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Sunday 28 June 2009

Little Fluffy Clouds

I had to go into town the other day, something I try to avoid whenever possible as I don't have much patience with the crowds of full-volume baseball caps and 10 a.m. drunks that always seem to congregate in town centres. It was a perfect day so to recover from the trauma I decided to walk home the long way over the Downs. I normally confine landscape photography to early morning and late evening, but with the sky almost completely blue it was ideal for black and white shots and I had planned to do a few landscapes like this:


I soon came across a barbed wire fence with bits of wool blowing around in the breeze hanging from it and spent an hour or so laying in the grass photographing that instead. Two ramblers came over (quietly spoken, wearing floppy hats and completely sober) to say hello and see what I was up to (or possibly check that I was alive - I suppose it did look a bit odd) and apart from that I didn't see a soul.





The first thing Nina said when she saw the photo's was "Little Fluffy Clouds!" So there we are, leftover bits of sheep masquerading as little fluffy clouds, quite a nice mornings work.

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Friday 19 June 2009

Liquid Art - Photographing Water Droplets

If you have never seen photographs of water droplets before it probably sounds like a strange thing to do, at least all my friends think it's a bit odd until they see the end result, then they go "Wow!"

Droplets falling into a bowl of water produce amazing structures for a fraction of a second and trying to capture that brief moment in time is surprisingly addictive, you never know exactly what the next one will look like.

The droplets are lit with a pair of Nikon SB800 speedlights covered with sweetie wrappers left over from Christmas. Sweetie wrappers work better than gels because they are not as stiff and can simply be held in place with a rubber band. The downside is that my speedlights now smell of chocolate!

Getting the timing right is very much the trick with this, you do tend to get a lot of missed shots until your eye drops in, but when you do get on a roll the results are worth it!






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Tuesday 16 June 2009

Back to Pelham House

I have just taken a booking for next year from a lovely couple called Karen and Peter who are getting married at Pelham House in Lewes. They are a particularly interesting couple to meet as Peter is a sign-writer who used to work in magazine printing, which (believe it or not) is something of a dark art to most photographers. Karen on the other hand paints glasses (drinking ones, not spectacles) and targets her creations specifically at the wedding market. I hope to do a separate blog entry about this in the near future, so I won't say more now.

The last time I was at Pelham House was for the wedding of Emma and Spencer:


Spencer has the coolest name ever - Spencer Rockman - it sounds like someone from the lead role in a Hollywood blockbuster, possibly with someone like Harrison Ford playing second fiddle!


Spencer gave one of the best speeches ever. Very funny, but delivered completely dead-pan, a bit like a friendlier looking version of Jack Dee. Emma on the other hand is one of the bubbliest people you could come across, very much like my friend Emma (who I call Twinkle because she does), perhaps there's something about the name Emma that makes the owner a happy person.


Pelham House is a very stylish boutique hotel in the centre of Lewes, converted from a 16th century town house. It has stunning gardens, hosts a large collection of modern sculpture and also hosts a number of art exhibitions throughout the year. 



Pelham House is a lovely and very well run venue and is great  for couples looking to have their wedding somewhere a little different, you can find out more details their website: http://www.pelhamhouse.com/index.html, which also has links to a lot of useful local information.

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Thursday 4 June 2009

Public Relations Photography

With all the excitement surrounding our Government at the moment, I thought I would share some recent photographs of a few members of parliament, just in case they become ex-members of parliament and end up being of rather less interest than they currently are.

First off is Laura Moffatt MP. Laura is an exceptionally nice lady, one of the few MP's that take the time to talk to photographers and as you can see, she is will try pretty much anything to help out with a photo-shoot:


I think I would struggle to persuade Gordon Brown to try a pose like that... actually I'm not sure I would want him to.

Here we have Bob Ainsworth MP having a go in a flight simulator. I had to wait outside when it was "in-flight" due to restrictions on the number of passengers so I don't know how well he did, but I didn't hear any screaming coming from inside and when they opened the door no one had been sick, so I guess he must have done fairly well.


Finally here is John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Defence. I get the impression that Mr Hutton is a very decent chap, with a genuine interest in defence and does try very hard to obtain funding, although given the article in this weekends Sunday Times about yet more defence cut-backs and project cancellations he probably doesn't get as much as he would like.


This is not a political or pro-military blog, but here's a thought. How about every year the names of twenty MP's are pulled at random out of a hat and they have to spend two months with a front line operational unit, no exceptions (even if it's the PM) and no special treatment. It would be interesting to see what effect the risk of having to face the consequences of their own decisions would have on defence policy.

Well, it's election day so I suppose I had better go and vote...

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