In October 2014 I was asked to cover the Federation of Small Businesses Business First event, a conference meant to network small businesses together.
A photo report fresh off the presses (today, in fact) from my local area’s festival.
The last few photos are of the wonderful “Piped With Love”, who were selling delicious hand-made and hand-decorated biscuits. Check out their website at http://www.pipedwithlove.com/
A photo report from Scotland’s largest city, just days before a referendum that could change everything.
It’s a crying shame that I haven’t mentioned this before, but as a few of you may know I volunteer at a local internet radio station called Brooklands Radio, helping out behind the scenes but primarily working on the fantastic show “Under The Radar” – every Sunday from 7pm – 9pm, hosted by my esteemed colleague David Durant we have great unsigned or little-known music and more often than not a live guest in session, which is where I come in to act as photographer. Here’s a little sample of some of the fantastic guests we’ve had on the show:
The amazing Kimberly Anne
The supremely talented Carrie Haber
the fantastic group “The mouth of Ghosts”
The brilliant rosabella gregory
The superb Annie Lovell
Annie lovell and rosabella gregory with our host, mr david durant
It’s a really fun show to be a part of, and it’s live every Sunday on www.brooklandsradio.co.uk – tune in tonight to hear the wonderful Noraay live in session, and check out David’s blog for more information and updates, and watch out for my photos on the Under The Radar facebook page!
Cheers!
-WG
So when I was out in London with my friends last week we stumbled upon this, neatly parked in one of the gardens along the Embankment.
“Keep off the grass” clearly doesn’t apply to London Air Ambulances
There didn’t seem to be anyone injured, since the pilots weren’t in much of a hurry to leave.
“we have clearance Clarence. Roger roger. what’s our vector victor?”
But eventually the helicopter took off with a rather ferocious downdraft.
Up up and away!
And then it left, over the tops of the trees and off into the blue yonder.
It just goes to show, you never know what to expect in this town.
Greetings! It’s been a while what with work and all, but I’m back here to start blogging again and I’m back with a new camera! Well, a new second-hand camera, but it’s new enough – a Canon 30D, complete with telephoto and macro lens. So, to test it out, a week or so ago I took it down to the Kingston Food Festival, and these are the results! Hope you enjoy them.
(My new zoom lens has made me very nosy)
Daleks raising money for charity, who’d have though it?
All in all I think it went pretty well – still learning the ins and outs and all the little idiosyncrasies of the Canon, but I’m very happy with it so far and the old Panasonic isn’t going away entirely, just into semi-retirement as a back-up camera. It’s served me very well over the years, but recently I felt somewhat limited by it and that’s when you know it’s time to upgrade. And since I have this shiny new bit of kit, you can expect plenty more blog posts to come soon.
Catch you next time!
-WG
The reason behind my trip to Birmingham – to see the great guitarist Joe Bonamassa perform at the NEC. Managed to get some cheeky shots while balancing the camera on my lap, with the high zoom once again coming in very handy.
This is part of Birmingham’s Cube building, a truly bizarre and fascinating piece of architecture that looks like it was designed after playing a particularly long game of Tetris. In stark contrast to the Bullring’s curves and circles it’s made entirely of criss-crossing blocks, hard-edged and irregular, which makes it a captivating subject for photography. I remember being absolutely astonished when I first saw it, never having seen anything like it before (or since, come to think of it).
Being at street level, the high-zoom function of my Panasonic Lumix camera came in very handy when taking this. It may not be a professional camera with a big sensor and high resolution, but my god it can zoom. Came out pretty nice, I thought.
Ah, the Bullring. It’s a famous landmark and much photographed, but it is pretty hard to resist. I’ve tried to do something different or at least interesting with it – zooming in to remove context and cropping it to a square format to create a contrast with the round shapes of the building. It’s a difficult thing to photograph well-known landmarks since you’re very conscious of what everyone else has done before, which can be a pretty diverse set of images. In the end it comes down to taking the photo that you want to and not worrying about what other people have done, but it’s difficult to let go of that.
And if all else fails, take a million photos from every conceivable angle. Works for me!
(More from Birmingham to come this week.)
These photos were all taken a year or two ago on an old family camera, an Halina AF810, using what’s called “Redscale” film. All 35mm film has a protective orange-coloured layer on the back to prevent light from escaping, and redscale film is wound backwards onto the spool so that you’re effectively shooting through this layer, which tints the photos a deep red in a different way than a typical filter would. If you’ve followed me elsewhere on the web you might have seen these already, but I wanted to put them here and talk a bit more about them.
Monmouth Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue. I was very luck with the light here, with the sun going down just behind the buildings on the right. Strong light is always a boon for photography, creating stark contrast and shadows, more so for basic film cameras since working in low light produces a lot of grain.
At the crossroads of Neal Street and Earlham Street, looking back along Neal Street. For a clear redscale photo you need a fair amount of light, and as you can see here the shopfronts lit by electric lights are dark whereas the more distant buildings still in the sun’s glare stand out, but I like the effect it’s produced here.
Covent Garden, outside the actual market itself but around the edge of the square. Again, there was fantastic light that day, so I was able to get a good contrast of light and shadow. Given the direction of the light I thought that this would be a good spot with it coming in from the right, casting highlights on the people out shopping.
I think this one is on Shaftesbury Avenue, but I’m not entirely sure. I was enticed by the classic car and someone who looks a bit like James Dean conveniently walking behind it.
The Strand. This time I didn’t expect that only people’s faces would be visible, but I’m happy with the result – when you’re shooting with film you’re never entirely sure what you’re going to get back until you get your roll of film developed, or at least that’s the case when I do it, which probably means I should keep practicing.
And finally, another on The Strand, with the cars and buses catching the reflected light of the sun as it goes down.
Shooting with film is a completely different experience to digital, naturally. You can’t just “spam” photographs, taking shot after shot and hoping that one comes out OK. You have to be careful and consider each shot, even with an automatic camera. For someone like me who’s spent most of their time photographing things purely digitally, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable education.
Will Goodwin Photography 