped to a different song. i wonder if that request came straight from johnny himself?
about a week ago i went to see my favourite band of the moment modest mouse in liverpool carling academy. i've been listening to their cd so much that it should be annoying me, but it doesn't, so i was really excited about going. good points of the gig were that i was right at the front so had an unrestricted view, i knew most of the songs (they've released loads of albums and i've only got the recent ones - i know, i can't claim to be a proper fan yet) and i got a copy of the setlist afterwards. the negative points were they didn't play two of my favourite songs (black cadillacs and march into the sea since you ask) and the sound quality was less than perfect. it might have been because i was so close to isaac, the lead singer, but his guitar drowned out his vocals and the mix didn't sound all that good. still, it was totally worth it and i'd love to see them again.
one thing i didn't realise before i went punting was how easy it is to get your pole stuck in the river. you are effectively pressing the pole down to the muddy riverbed and pushing the punt along. it can be quite a hairy moment when you and pull the pole out while floating away and it doesn't move. i never lost the pole when i was punting but not everyone was so lucky, we rescued a couple for some other people but weren't able to reach this particular one. instead the punter who had let go stripped down to his shorts and dived into the river to the rescue. as we cheered and sang the theme tune to baywatch.
this is a close up of the screen as the side of the main stage at leeds festival while nine inch nails were playing. i think the highlight of the whole festival (well the day that i was there) was when they performed hurt as their closing song. i imagine that most people are probably familiar with this song because of the johnny cash cover as opposed to the original. what that meant was everyone in the crowd knew the words and sang along. this was kind of strange as if you look at the lyrics they are really quite dark and depressing. yet it was a really uplifting moment to be part of the singalong
this is a similar shot to the one i took in peel park last year, in so much that it's of the sun through a tree, although obviously with a more spring feel to it. i took it while punting down the river cam in cambridge - it was such a nice day for it.
the jack daniel's saloon was an inspired addition to festival refreshments. instead of being a crappy little tent it was a proper wooden structure with benches, rocking chairs, a piano and loads of whiskey. or should i say jack daniels as when my girlfriend went up and asked for a whiskey and coke she was corrected: "you know, it's jack daniels and coke". no. shit. sherlock. we quickly forgave their ostentatiousness, particularly after sampling the best burgers i've ever had at a festival ever.
to take a break from the festival related posts here's a shot that i took a week ago on the bank holiday weekend. i went to a friends housewarming in hitchin and on the sunday we all went over to cambridge to punt along the river. there was eleven of us so we hired two 6 person capacity punts. i made the mistake of walking on the punt first which meant that i had to set us off. i did so appallingly and we pinballed from bank to bank, hitting pretty much every other punt that was in our local area, before someone relieved me of my duty. it was certainly a lot more enjoyable sipping a beer being punted than being the punter.
since the last two posts have been from leeds festival and i was saying how i only really went to see the smashing pumpkins i probably should put up a shot of them. however i didn't really take too many shots as i was a bit too far away from the stage, and the lighting wasn't all that helpful. so this smashing pumpkins flag is all i got. it was taken during the nine inch nails set when the sun was just setting.
as well as the smashing pumpkins the only other band that i wanted to see as leeds festival were the nine inch nails. i used to like them a lot, particularly downward spiral, but haven't really listened to much of their last two albums. that didn't hamper my enjoyment though as they put on a really good live show.
this time last week i was in a field inbetween leeds and york enjoying leeds festival. i just got a day ticket, partly because i was a bit poor, partly because the saturday lineup looked pretty shit but mainly becuase i just really, really wanted to see the smashing pumpkins. they weren't on until after 9pm so we spent most of the day just chilling out - a lot if it done at the this jack daniel's saloon. it kicked arse compared to your regular festival beer tent.
the weekend before last we went to a leaving do for a close friend of ours. she's going off travelling the world for the best part of a year so we all had a big old piss up in a local pub. after that we carried on drink at another friends house where they produced a piñata in the shape of a sandal that they had bought for the occasion. it was a tough little bugger and took quite a few hits to open it up. it even survived the headbutt administered in the photo. i took a little video so i thought it would be more appropriate to display it in a film roll format.
here's a close up shot of a dragonfly that was sitting on the wall in my garden last week. i usually can't get close enough to animals to take shots as they usually run/crawl/fly away however this one stayed perfectly still. so much so that i thought it was dead. that was until i tried taking a shot from directly above which caused it to start buzzing around and caused me to irrationally run inside.
here's another shot of the hilton in manchester. i couldn't decide whether it looked cool or an eyesore. i suspect that it's probably neither, but i do like the fact that they are experimenting with the architecture. it's certainly a lot nicer than the bradford hilton. i liked this shot as the sun was reflecting straight off the side, however there were railings and lampposts at the bottom of the shot that were disctracting. so i used the trusty photoshop clone tool and got rid of them. i probably could have done a better job but it's enough for me.
this shot should really be named after the person who's face has been stencilled. problem is, i don't know who it is. i'm assuming it's someone famous, maybe even infamous, but they've obviously passed me by. oh well, this was on a wall by the tram tracks outside of the gmex car park in manchester. UPDATE after looking around online i've discovered that this is in fact tenzin delek (www.freetenzin.org) - a tibetan monk who was sentenced to death, then life imprisonment, in china for a crime that he claims he did not commit. apparently he's seen as a threat to china's control of tibet and did not receive a fair trial or an independent lawyer. and here's me thinking it was just some movie star...
so at the silverchair gig the lead singer, daniel johns, was talking in between songs and said that whenever the band were in manchester something special happens, for example this time it's the drummer ben gillies' birthday. cue applause from the audience and a rendition of happy birthday. a few songs later and ben broke his bass drum pedal so there was a pause while it was being replaced. daniel said the crowd "we'll let him off, it is his birthday" to which someone in the crowd replied "liar!". daniel looked slightly taken aback before retorting "liar? fuck you!" and then changed the subject. i felt that the abuse from the crowd was a little unwarrented until i was at my computer the next day and thought i'd have a look on wikipedia - sure enough ben's birthday is in fact 24th October. mr johns, you sir are a liar!
when i went to the silverchair gig on sunday i did my usual thing of driving to manchester and getting a bit lost. i swear they hide all the signs that i need whenever i'm over there. anyway i knew i was in the right kind of area so i parked up and decided to do the rest of the journey on foot. i think i ended up doing a full circle around this hilton before finding the venue. due to the size of the building i had to take two shots and stitch them together. after playing around with the stitching software i ended up with this 'flare' effect that looks totally unnatural but i kinda like.
here's a shot of the lead singer of silverchair from the gig that i went to on sunday. he's had a pretty eventful life: he became famous at 14 when silverchair released their first single, then became more and more famous in australia with each new album, then suffered from depression and anorexia. then recovered from both of these and suffered from a severe form of arthritis - which could have meant that he might never walk again. then recovered from that and married natalie imbruglia... some people get all the luck
i haven't been to a gig in a while but i have 4 coming up this month starting with silverchair who i saw on sunday. they were playing at manchester ritz which i haven't been to before. as far as i know it's mainly a nightclub but i think that it's recently started taking over some gigs from manchester academy while that venue has a refurb. anyways the result was that it was a bit small and dingy inside (there was a big sign saying 'llovetrain' above the stage) but this meant that i could get pretty close to the stage. they played a lot of songs from their new album which i'm not overly enamoured by but sounded a lot better live.
i was just typing away at my computer at work when i turned to look out the window and was suprised to see plumes of black smoke billowing towards the sky. i tried to work out what was on fire from the positioning, at first i thought it was the total garage that's on canal road but i'm sure that i would have been a lot messier - what with all the petrol and such. i searched the local news the next day and couldn't find anything so i assume that it wasn't too serious. still, it looks pretty bad.
here's another shot of the chili plant on my windowsill. these flowers began to bloom well before the peppers so for a while i was worried that nothing else would happen. patience paid off.
it was pretty much 4 months ago that we got a propagater and planted some seeds. some of them worked (basil, rosemary), some of them didn't (coriander), but what i'm most proud of are these chilis. we have 5 plants in total on various windowsills in the house. the most prosperous of these have been the ones in the (east facing) spare bedroom. i suppose i shouldn't be too suprised as it's like a bloody sauna in that room. anyway here they are with the morning sun streaming in the window.
when i came into work last week all the lights were off in the corridors - the only way i could see was with the help of the green light eminating from the fire exit signs. it all looked kind of eerie... and cool. so i took my camera out of my bag, balanced it on the floor and took a picture. just as the camera had finished processing the long exposure i heard someone else come through the main door and flick on a lightswitch. i was just in time. when i looked back at the image i thought that i could be quite fun if i played around with it in flash. so i did, and you can see the movie here on a maddening loop. (http://testmeat.co.uk/photos/extra.php?id=61&flash=true)
another picture taken round the pole in ivybridge. this is one of the more advanced moves that i saw and requires what seem to be unnaturally strong thigh muscles.
this photo was taken over a month ago at our friends house in ivybridge (the first time we went down). a few of them take poledancing classes so they've bought a pole and put it up in the lounge for practice. despite having the reputation of being tacky and seedy it is in fact bloody hard work. and after a drunken lesson my girlfriend had the bruises to prove it. i was experimenting with different techniques when taking pictures, i tried really long exposures but they didn't really work as the body moved so fast it just became invisible. the effect that i liked the most was leaving the shutter open for a couple of seconds but putting a flash in there as well so that the subject really pops out.
when i went down to ivybridge at the beginning of july we went to the local pub, then to the local curry house and then walked back home over the river and i stopped and took a long exposure shot of the bridge. well this series of events repeated itself three weeks later and here's my second picture of the bridge de ivy. as before i layered the image a few times, changing the blending mode to screen to make the image visible out of the darkness. i also played around with the colour balance this time.
this is another dragon from endsleigh garden centre. i'm not sure if i really agree with keeping lizards in small tanks. having said that they are fascinating to look at.
after our beer at pilchards inn we went for a walk along the beach. we soon got a bit restless so we got a beach cricket set. after changing our minds a few times as to what we'd play we settled on kwik cricket. this is where there's one bowler, one batter and a backstop, everyone else are fielders. each time the bowler throws the ball the batter has to run regardless of whether they hit it or not. this leads to a pretty frantic and tiring game, particularly in the hot summer sun. when the bowler hits the wickets the bowler becomes a fielder, the batter becomes the bowler, the backstop becomes the batter and a fielder becomes the backstop. we let this cycle go round quite a few times before we retired due to exhaustion.
this is the third picture of the terrapin in endsleigh garden centre. after a quick search on google i think that this is what's referred to as a 'smiling terrapin'. so like a clown with a painted face it can't help but look happy. even though it's probably thinking "let me out of here, i wanna live!" that's the terrapin not the clown.
this big old vehicle is a sea tractor which, when the tide's in, transports people from the coast at bigbury-on-sea to burgh island. the tide was on it's way out when we were wandering over so we were unsure whether to walk in the water or travel by tractor. we concluded that the £1.50 it costs would be put to better use on a nice cold beer at the pilchard inn.
here's a second picture of the terrapin from endsleigh garden centre in ivybridge. i've never thought of fish as being that interesting a pet, after all they don't really do much to entertain. these little guys on the other hand seem a lot more fun, well as much fun as you can when your stuck inside a glass tank.
this was taken last sunday when i was down in plymouth at bigbury-on-sea. it was the same beach as we went to a couple of weeks ago although thankfully it was a much nicer day this time. despite this i still processed the image to get the sky and the sea a bit more blue
this was another animal in the garden centre that i went to last weekend. they had quite a few 'exotic' animals there including lizards, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas and a giant millipede. i was glad that they were all behind glass.
this guy was swimming around in endsleigh garden centre in ivybridge. we went there last weekend as my mate wanted to get some more fish for his tank. i tried to convince him that a little turtle would be more fun but it didn't do any good. instead he got 10 little fish and a £10 stick.
after falling asleep on the on the motorway (see the last two posts) we all woke up at about 4.30am. it was a really eerie feeling as we walked between the cars, like something out of 28 days later. the southbound lanes were full of vehicles with lights off and people asleep inside while the northbound lanes were completely empty. we turned on the local radio again and heard reports that traffic was moving up ahead, but because people were asleep inside their cars it was very slow. awake now, but with hundreds of static cars in front of us we decided to manoeuver onto the hard shoulder and step on it. we sped past loads of cars before finally gaps started to appear and we joined moving traffic. we were only able to drive in the outside lane as the first two were still covered in flood water - but it was exciting to finally be doing more than 10 mph. we finally arrived in plymouth 2 hours later.
this was taken shortly after yesterday's post during my overnight stay on the m5. we were moving a few metres every hour. we had actually worked out that our average speed for the journey at that point was 4mph - we could have walked quicker. anyway at this stage in the journey we were on a bridge over the river avon. we couldn't go forward because of the flood water and we couldn't go back for the same reason - we were marooned on a concrete island. the cars in the photo were heading northbound and were moving a lot faster than us, in fact they were all gone by 1am... lucky bastards.
on friday we set off at about 2pm from bury to plymouth for our friends housewarming. we had previously done the same journey (from bradford) in just over 6 hours so we were hoping to beat that time. very early on in the journey it was clear that wasn't going to happen. as we were driving down the m5 the traffic slowed right down until it just stopped moving. we tuned into the local radio to find out that there was severe flooding around gloucester and worcester... and we were right in the middle of it. we phoned the aa for traffic updates and all we got was the helpful advice: "avoid". so we ended up staying on the motorway all night and eventually got to our destination just after 7am - a 17 hour journey!
yesterday's photo was an example of processing a photo in a certain way so that it looks different to what i saw at the time. this one is the opposite of that. the processing that i have done was to try and get it to look as 'real' and accurate as i could. this always seems to be tough with rainbows, when you see them in real life they look amazing, when you capture them in a photograph they look a bit flat. anyways, this was driving up the m6, before the clouds, on the way back from plymouth.
when i was down in plymouth we figured that we should try and make it down to the south coast, since we'd come that far. unfortunately the weather was shitty - to be fair it had stopped raining, but it was just grey and overcast. so we went for a 10 minute walk before heading back. we're going to go down again this coming weekend so hopefully it will be nicer, perhaps more like this processed photo suggests as opposed to the original
last month i took my car to the garage for it's annual MOT. i figured i'd hang around as it only takes an hour so it wasn't worth making my way back home. this premise proved to be incorrect about 61 minutes later when i found out that it had failed the MOT. anyways, i decided to go for a little wander and stumbled upon a derelict school and swimming pool on wapping road. it looked as though there had been a major fire that ripped through all of the buildings. it was pretty dark inside and tough to see much so i set my shutter speed high and snapped away to see what i could get. this one is wapping swimming pool.
the weather seems to have been pretty unusual for most of the last month. it will piss it down one second and then be gorgeous sunshine the next. here the blue sky was fighting a (probably losing) battle with the dark, mean clouds. in fact as i recall it rained for the next few hours shortly after taking this. good old english summer.
when i was down in london a couple of weeks ago i went to the natural history museum in an attempt to be cultured. i remember going there as a kid and being impressed by the massive dinosaur skeletons. what i didn't remember was the massive queues, being herded around like sheep and pretty much everything being aimed at kids. anyways this is a shot i took down a microscope of... er... something green. as you can tell it was an educational experience.
something weird seemed to be going on in bradford on this particular thursday. first there was a dude making a sand sculpture and some other people spraypainting some art work. then i bumped into four elvisis... elviseses... er... elvi's. across the street there was a photographer and camera lady recording them. turns out, according to this article (http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/search/display.var.1490531.0.elvises_rock_n_roll_into_town.php), that they were auditioning to take part in a special elvis show in memphis. on closer inspection of the photo attached to the article i saw that they had snapped my bag (between the two on the left) in the photo. wow, i have a famous bag - since their selling the photo i wonder if i should demand a cut of the money?
another shot from centenary square during bradford architecture week. i assume this as it was right next to the sand sculpture and there's a couple of small pictures here. that's about all i know about it.
apparently it was bradford architecture week the other week. the first i found out about it was when i was walking to the train station and saw this sand sculpture. it was done by a local lad called jamie wardley who looks very talented judging by his website sand in your eye. i didn't get a chance to see the finished result as i was heading to london for a few days. so i did a bit of digging on the t'interweb and found this little video and article about it. (http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/search/display.var.1493475.0.sculpture_has_a_message.php)
the weekend before last i went down to plymouth to see some friends who've recently bought a house in a place called ivybridge. it's a great little village with a cracking curry house and a pub with a very good jukebox. there's also, as the name suggests, a bridge, under which a rather ferocious stream runs. on the way back from the pub i thought i'd take a picture. i couldn't really see much as it was so dark so i just balanced on the ground, pointed it in the right direction and set the shutter speed to the maximum (15 seconds). when i came to look at it on the computer it was a pretty accurate photo - almost completely black. i did manage to salvage a picture out of it by bringing it into photoshop, duplicating it twice and changing the blending mode of the top two layers to screen.
i don't buy music on that much of a regular basis, instead i rather unhealthily go on music binges. that's where every month or so i'll go to a record shop and carry as much as i possibly can to the till. this has been made worse by the fact that hmv in bradford have stopped selling singles and virgin in bradford have stopped selling vinyl. therefore i had a fair idea of what to expect when i walked into hmv on oxford street and sure enough i was considerably poorer (financially speaking) for the experience. on the upside i got a bunch of records, cds, dvds and shot of gromit in his greenhouse - an original set from the fantastic Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit
this is a star shaped light that's hanging on my sisters wall in her flat in london. i have manipulated it fairly heavily, changed the levels, desaturated the colours, added an extra light in the middle, removed the blue shading where the bulbs were shining through and added a slight zoomed blur. seems only fair that i include the original (see www.testmeat.co.uk/photos/extra.php?id=50) as it is pretty different.
i took this photo a couple of weeks ago when i was on the train down to london. it stopped randomly, as trains often do, for a couple of minutes and when i looked out the window i saw this little guy. i tried to quickly take some shots before the train moved off. Unfortunately the best pose, when he started running, looked the worst as the train was pulling off and it was too blurry. so, i decided to try and replicate the effect (ie cheat) with a sharper image and photoshop's motion blur tool. here's the result
it sucks not having a car. you just get so used to being able to nip here and there that when you don't have it every journey seems like a massive expedition. so when this happened last week i was forced to take the bus. not something i do often but i managed to handle it ok: only needed a little jog to catch it, brought just about enough money and only got off two stops too late. plus i keep discreet by snapping a bunch of pictures from the front window. this is at the stop in bradford city centre with the town hall (or should that be city hall?) reflected in the police station.
this is a sign in bradford city centre where they are supposedly redeveloping broadway. however they stopped working on it months ago and there's no sign that they're going to start again any time soon. as there's no one around to tell me off i frequently cross over and walk that side - stick it to the man!
i was just wandering around taking snaps when i saw jimmy taking a picture of three of the guys. i thought the original looked quite cool but i tried blurring the background to add to the effect. i'm not certain i like the way it turned out but thought it was interesting enough.
half of me wishes that i was at glastonbury this year. i tried and failed to get tickets when they went on sale on the first of april. the music and the atmosphere is just such a cool experience. then the other half of me remembers what it was like two years ago today. when i travelled down it was really hot and sunny, i remember thinking that i wouldn't need wellies this time. i was wrong. thank god i brought bin bags.
this is a slightly different version of the previous waterfall shot - only cropped so that i missed the yellow bucket. i've wanted to experiment with long exposures and water for a while but living in a city i've never really had the opportunity. even with this one i think i took a total of three pictures before my batteries died. hopefully i'll get more chances soon.
on the saturday night we all sat down for a huge meal of chilli and rice in the kitchen (where we played poker the night before). only it looked totally different as there were loads of tealights dotted around. i tried to get a picture of it all but without a tripod it all just came out too blurry, so i went for a close up instead.
we started to play poker quite relatively early on the friday night at the bunkbarn, at least it started out quite early but the game seemed to go on for ages. as we weren't playing for money i think we all got a bit disinterested and as i finished third i thought i'd take a few pictures instead. so here you go.
last weekend i went to a for a weekend away to stainforth near settle with about 20 other people. we all stayed at a bunkbarn, drank an obscene amount and had a thoroughly good time. that was until someone went a bit mental and we had to call the cops. anyways, this small waterfall was just outside the entrance where everyone went to smoke. it was one of the last shots i took on the saturday night as, while i was smart enough to bring two memory cards, i was stupid enough to forget the battery charger. i decided to process this a little differently - mainly because i wasn't happy that in the original the yellow bucket really stands out. i didn't feel confident about removing it at the time without getting very wet.
so last friday we got a flat-pack shed delivered from b and q as well as a lawnmower and strimmer that we bought off a friends dad. three days later it was all finished. in between that there was plenty of blood, sweat and (hayfever induced) snot - multiple trips to homebase to get replacement strimmer spools and screwdriver bits - oh, and a trip to london. i spent most of the time frustrated, exhausted or in a mood. but on sunday evening there was a brown, sun parched lawn and a wonky shed... success! i took a few pictures at different stages of the construction and put them into a flash movie which you can view here
i haven't really had any time to take or process any photos recently but i was getting sick of having that last picture up all the time so i went back to my archives and picked out a shot from when i went to the peak district
this is an abstract shot taken by moving the camera in front of some distant lights. i then arsed around in photoshop and made a few changes including shifting the colour from yellow to green and mirroring the image.
this is a panoramic picture of bradford at night, taken between the pylon and the tree. not quite as impressive as the bangkok skyline.
this is a combination of six 15 second exposures taken on the way back to my car after snapping my tree. it caught my attention as there was a worrying buzz coming from it - so i thought the best thing to do was to crouch underneath it for five minutes and take some pictures. i haven't actually changed the colours in it that much, mainly increasing the red a little in the colour balance. that's light pollution for you.
we bought 8 solar lights about a month ago on sale at woolworths. the instructions recommended giving them 48 hours of sunlight to charge, which is almost 5 days. i did this and on the sixth day turned them on and was impressed by the pretty glow. i was less impressed when a couple of days later they started to flicker off as the charge disappeared. this could be because we live up north and don't get enough sun, or that cos we bought cheap, crappy lights. as our neighbours don't seem to be suffering from the same problem i'm lead to believe it's the latter. still, like most technology, they're nice when they work...
so i went out in my back garden set the camera pointing back at my house (which is west) and set it automatically taking 10 x 15 second shots. i knew i needed to get quite a few for the best effect so i put ok computer on my ipod and every 5 minutes pressed the button. as the tourist came to an end i brought it back inside and layered the 100 images I had captured into photoshop, setting the blending mode to lighten. i had set the iso to 200 so there was a fair bit of noise so i put it through noise ninja which I had never used before. the finished result was not as great as i had hoped but it was all an experiment and after all that effort there was no way that i wasn't going to post it!
on thursday night i went back to take a picture of my tree. I set up the camera and took 10 pictures - each of 15 second exposures. I then layered these 10 shots in photoshop, set the blending mode of the first to normal, next 7 to screen, next to soft light and the top to hard light. then adjusted the curves a little, changed the colour balance to 100% red 100% yellow and 64% magenta. then used the channel mixer and changed the red output channel to 86% red 14% green and -36% blue. then adjusted the levels slightly and finally added a vignette. phew. i wasn't following any particular method - just making changes until i liked the result.
i thought i'd take a break from posting pics from the shins gig that i went to in march after posting three in a row, however it's been a while now and i haven't any new shots to post so i thought i'd turn to my archives. i did mess around with the processing a little bit more than usual on this, i think it was radial blur.
this is another birthday gift, from my sisters boyfriend. i think that she's taking advantage of the fact that i've started doing a little gardening as she's really into it and i've never expressed any interest or desire to get involved before. mind you if the weather is like it is here then i think i'll just stay inside.
this is another picture of sylvie. i was snapping away whilst she was rolling around, looking for attention. i think i must have accidentally turned my camera off and then on as my flash setting, which i had disabled, suddenly came on. this occurred at the same time that sylvie started to yawn so i took the opportunity to get a 'scary' photo. i suspect if i didn't use the flash then it might have come out a bit too blurry. she didn't yawn again and went back to rolling around in the mud so i never found out.
there's a tradition in my family that when it's your birthday, instead of just getting a card, you get a scratchcard as well. it's also tradition to lose on said scratchcard. so when i received this pacman one from my sister last week i wasn't overally excited or optimistic. i had a quick glance at the rules for this particular one, win up to eight times! i read, knowing i'd be lucky to get one. so i just couldn't believe it when each 'game' that i scratched off told me that i had won. fair enough it was only £2 at a time, but to win on every game - surely that's unsual? made up for it being ten days late!
i bought these lily's over 2 weeks ago and they're still stinking out the lounge.
this is a close up, and heavily processed image, of the mirror from the dodgy bathroom shop.
another 'lazy stitch' made up of 20 photos, this time taken at a gig by a band called the turn fronted by my girlfriend's workmate. it was in a community centre in a small village called 'fairburn' which took absolutely ages to find. when we finally arrived it seemed as though everyone in the village was there already. as i was drinking and listening to the bands i started people watching and making up little stories about them in my head. the turn were followed by a terrible covers band called tenacious b who were 'back by popular demand'. i assume that included the table of farmers on my left who were singing along to every word. i don't actually know they were farmers, but they all lived on a farm in my story!
last weekend me and my girlfriend drove down to london to see some friends, family and football. we probably spent about £60 on petrol which worked out much better value than getting the train. plus we shared the driving so it wasn't too tiring. this was driving back up north on sunday night (when i wasn't at the wheel). i like the colours that came out, i don't think i adjusted anything in photoshop, and the weird lightning that appears to be striking a car in front.
well, as i mentioned yesterday this is another less conventional shot. it started out as i noticed a full moon from outside the window. i put my camera on the tripod on the windowsill and took 15 pictures - one every two minutes. i layered these fifteen images together which showed the moon moving across the sky. i could have left it at that, but i thought i'd play around with different effects which lead to making these two spirals. very different to the original image, and probably more digital art than digital photography, but there you go.
a slightly abstract picture from the arsenal vs fulham match that i went to at the end of april, this is a combination of 40 photos taken from my seat in the emirates stadium. instead of stitching them together in a nice clean way i went for a lazy, dirty stitch so that you can see the joins. i've included a slightly smaller version of the image if this doesn't fit on your screen. incidentally i've a few more non-traditional, abstract photos to post in the next few days.
this picture is of a £200+ mirror with lights around the edge. inside the mirror is another mirror reflecting those lights so that they stretch out into the distance. it looked pretty tacky and pretty cool at the same time. i wanted to try and get a shot of the effect without my reflection in it so i took a shot from each side and the joined them together in photoshop.
this is my dad and his girlfriend's cat sylvie (short for sylvester). i don't think that sylvie is as good looking as tamara, my sisters cat, but sylvie definitely has the best personality. she is just so playful and full of fun. she doesn't seem shy or timid at all, despite her previous owners being pretty abusive. my only problem with her, and it's a big problem, is that i'm seriously allergic to her. i know that the minute i get near her i'll start itching, sneezing, eyes watering etc. in fact i once made the mistake of stroking her and then rubbing my eye which caused it to puff up (my eye, not sylvie) and i could barely see out of it. i must be a glutton for punishment though as i still can't resist playing with her.
it's my birthday today so i thought it would be appropriate to post a shot of another herb being 'born'. this one, as the title suggests, is coriander and i imagine that if/when we start using our fully grown herbs in our cooking this one will be the most popular.
so i was just sitting at my desk at home the other day doing some work when i looked to the window and saw loads of bugs on there, all in pairs. curious i looked a little closer when i realised they were making sexytime. it was a bit like a car crash, you don't really want to look but at the same time you do. it became too much of a distraction in the end so i just took a picture and left them to their business.
this is a close up of the outside of the propagator, wherein lies the basil.
i had to take my car to the garage the other day to get it serviced plus pop a couple of new tyres on. it was there all day so i bused it home and then back again in the afternoon to pick it up. i say this because i don't think i would have ever seen this if it wasn't for the fact that it was between the garage and bus stop - a route that i'd never otherwise walk. i'm not sure what's inside the tank, i think the whole place was some kind of electricity... er... place. there were signs saying 'danger of death keep out' so i didn't go exploring. incidentally this was taken through some railings so i really did heed the warning and keep my distance.
a friend came over the other day and parked their mini outside the house. i thought that the reflection of the house from the back of the wing mirror might look kind of cool so i went to the window zoomed in and took a shot. unfortunately i've got a (what seems pathetic) 4x zoom so you couldn't see any detail at all. so i went closer to the wing mirror. of course the problem with taking pictures of reflective surfaces is that the photographer is often in the photo. sometimes this is works for the shot but it wasn't what i was after.anyway after taking it into photoshop i found that getting so close to the mirror also revealed a lot of dirt and scratches. i selected the clone tool and went about removing these. then i thought, if i could remove the dirt, then why not get rid of myself as well. so that's what i did, along with my lounge window that i was standing in front of as this was easier than redrawing the whole window
last week i posted my first attempt at gardening. since leaving home i've always lived in flats, or grotty student houses, so i've never really had a garden. i'm not really flowers, i suffer from pretty bad hayfever so i feel we have a mutual distrust of each other, plus i don't think i've ever kept plants alive inside the house past a couple of months. despite this i thought i'd give growing herbs from scratch a go.i've really surprised myself about how excited i've been about checking up on the progress and watching the seeds grow into proper living things. all of the seeds are growing at different paces but at this point in time they're all showing signs of growth which is cool. this is the frontrunner at the moment, the basil, which looked like this after a week and is now probably three times as high again. i'm sure there's still plenty of opportunities for me to fuck it up with the re-potting.
ok, last paragliding picture for the time being. this was the view that we first saw when we got to the top of the mountain. i'm sure they would be in a lot of trouble if two paragliders clashed in the air so i was quite suprised to see so many flying so close together. it would have been nicer if they were set against a blue sky with the sun out, but it was april in england so i guess i should be fortunate that it wasn't raining.
it was a cool feeling at the top of mam tor with paragliders flying all around. i took loads of photos which came out really well but it'll get a bit boring if i just post those. i've got one more tomorrow and then i think i'll leave it until i run out in the future. this photo took me a bit by suprise as i was already zoomed in to take a shot of a paraglider in the distance. then out of nowhere i saw one appear over my head so i tried to get it in frame and clicked. i probably wouldn't have chosen this kind of composition if i had time to prepare and take my time. i think it's for that reason that i quite like this.
this is my first attempt at an HDR image. HDR basically means taking more than one shot of a scene at different exposures and then choosing which bits to use from each. while in theory this could make the photo look more like what it did at the time, HDR's tend to have more of a surreal look to them. i'd imagine that creating HDR's is a lot easier if when you have the correct hardware and software. in this shot i auto-focused on the sky which caused the hills to be too dark, i then took a picture a second later focusing on the hills that caused the sky to be whited out. i then took them both into photoshop and put them both together. i'm not completely happy with how it turned out but i enjoyed the experiment.
another shot of a paraglider from the top of mam tor, i got the feeling that this guy was strutting around while people were taking photos of him. of course i know nothing about paragliding so he could have been untangling his wires, or waiting for the wind to change, or perfoming last minute checks. in fact, yeah it probably was one of those, but he still seemed to like the attention of the camera.
this guy in the peaks was a lot less nervous than this guy in the lakes so i was able to get up a lot closer to take a picture. they seemed a lot more interested in eating their grass than having a shiny camera shoved in their faces.
another shot taken from when i went to the peak district last week. this was taken before i got to the top of the mountain and was kind of painful to take as the sun was characteristically bright. when it came to post-processing i was inspired by the golden colours in a recent chromasia entry as well as by the colours used in the movie sunshine (which i enjoyed very much).
last sunday was the hottest day in britain so far this year. i think that provided some motivation to begin sorting out our garden, which we hadn't really touched since moving in back in november. so i mowed the lawn (for what must have been the first time since the 80's), hung up a washing line, moved some rocks around and, after a trip to the garden centre, planted some seeds. it's all a bit of an experiment as we've no idea what we're doing and we almost always kill anything plantlike inside the house, but what the hell. so we bought our propagater and compost, stuck a few seeds in, doused them in water and stuck them in the sun. hopefully in a few months we'll be having home grown chilis, basil, thai basil, mint, rosemary and corriander. that would make for an interesting meal.
this time last week i had a day off and as the sun was out decided to go to the peak district. after having some lunch we decided to go for a walk up Mam Tor as we saw a group of paragliders emerging from there. it was really cool to see them close up and i took a bunch of shots that i'll post over the next few days.this shot is actually a combination of five photos i took of the purple guy setting off. i created it by stiching the far left and the far right image together. then i masked the three middle images and made slight changes to the size, rotation and levels so that it would blend in. i had a lot of help by reading a tutorial on onion skinning over at thinsite.
there are lots of sensible reasons not to have a dog. you have to buy food for them, pay vet bills, get up early and walk them, clean up their piss, clean up their shit, have to listen to barking when you want some peace and quiet. luckily for them it's almost impossible to resent them when they look at you like this.
when i said that my contribution to the diy that took place last friday was drinking, sitting, and getting more beer to drink that wasn't completely accurate. i'd now like to add taking the odd photo to that list. i don't know how it would have been finished without me.
this is a close up the blue led's that were in the decking from last friday. i was basically taking this blind as it was so dark and the photo that came out the camera wasn't fantastic. i was hopeful that i could get a good image from it and tried to get that by mirroring the right hand side of the photo and adjusting the levels. the result bears little resemblence to the original, or what it actually looked like. still, i like it.
this is a projection on the seat in front of me on the train to london from saturday. the sun came through the window behind me hitting my ipod that was on the tray.
a slightly older jasper chewing on an off-cut from the decking. he seemed in good spirits for someone who's just had their bollocks chopped off.
on friday i headed over to bury to meet up with two mates who i hadn't seen in a while. i arrived about midday and was quickly handed a beer. the sun was out and hot for most of the day so we moved to the garden and we did a bit of diy adding lights to the decking. well, when i say 'we' i'm grossly exaggerating - my contribution consisted of sitting, watching and fetching the occasional refill. as the day went on we started to talk about a plan for the evening and after a quick barbeque decided to head out to have some more drinks in bury. we got to town but only managed two drinks each before agreeing that we couldn't manage too much more - the 10 hours of drinking was starting to catch up with us. so we went back to the house and tested out the lighting. a couple of drinks more and we called it a night. twas a good friday.
this was taken on my skiing holiday to les houches. we were all a bit snap happy as the views were so good but i remember thinking that we must have looked particularly strange spending two minutes at the top of the lift taking close up pictures of andy's face.
the lighting at gigs can be strange when taking photos. when everywhere's dark except for the stage it can be really hard to take a sharp photo. you can't use the flash as it only really illuminates the few people in front of you and the coloured lights change so frequently that usually when you think "this will make a good picture" the lights change and the moment's gone. that happened on this song when they swithched to just red lights and the band looked like they were glowing. luckily my camera was out and ready so i got the picture i wanted. oh, and if you didn't see my last two posts this is the shins.
this is a shot of james mercer, the lead singer of the shins. i think looking little bit like a young kevin spacey. they played a good mixture of songs from their three albums. i only really know their last 2, chutes too narrow and wincing the night away, as i've had those the longest and listened to them the most. there really isn't a skippable track on either of them.
on tuesday i went to manchester academy to see the shins. i missed out on tickets when they first came out so i had to pay over twice the price for them on ebay - it was so worth it. they make kind of alternative indie music with really clever lyrics and really interesting melodies. the kind of songs that sounds better the more you listen to them. they were awesome live and derserved to be in a much bigger venue (although it was cool seeing them in this small room)
this is my sister's 9 year old cat tamara. i do like cats but i could never have one myself as i'm allergic to them. i get different symptoms depending on the cat but it's usually sneezing, watery eyes and itchiness. i got the latter after a couple of hours with tamara which was most uncomfortable - a shame as she is very photogenic.
another shot taken in town on sunday in york. this doesn't look as cool as last time i photographed it but it's still a pretty impressive building. this is a combination of 4 normal landscape photos that i stitched together.
i took this yesterday on a visit to york. it was an unexpectedly hot and sunny day - british summertime must have been pretty punctual this year.
i don't really have too much information about this shot as i didn't go up to look inside the yellow boxes (as i was waiting for a bus) and i'm not exactly sure where it is. i think it's an art installation outside a museum. what i can say is that it's in berlin, very close to the ferris wheel.
a couple of days ago i went to the national media museum - the new name for the national museum of photography, film and televsion (i guess the new name is more snappy) - as they are hosting the bradford film festival. i went along to see a screening of a film called koyaanisqatsi where they had a screentalk with the director godfrey reggio. he was a bit of an odd guy, and he used lots of big words which i didn't completely understand. the movie itself is a bit odd, and has no words whatsoever. it doesn't even have a story or a plot. it's the equvilent of going to an art gallery, but instead of seeing static paintings or photos you see moving images set to striking music. it's a strange, surreal and slightly trippy experience.
this is another shot taken from the godfrey reggio screentalk that i went to on tuesday. i had seen his film, koyaanisqatsi, once before. it was in the same cinema in a university lecture hosted by mark goodall, the bloke on the right of the stage. i wasn't properly prepared for watching a movie with no story so it took a while for me to get my head round it. i also recall struggling to keep awake. this time i knew what to expect but again had to try hard not to fall asleep. i'm not sure if that means that the movie is slightly hypnotic, plain boring, or that i was just tired both times. it features lots of timelapse photography of motorways cut with slow motion shots of buildings falling down. yes, it's a strange film. overall i was glad i saw it again, if nothing just for the one shot of gigantic moon that floats past a skyscraper that just looks amazing.
this was taken a while ago although i think that it looks like it could have been last century as opposed to last year. i think it was steam train from the york railway museum that was on the platform. it was surrounded by a two types of people: those who were interested at looking and taking photographs and those who were annoyed they couldn't get out the station as quick as they wanted. i think i probably turned from the former to the latter after a couple of minutes.i took this walking along kilburn high road after going to a football match. i liked the atmospheric feel that the streetlight gave to the bricks and cobbles.
i took this walking along kilburn high road after going to a football match. i liked the atmospheric feel that the streetlight gave to the bricks and cobbles.
this was taken on a bridge over a busy road in the centre of bradford as i was walking to the station to get a bus home. the glowing blue building on the left is a (horribly ugly) hilton, the building on the right is a massive multistory car park and in the middle is a piss drenched, graffitied walkway to bradford interchange... nice!
this is a close up of a piece of artwork that i bought just before i moved house last year. it was made by an artist called jules mann. i first heard about him years ago when i was at university and i got my hands on a promo copy of an album by brave captain. i thought the music was ok but the cd cover looked really cool.after a bit of investigation i tracked down the artist's website and looked through his other creations. i was even more impressed but i could never afford (or have an excuse to buy) a print. i was constantly reminded of his work as it's been my desktop background ever since so between buying tiles, fridges, carpets and whatever else the new house needed i thought fuck it and ordered a print. i'm extremely glad i did, it looks great.
this is the second picture from the night out clubbing in skipton and was taken later on by which time wes (aka chemical monkey) was at the decks. another great set.
i took this on a night out at the end of february in skipton. it was in a new club called rood:er and from what i remember this dj was called ben (who also goes by the name error 6). i really enjoyed his set, he combined mixing with a bit of scratching that sounded really cool. twas a fun night.i changed the colours slightly so i've included the original image straight from the camera.
this isn't another shot from my skiing holiday but taken a few weeks after back in bradford. it started to snow a little in the morning but then tipped it down in the evening. i stuck the camera on a tripod and balanced it out of the back window for 15 seconds to get this. i didn't do anything to the picture (apart from resizing it) to put it online so this was exactly what it looked like outside. it seemed surreal as it's normally pitch black at this time.
this is another shot i from the ricky gervais gig in manchester. this was the second time i've seen him live having seen his politics tour in york a couple of years ago. i defintely prefered this performance and thought that it was just as good as his first stand-up animals. the only criticism was that it was only an hour long, i'm sure everyone there would have listened to him for hours.
this is a second picture i took at half time when arsenal played wigan last month. he had just walked up the steps to go back inside when he paused and i balanced my camera on a rail and caught a picture. about a second later he went inside and didn't come back. he missed a cracking second half!
this is another shot from last month when i went to manchester apollo to see ricky gervais. he was introduced onto the stage in a stars in their eyes type way with the compere listing all of ricky's achievements (baftas, emmy's, highest selling podcasts, fastest selling tour). ricky then walked out with a cloak and a crown, his name illuminated in giant letters and a giant replica of the emmy he won for the office. after soaking up the applause he opened with:"that wasn't over the top was it?!"
sitting in the block next to me at the emirates stadium was michael moore. he sat down about 15 minutes into the first half - at first i wasn't sure if it was him but when i saw a camera man and a sound guy follow after him that kind of gave it away. my first thought was "cool, that's michael moore", my second was "i hope he's not doing an exposé on arsenal!". the cameraman seemed to be filming him have a discussion with a guy sitting next to him. and then at half time he started looking at some of the footage and talking to the cameraman so i took the opportunity to take a few shots. i would have loved to have had a word with him but he was in the middle of a row of seats so i couldn't really get to him.
we drove past this bridge on the bus back to geneva airport. i think the road we were on was less scary than this one.
this was taken at the same time as i was messing around with the candle. we all got through quite a few pints of stella that night, stumbled out of the bar at the exact moment the bus was coming. amazingly we just hailed it down and it took us home (instead of speeding past us like it's british counterpart would do). happy and inebriated we walked from the bus stop to the chalet and made (drunken attempts at) snow angels on the way
instead of booking the ski holiday through a travel operator we deicded to book everything seperatly. so we booked the flights, accomodation and ski hire online before we travelled over and the lift pass when we arrived. the flight went from gatwick to geneva, then there was a bus from geneva to les houches. this was taken when we got off the plane in geneva airport.
we had some time to kill on our final day before we got the bus to the airport so we thought we'd walk around chamonix. it was another bright, sunny day so there were some strong shadows being cast.
this was taken at the same time as the shot of the ice crystals and again was just a spectacular sight. it was also quite painful to look at as you were basically staring straight at the sun.
this was the glacier on mont blanc taken from the top of a piste.
i left my camera in a soft case in my pocket for the first few days as it was safe enough but also easy to access if i wanted to quickly get it out to take a picture. unfortunately i learnt that a consequence of having a soft case meant that buttons could be pressed if i leant on it a certain way. this must have been what happened as when i got back to the chalet the lens was half extended and the camera wouldn't turn on. after a brief panic and prodding, pushing and pulling at all the bits of the camera i finally managed to get the lens unstuck so that it would zoom back into the camera. i think this was one of the first shots i took afterwards to make sure that it was still working.
one of the annoying things about snowboarding compared to skiing is that when you come to a flat or uphilll section you need all the speed you can to get you through it as you can't push yourself along. if you stop you can either jump forwards, take one foot out and slide yourself, or take both feet out and walk.one of the good things about taking photos when you're snowboarding is that the moments when your walking you can stop and take pictures of things you might miss if you just sped past them. these trees were taken opposite the powder in le tour.
this was the second night we spent in the pub watching football, this time arsenal had to comeback against spurs. this was taken by leaving the camera on the table and then making patterns with the candle.
a month ago yesterday it was australia day which i don't think i'd have known about if it wasn't for this big clue on the piste. i assume whoever carved this into the piste must have jumped from letter to letter so as to avoid ruining it by making tracks. i'm not sure why i made this look like a widescreen picture with the black border above and below but it just seemed to fit.
this guy lived on our balcony after the snow came.
the weather improved the longer we were there and when the sun was in the right place you could see all of the ice crystals just floating by. it really was an awesome sight.
it was amazing how much the landscape changed when the snow came down. usually when you go on skiing holidays there's plenty of snow when you arrive so you don't really think about how it looks without it. on the first couple of days i really didn't think i would have been able to take a photo like this as all the houses were just surrounded by grass. lucky for us it didn't stay that way for too long.this was taken from the gondola
this was taken the day after it had really started snowing on the walk from the chalet where we were staying to the gondola.
this was taken waiting at a bus stop one morning. it's strange how despite the snow and the low temperatures it doesn't really feel too cold outside. i suppose the sun and blue sky would play its part. having said that on some chair lifts when the wind was blowing strong you did feel it.
this was the first day that we made it up to the slopes after getting all our ski gear. we weren't too impressed when we got to the top of the gondola as visibility was a couple of feet at the most, the skies were a dark grey and the slopes were more ice than snow. not really what you want if you haven't been for 2 years! by the time we stopped for lunch the visibilty had improved, although it could change in a matter of seconds. this was the mountain opposite which appeared and disappeared from between the clouds.
flying off to snowboard in france meant that i couldn't go to the arsenal v man u match. so one of the first things i did when we arrived was to try and find a bar that was showing it. we found one that was a 15 minute walk from the chalet so got there nice and early on sunday afternoon. as the game went on the bar slowly filled up, mainly with quite loud man u fans, so it was particularly satisfying (in my slightly drunken state) when we scored two late goals to steal the victory. this picture was taken on the way back to the chalet after the match. in 2 days time this road would be completely covered in snow.
we stayed in les houches but bought a lift pass that covered the whole mont blanc region - that gave us access to 4 or 5 big areas. this was taken in my favourite, le tour, which despite being 2 bus rides away was well worth the journey. there was lots of deep unspoilt powder that glittered in the sun. i suspect i spoiled it on the next run by boarding right across it.
well, two weeks afer i promised i have finallly sorted through my photos from skiing. i went to les houches in france. this was taken coming down the gondola back into le prarion. normally i'd of snowboarded to the bottom however i couldn't asa) the slope was closed due to lack of snow andb) my binding had just snapped off so i would only have had one leg attached to the board
i know i said that i was going to post some shots from my skiing holiday but i still haven't got around to sorting through them - hopefully tomorrow. anyways i went down to see arsenal reach the (carling) cup final yesterday and chuck our local rivals out in the process. this was actually taken last november but it was when i was internetless so it seemed appropriate to put it up now. it's a 10 second exposure taken outside the emirates stadium.
this was another photo from the second flaming lips gig that i went to last year. they had a massive screen at the back of the stage where they displayed random videos as well as weird camera angles of the band. this was obviously when the screen was red but i've adjusted the levels in photoshop so that the silhouette is more pronounced.
this guy was djing in the apple store in oxford circus a few minutes before i took a picture of the floating girls. he was really good switching between the decks and the bongos, couldn't stay for too long though as christmas shopping beckoned
this is another shot of the fair with the ferris wheel in berlin taken from across the river. i didn't actually go on this ride as i had just consumed what must have been a pound of sugar in the form of candyfloss - i have a feeling that this could have put me over the edge
when i went to the lakes just before christmas we went on a big walk (with dogs) to red tarn which is basically a lake on top of a mountain. it must have been high up as we made it to the snow that only appears on the tops. after the energy exerted in getting there (one of the dogs couldn't move afterwards!) i felt obliged to document it with a photo. i wasn't too thrilled with the original so i decided to give it a sepia look.
this was taken in peel park a few minutes after this one back in november
a different view of the ferris wheel
this photo was actually taken back in october but it was just before i moved house and lost my internet connection so i haven't had a chance to put it up until now. this was taken in peel park in bradford while my car was at the garage
this was the inside of a window display for the agent provocateur store in berlin. i'm not sure if germans get the same meaning as brits but it was certainly turning a few heads and raising a few smiles. i took out most of the colours apart from the reds and the pinks
this was taken at the same time as this floating photo and again I removed the wires (and extra balloon) in photoshop. i also used selective blur to give the impression of depth of field
this is a combination of 7 photos i took of an oncoming u-bahn train at rehberge station - the closest station to where i was staying in berlin. i put each image on different layers and set the blend mode of the bottom layer to normal, the next five to lighten and the top to screen. bascially i just experimented a bit until i got a result i liked the best.
looking up at a big skyscraper next to the sony centre in potsdamer platz, berlin
these were two chocolate bugs that were decorating the table at the birthday party
it was my girlfriends dad's 50th birthday on boxing day so this was taken at the party in his restaurant in berlin.
this is a brand new train station in berlin that spans over 5 floors. there are tracks at the top and tracks at the bottom and a shopping centre in between. it's a strange feeling looking down on a train platform from this angle.
i went over to germany for christmas so i'll post a few pictures i took over the next few days. unfortunately i forgot the charger for my batteries so i couldn't take as many as i would have liked. this is an 8 second exposure outside a christmas fair in the centre of berlin
this is a friends new golden retriever puppy whilst we were walking in the lakes before christmas
this is a 5 second exposure of the accommodation I stayed at in high wray in the lakes just before christmas. the dorms were at the top of this path while the kitchen/dining area and (pretty cold) showers were in 2 seperate blocks. over twenty of us turned up and it was a great weekend.
this was taken just before christmas in oxford circus. i'm not quite sure why they were floating up there but thought i'd take a few pictures anyway. i also removed some of the rope in photoshop - they were actually tied down instead of floating away!
this is a montage of video stills of the flaming lips playing bohemian rhapsody at a gig in november.
almost two months after moving into my new house i've finally got the internet sorted out so i can post photos again. this picture is a macro shot of my griffin powermate - apparantly the "coolest knob your computer has ever seen!"
last thursday my house purchase finally completed. despite having the worst solicitors in the country and running out of petrol on the way up to the house i finally got hold of the keys that evening. it ended up being a bit of an anticlimax as it was a really windy and rainy night and without any furniture in it was just a bunch of empty rooms. i went back again on friday morning to let the flooring guy in and with the sun rising outside the bedroom window i felt a lot better. still not looking forward to the move though...
last wedesday i went to the cockpit to see a band called get cape. wear cape. fly. i decided to go at the last minute so i didn't have a ticket when i got there. at the door i found out it was sold out and was pointed in the direction of a tout. at the exact moment someone else was selling his 2 spare tickets to the same man. despite being offered more money by the tout he agreed to sell one to me at the original price. i think that there's an unwritten disdain that every gig-goer has towards touts that you cannot buy. luckily for me that was the case that night. anyways i really enjoyed the gig, the band is basically one guy and his acoustic guitar singing mellow songs with a political edge... although not as folk as that sentence makes it sound.
this is an inverted image of a spiders web taken next to the one i posted yesterday in granary wharf.
this is a tangle of spiders web that lives under the bridge in granary wharf leeds.
this is a 35 second exposure (or technically a combination of 7 x 5 second exposures) of the crossroads in shipley
this is a 15 second exposure from granary wharf in leeds. i first found this place while getting lost looking for the cockpit on friday night (a pretty hard thing to do when you consider it's right next to the station). anyway i thought it was worth returning to when i went on wednesday.
last night i went to see one of my favourite bands in the leeds cockpit - sparklehorse. the gig was made better for me by the fact that i managed to get a copy of the setlist afterwards and that mrs linkous (sparklehorse's wife) got him to autograph my copy of his album. as is the case with most gigs i go to i struggled taking pictures as without a flash everything is too blury and with a flash the stage it too far away (plus it's kind of distracting). this was the first gig that i have been to with my new camera which shoots video and audio. so i took the opportunity to film some songs. this shot comes from using the highest settings (640 x 480) however i decided to shoot most of it with the lower quality so i could fit more onto my memory card. the audio quality is far from perfect but it's still cool to go home and rewatch (and relisten) most of the set.
this is a shot of cesc fabergas taken from the arsenal vs porto game last tuesday. i found that the lighting in the stadium really brought out the colours and i hardly had to adjust anything when i was post processing
following on from yesterday's post this is hleb chasing after the ball
this was taken not long after the last photo as hleb tries to take the ball past a porto defender
i took this on tuesday when i went to see arsenal play porto in the champions league. this was the first time that i had a seat in the lower tier of the new stadium. the view is a bit strange as it's hard to get perspective on the whole pitch, but you are really close to the action. this was taken in the second half after alexander hleb had scored arsenal's second in a 2-0 win
it's at times like taking this photo that i wish that a) i had a better camera b) i had a tripod or steadier hand and c) i was a better photographer this photo ended up becoming more of a rough idea than a finshed photo that i'm happy with. ideally the sky would have been a nicer colour and the whole thing would have been sharper. still, i do kind of like it. i played around with the colours and levels
this is a panoramaic shot that i took off a wall outside a church in shipley when i was on my way to the get some fish and chips.
this is a close up shot of the outside of the emirates stadium in london after the middlesbrough match last week. i played around with the levels on this to give it more of futuristic feel to it
this was the police escort for the middlesbrough team bus as it was leaving the emirates stadium.
this is a sculture on chapel street next to yo yo's that i took in my lunch break
the journey back from the arsenal match on saturday took a little longer than anticipated. delays meant that i was 3 minutes too late to catch the trains that i needed in both stevenage and (due to the diversion) doncaster. having read the paper from cover to cover on the way down i decided to take a few random shots with my camera. this was taken sitting on the platform at doncaster station waiting for the train to leeds. i balanced it on the metal bench and took a 15 second exposure shot.
went to see arsenal play their second home game on saturday against middlesbrough. it was another frustrating display where we had loads of possession but couldn't convert that into goals so it finished up as a draw. i had booked my train back up to shipley to leave kings cross at 18.50. that gave me quite a wait after the match (i tried book an earlier train for the previous match but that meant leaving the game 5 minutes early). so with a bit of time on my hands i decided to look around the new stadium. this is the area where all the journalists sit and write their reports on the match. it was as good as empty by the time i started looking around yet someone had left their notebook with their notes from the game. the image on the tv is a post match interview with the middlesbrough manager gareth southgate.
this was taken a few days ago on my way to work. with august being pretty wet i was kind hoping that summer weather would reappear in september. not likely by this week's weather. i would have taken more pictures but i didn't want to get my camera too wet i have found that i really notice the difference upgrading from 4 to over 7 megapixels. my new camera is also a lot better at picking out sharpness as well as depth of field.
i took this picture the same time i took yesterdays although haven't processed it as much. this was another 15 second exposure where i shined a torch at the camera and also at my face. i like the spooky effect that came out.
one of the reasons that i chose this camera over others on the market was because i wanted to have some control over some of the settings instead of having to keep on choosing 'auto'. i'm just really getting used to them but here's a shot that i took where i set the shutter speed to 15 seconds and then took a picture in a darkened room while moving a torch around. the image you see have the colours inverted, and then shifted to a red hue.
when i bought my new camera i looked at lots of different places for the cheapest deal. eventually i decided that ebay was the best bet and i bid on one that was £140 from hong kong. i thought that it might be a bit of a risk but it seemed worth it as it was so cheap. just over a week later i got a letter from parcelforce who told me that i had to pay customs duty on it. i had little choice so paid it and got the camera. i had also been promised a few accessories to go with the camera including a tripod and camera case. when i opened the parcel i found no tripod and this case. it's safe to say that i'll think again before repeating the experience... so, if anyone wants a camera case...
i received my new camera a couple of days ago. it's a canon powershot A620. it looks very exciting, an upgrade on my last camera with 7.1 megapixels and a 4x zoom. it also allows certain manual settings with shutter speed and exposure. i've just got to learn how to use them now. so here's one of my first shots with it of my old, broken nikon coolpix 4600. with all the abuse i gave it i'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.
here's the second of the otmar alt sculpture in lister park, bradford. it certainly looks more phallic from this angle.
last friday i had a little accident with my camera. i was at a friends party and we decided to play spoons. anyone that's played this game before knows that it can get a little crazy with everyone trying to grab a spoon at the same time. in my drunken wisdom i thought that it would be a good idea to film the game on my camera by placing it on the edge of the kitchen table. it didn't take long for it to get bumped around eventually fall onto the tiled floor... it didn't turn back on. i have since ordered a new and improved camera which i hope will be delivered soon and i'll post some new shots. in the mean time i'm going to post old photos that i took before the spoons incident! this is a sculpture by a german artist called otmar alt and it appears in the fountain in lister park, bradford. it's part of an art installation that's dotted around bradford and is on until september. i found that this was the most flattering angle of this particular artwork. you'll see why when i post the next picture...
i took this last thursday on a trip over to ireland. i was planning to take some pictures from the aeroplane but that was cancelled due to those pesky terrorists. instead i ended up getting the ferry from holyhead to dublin. the journey was a lot longer than it should have been but was well worth it in the end and i spent most of the weekend drinking far too much.
this is another shot from the top of the banyan tree in bangkok. This is a similar photo to the panorama i posted a few days ago and back in december. The views were just so fantastic that i wanted to put another shot up.
this picture was taken back in may when i went to the lake district and was taken on top of the same hill that i took this photo the sky is a lot more washed out in the middle than it is at the sides. this was because i shot from left to right so it used the same settings on the first shot as it did in the middle shots (where it was a lot brighter and would ordinarily adjust to that). i used arcsoft panorama maker 3 for this and the other panorama shots on the site as this software came free with my camera.
this panorama is of a club in bangkok called bed supper club. the photo is far from perfect and there are a few obvious joins but it looked really cool on the inside that i wanted to put it up anyway. there were beds on both sides of the room where you would sit (or lie) with a drink. then there was a bigger dance area downstairs. i had already posted another couple of pictures from inside the club last year
this is a panorama shot taken from vertigo restaurant in bangkok from my trip to thailand last year. after working on the emirates stadium picture i've gone back to work on a few older panorama shots and i'll be posting a few more shots over the next few days. i posted a smaller version of this image last december, which was taken a bit earlier on in the night the vertigo restaurant is in the banyan tree 61 floors high and the views were spectacular.
this is a pair of shoes that were hanging from a telephone line between the shipley pride and thai fever in shipley. i removed the wire in photoshop
this is a panoramic shot taken from inside the emirates stadium - arsenal's new home ground. the stadium is simply superb, they seem to have thought of everything and it's got that shiny and new feel to it. it's a lot bigger than the previous stadium and can fit about 20,000 more people in. despite this you don't feel too far away from the action. the first game there was dennis bergkamp's testimonial. as they did at the end of last season, arsenal had put a free tshirt on each of the seats. some of them where red with a white design, some were white with a red design and others were orange with a black design. this was great as not only was it a free soveniur from the game (the touts selling tshirts outside must have been pissed off) but also it meant that the whole stadium had a really cool colour pattern to it.
i've always been interested in halftone images and the way a few seemingly random series of dots make up a image. particularly how when viewed close up it doesn't make any sense, but then when viewed from a distance the picture emerges. this was taken on the megabus down to london last weekend. the journey should have taken a just about bearable 4 and a half hours. instead it took well over 6. towards the end of the journey, i think when we were heading down baker street i took a picture through the window which had a mesh pattern on. this was the result
this is another shot from dennis bergkamp's testimonial that i went to last saturday. here he is addressing the crowd after he and an arsenal legends team had just beaten an ajax legends team 2-1. i'm not too sure about the new tv screens in the new stadium, there's one in each corner but they are so high up that you can only really see one depending on where you are. that's probably one of the only criticisms of this fantastic new ground.
last saturday i went down to london to see the first game at arsenal's new stadium - dennis bergkamp's testimonial. bergkamp has been at arsenal for over 10 years and is arguably arsenal's best ever player. the game itself was good fun as in the second half lots of former players (vieira, wright, overmars) came on to play.this banner was tied up to a fence outside the stadium and refers to the dutchman's fear of flying (that has prevented him from playing european games that are too far away). i decided to desaturate the image everywhere but the banner,
i took this last night after enjoying a drink in fanny's ale house. at the moment it's the kind of weather that's made for sitting outside in a beer garden, unfortunately fanny's doesn't have a garden so everyone just spills out onto the beer pavement. this shop is directly opposite the pub, and it was taken just as it started to get dark so the exposure was longer. that's why you can see the lights of cars going past.
this is a look through the stereoscopic lenses that come attached to the latest tool album 10,000 days. They always include really good album design, particularly their last three albums, but this has to be the best concept yet. so you look through the lenses and flick through the booklet and the images become 3D.and the album has been on pretty much constant rotation both before and after i saw them live
this is a self portrait that i took by holding my camera up to the window and clicking in hope as i look down the lense. the title is taken from a great billy corgan song. i found the image more striking in black and white, either way i've posted the original as well.
this is another clouds shot taken on baildon moor and processed in a similar way to the last one that i posted. i originally took the picture as i thought that clouds resembled a question mark in the sky. after editing it i liked the effect created by flipping the image, the way it looks as though you are observing it from above.
this is a shot looking through one of the holes in the forbidden door
while driving back from baildon moor i noticed this inviting looking door. despite the dilapidated look it houses an in use reservoir
last night i went up on to baildon moor planning to take some pictures of the sunset. unfortunately it was a bit too cloudy, so i decided to take pictures of the clouds. after walking through a golf course i got high enough to get a few shots. i did a fair amount of post-processing work to get the effect i wanted, this also included flipping the image and adding a border.
this is leo the bendy monkey taken on my desk at work. he was a forgotten birthday present that i found while doing a bit of tidying at home. according to the tin that he's magnetically stuck to Monkey Benders have wire bodies that may break if bent in rapid succession. Treat your monkey nicely
this is a shot at the water cooler in work. i played around with the hue of the bottom of the water cooler and noticed that the plastic bottom resembled rusty metal when I changed it.
at least i assume that it's an engine, although i don't think i've actually seen one up close, still it was in the bonnet of the car. i wanted to take a few more pictures but the grass around the car was very slippy, and being on quite a steep slope it was quite tricky to photograph
after revisiting this car i managed to get a few couple of closer shots
after travelling from leeds to kings cross to kilburn to hyde park, then walking around (what seemed like) the whole of the park to get to the entrance with the sun beating down on us it was nice to finally relax with a beer and a pear cider and listen to queens of the stone age
this guy was hilarious. he 'played' air bass guitar for every motorhead song. i don't think he even sang along, but kept flicking his hair around in a rock star pose. you just couldn't take your eyes off him... far more entertaining than lemmy.
this was the foo fighters playing at hyde park in front of 85,000 people. i've seen them a few times before and they are always entertaining. everlong was particularly good, dave grohl sang it at the end of a walkway deep into the crowd with the band playing behind him on stage. couldn't get too close to the stage as they had cordoned off the front area, named it 'the golden circle' and then charged extra for the tickets.
while i prefer the other artwork by kilburn station i like this just because of the slightly creepy feel to it, from the wierd collection of london buildings in the shape of a head to that baby's face!
while not as manic as the other crowd shot from the trinidad and tobago match i think this sums up the feelings of relief that everyone felt. i think we all knew that we should get through this group but the longer this match went on the less sure we were of ourselves. it wasn't pretty but we got 3 points
this is graffiti art work that i took walking towards kilburn station the day after the tool gig. i've seen it before and just loved the style of the drawing as well as the use of colour. it has been created by singal project who specialise at graffiti based projects in the uk
this was taken seconds after stevie gerrard scored england's second goal. i think everyone was just glad that there was no way back for trinidad and tobago to cause an upset. what i liked about this image was that despite the obvious motion blur when i took the picture a few of the faces dotted around the crowd still stand out and look sharp
this was just the second time i've seen tool play, the last time was about 5 years ago when they released their last album. this time was a lot better, i think mainly because i had taken more time to get into the songs and they played a great setlist including my favourite songs from their first and last album, sober and the pot as i was staying the night in london, and i had come straight from work, i had to queue up and put my bag in the cloakroom. i also had to hand in my camera as these weren't allowed inside the venue. it's a shame as tool shows always look visually great and this was no different. so all i can put up is a photo of the apollo. i was annoyed that when i took this picture i couldn't position it to get the big lampost out of shot. i finally managed it by removing it in photoshop
watched the england v trinidad and tobago match on the big screen in centenary square, bradford. it was a pretty good atmosphere. this was taken from the window of lloyds bar when I was getting a halftime drink
there's plenty of brown sheep in the lake district shitting all over the place. most of them run away when you get too close, and as the zoom on my camera is pretty poor, this was one of the few that I managed to get.
another shot from the brilliant flaming lips gig i went to last month. the lead singer, wayne, sporadically came to the front of the stage and fired these thin, plastic tubes in to the audience. they were filled with ticker tape, confetti and streamers, and i still find them in my pockets and around the house.
another tree that's been involved in an accident, although this looks a bit more vicious than the other one
the morning after my dad's birthday we all went for a walk starting off in the park with the sculpture. it wasn't that far but it was very hot and uphill so we were all a bit knackered by the time that we got to the top. so i took this while i recovered
this is the flaming lips playing vein of stars from their new album at war with the mystics. the mirrorball looked amazing with the light falling onto it and then shooting out all around the room. and it really fits in with the song.
this working horse was presumably taking a break from dragging all the logs as it was tied up just down the road. this is another shot from the lake district
i was very excited about going to see radiohead for lots of reasons, and one of them was to see willy mason. i had first heard of him last summer when i was watching the glastonbury coverage and he was playing in a small tent and the whole crowd were singing along with him to oxygen.
when i saw this pile of logs the first thing i thought of was the the pulp song the trees
grown up into a grumpy old cat!
later on from the walk through the woods in the lakes we came across a field full of bluebells. i think that it's pretty rare sight as they mainly grow in the shade (or so i was told)
this was radiohead singing karma police in blackpool. i had seen them before at glastonbury but this was the first time at their own gig - and in a pretty small venue as well. they played a host of new songs as well as some classics such as just and the bends.
while walking in the woods in the lake district i noticed this tree which looks like it's been pulled up by it's roots. i like the way that it looks like it's balanced precariously and might fall at any minute fallen tree in the lake district near keswick
last week me and all my family went up to the lake district. it was my dad's 60th birthday so we were going to suprise him by showing up at his cottage. i drove straight from work and managed to find the cottage pretty easily. unfortunately i made it there a bit too quickly and as i was about to pull in i saw my dad unloading his car. fortunately i sped off and he didn't notice. i stopped in a park about a mile up the road and waited til the coast was clear. this was a metal sculpture in the park. everyone else managed to get there on time and, thanks to the very helpful staff, the suprise was a success
this is a rock climber scaling a popular rock face by the cow and calf in ilkley. the rock itself isn't actually that high although i would imagine that you've got to be pretty competent to attempt it without any ropes
during a break from singing wayne came up to the front of the stage and started shining a torch into the crowd. i took a couple of pictures that didn't really come out too well but i liked the silhouette from this picture and decide to work with that. after trying a few different effects i ended up with this.
this was taken about 3 minutes after wayne coyne had emerged from his plastic bubble and started singing race for the prize. this is him spinning a light above his head, the orange blobs you can see are big orange baloons that were 'released' into the audience. there literally must have been about 100 of them being bounced around for the enitre show.
it's been a couple of weeks since i posted a picture but i feel that this makes up for it. they are video captures taken from the beginning of a flaming lips gig i went to last month. the lead singer, wayne coyne, 'crowd surfed' in an inflatable balloon! i have quite a few pictures from the gig as i managed to get close to the front, and anyone that's been to a flaming lips gig before knows how amazing it all looks. it was awesome!
lost shoe in the middle of nowhere in ireland
flying back from shannon airport
carrot cake on my sisters birthday
wall made of stones in the burren
warning of the perils of viewing the cliffs of moher
part of the cliffs of moher jutting out into the atlantic
the pier on a lake in six mile bridge
mr burns on a wall outside 'the celtic t-shirt shop'
the wind presumably only blows in this direction in the burren
where the ducks go when most of the lake is frozen over
despite not being in focus i still kind of like this shot which is from the scale model of lister mills
a tree in lister park on a cold winters afternoon
a black and white shot of this little guy
low angle shot of the lake in lister park
another photo of the model of lister mills... i'm not sure why there's sheep there either
(trying to) walk carefully across the froze lake in lister park
pigeons in flight, taken on a sunny (but very cold) sunday afternoon
scale model of really expensive 'apartments' in a really rough area of bradford
shadow on the frozen lake in lister park
a frozen lake in lister park after a weekend of snow
taken on a trip to holland in february
methinks this is slightly safer than the thai pier i saw last year..
another shot of the clouds opening up on a boat over lake windermere
lake windermere
redevelopment in bradford city centre
gates at yesterdays arsenal match
another shot from on top of kirkstone pass
warning sign on the boat on lake windermere
speed sign on lake windermere
along kirkstone pass (a very steep, narrow road in the lake district)
here's a shot over lake windermere in february
this is a reflection in a huge mirror in a nightclub in huddersfield. the club itself if pretty cool, spread over 3 floors this was taken at the top of the staircase leading up to the top floor. the night didn't start too well as we couldn't get hold of the friends we were meeting up with. it ended up getting worse with pretty much everyone getting in a drunken mood with everyone else!
sea kayaking in krabi
diving off the coast of phi phi
outside a temple in chaing mai (about one minute before i dropped my camera)
on a snowy street in germany
view while elephant trekking
working with the worms in a silk factory, chaing mai
cool bulidings on the streets of berlin
playing last night in fanny's ale house
taken inside a gadget shop - inspired by the ddoi christmas photo
suprisingly pretty close up, pretty ugly far away (as you can see from behind santa's shoulder)
saluting shoppers in berlin
overground in berlin
underground in berlin
supersize table football in germany
hanging next to this tree
in a snow covered park
absinthe tip #2: don't attempt to drink after you have broken the glass by setting it on fire this was my view after a few too many
absinthe tip #1: don't attempt to drink straight after it has been on fire for 20 seconds - it will burn your tounge!
on a 'warmer' day in berlin
belated european christmas present
uncharacteristically animated outside the brandenburg gate - then again it was friggin freezing!
snow falling before a flight to berlin
i did 'cheat' with this picture and used photoshop to blur the background i thought today was an appopriate day for a thailand picture
merry christmas
christmas decorations in chilworth, surrey
street parade in chiang mai
national park, krabi
metal sculptures on a street corner in chiang mai
according to the sign 'the most wholesome source of protein on earth'
inside bed supperclub
61 floors high in the Banyan Tree, bangkok
trying to grab some bananas in chiang mai
red sky in the morning in little germany, bradford
relected off the roof of my car in bradford
grand palace, bangkok
looking out of a temple in bangkok
koh phi phi
this is a genius addition to traffic lights in busy cities in thailand. as well as stop and go, they have red and green numbers counting down how long until you have to stop or go
billboard in bangkok - i'm not really sure what exactly tiger balm is but it sounds good
statue in the grand palace, bangkok
morning sun hitting railings in bradford
bar at the davis, bangkok
sun creeping through a tree in chiang mai
making a wish before floating their krathongs on the river
busy street in bangkok
seafood restaurant on sukhumvit 24
stone figure inside wat suthat
big teak frame outside wat suthat
from their 2 hour set at birmingham academy
more delicious food from the night market in krabi
early morning in heathrow airport
karon beach, phuket
monsoon weather on phi phi... still buy one get one free whisky buckets
blue beach in the evening on phi phi
making deep fried pastries at a night market in krabi town
at a national park in krabi
prehistoric painting in cave in krabi
on a window in koh samui
bophut beach on koh samui
wat chedi luang, chiang mai
munching through leaves in a silk factory in chiang mai
over the river ping on the final day of the loy krathong festival in chaing mai
futuristic nightclub in bangkok
between the road and the skytrain in bangkok
flying over europe
projected by the sun at shipley station
i'm off to thailand tomorrow (via bahrain) for two weeks so i won't be able to update the site until i return. i'll bring back lots of pics of elephants and er... buddhas that i can backdate and upload
remembrance in greengates
car that tried to drive out of the quarry
this was a cheeky squirrel trying to steal some nuts in my sisters garden in york. he kept scampering up and down unsuccessfully trying to get some food.
autumnal leaves from my favourite tree
this was taken on bonfre night in york as we were going to get some food. presumably a bonfire/firework related accident
projection onto york cathedral
this was from a pretty spectacular fireworks display in york city centre. it was a pretty crowded bridge and apparantly no one knew exactly where they were going to set off the fireworks so there was a fair amount of confusion.
every time i drive to work to bradford i always see this tree perfectly outlined on a hill in the distance. last week i decided to try and find it. this mission was actually easier said than done and there were quite a few wrong turns and dead ends. eventually after climbing over a few fences i finally managed to find it.
in a garden centre in frizinghall
hidden in the hills of yorkshire
chocolate brownie + milkybar icing + smarties
carved with 30 minutes to spare
fcuking labels
fancy dressdriving home
in the space
english weather
final song of a short but great set
view from my sunroof
playing at the space in leeds
trying to learn php
slipping and sliding to during royksopp's set
reflection in the river in saltaire
playing at the cockpit - not as good as magnet
sign for gents barbers
swan in canal
playing i'll come along on a weird instrument at the cockpit
ben and jerry's stand at glastonbury, i went for cheese nuggets instead
duck poking out of the grass
arsenal's home ground (for this season anyway)
glastonbury - impressive artwork seeing as there was a major storm a few hours before
no idea what this does - suggestions on a postcard
just a cool name
big chimney outside my window
view from my tent at glastonbury - the calm before the storm
lurking in the reception of nmpft
taken on a bridge in shipley trying to find a gym
warming up on the touchline - apparantly there's only one dennis bergkamp
street corner down the road from highbury
night driving
being booed at the clock end just before taking a corner for birmingham
taking a break before she starts chasing her tail again
