Walked into town today which I haven't done for a while owing to the convenience of the Boris bikes (and not leaving enough time). Wasn't exactly planned as someone was convinced that it was an hour later than it actually was*, ahem, so I only had my iPhone on me. It was a beautiful crisp, cold winter day...
I know you aren't supposed to take shots straight into the sun but I actually love the effect. The light always give the picture so much atmosphere and the colours can create a different time frame and sense of place.
You can see the rest on my Flickr account
* I woke up stupidly early so it felt later as I'd been up a long time. And that's the excuse I'm sticking to.
Autumn has started mild and sunny here in London with only the briefest colder snaps to remind us winter is coming.
Walking across the park to work one morning there was a lovely layer of mist and the dogs were having fun on their early morning walk...
As seen in a supposedly trendy new bar in Manchester (All Bar One but with darker wood and a few sparkly lights).
First blue sky in London for what seems like weeks so I wrapped up against this persistent cold spell, took a Boris bike down to Waterloo and then spent an hour or two strolling about with my camera with the eventual aim of walking all the way home.
Just beyond Lambeth Bridge I was struck by the colour of the sky. In the picture it has come out almost like a sunset or sunrise but the sun was in fact midway through its trajectory.
I purposefully shot towards the sun as I like the effect it can sometimes have in the lens. But the picture turned out to be much better than I imagined as I'd inadvertently positioned the sun right behind the lamp making it appear to be on and radiating light.
Complete fluke but then those often are the best shots.
My recent week's holiday in Sharm el Sheik was a bit of a voyage of discovery.
Firstly I went away with my brother. We were close when we were growing up as we are virtually the same age (his Dad married my Mum when were eight) and my biological brother and sister were both older leaving just the two of us at home with the parents when we were 11.
We haven't been away together since we were 16 and, as the years have rolled by, busy lives and greater physical distance has meant we haven't spent any prolonged time together since we left home.
But we rubbed along fine, just as soon as I'd worked out that his propensity to give too much information about bodily functions had not diminished with age and that his peeing with the bathroom door open was a given.
The second discovery, well it wasn't so much a discovery as I suspected how I'd feel, was the 'resort hotel'.
Sharm is like the Blackpool of Egypt. The explosion of budget airlines adding it to their routes and the fact that it provides hot winter sun (34C every day during my visit) just 5 hour flight from Blighty has turned it from a prime dive destination into a cheesy tourist trap full of hotels and malls with Starbucks and Pizza Hut.
The weather reports seem to have been promising a warm sunny days for a week. Yesterday's forecasted sun didn't materialised and this morning it didn't look particularly hopeful either.
But the met office website and the BBC both had big sun symbols from mid morning onwards so I risked jinxing things, grabbed my camera and headed off into Belgravia to meet my friend Kate for a coffee.
Am glad I did because the weather turned from this:
To this
So naturally I took full advantage. Here are a some of my favourite shots, the rest you can find over on my flickr site, should be interested.
Had a function in an empty office building out of town yesterday. Such a huge empty space with floor to ceiling windows and lovely end of day light through a stormy sky bouncing off the bare metal flooring. Only wish I'd had my bigger camera with me.
And then at the end of the long and busy day I got to go back to this lovely serviced apartment where I was staying with a couple of colleague. We had a duplex apartment on the 12th floor with a balcony overlooking the city. Shame I didn't get to spend more time there.
It was a lovely day so I went walking with my camera:
Smithfield meat market
City weeds
Reflections
Then I met up with Poly for a back stage tour of the Almeida Theatre as it was Open House weekend (all the pics are over here on Theatre if you are interested
After that we got the bus back into town and had a lunch stop at the lovely Soho Thai where I used to eat when I worked around the corner on Wardour Street:
Then we went to the Curzon for a sneaky glass of wine on the comfy leather sofa's while we waited to see I'm Still Here which is definitely a mockumentary, I've since discovered, although I'd pretty much made up my mind it was when I saw it. Listed my reasons and what I thought of it generally over on film
After that we headed out west to Shepherds Bush for a cuppa and then my first trip to the tiny Bush Theatre where Ralph Little of Royle Family fame and Mackenzie Crook of The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean fame were starring in an American play called The Aliens.
Continue reading "Now that's what I call making the most of Saturday" »
This little beauty I managed to capture while strolling across St James' Park on my way home on Thursday afternoon. OK so cards on the table, I'd had to use the loo and the attendant was standing in the doorway feeding this beautiful mummy squirrel. With nobody else around she was quite content to just eat and have her photo taken. (More piccies over on Flickr).
But this was towards the end of Thursday, my slightly chilled day, having had a nice massage at Relax and then treated myself to tea and cake at the fabulous Mrs Murengo's or rather raspberry and chocolate truffle cake and green tea. All gluten and dairy free, yum, yum, yum in my tum.
A combination of replenishing holiday savings, never having had any more than a day or two off at home during the summer (or what passes for one here) and my deputy about to go off on maternity has led me to deciding on a week's staycation.
Not one for doing too much practical stuff around the home, I want to make the most of London visiting exhibitions and museums and of course going to the theatre and cinema. And as I'd normally keep a journal on holiday thought I'd keep up the tradition here.
So yesterday was technically my first working day off and I had some theatre tickets to buy. I've already got a ticket for a new play at the wonderful pub theatre the Finborough, for Tuesday (technically tonight now) but I got some theatre tokens for my birthday which I save for those specially selected expensive West End plays I really want to see, to help keep the cost down.
So first stop was the Old Vic in Waterloo to pick up something for their production of Noel Coward's Design for Living at the beginning of September (love a bit of Noel Coward).
Then as I was in that part of town I walked over to Tate Modern. Ok, so I'm going to confess, I have this thing which a friend has so appropriately labelled 'bladder leash' which basically means, owing to having a bladder the size of a walnut, I plan my routes according to where I know there are loos. I wasn't planning to actually go to the Tate Modern but I needed a comfort break and knew they could oblige.
And I'm glad I did head there because they have a great exhibition on at the moment called: Exposed - Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera which I decided to stop and see.
It explores photography in which the subjects are unsuspecting, a lot of great candid stuff of people just going about their own thing. There are also rooms devoted to the voyeuristic elements of photography with some moving pictures from wars including that famous one from Vietnam of the girl running crying naked away from a bomb.
It's well worth the £10 entry fee and really inspiring. In fact I came out and immediately started trying to take pictures of unsuspecting subjects:
Spent a few days up north with my friend Chris for her wedding.
Chris has a cat called Billy. Billy likes routine. Billy especially likes his 'mummy', Chris's husband-to-be.
So he was not best pleased that hubby was away for the night before the wedding and told us so at frequent intervals during the night after tapping at our doors, just to make sure we were awake.
And he certainly wasn't happy the next morning being in a house with an increasingly nervous and excited bride and maid of honour getting ready for the wedding but decided to save his display of disapproval for later.
"Ha! I'll teach them!" he thought to himself as he was sat on Chris' bed, when the house was finally quiet, and was then sick.
Happy Wedding Day from Billy so to speak.
I pass this building on my way to work every day and when the sun shines the road is bathed in this beautiful blue light. Wonder if it is what the architect intended?
Despite the forecast it turned into a lovely day - luckily I had my camera with me. More messing around with shutter speed.
Been out and about taking pictures in the glorious weather we've been enjoying - 240 to be precise but I've edited it down to around 60. Here are few of my favourites.
A breezy, late spring day with clouds skirting across a beautiful blue sky. Nature is in it's final throws of seasonal renewal and it is so beautiful.
These were taken in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens the latter of which I haven't really explored before:
April is normally the showery, unpredictable month, well more unpredictable than English weather normally is anyway. But this April has seen a long spell of dry sunny weather with unseasonably warm temperatures. Cue: May rain.
So it poured for most of yesterday forcing indoor play. Today dawned dry but threatening downpours. Cabin fever was setting in, so at the first merest hint of blue in the sky I donned sensible wet-weather shoes, dug out the brolley and winter coat (it's got quite cold over the last couple of days) and headed out with my camera to see what I could capture.
And as ever the South Bank didn't let me down...
Came down with another migraine on Sunday (boo hiss) but luckily I got this shot and a few others of The Monument before I was forced to head home.
I have been up to the top once and on another sunny day I will do so again.
Rest of pictures on Flickr as usual
Spent the day with my Bro and Mrs Bro today. Bro loves his Staffordshire Bull Terrier Boris.
If possible, would you live year-round in your favorite season?
Well, as we don't really have clearly defined seasons in the UK then yes. I'd go for late spring/early summer which can range from really hot weather to cool, wet and windy. It doesn't get too cold though and the flowers and light on sunny days is beautiful so that would be good enough for me. And at least the days would be long.
Where would you choose to live if you had to leave your country?
Until Feb I would have said Wellington in New Zealand but now it would have to be New York. It's the only place that could adequately feed my film and theatre addiction. And it has an infinite subject matter for photographs...
How much of it do you think she takes out at night?
Tried out the sports setting on my new camera and am quite pleased with the results. The camera automatically takes a series of shots over a couple of seconds or so which is great for fast moving subjects. More pics on flickr.
