Wedding & Event Photography Blog of Simon Butler Photography

Beautiful Alice–Part 2

2012-02-13T18:18:00.001Z

Today Jonny and I spent most of the day with Emma and Alice in Berkhamsted. It was a lovely day and I attempted to take the *perfect* portrait of little Alice.

Each of the following was either taken at f/2.2 or f/1.4 with the focus point in one of her eyes.

While she was eating Jonny decided to make a movie of her and I couldn’t resist making this shot:

Those were all nice, but none of them were *perfect*. Then I took this one where her smile, eyes, the lighting and background were all perfect. So this becomes my photo of the week and my week 7 submission.to the View 52 Group.

I realise that it is early in the week to choose my photo of the week but I thought I would get it out of the way early. I have some more camera gear on its way to me – a second speedlight flash, a wireless radio flash trigger set and a portable studio background set – so this takes the pressure off me to try to get a good shot with my new toys later in the week. But look out for some photos taken using (and also of) these toys later in the week.

Beautiful Alice

2012-02-13T10:01:00.001Z

Jonny has another recording session for Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom on Tuesday so we are down South for a few days. Yesterday we went to The Kings Arms, a lovely gastropub in Berkhamsted, with Marcus, James, Emma and my beautiful 7 month old niece Alice. We went there to celebrate my recent 40th as well as Marcus’ recent 34th.

Obviously my camera was immediately attracted to Alice, especially as she was sitting facing a huge window which lit up her face and her big blue eyes.

The food was delicious at the Kings Arms – proper British grub done extremely well. My slow roasted belly of pork was melt-in-your-mouth-tastic!

Marcus was given this amazing iPhone case for his recent birthday which makes his iPhone look like an old skool camera. Jonny loved it unsurprisingly!

She likes to chew anything, not least her Dad’s glasses!

Puddings were rather nice too…

But star of the show was definitely little Alice!

The end of the world?

2012-02-10T12:44:00.001Z

My day-job colleague Ana told me about the frozen lake in Crookes Valley Park, a park only 10 minutes walk from office. I was embarrassed to admit to her that I didn’t know where this park was and had never been there before – despite working in the same area for almost 8 years! So once I’d worked out in Google maps where it was I headed over there yesterday lunchtime.

Unfortunately the sky was very grey so the light was very flat – not the best conditions to photograph the lake. But I liked how a child's green plastic boat had become stuck on the surface of the lake as well as branch sticking out of the water. Reminded me a bit of what I imagine the end of the world might look like.

So I composed for those two elements and came up with this:

I also tried to make an even bleaker image by moving so only the green boat would be in shot:

I then finally made a panorama of the whole lake so you can have a sense of scale of how much of the lake was frozen. The resultant panorama below is a stitch of 9 vertical images in Photoshop Elements 9. You can’t see it in my photo but at the far end of the lake was a patch of unfrozen water where all of the ducks from the lake were huddled together!

The first image of the branch and green boat becomes my week 6 submission for my 52 project.

Jonny and I are off down to that London on Sunday and will be there until Tuesday because he has another recording session for Peppa Pig. So my Week 7 submission will be significantly different I imagine from weeks 1-6!

An eye-opening birthday

2012-02-05T22:25:00.001Z

Today was my – I’m whispering this quietly because if I say it out loud it might be true – 40th birthday. I am not so happy about that but what I was happy about was the lovely, and very generous, selection of presents that I received from friends and family. There were the usual cookery books, gift vouchers and bottle of wine, all of which were lovely. But of most relevance to this blog were the 3 photo-geeky presents I got.

These were, from left to right above, a Macro LED Ring Light, some extension tubes and the Speedliter’s Handbook. I will spend the next few weeks reading the book as flash is something I feel I don’t understand enough. But the first two I had a play with this evening.

But before all that, this afternoon Jonny went sledging in the snow, so I took some photos of him speeding down the hill in the park, just as I did almost 3 years ago. This was the pick of the bunch:

That photo was going to be my week 5 photo in my one photo a week in 2012 challenge. But this evening I decided to have a play with my new toys and attempted to take a macro photo of my eye.

This was possibly one of the most challenging things I have ever done because I was almost literally doing this blind. I had to take my glasses off so I was almost blind thanks to my terrible eyesight. But the main problem was that the extension tubes don’t work with autofocus so I had to manually focus. When I was standing in front of the lens I obviously couldn’t see the back LCD screen to see if the image was in focus. But worse than that I had I didn’t even know if my eye was in shot, So I ended up taking almost random photos with the cable release while I moved slightly closer, further away, up, down, left and right all the time hoping that my whole eye would be in shot and in focus. This was as hard as it sounds,

With the extension tubes on my eye only needed to be a few mm away from the lens which made this even more challenging.

Being this close to the lens would normally make for a very dark image but this is where the macro ring LED light came in. This lit up my eye brilliantly although as it was constantly on it has burnt a circle of light into my eye – hopefully this will go over time!

Anyway, this is the best image I took. It was actually the 199th, and last, photo of my eye that I took!

It is not perfect. I struggled to keep my eye open wide enough and you can see reflected in my eyes my fingers trying to force my eye open wider. But it will do and it becomes my week 5 image.

If I try this again I think I need to invest in one of these from A Clockwork Orange!

Surprising Silhouettes!

2012-01-28T22:49:00.001Z

I love Surprise View in the Peak District. It is not that far from my house (just over 30 minutes drive). There is a car park there. It only takes about 20 minutes to walk from the car park to the top of Surprise View. And once you get there the view is simply beautiful (and it feels like you are right in the middle of the Peak District but without all that tiring walking). It is especially beautiful if there if there is snow on the ground like there was today (although that made it particularly chilly!).

I have been a frequent visitor to Surprise View and have taken lots of photos there over the years but I’d never really managed to nail a decent sunset there before. So I decided to head over there today to try and do just that.

I also needed to take a photo for week 4 of my one photo a week in 2012 challenge too so I thought a Surprising sunset would do the job.

I set up my tripod behind the big rock formations at the top of the hill so that they would be silhouetted against the setting sun. A group of families then started climbing up the rocks and I liked how they were also silhouetted against the sky if I exposed for the sky and not the rocks.

One of the Dads spotted me and came over. I was a little worried that he would be angry at me for taking photos of his kids but he was nothing of the sort. In fact he was interested in what I was doing and when I showed him that everyone was coming out as a silhouette it got him and the other parents thinking. They all very kindly climbed back up onto the rocks again and decided to pose for me.

That first pose was marvellous. But then they decided to get even more creative. And bingo, I got my week 4 shot!

The families then left leaving me with a lone man standing on the rocks.

Once the sun had completely set the whole sky went a wonderful yellowy-orange colour but by then I had set off back down the hill towards my car. I would have loved to have stayed and captured the rocks with this colour in the sky but I didn’t want to have to negotiate the rocky climb back down in the dark!

I have realised that I forgot to blog about my week 3 photo last week. So here it is. It is a 3 photo panorama stitch of the University of Sheffield Students’ Union building. I had walked past it the day before at sunset and the sky behind the Union building was full of glorious orange colours. I didn’t have my camera with me so I vowed to return the next day. And typically the sunset the day after was rubbish. But it was raining a bit which allowed me to capture some great reflections in the ground so all was not lost.

Stay tuned to my blog for my week 5 photo next week!

Week 2–Strong & Northern!

2012-01-15T12:33:00.001Z

For week 2 of my one photo a week in 2021 challenge I had intended to make a stunning long exposure photo of the Henderson’s Relish Building using my new welding glass 14 stop ND filter. In my head the image was a very striking photo of the building with a sky showing lots of dynamic movement in the clouds. Unfortunately when I tried to make just that photo I got neither of these two – a washed out building and a white featureless sky.

So I next thought I would take a photo of St George’s Lecture Theatre but I got a similar looking photo with no movement in the clouds (even though the exposure was 150 seconds!). It appears that it is a lot harder than it looks to get cloud movement in a long exposure (most likely due to the detail in the sky being blown out). More practice is obviously required! But I did manage in Lightroom to make a half-decent image out of my photo of the church.

My next idea was to head to Ladybower Reservoir and take some long exposure shots of the water. I spent 3 hours there yesterday freezing my nuts off but couldn’t get a shot I liked until dusk where I made this panorama:

Although I like this image it is a little dark so I revisited my Henderson’s photos and discovered that I had luckily taken 2 normal bracketed shots of the building without the welding glass attached – one to expose for the sky and one for the building. I blended these together to make the images below, one in colour and the other in much more striking black and white:

And it is this last one that I have chosen as my photo of the week and will be entered into the View52 Group on flickr.

PS Regular viewers of my photos (and also of the View52 and October groups) will recognise Henderson’s building of course. I first shot it back in 2008:

And my friends Richard and Dave have both shot it too, for the October and View52 groups respectively:

Photowalk with Dave and Rich

2012-01-07T12:45:00.001Z

Yesterday lunchtime I went on a photowalk with my mates Dave and Rich. Well, when I say photowalk, it was more photo than walk as we didn’t walk far. We started at the Henderson’s Relish building then went to the Bioincubator and Jessops West buildings at the university. So our walk was all of about 100 yards. But it was good fun though.

We had intended to meet up with The PP Girls again as they were planning a photowalk in Sheffield yesterday but they did the 5 Weirs Walk. As Dave, Rich and I have day jobs and only had our lunch hours to fit in some photography we couldn’t meet up. There is talk of a weekend meet so hopefully we’ll all get together then.

Dave and I arrived at the Hendos building a little early so we both took some photos of this iconic building. Dave’s photo can be seen here but mine was a bit rubbish, and a lot worse than my old photo of the building, so I won’t be posting it here.

Once Rich arrived we headed over to the Bioincubator and the cafe area on the top floor. The view from there over Sheffield is pretty good but I’d never photographed it before so I was looking forward to giving it a try. However when we reached the cafe we noticed that one of the windows had been shattered. So all thoughts of the view were forgotten about as we all became fascinated by the patterns of the broken window…

The view was pretty good and I captured it using my fisheye attachment.

I also made a 27 photo stitch of the view too:

We then headed outside and I took some photos of Jessops West. I do like a good abstract image…

Then all too soon our lunch hour was over and we all had to head back to work. Looking forward to a weekend meet up soon where we can spend a lot longer on the photography (and also do a bit more walking too!).

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T10:35:00.001Z

Happy New Year to all my customers, friends and family! I hope that 2012 brings you northing but happiness!

The photo above is of the firework that Jonny and I set off last night at midnight to celebrate the end of 2011 and the start of 2012.

The firework was a single light, 64 shot and it was amazing! Back on bonfire night I set off some fireworks in my garden for the first time. I bought them from Asda and was a little disappointed with them. I spent £50 on two selection boxes and, although there were lots of fireworks in both boxes, on the whole they were a bit rubbish.

This time I decided to go to a proper fireworks shop to get my fireworks in the hope that they would be better and after a bit of internet research I discovered there was one just up the road from me called Epic Fireworks. The nice man in the shop sold me a surprisingly cheap firework called the Paramount Heavy Duty.

It was only £14.95 and I was a bit sceptical that something so cheap could be as good as the salesman said. But I am pleased to say he was right. Unlike the Asda fireworks, it lit up the whole of the sky above my garden with a myriad of effects and for the 70 seconds that it lasted for it felt like we were under attack!

This is a video that Epic Fireworks shot of the Heavy Duty which gives you some idea of just how good the firework is. Especially as it is a single light firework so you only have to light one firework but get the effect of 64 different ones.

As well as providing a great light show what I was also impressed with about the firework was the length of the fuse. With the Asda fireworks the fuses were so short that it was impossible for me to retreat a safe distance once I’d lit the fuse before the firework went off. But with the Heavy Duty the fuse was so long that I was able to easily make it to a safe distance before it went off.

As well as using this blog post to rave about the firework (and to wish you all a Happy New Year!) I am also writing this to highlight that the photo at the top of this post is my first entry to the for the View 52 flickr group. This is where I will be posting one photo a week for the whole of 2012. I am doing a 52 because it is a lot less stressful than a 365 (where I would need to post a photo every day to flickr). One a week is much more manageable! So look out for photos from weeks 2-52 in the rest of 2012.

Unlike when I took part in a 31 for October in 2009 and 2011 my 52 photos will be based on a more diverse series of themes. Yes, I will be including some stranger portraits, but will also be photographing a whole range of other things from landscapes to macro, panoramas to long exposure light trails, candid street photos to, well, you get the idea.

My first shot, the fireworks photo above, didn’t go exactly to plan. The idea was that I was going to take a series of shots of the firework going off in bulb mode and choose the best one for my week 1 selection. What I didn't factor for is that the firework would be so powerful and that it was a bit like the Blitz in my garden for the 70 seconds the 64 shots lasted for. As my tripod was set up so close to the firework I decided to take cover and left my camera to capture the whole show. Hence the blown out main bit. Oh well, in Week 45, which is the week when bonfire night falls, I hope to take a better photo of the same firework.

Boxing Day 2011

2011-12-26T17:46:00.001Z

Today has been a day of more eating, followed by complicated flat-pack construction!

The eating came in the form of a Roast Turkey bagel for lunch. This contained the aforementioned turkey plus some of my homemade cranberry sauce (which this year was not as tart as in previous years thanks to the 10 tablespoons of sugar I added!), a few slices of stuffing, a few rashers of bacon and, just to be a little bit healthy, some lettuce leaves. It was as delicious as it looks! The kettle chips were lovely too…

The flat-pack construction was needed to make Jonny’s present from Uncle Marcus, a Wooden Table Football. It looked pretty complicated and had lots of parts straight out of the box.

The instructions looked simple enough. But they missed out a couple of steps and also failed to differentiate between the large and small bolts that came in the box. So I needed to take the table apart mid way through and start again.

But after 2 hours of hard work by yours truly I managed to put it together – anyone fancy a game? Baggsy being the reds….

The only other thing I did today was make some turkey stock from the turkey carcass which I will be using later to make some turkey, mushroom and bacon risotto. Yes, that’s right, more food!

Christmas 2011–Part 4

2011-12-25T21:46:00.001Z

My final Christmas blog, this time it’s about my (English) Christmas Dinner. Unlike Marcus last night, it wasn’t a triumph. I mucked up my timings. Could it have something to do with the lovely drop of red I was glugging while cooking? Surely not!

Anyway, at the least the photos were good…

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2011-Part 3

2011-12-25T17:50:00.001Z

As promised here is part 3 of the Butler’s 2011 Christmas. And this was the main event – our Danish Christmas Eve celebration. And this was a year of firsts – Alice’s first Christmas and, perhaps most importantly, Marcus’s first time ever of hosting the event. Marcus was very nervous about preparing the meal but he needn’t have worried because he did a brilliant job and we all had a lovely time, especially little Alice!

Alice wore a very pretty outfit for Christmas Eve.

As did her Dad!

Alice showed us all how strong her neck muscles are now by performing on her tummy:

How cute does she look with that Santa hat on?

Answer? Very!

Usually we open our presents after the Roast Duck at around 7PM but Alice got to open her presents in the afternoon. Here she is opening a present from her Uncle Simon:

I am not sure she appreciated the clothes I bought for her but her parents did!

As per usual Uncle Marcus played a blinder and bought her the best present – a little Santa dress and matching tights. And unlike my clothes she loved this present!

However, it wasn’t all clothes for young Alice this year, she also got lots of lovely books too.

As well as being spoilt by her Uncles, Alice was also spoilt by her cousin too. Jonny gave her these adorable blocks…

Jonny also bought Alice some adorable little booties!

As you can imagine Alice was a very lucky girl and got lots of other lovely gifts….

I was pleased that my main present, a wooden walker full of bricks, went down better than the boring clothes that were my other present to Alice...

As you can see here she looked Über-cute in her Santa outfit from Uncle Marcus and her robin booties from Jonny!

Jonny decided at this point to take my camera and take some of his own photos of Alice. And annoyingly he took this portrait of her which is a million times better than anything I took…

As if to re-enforce just how much better Jonny is at this kind of thing than me I then took a photo of the two of them and completely failed to notice the distracting box of tissues in the background. A school-boy error I feel…

After a delicious meal of roast duck and all the traditional Danish trimmings we then opened all of the other presents. Jonny’s Uncles both loved the Space Invader alarm clocks that Jonny gave to them….

James played a blinder, as per usual, as he gave Emma a beautiful bracelet:

Jonny was pleased that he got FIFA 12 from me…

and Marcus loved his present from Alice!

James got a wonderful present from Alice.

And Emma got a lovely present from her nephew…

The Beals were very generous this year and bought both Jonny and I lots of lovely gifts…

James opening a book from Emma

Emma showing off a photo book of old shops in London…

Every year Uncle Marcus manages to buy something that Jonny hasn’t asked for but has always wanted but didn’t know it. And all by buying something that Marcus wants himself. It just shows how alike Uncle and Nephew are that every year he manages to get his presents just right – even if they are usually extremely large. This year was no exception and Marcus had to hide the present in his bedroom and bring it out much to Jonny’s surprise. It was certainly the largest present Marcus has ever given to Jonny at Christmas….

Jonny enthusiastically tore off the wrapping…

….and was thrilled to discover a proper wooden table football! Jonny loves it but I am not so keen – I have now got to make the thing! At least I have a few days to put it together before Jonny is back with me again….

So that was Christmas 2011 over for another year. It was fantastic and that was mainly down to excellent hosting from Marcus and a wonderful first Christmas for Alice.

Christmas 2011–Part 2

2011-12-25T12:55:00.001Z

On Friday Jonny. Marcus and I headed over to to Berko to have a pre-Christmas lunch with James, Emma and little Alice. It was lovely to see little Alice again even if she wasn’t as keen on seeing me to start with. Thankfully once she got used to her Uncle Simon she was full of smiles and a pleasure to cuddle.

Jonny loved cuddling his cousin too Alice loved her food as you can see from the food left around her face and in her bib: Back when Alice was only 4 weeks old Jonny made a video of her on his iTouch. He showed it to her on Friday and as you can see she loved watching it: Emma, the domestic goddess that she is, as well as being a wonderful Mum had time to make us some wonderful pudding for lunch: We got to eat them while Alice got to eat some yummy strawberries! After lunch she put her pretty dress back on and I carried on snapping away: James had borrowed a Fujifilm Instax camera and he took a photo of Jonny and I with it. After lunch Alice got a little bit sleepy so had knap on her Uncle Marcus's lap:

After her knap she perked up and I managed to snap possibly the best shot of her all day:

Stay tuned for part 3, which is photos of the Butler Family Danish Christmas Eve celebration!

Christmas 2011–Part 1

2011-12-24T12:03:00.001Z

This year Marcus is hosting the 2011 Butler Christmas for the first time. So Jonny and I went down to that London on Thursday to spend a few days in Chiswick Borders (AKA Brentford) before our annual big Christmas Eve celebration.

On Thursday we went out to Marcus’s local, The Bell & Crown, which is a lovely pub down by the Thames. The location is pretty much perfect, especially when the sun sets over the Thames.

In the pub both Jonny and Marcus enjoyed the free Wi-Fi!

Suitably refreshed after our drinks we left the pub and the Thames looked lovely at dusk with just a little bit of colour from setting sun...

We walked back to Marcus’s house and saw an amazing Christmas light on a lamp post. Apparently this light isn’t ironic…

Karate Christmas Do

2011-12-10T09:40:00.001Z

On Thursday night I went to the Elite Karate Centres Christmas Do and of course I took my camera with me! We started off at the Devonshire Cat for a quick drink and then went to Sushi Express, a new Japanese restaurant that I hadn’t been to before.

The food at Sushi Express was delicious and also very authentic – it looked an tasted identical the kind of food I ate when I was in Tokyo. We had all pre-ordered our food and the waitresses not only brought all of the food we had ordered they also brought us some complimentary stuff too. So I certainly didn’t go hungry!

The lighting at the restaurant was lovely too and it made it easy for me to take some nice candid and posed portraits of the people there (plus take some great food porn shots too).

Jonny’s Nativity Play 2011

2011-12-07T21:34:00.001Z

Tonight was the end of an era – Jonny’s last ever primary school nativity play. Next year he will be at secondary school and won’t, I assume, be part of something like this again. Last year Jonny had quite a minor part but this year his part was much bigger – he played evil King Herod, with much gusto (perhaps a bit too much!).

He certainly looked the part with a big star-style crown.

Jonny was certainly in his element playing the baddie….

Here is being especially evil….

Although Jonny seemed to revel in his evil role, his friend Ethan was in his element as the King of Persia as he had to call his mate Jonny a “Big Fat Old Tyrant”! Jonny was certainly living up to that insult! Well, not the big, fat or old bit but definitely the tyrant bit!

Albatross Diving Club Gala

2011-12-07T21:15:00.001Z

I was one of the official photographers for the Albatross Diving Club Gala on Saturday. Edward, the son of my friends Andrea and Chris, is a member of their Skills Squad and Chris is as keen a photographer as me. He roped me and his friend James in to do the photography for the event. It was hard work but great fun and it was an honour to shoot such a talented group of divers.

As I don’t have permission to share photos of any of the kids apart from Edward I can only show you photos of him. Although he was a star and came second in his individual event and won his synchronised diving competition, my photos of him weren’t the best I took. Actually the ones of him diving with his partner were amongst the best I took but obviously I can’t share that one. Anyway, you will just have to trust me that my other shots were much better than these.

Jonny wins another BAFTA (well kind of)!

2011-11-28T22:55:00.001Z

Photo credit: James Butler

Those of you who follow me on twitter or on facebook will know that Jonny had an amazingly successful and award winning night last night. Peppa Pig, the TV programme that Jonny has a small part in, won two BAFTAs at the Children’s BAFTA awards. Jonny and I were just so thrilled for everyone at Astley Baker Davies that the hard work they all put in was so richly rewarded as they won a BAFTA for best Pre-school Animation. And we were even more thrilled that the amazing Harley Bird, the voice of Peppa, won an award for best Performer!

Jonny and I were following the awards ceremony via twitter updates and although it was a little bit like watching a football match via teletext back in the day, it was really exciting. We were whooping for joy when the twitter updates said we had won.

Harley’s category came first and because she was up against Martha Howe-Douglas, from the amazing Horrible Histories, we weren’t expecting her to win. Harley is only 9 and she had been prepared by everyone to not expect to win. So when she won her reaction was just so natural and wonderful. Make sure you watch right through to the end of the video as she is interviewed and comes across as just so adorably cute (and also just so level headed for one so young)!

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, Peppa Pig was also nominated for the best Pre-school Animation award. The Peppa team weren’t that confident of victory as the other shows being nominated were all really great and highly fancied, not least the latest CBeebies phenomenon that is Rastamouse. But as good as all those shows are they aren’t Peppa and they don’t co-star a certain young Jonny Butler so victory was never in doubt in this house!

Apparently partying by team Peppa went on until the early hours of the morning but were very well deserved in my opinion. Added to the two BAFTAs that the team won for Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom two years ago, the programmes and team that Jonny has been associated with have now won 4 BAFTAs. Looking forward to going through the whole process again in 2012 when I hope they add some more!

Candids and sunsets

2011-11-19T22:50:00.001Z

Today I had planned to go on a photowalk with my friend Ian but unfortunately at the last minute he couldn’t make it. So undeterred I decided to do one on my own.

I wanted to take some stranger photos, but unlike in October, I didn’t want to ask them. Instead I took some candid photos of strangers using my 70-200 at 200mm.

I started off in the Peace Gardens and found plenty of suitable subjects, none of whom realised that I was photographing them…

Next I headed into the Winter Gardens and spotted this striking red head – I liked how her hair colour contrasted with her coat and the green plants.

This man was licking his lips!

Next I headed over to Fargate. By now the light was lovely and gave everyone a beautiful glow. I spotted these two women chatting and waited for the one at the back to turn my way. As soon as she turned towards me I pressed the shutter.

I needed to buy a birthday card so I went in to John Lewis. When I came out I spotted this distinguished old man. He made a fantastic last subject.

Last month when I went on a photowalk with Rich we ended up at Park Hill Flats to take some photos of the sunset. I wasn’t overly pleased with my sunset shots then so I decided to go back and try again. Unfortunately I by the time I got to the top of the hill the sun had almost fully set so I had to make do with the colour after the sun had set.

I made my usual panorama. This is best viewed large so click the image below to see it LARGE

And it was all yellow (and brown too)!

2011-11-12T20:24:00.001Z

Today was my second grading and Jonny’s seventh. And I am pleased to say we both passed. The pass mark was 55% and I got 59% and Jonny got a very impressive 62%. I am shattered now but I am very proud of myself with my new yellow belt.

But Jonny’s achievement was even more impressive – he now has a brown belt. This will be the last belt colour before he gets his black belt although he is quite a way from getting the illusive black one. He has to pass a further two brown belt gradings before he gets a chance to go for his black belt and all of those gradings will be extremely hard.

Having said that I am extremely proud of Jonny’s achievements so far and look forward to his further successes in the future!

Photowalk with the PP Girls

2011-11-08T21:47:00.001Z

One of the best things about my October Challenge was the people I met who were also doing the challenge. A whole bunch of people doing the challenge with me had done a Practical Photography course together and I got to know quite a few of them. One of them, Helen, also happened to live in Sheffield and today she had a mini get together with two other PP-ers, Karen and Jan. Karen and Jan came up to Sheffield and I met up with them during my lunch hour.

The plan was for me to take them around the university campus showing them the countless photogenic buildings. Unfortunately the weather let us down delivering us lots of dank, drizzly greyness. So instead I had to put plan B into action and we headed into Firth Court to take some photos of the historic details within.

It was great fun to shoot in their as even though I know the building really well I spotted lots of things I’d never noticed before. Plus the 3 ladies were lovely company too.

Helen, framing, and then reviewing, another winning photo:

I enjoyed taking photos of an old spiral staircase using my fisheye adapter:

This also seemed like an excellent time to take a group photo (this photo is best viewed large here so you can make us all out)

Jan was then kind enough to pose for me going down some more stairs.

Posing for me was lovely but then she did something even lovelier, she allowed me to try out her Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens. This is probably my dream lens and I’d never tried one out before. Probably because it costs well north of a grand. And I loved it. I really, really want one now. Hint, hint Father Christmas……

This photo of Jan was taken at f/1.2. The background bokeh is lovely (almost as lovely as the subject of course).

This photo of the lovely Karen was also taken at f/1.2.

And this final photo was also taken at f/1.2, this time of the lovely Helen. I was pleased to note in all three photos that the depth field wasn’t as wafer thin as I was expecting. The lens did seem to front focus slightly but that could easily be corrected by my 50D’s on board microfocus adjustment. I really, really didn’t want to remove the lens from my camera….

Unfortunately I then had to go back to my day job and also give back the f/1.2 lens. I left the 3 ladies to head back into town. Hopefully this can be the first of many walks as I had a great time. And hopefully next time can be a bit longer too!

Remember, remember the 5th of November!

2011-11-06T13:03:00.001Z

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes night. To celebrate, Jonny had his friend Ethan round for a sleep-over and we let off £50-worth of fireworks in our back garden. this was the first time I’d ever done my own display in my garden and it was great fun, if a little dangerous. One early firework I let off slipped over slightly so, instead of firing shots straight up in the air, the firework fired shots straight at Jonny! Luckily all of the shots missed.

I had bought two selection boxes, a £20 one and a £30 one. We set off the £20 box first, had some hot dogs and bangers and then set off the £30 box after that. The £20 box was a little disappointing with only a couple of good fireworks but the £30 box was excellent, especially the 100-shot finale.

I got my camera and tripod out for the £30 box and captured a few long exposures. I have to say this was really challenging, as I had to set up the firework first, go back to my camera and start a 30 second exposure, light the firework and then try to retreat the recommended 25 metres away from the lit firework. So some of the shots aren’t as good as they could have been.

It was after those last two shots that I realised that even at 17mm I wasn’t wide enough to capture all of the fireworks so I added my trusty Opteka fisheye adapter. And this did the trick.

This final shot was of the 100 shot finale. in real life it was amazing, but this photo doesn’t really capture just how amazing the show was from this firework. I wish now I had angled the camera up more as I think I captured too much grass and not enough sky. Next year I’ll get this right!

Fireworks all done, we then lit some sparklers. I tried to make use of Ethan and Jonny as models where I would use the sparkler to light up their faces. Unfortunately neither of them would stand still for long so I wasn’t able to get the exact shot I wanted.

We then headed back inside for some ice-cream. Ethan put lots of sprinkles on to his!

After they had both finished their ice-creams Jonny and Ethan played on Ethan’s iPhone. Jonny beat Ethan’s high score on a game and was rather pleased about it…

October 2011–all 31 strangers in one photo

2011-10-31T21:29:00.001Z

A mosaic containing the main stranger photo that I took from each day in October – this is my own personal month in 31 pictures.

Tomorrow I will post up the missing 23 strangers from the month and will attempt to update this mosaic so that it will contain a photo of every single stranger I shot this month – all 111 of them!

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 31

2011-10-31T20:16:00.001Z

So the last day of my October challenge is here. It has been an amazing month. I have met some amazing people both in real life – the strangers I met who kindly agreed to me photographing them – and on flickr, the 100 or so people who were all also taking and posting a photo a day in October..

I am amazed to count up that, including the two portraits below, I have published the portraits of 88 different strangers this month. I have also taken photos of 23 other people this month that I haven’t yet published. So that means I have taken photos of a grand total of 111 strangers! That is some achievement I think, especially as in 2009, when I last did something like this, I only photographed 66 strangers.

There is a group on flickr called the 100 Strangers group. The idea behind the group is to approach 100 strangers and take a portrait of them. I am pretty proud that I passed the 100 mark in one month only when I think it takes most people much longer than that.

So, on to the photos from today. It was a real struggle to find someone suitable – I was at my usual location and no one leap out at me as a great stranger subject. I wandered about for about 15 minutes which is the longest I’ve ever been in the Union without finding someone. Then typically I found two people very quickly. The first was a very attractive student who had large, beautiful eyes.

The second one I spotted entering the Union Shop. She was dressed up for Halloween and was with some friends who were also dressed up. But she was the star of the bunch, dressed as a very gothic witch. I headed to the exit of the shop and waited for her to walk out. I asked her and she said yes but she couldn’t keep a straight face at first. I liked the half smile so I’ve chosen this one rather than one of the photos I took where she had a straight face. Although I think the first photo is technically a better photo I am going to choose the witch as my photo of the day for no other reason than it was Halloween today.

So Happy Halloween! Hope you all have had a good one.

Look out on here for the photos of the 23 other people not already published. If I have time they may make an appearance later tonight.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 30

2011-10-30T21:32:00.001Z

Day 30, only one more tomorrow and then my challenge is over for another year. I have really enjoyed the month but I am quite looking forward to not having to find a stranger to photograph on Tuesday.

My photos from today are all taken at Fright Night, Sheffield’s annual Halloween party. 40,000 people attend and many dress up. I had hoped that I would be able to take lots of stranger photos but as most people who dressed up were part of bigger groups, almost everyone I asked wanted to be part of a group photo. So I found it difficult to take photos of my stranger on their own.

This is best of the photos I took of a stranger on their own so is my entry for today. Ideally he wouldn’t be smiling and would have been more scary looking like I wanted but I like the bokeh lights in the background.

This group of girls is a case in point – I asked if I could take their photos individually and they instead wanted to have a group photo instead. So I obliged..

But I did manage to get one of them on their own.

Then two of them posed – scary!

Here is another stranger that I managed to persuade to be taken on their own.

And finally these two ladies posed.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading over to the Union again for my last day. So tune in tomorrow to see who I get to photograph…

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 29

2011-10-30T09:06:00.001Z

Like on previous Saturdays when I had the day free (for example Day 1 and Day 22) I spent yesterday afternoon taking as many portraits of strangers as I could. In the end I didn’t quite take as many as those previous Saturdays but I still managed to take portraits of 14 strangers. And only 2 of the 16 people I did ask said no so I got an excellent ratio.

There were lots of great characters and photogenic people amongst the 14 but I think that the first photo of a very sweet older gentleman I shot in the Winter Gardens just about topped them all. So this will be my entry for Day 29 to the October 2011: a month in 31 pictures group on flickr.

The rest of the photos are below and no doubt someone will think that one of these is a stronger photo than the one I’ve chosen!

First up is a lovely older woman that I met as I was walking from the bus station up to the Winter Gardens. She said yes, had big beautiful eyes and I almost gave up there and then as I thought I had my shot of the day right there and then. But as you will see later, I did capture even better strangers.

Next up was a sweet old woman in the Winter Gardens. She was surprised, as many of my subjects are, that I chose her. But I knew she would make a good subject and she did.

My next subject reminded me a lot of the late Frank Muir and I just had to take his portrait. Thankfully he agreed, although he did joke about asking his agent first!

My next subject was taken on Fargate, the main shopping street in Sheffield. He walked past me and I knew he would make a fantastic subject. And I was right.

My next subject, also on Fargate, was almost as great a subject as the previous gentleman. I especially love the fact that his tongue was sticking out!

I spotted this guy who looked a bit like Richard Stilgoe. He was walking up the street using a couple of walking sticks. I asked him and he originally said no because, unbeknownst to me, he was struggling to keep up with his wife. But a couple of minutes later he came back to me saying that his wife said he should go back to me and agree. So I was thrilled that I did get a chance of photographing him.

My next subject, also wearing a flat cap, spotted me taking the older gentleman’s photo and instead of me asking him, he asked me to take his photo. So I did!

I spotted my next subject outside John Lewis, a striking looking older lady.

Also outside of John Lewis was a team of people raising money for Pakistan. I spotted this striking young lady and after a small donation she was more than happy for me to take her portrait.

Another lad then spotted my camera and asked to take his photo, so as with the last one, I did!

I then headed back over to the train station as I was meeting a mate there for a beer. Passing through the Hallam campus I spotted this young lady with purple hair. Unfortunately there was a lot of wind so her hair kept blowing in front of her face so this portrait didn’t work out as well as it could have.

I headed to the bus station to check the bus times home and spotted this man outside the station with a great ‘tache!

The final subject I spotted in the Train Station. A few years ago I took some photos in the train station and was asked to stop by a security guard and the manager – I was a possible terrorist you understand – so I was in two minds whether I should get my camera out and shoot this guy. But I decided to do it and after an initial amount of shock that I had asked him, he said yes and this was the result:

This evening it is Fright Night in Sheffield, which is where 30-40,000 people descend into the city centre dressed up in Halloween costumes. I went there 2 years ago and it was great, if very crowded. It is about the only time when everyone I ask will automatically say yes. The only problem is that I have my son with me today and he hates Fright Night. So I may not be able to take as many photos as I want. Anyway, tune in here tomorrow to find out how many photos I dlo actually take.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 28

2011-10-28T18:59:00.001+01:00

I headed over to the Union again this lunchtime, hoping as per usual to find some interesting strangers to photograph. And I wasn’t let down as I quickly found four willing subjects all of whom said yes. So another 100% record for today.

Although the other three students were interesting and very lovely people they just weren’t quite so striking as the one I have chosen for my pick for today. The student is a she again and, as with my subject yesterday, she has beautiful big eyes that soak up the light. The student today also has a bit of an alternative look to her too. I decided to push the processing a bit so it may not be to everyone’s taste but I like it and think it is one of my best of the month. Hopefully you will agree!

You can see all of the strangers I have photographed this month in this gallery: Stranger Portraits 2011 and you can see what all of the 120 or so people taking part in the one photo a day challenge are photographing in the official flickr group here: October 2011: A month in 31 pictures

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 27

2011-10-27T13:04:00.001+01:00

Day 27 out of 31. Only 4 more days to go of my challenge after this one. I have really, really enjoyed it but it will good not to have to find an interesting stranger to photograph on Tuesday next week!

Today I headed over to Union as per usual for a weekday and quickly found my subject. She was sat upstairs close to where my subjects for Days 14 and 17 and as soon as I saw her through the glass in the door as I was coming up the stairs I knew she would be perfect. She had a great quiff and attitude and reminded me of a character from This is England 86. Then she looked up and I could see her eyes eating up the light. Thankfully she said yes and this is the resulting photo:

Unfortunately the background is a bit busy for my liking but as I don’t like to move my subjects it will have to do.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 26

2011-10-26T12:54:00.001+01:00

Another quick and easy day today as my challenge nears its end. I headed over to the Union for some lunch and spotted this female student using one of the computers. I asked her, she said yes and this is the end result. By the way, those of you following my stranger photos hoping to see photos of young, attractive ladies will approve of my subject today….

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 25

2011-10-25T15:38:00.001+01:00

Like yesterday, I had a hard time persuading Jonny to head into town for me to take a stranger photo. He really didn’t want to go. Instead we compromised and headed to our local park. I hoped that a suitable stranger would appear but I wasn’t overly hopeful – our park is usually pretty empty.

Thankfully today this lovely older lady walked towards me and I knew she would be perfect. And that is how she turned out. She even gave a little squeal of excitement when I asked her!

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 24

2011-10-24T23:23:00.001+01:00

As it is half-term this week I have Jonny at home with me today. So I was pretty limited to how long I could spend taking photos of strangers – Jonny is incredibly “embarrassed” about me asking strangers directly and wants the ground to open up whenever I do it. He might only be 11 but this sounds suspiciously like teenage behaviour to me.

There was only so long that a bribe of a cupcake from fancie would last so I had to be quick today. So I couldn’t quite so choosey about my subject. But I think I have still chosen a good one.

As well as a cupcake I also had to bribe Jonny with a go on the dodgems at the funfair in town (which were in the background of my Day 21 stranger portrait). As you can see he enjoyed it (but also acted up for the camera).

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 23

2011-10-23T16:21:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I took 317 photos and shot portraits of 17 strangers. Today was a much more manageable 7 shots of only 2 strangers. I headed to the Winter Gardens again and took the portraits pretty quickly.

This is my choice for today – another moustachioed man and a fine looking one at that.

And this is my near miss for the day:

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 22

2011-10-23T13:01:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I went on another photowalk, this time with my friend (and ex-boss) Rich. My aim was to take as many stranger portraits as I could but unlike the last photowalk that I did on Day 1 with Dave, I decided to take more than just people photos. So this time I did some architectural abstracts and also some sunset and dusk panoramas too.

But first things first – the stranger photos. Rich and I met up at the Peace Gardens and while Rich took some photos of the silver balls I roamed around taking my stranger photos. I ended up taking photos of 17 different strangers. They were all very photogenic and interesting people but in the end the ‘tache won out. This is going to be my choice for stranger of the day and my entry to the October 2011: a month in 31 pictures group:

I saw this man with his bushy ‘tache from a distance in the middle of the Winter Gardens and he was sitting talking to friends. I hoped they wouldn’t mind me interrupting him and gladly no one did and I got my shot.

Here are the other 16 strangers, each with a little story.

I spotted this vibrantly coloured and striking young lady sitting in a crowd of teenagers. I knew I needed to take her photo but the sunlight when I saw her was too harsh. I carried on looking for other suitable subjects when I noticed the sun going behind a cloud which stopped the harsh shadows from forming on her face. I headed over to her, asked her, she said yes, I started to compose the shot and the annoyingly, the sun came out from the cloud! So there are more shadows on her face than I wanted but I am pretty pleased with it nonetheless. As at least I got to photograph such amazing hair! And once I finished and said my goodbyes she got a round of applause from all her friends which was nice I thought.

I spotted these two photography students taking photographing the silver balls. I loved the colour of her hair and eyes and was really pleased when she and her boyfriend agreed to having their portraits taken.

My next subject was another redhead with beautiful blue eyes who I found inside the Winter Garden admiring the Victorian display:

My next subject had great hair but the lighting wasn’t so good where she was sitting so the portrait hasn’t turned out as well as I’d hoped.

My next subject was happy to have her photo taken but didn’t want to look at the camera. A shame but it was nice to take a portrait that was a bit different.

Next up was a group of three lovely, and very photogenic, young ladies. They took some persuading to have their photos taken but once they did I think they shone.

Instead of taking a photo of the third lady they insisted that I took a group photo. So I did.

It turned out that the first lady was the organiser of the “Words in Pixels” exhibition cube that was in the Garden. So I was persuaded to take a photo of her and Michael, the man who provided the music for the exhibition, in front of the cube. To be fair it didn’t take much persuasion as I am happy to help out nice people especially one with such a pretty smile.

Next up, were a lovely older couple who were admiring the Victorian display and were happy to become subjects for my challenge. I thought she had beautiful large blue eyes and he was extremely dapper with his hat:

The next two were sat outside in the Peace Gardens and as both had very strikingly large eyes I had to ask them and I was thrilled that they said yes:

The next subject was sitting amongst a large group of teenagers. I spotted that he had large eyes that ate up the light brilliantly so I was thrilled when he agreed. He had something of a young James Dean about him I thought.

Another redhead was next. She unfortunately she tensed up when I started taking her photo so this was another one that didn’t turn out as well as I wanted.

The next subject was so engrossed in the Victorian display that I unfortunately gave her a little fright when I tried to attract her attention. I felt sure I had blown it but she very kindly agreed to having her portrait taken. She seemed shocked and couldn’t understand why I wanted to take her photo but it was surely obvious from her huge, beautiful blue eyes!

The last photo was my first of the month that had an element of danger attached to it. We had left the Peace Gardens behind and headed towards the Hallam University campus. Rich spotted some interesting architecture and started snapping away. This man started posing but he didn’t seem to realise that he wouldn’t be in shot.

This should have given me a sign but like a fool I went up to him and said I’d take his photo if he wanted. His reaction and words made it obvious that he was drunk, and worse than that, a tramp too. Half way through me taking a series of photos of him he started insisting that I gave him £2 for the privilege of taking his photo. I refused – he admitted he wanted the money to buy another drink – and he then got angry. I was worried that I might have to use some of my karate skills in self defence but luckily we managed to make a swift exit and he staggered about and didn’t chase after us. Think the photo was just about worth it however:

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I didn’t only take stranger photos, I also took some other photos. It was nice, after 21 days of taking the same style of photo to take something completely different.

First up, was an abstract shot I took of the cheese-grater car park (that was once known as The Borg).

The next architectural abstract I took was up at the Park Hill Flats. We headed up there because I knew from my last trip up there that there was a wonderful panoramic view of Sheffield from up there that just begged to be shot at sunset. Before that we both shot views of the flats. I went down an abstract route for my shots:

Finally, the main course of the photowalk, the sunset panoramic view over Sheffield. The view didn’t disappoint but the sunset did a bit. So I cheated and used my Cokin sunset filter which turned the whole scene a golden glow. Much better!

I made this first one using not only my sunset filter but also my two graduated filters too. It is a stitch together of 6 shots. In the foreground is a newly created amphitheatre which will make a great venue for outside theatre and music events. I am unhappy with how the sun has come out here and the flare is a bit off putting but the colours are great and the view magnificent.

This next pano is a stitch of 12 photos, all taken at 41mm on my 17-50 Tamron lens. With hindsight I think this would have worked better at a wider angle, perhaps 30mm or so. But anyway, the colours are great and, as the sun had just gone down below the horizon, no distracting flares. Oh, and can you spot Rich?

Once the sun left us, the sky turned a glorious dark blue. I took off all my filters and took a series of natural 30 second exposures to make this 3 photo stitch which would probably be my choice of photo of the day if I wasn’t entering only stranger portraits to the flickr group.

Once most of the light had gone Rich and I headed to the pub to reflect on a great day of photowalking.

I am not planning on taking quite so many photos today so expect to see just one or maybe, at the most, two photos on the blog post about today!

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 21

2011-10-21T22:14:00.001+01:00

Day 21 and my first low light portrait of the month. And not only that, my first portrait using flash. I had a busy day today and no opportunity to take a stranger photo until early evening. So I headed into to town and was pleased to see a funfair was there – plenty of opportunity for some good bokeh backgrounds I thought.

Almost straightaway this very striking young lady walked towards me. Turns out she is a keen photographer herself so she was only too happy to pose. I think I might have used too high a setting on the flash but I quite like the blown out look. And her eyes soaked up that flash beautifully!

What I don’t like are the shadows under her chin and nose but I guess this is a consequence of the flashgun being on camera. Unfortunately I am not as talented with flash as my fellow One-a-day-in-October chums Oliver DeClap and ksten who make fantastic photos of their subjects with no distracting shadows at all.

Anyway, despite the shadow issue, I am pleased with my photo for Day 21, especially with the colourful lights in the background and her beautiful blue eyes:

Tomorrow should be a good day – I am heading out for a photowalk with another of my One-a-day-in-October chums Richard France, weather permitting. Looking forward to a good few hours of photonerdiness! And plenty of opportunities for stranger photos. I will attempt to take as many stranger portraits as I can but I don’t think I will manage to top, or even get close, to the 22 I took back on my photowalk with David Colman on Day 1.

Look out for the results of the photowalk on here tomorrow.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 20

2011-10-20T12:59:00.001+01:00

I’m busy, busy, busy today so I was under pressure to find a suitable subject quickly. I headed over to the Union and found the perfect subject – she was lit perfectly, had amazingly large eyes and would have an uncluttered background behind her. Unfortunately she said no.

I then hunted round a bit more and couldn’t find anyone suitable. I asked a young lady doing a questionnaire for the Union and she said yes. But she wasn’t a perfect subject but at least I had one in the bag.

I almost gave up but I decided to head to Coffee Revolution which is somewhere I’d not been too this month so far and then I spotted him (and yes, it is a him again today!). He had funky hair, big blue eyes and he was sitting in the perfect spot so that his eyes reflected the light from the huge window. He looked a little bit like Kurt Cobain (and I’m sure this was intentional on his part). But he was in the middle of his lunch, using his phone and talking to his mate so usually I wouldn’t ask someone like that as they are more likely to say no.

Thankfully though, he said yes, and so here I give you my stranger photo for Day 20:

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 19

2011-10-19T12:32:00.001+01:00

Another day, another smiley, male student. I hadn’t even reached the Union today and I already had my stranger portrait for today. I think he was on his way to a lecture but thankfully he was happy to stop and have his photo taken. He had a great ‘fro hairstyle and he makes a great subject I think.

I did head over to Union after taking that photo and I did take a photo of a second student but he wasn’t quite as interesting a subject as the one above. So he will have to wait to be published until the end of the month with all my other nearly-but-not-quites.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 18

2011-10-18T12:41:00.001+01:00

I really had to suffer for my art today. It was cold, windy and raining pretty heavily this lunchtime. But where some photographers might not have wanted to venture out in search of a stranger to photograph, I am dedicated to the challenge and outside I did go.

I headed to the Union again and found a suitable candidate pretty quickly – a tall male student with a huge smile. Thankfully he agreed to me taking his photo and this is it:

Hopefully the weather tomorrow will be a bit better.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 17

2011-10-17T12:38:00.001+01:00

Today my stranger photo was pretty simple. I headed over to the Union again and found someone sitting in the exact same chair as my Day 14 subject. Luckily he (and yes, it is a he, rather than a pretty young she!) was photogenic and had eyes that reflected the light from the window superbly.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 16

2011-10-16T19:16:00.001+01:00

Today was a simple affair really – I popped to the Winter Gardens and found 3 willing volunteers pretty quickly. It only cost me a rocky road cake from Fancie to bribe Jonny not to get too embarrassed about his Dad asking strangers to take their photos (the slice was so large that unfortunately I had to finish it off so it was definitely a win-win situation for me!).

It was a very tough choice to choose my stranger of the day but in the end purple won!

A significant minority of people think that I am using this month, and the the challenge in particular, to approach pretty young ladies and asking them to pose. I would like to stress, despite yet another photo as evidence for the prosecution, that this isn’t what I set out to do at all. And as proof, below are my very close near-misses for the day.

The first would have been a cracker if he hadn’t been sitting with his back to the large windows. And the second was of a very sweet old lady who couldn’t understand why I wanted to take her photo. As per usual when someone says that hopefully you can see why she was wrong to doubt me!

So that is more than half way through the month. Only a minimum of 15 more strangers to photograph. The month had flown by and I am looking forward to seeing who I meet in the next couple of weeks or so. Plus, I’m looking forward to see what everyone else who is taking part will be posting to the October 2011: a month in 31 pics group on flickr. I’d really recommend you check it out as there are some amazing photos being posted to the group.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 15

2011-10-15T21:22:00.001+01:00

I almost didn’t get a stranger portrait today. Although it was a really lovely, sunny day the light was so harsh that it was difficult to get a photo of someone without heavy shadows and squinting eyes. Plus I was busy for most of the day too.

But Jonny, my son, gave me a small window of opportunity at 4.45PM when he went to a Glee-style singing thing that his Aunty runs at our local church. This gave me just over an hour window to get my stranger photo for the day. So I jumped in my car and zoomed to the city centre to find some strangers.

Thankfully the light was much softer now as the sun being much lower down the sky which gave almost perfect light for portraits. I zoomed around town and in 15 minutes I asked 5 people and 3 said yes. My favourite was the first person I asked, this pretty young lady with red hair (gotta love red hair!):

I’ll save the other two portraits for the end of the month and publish them then with all of the other ones that didn’t quite make the cut.

This was going to be the only photo of the day that I published but as I was putting Jonny to bed tonight I spotted a great photo op. He was reading in bed and his book was giving a fantastic catch-light into his eyes. So I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots. (Those eagle eyed amongst you will recall I took some very similar photos of him reading in bed about this time last year; you can see them at the end of this blog post here.)

I particularly liked the two below, especially the last one with his bookmark resting on his lips; if I wasn’t submitting only stranger photos into the October group I think one of these two would have been my choice for today (but then I am biased and prefer photos of my wonderful son over most others):

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 14

2011-10-14T12:44:00.001+01:00

My quest for a stranger today took me again to the Student’s Union but unlike yesterday I actually photographed a student today. In fact I took photos of three students. But I am only going to publish the photo of the last student I shot as I think her photo is the strongest. At the end of the month I will publish the photos of the other two students plus those from other days that I took but didn’t publish, as there have been a few now.

Anyway, on to the stranger for today. I spotted her sat next to the City View Cafe studying, and making noting in. a book. She looked perfect – an interesting, yet pretty face and great big brown eyes that soaked up the light coming from the large windows behind me. I liked how she had rosy cheeks too and how her cheeks blushed when I asked her. And ,following a theme that seems to have run through a lot of my subjects for the month, she had great eye brows!

On my way to the Union I spotted a male student who I thought would make a great subject. It is the second time I have spotted him this month but just like the last time he was walking quickly towards me. He had a fantastic afro hair do and would make a distinctive portrait I think. Unfortunately he was late for a lecture so couldn’t be photographed today but hopefully I’ll spot him again when he is less in a rush and he can be a subject for another day. Here’s hoping anyway…

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 13

2011-10-13T12:24:00.001+01:00

After my battery dying and trips to London shenanigans today was back to normal. I popped out to the Union at lunch, found someone suitable almost straightaway and he said yes (he was actually the second person I asked, the first said no). I loved his lined face and he seems a very interesting character. So here is Day 13:

One photo a day in October 2011–Days 10, 11 and 12

2011-10-12T17:22:00.001+01:00

Days 10 and, especially 11, of my challenge were always going to be particularly tough. My day job took me to London by the train on Monday afternoon for an all day meeting on Tuesday with a very late return to Sheffield Tuesday night. So this meant that I wouldn’t have much time free to get my stranger portraits.

In the end I found the time to take some stranger photos pretty easily but there were other challenges I had to overcome – and these were all of my own making.

Because I was travelling by train I decided to travel light and only take the bare minimum of camera gear with me, rather than lugging around my relatively bulky and heavy Lowepro CompuDaypack backpack. So when I left my house on Monday morning I only took with me my Canon 50D camera, my trusty Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens and one memory card.

Unfortunately I forgot to check the status of my battery before I set off – and I think you can guess what happened. Yes, when I found my first stranger of the day I turned on my camera and was horrified to see that the battery was almost flat! And as I didn’t have my usual backpack with me I didn’t have a spare battery – oh what an idiot I thought (or at least words to that affect!)

Thankfully the camera just about had enough juice to take this photo of a student on Monday before it died and she became my stranger for the day:

As I didn’t have time to go home to get a spare battery (or even time to visit a camera shop to buy one) I had no choice but to use my iPhone 3G to take my stranger portrait on Tuesday.

I was staying at the Premier Inn near Euston Station and I hoped that a suitable stranger would be in the restaurant for breakfast. And that they would want to have their photo taken by an iPhone. Thankfully this lovely German lady was more than happy to have her photo taken. She wouldn’t look at the iPhone when I took it which annoyed me a little as all my other subjects have looked straight at me. But upon reflection I am really pleased that she didn’t look at me as it is a nice affect.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised just how well the portrait turned out especially as the iPhone 3G only has a 1.9MP camera. Obviously I wasn’t able to blur out the background as I have done with all my other subjects but I don’t think the background detracts from her at all.

Thankfully today I was able to put a fully charged battery into my camera and so didn’t have to use my iPhone again. I spotted my subject today outside of the Students Union. She was trying to persuade people to join in with a march to protest about the cuts and student fees. I politely declined her kind offer and asked her if she would pose for me. I was thrilled when she said yes.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 9

2011-10-09T13:42:00.001+01:00

Day nine of my challenge coincided with the baptism of my 7 year old niece Izzy. Even though I am not believer in the big man upstairs I wanted to go to support Izzy. I also hoped that I might find a suitable stranger amongst the congregation. And thankfully there was the perfect subject, a lovely, sweet old lady.

She was honoured to be asked but as with a lot of my subjects she didn’t know why I had chosen her and was worried that she would “break that expensive camera”. As I’m sure you’ll agree she is extremely photogenic and hopefully I’ve captured her in the right way.

She was the only stranger I asked to photograph today and only the second of the weekend. Last weekend I photographed a total of 26 strangers but since then I have generally only taken photos of one stranger per day. Some people thought I would end up with over 100 strangers for the month but I think it will probably be more like the 66 I took last time.

Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing who I meet and photograph in the remaining 22 days.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 8

2011-10-08T17:31:00.001+01:00

What a difference a week makes! This time last week I was embarking on my one photo of a stranger a day in October project in bright 29°C sunshine. It was so hot that I was wearing shorts and got bitten by a tropical insect on my leg and my ankle and foot swelled up due to a severe allergic reaction.

Fast forward a week and the world is back where it should be. It is 11°C, grey and drizzly. But I am still taking photos of strangers – just they have more clothes on than 1 week ago!

Today, because of the drizzle, I headed for the cover of the Winter Gardens and I spotted my potential subject straightaway. He was looking at an art display. I was just about to go up and ask him when I noticed he was with his wife. I tend to not ask people if they are with someone else as in my experience that other person usually says no on behalf of the person I wanted. So i didn’t ask him and I wandered further around the Gardens looking for someone else to ask. There wasn’t anyone as interesting as the man I had originally spotted so I walked back to the art display. Thankfully he was still there and I asked him. His wife was fine with me taking his photo as was he and this was the result.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 7

2011-10-07T19:38:00.001+01:00

I was expecting today to be one of the more tough days of my challenge as I was going to be busy almost all day with very little time for getting out with my camera. But in the end it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

At work we have a water cooler but it was out of water this morning and I wanted a cold drink. So at 9AM I headed over to the Students Union shop to grab a quick drink. I took my camera with me hoping to spot someone quickly. And as I walked out of the building where I work I saw the perfect subject standing there. He looked a fantastic character with a lived in face, just the kind of person I was looking for. And then the cherry on the cake – he was only smoking a blooming pipe! I couldn’t believe it how lucky I was but would he say yes? Thankfully he did and he looked very flattered to be asked.

So let me introduce you to the magnificent pipe-smoking man (surely a candidate for pipe smoker of the year):

Part of me wishes I’d asked him to hold the end of his pipe with his right hand but apart from that I am very pleased with the portrait.

One final thing – I had intended that all my portraits this year would be taken in landscape orientation rather than portrait (in 2009 I took the majority in portrait orientation after taking the first two in landscape). And I did originally take a photo of my pipe-smoker in landscape but the composition didn’t work with the pipe so I had to take another in portrait. I intend to make a mosaic of all the photos from this month at the end of the month, like I did last time, and I wanted to avoid having photos in different formats. So I am a little disappointed that I’ve messed up my plan so early in the month but the photo I’ve taken is worth it I think.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 6

2011-10-06T20:33:00.001+01:00

Today was always going to be one of the more challenging days of this month. I was at a conference at the Hilton in Sheffield all day for my day job and I needed to be there the whole day. The Hilton isn’t that close to the city centre so there wouldn’t be a huge number of people milling around. So getting the time for a stranger photo would be tough. And finding a stranger suitable for the task even more so.

Luckily I was the official photographer for the conference so I at least had my camera with me. But I didn’t want to ask any of the people at the conference because I figured it was a bit unprofessional.

I managed to duck out of the conference during lunch, grabbed my camera and headed to the reception hoping to see someone suitable. To make matters worse it was raining heavily outside so I was limited to who was hanging about in reception. And then I saw her – the receptionist. She had big, beautiful eyes and would be perfect. I asked her and she said yes.

She asked me if I wanted her to smile and I said a blank expression would be better. I did not expect to get what I did but I was thrilled – she certainly showed off her eyes to the max by opening them as wide as she could! This was obviously her blank expression….

Tomorrow may also be a challenge as I have a very busy day at my day job with no proper lunch break either. But hopefully I’ll manage to pop out for 5 minutes at least. And hopefully I’ll be as lucky as I was today.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 5

2011-10-05T13:19:00.001+01:00

Today I was back at work which meant that I was able to head to the Students Union at lunchtime. Almost straight away I spotted my subject for today, took one photo of her and then left. I liked her red hair and her eyes reflected lots of light back so she was perfect.

Compared to my previous days, and especially day 1 where I took photos of 22 different strangers, today was nice and easy. And as I actually did only take one photo today I think it is more in keeping with the spirit of the one photo a day challenge anyway.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 4

2011-10-04T12:34:00.001+01:00

I’ve had to work from home today. While taking my photos for Day 1 of my challenge on Saturday I was bitten on my right leg by some insects. My leg has since swelled up like a balloon and yesterday I was in a lot of pain and walked with a pronounced limp. So today I decided to work laying on my sofa with my leg up to give my leg a chance to recover. And after a morning of doing that (and two days running of taking anti-histamines) my leg is now much better.

Working from home meant that I couldn’t head over to the Students Union for my stranger photo. Instead I headed to the village post office! And this where I took today’s photo.

He was queuing ahead of me at the counter and he seemed like a character. So I asked, he said yes and the rest is history. He wasn’t keen about hanging around so he was in the middle of saying good bye as I took the shot – usually I take 2 or 3 photos of my subject just in case of closed eyes or something else unexpected that might ruin the shot. But not with this fella – he was off and out of the post office quick as a flash! Luckily the shot was perfect so I was lucky.

You can see the photos the other 122 people taking a photo a day for October by heading over to the flickr group here: October 2011: A month in 31 pictures. I’d recommend that you do as there are some amazing photos being taken!

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 3

2011-10-03T12:29:00.001+01:00

Today was quick and easy. My day job is near the University Students Union so I headed over there during my lunch break to find a willing volunteer. And after a couple of rejections I spotted this attractive female student relaxing out in front of Coffee Revolution. I knew she would make a great subject and thankfully she said yes.

It is a shame that the grass behind her doesn’t fill the frame as Coffee Rev in the background is a bit distracting. But she seemed so comfortable sat where she was I didn’t want to ask her to move.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 2

2011-10-02T15:59:00.001+01:00

Day 2 of my challenge to take a photo of a stranger each day in October and much slimmer pickings today compared to yesterday. I didn’t have the time or opportunity to spend time somewhere where there are lots of people hanging around.

I did take Jonny bowling at Centertainment this afternoon and unfortunately there weren’t that many people around outside of the venues. I had a much better success record today though as I asked 5 people and all 5 said yes. Three of them weren’t that interesting though but thankfully the last two I asked, a young couple, were extremely interesting. I think the young lady, with her amazing eyes, just about shaded it so she becomes my entry for today. Her boyfriend is my near miss.

One photo a day in October 2011–Day 1

2011-10-01T21:47:00.001+01:00

Long time readers of my blog will remember that back in October 2009 I took part in a take one photo a day for the whole of October challenge. With me being me, I decided to make it even more challenging and took a portrait of a stranger a day.

My friend Julian organised the challenge in 2009 and he ran it again in 2010. I missed it last year but I was determined to not miss it again this year. As with 2009, photographers taking part don’t have to take photos according to any particular theme. But I enjoyed taking photos of strangers so much 2 years ago that I decided to repeat this is 2011.

A number of my friends in internet-land and in real-life are joining me this year so it will be fun to see what they all come up with. One of my friends in real-life joining me is Dave and we went on another photowalk today so that we could both get some shots for Day 1 of our challenge. Dave took a variety of photos while I just stuck to taking portraits of strangers.

As with my October 2009 challenge I decided to take photos of more than 1 person so that I had plenty to choose from for my actual entry. Usually last time I would take photos of three or people on each day. But today I went a bit crazy and took photos of 22 different strangers! And if everyone I asked had said yes it would have been more like 35!

After a lot of deliberation I chose this photo as my entry for today. It is of a lovely old man who I saw walking towards me slowly in Endcliffe Park. He was very keen to have me take his portrait taken and he was even keener to show me on his digital camera a photo of a drawing of him by a young artist (plus a portrait of said artist!)

The rest of the photos that I took are below, some of which I think are equally as good as the one I entered. It was a really difficult choice as to which one to enter – but the old man was such a character that it just had to be him. Tomorrow I think I will only take one photo as it will make choosing so much easier!

The first two were taken in the Winter Gardens while I waited for Dave to arrive:

I went out into the Peace Gardens and snapped the next few:

The next two cost me a £2 donation to The Red Cross as these guys were students raising money:

Dave and I then headed off round town and I snapped these few:

This guy reminded me of Marouane Fellaini, the Everton footballer…

We then ran in to a lovely couple down from the north-east for a day trip. He was a fellow Canon shooter – he was a 40D man – and he was extremely interested in what we were doing. He was only too keen to be one of my strangers but his wife took a bit more persuading!

This next stranger I spotted as he walked past me on the other side of the road. As soon as I saw him I knew I had to chase after him and ask him – what a ‘tache! And thankfully he said yes:

This next photo cost me another £2. Worth it again I think:

This guy reminded me of a young Michael Jackson before he’d ruined his looks through surgery:

It was getting extremely hot in town so we headed back to my car for some air-con and then headed over to Endcliffe Park. Dave took some photos of waterfalls while I continued on my stranger quest.

I spotted this young couple walking towards us and I knew they would make lovely subjects, especially the girl. And I was right:

This is the last stranger from Endcliffe Park:

We then headed out of the park along a long path through some more woods to find another waterfall for Dave to shoot. The light by now was glorious and I snapped these last three strangers while Dave was playing with long exposures:

So, that is Day 1 over with. Roll on Day 2!

Jonny’s no-sleep sleepover!

2011-09-18T11:30:00.001+01:00

As I blogged yesterday, it was Jonny’s birthday yesterday and as well as his driving lesson he had a sleep-over with his friends. It was my idea, so I only have myself to blame as to how it turned out. It was pretty much a no-sleep-over but the kids had a great time so it was worth it I suppose. As you would expect I took lots of photos….

First up are the 5 of them enjoying some birthday cake. The boys were from l-r: Liam, Ethan, Bobbie, Jonny and Zech.

We had a BBQ and then after that Liam had to go home. His Mum, rather sensibly as it turned out, decided that he needed a full nights sleep as he had a football match at 9.30AM this morning. So with Liam gone, I was left with 4. They entertained themselves with computer games…

I then took some portraits of the boys:

At about 11.30 I attempted to get them into bed:

Instead of going to sleep they entertained themselves with YouTube videos:

I left them at midnight and attempted some sleep of my own. It didn’t really work. I was woken at 1AM, 3AM, 5AM and at 6AM I gave up and got up.

As you can see from the photo below of them playing on the PS3 that they weren’t quite as boisterous the morning after the night before!

Jonny, Zech and Bobbie headed off to park for an hour or so; Ethan had a quick nap!

By 10.30AM they had all been picked up and I now have a quiet house!

Jonny’s birthday present–a driving lesson!

2011-09-17T23:41:00.001+01:00

It is Jonny’s 11th birthday today. He has had a fabulous day and as I write this he has 3 friends over at my house for a birthday party “sleep” over. When I say “sleep” I of course mean “scream as loudly as they can while staying awake as long as they can”. Not sure how much sleep I’m going to get tonight!

I’ll blog about the sleep over tomorrow, but this blog is about what happened earlier on today when Jonny got his main present from me – a 1 hour driving lesson in a modified Seat Ibiza 1.2.

The lesson was in the coach park of Meadowhall and was amazing. Jonny had a blast! I was really impressed with how much he achieved in such a small amount of time – he looked like he had been driving for years rather than his first time in a car. Although, of course, he has been driving for years on his PS3 / Xbox and has had a lot of experience of go-karting in real life too.

His instructor first of all showed him this basics:

And then he was off, driving around a course marked out with cones. Jonny seemed to get the hang of the biting point straightaway and didn’t do any bunny-hops (unlike on my 1st lesson when I was 17!)

As well as driving on a coned out circuit he was also able to drive in the main car park which allowed him to put his foot down. Jonny reported that he managed to hit 20 on the straight!

At one stage both Jonny and his instructor got out and moved these taller cones about. I couldn’t work out why they were doing this but it turned out Jonny had to position the cones to the minimum width he thought he could drive through without hitting the cones.

It was a tight squeeze but he just passed through the gap!

At the end of the lesson was possibly the most impressive part – having mastered 1st and 2nd gear, the instructor then got him to engage reverse!

And to my great surprise (and pride) Jonny took to reverse really easily. In fact, at the end of the lesson Jonny reversed back into a parking space. I was really impressed – not bad for a 1st lesson! You can see a video I made of him reversing here – he does this better I can!

Jonny got a driving diary with his lesson and he got this stamped at the end to show that he passed his first lesson. He has already booked his second lesson for during October half-term and he hopes to get many more stamps in the future.

Jonny did his lesson with Young Driver and I can really recommend them. Drivers have to be aged 11 and over so if your kids are 11+ and they fancy driving a real car give them a go.

Alice’s first trip up to t’north!

2011-09-11T13:06:00.001+01:00

Yesterday Alice, my beautiful 2 month old niece, made her first trip up north. She, and her parents, were going to a christening in Rochdale today so they came up to Sheffield yesterday to break up the journey. It was lovely to see Alice again (and her parents too obviously!)

I was amazed (but shouldn’t have been surprised of course) just how much she had changed in the month or so since I last saw her. She has really grown and is definitely not a new born anymore. One noticeable change is that a lot of her hair has fallen out, all except her mullet at the back of her head – just *so* cute!

After a spot of lunch we decided to head off to the woods for a nice walk. Alice had a quick power nap and then she enjoyed being in a wood for the first time!

We made it to the look-out and stopped for a quick rest and a few snaps….

When we got home James decided to get out his Polaroid camera and take a snap of Alice. Here he is taking the photo (you can see the photo he took here):

And this was my version.

They stayed with us over night and headed off to the christening first thing this morning. Alice was pretty good overnight, although she did wake up at 3AM, but was pretty quiet from 3.30AM onwards.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to seeing her again. Hopefully it won’t be long before I do.

Photo walk with Dave - 2

2011-09-04T22:52:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I had another very pleasant photo walk with Dave, almost 8 months after our first one. Since our last walk I have upgraded my camera to a 50D while Dave has upgraded his zoom to a very impressive Canon 70-200 F/4 L. I have been busy recently with wedding jobs and my holiday so it was good to get out and about for an afternoon just taking photos for no particular reason.

We started off meeting at the Millennium Gallery to take in the fantastic Kid Acne exhibition. Unfortunately member of gallery staff told me straightaway that no photography was allowed – which did seem strange considering he is a graffiti artist – so I can’t share any photos from the exhibition. But I did take a photo of some Kid Acne merchandise in the gallery shop. I was taken by this cool hip flask:

I was really very impressed with Kid Acne’s art and that inspired us to hunt out some of his graffiti around Sheffield and shoot it. But first, Dave wanted to take some photos of running water so we headed over to the train station to take some photos of the water falls on Sheaf Square. I was happy to go there first as it was the location of this competition winning photo of mine from 3 and a half years ago. And as I’d not taken any photos there since it was nice to try to come up with some alternative views.

Dave had wanted to take long exposure shots of running water to make the water look milky so I joined in and made a couple of shots using a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds. I thought these two worked well in black and white:

I soon got bored with that as I felt they were too similar to my previous work so I decided to go to the other extreme and take photos of the water using the fastest possible shutter speed. I wanted to freeze the water so that the individual droplets of water could be seen. These were taken using speeds of between 1/4000th – 1/8000th of a second and I think I’ve been pretty successful with showing the water droplets:.

Here is Dave, taking a look at his latest masterpiece!

Suitably watered out, we then headed off in search of cool looking graffiti. This was a Kid Acne work but it was a start…

I’m not sure if this was a Kid Acne piece either but I liked it a lot:

Next we found some Kid Acne stuff. The work below on the left looks like Kid Acne but the stuff on the right less so. It was next to a definite bit of Acne graffiti though, the amazing purple “You’ll Thank Me One Day”:

Problem was, we were on a lower level to the graffiti so had to work our way around to get a better view. We headed up a small path that linked the two levels and spotted a doorway that I thought would make a great location for a portrait. So as Dave was the only model handy i made use of him…

I liked this graffiti we spotted on a wall nearby:

Once we reached the top of the path / hill we spotted the Rutland Arms and the fantastic graffiti that had been painted onto the walls of the pub…

While we were snapping away, we heard a group of Bury fans walking towards us. The Sheffield United ground wasn’t far away and their match against Bury had already kicked off. So the fact that this group of lads had obviously not got into the match and were heading our way was a bit of a concern. I obviously know a little karate but luckily Dave is a brown belt and will be doing his grading for his black belt soon so I didn’t feel too threatened.

Anyway, the lads approached us singing about how they were Bury ‘til they died. Two young ladies were walking towards them and the Bury fans decided that making them feel uncomfortable would be the best approach to try to attract them. It didn’t work….

They then decided to pose for us.

And then, thankfully, they were gone…

We then remembered that we wanted to photograph the Kid Acne graffiti so we found the wall where it was painted on. Unfortunately it was on a wall in a locked and gated car park. So we couldn’t get a good view. And a couple of cars were parked in front.

That was frustrating but at least we got a shot of a Kid Acne original. We decided that the best thing to do in these situations was to cut our losses and head to a pub. As the Rutland Arms was opposite and we’d taken lots of photos of the pub outside. we felt it would be rude not to pop in for a pint.

Several hours later we emerged from the pub suitably refreshed and were thrilled to see that the car park had been opened and the cars had left. Leaving us with an unobscured view. Shame that my hands were no longer as steady as they had been a few hours before but I did manage to get this shot:

Mallorca-fantastic final meal!

2011-08-30T21:46:00.001+01:00

Last night was our last night in Mallorca. I wanted to end the holiday on a high note so we had dinner at a Mallorcan restaurant called El Posito.

Ever since my first holiday in Puerto Pollensa in 2005 I have wanted to eat at El Posito as it has always got great reviews on the Puerto Pollensa forum. Back in 2005 Jonny was too little and probably wouldn’t have eaten much. This was the same in 2006. But last year I was sure he would be old enough to eat something but unfortunately they were closed on the day we had planned to eat there. So it was fantastic to finally make it there last night.

I was a bit concerned that my expectations would be too high as I was expecting a great meal but I needn’t of worried as my expectations were actually exceeded. The meal was fantastic! I was also a little bit worried that Jonny wouldn’t find anything to eat that he liked.

We started off with bread and olives. The bread was hot straight out of the oven and was some of the nicest bread I’d ever tasted. The olives were the only slightly disappointing thing of the whole night, they were a little tough and not as nice as at other places. However I washed them down with their lovely house white which was a bargain at 6 Euros for a half bottle.

Thankfully Jonny loved the starter. But as bread, and baguettes in particular, is his favourite food I knew he would at least like the starter.

For his main Jonny had cod, bacon and alioli. He likes all three individually so I figured he should like them combined and he did! It was a bit too fancily presented for him and he was put off by the sauce (he only likes two types of sauce, both based on tomato – ketchup and pasta sauce – and will refuse all types of gravy and other sauces). But he ate most of the fish. I had a bit and it tasted fantastic – the bacon was really salty and matched the fish and garlic sauce perfectly.

I had the roast suckling pig and this was amazing too. The pork was really tender and fell off the bone. The crackling was some of the best I’ve ever tasted. It looked fabulous too.

As you can see I had an almost completely clean plate at the end. Jonny had eaten lots too:

Next up was our puddings – and we both went for the same one – chocolate cake with ice-cream. As you can see they were beautifully presented. And they tasted as good as they looked!

Again I had a clean plate! Jonny less so, but these were big portions and he is only 10 so can’t be expected to clean his plate like me…

Happy from our fabulous meal, we headed for one last walk down the Pine Walk before heading back to our hotel. I decided for the first time to take some photos of the amazing sand sculptures that are expertly made every day on the front. Hopefully you can see just how great they look from my photos.

As the light was so good I then snapped a few portraits of Jonny – he decided to give me a range of expressions too!

It was then off to bed as we had to get up early today to make our way back home.

So that is the end of my holiday blogs for another year. It was a simply fantastic holiday and, I think, our best one yet to Puerto Pollensa. I can’t wait to go back and we are already talking about returning next year.

Mallorca–Sunday

2011-08-29T15:25:00.001+01:00

Sunday was a pretty chilled out day followed by a fantastic trip out late afternoon and evening.

Jonny enjoyed his baguette for breakfast!

We spent the morning in the pool and then headed to Jonny’s favourite restaurant on the Pine Walk, La Balada Del Agua Del Mar, for lunch.

Jonny enjoyed his baguette for lunch! While I enjoyed the olives and chillies! My pork kebab was lovely: And Jonny enjoyed his Germanic sausage, egg and chips: We then chilled out for the early afternoon before heading out on our trip - which was to be taken to the Real Mallorca v Espanyol football match. It was an amazing experience.

This time last year Real Mallorca's 1st home game of the 2010-11 season was against Real Madrid - it would have been even better if they or Barça had been the opponents rather than Espanyol, as at least we would have recognised all of the away team's players - neither Jonny or I had heard of any of the players in our game. Plus I am embarrassed to say, i had to look up what colour strips both Mallorca and Espanyol play in!

Our travel company took 3 coach loads of tourists to the game we went to but took 11 coach loads to the Real Madrid game last year!

We were picked up from our hotel by a coach which took us to the ground in Palma. After a quick beer (for me!) outside the ground we headed in. This guy was the chief cheerleader for Mallorca!

We had been given tickets that meant that we wouldn't be sitting together. But as the ground was only going to be half filled we managed to find some unoccupied seats next to one another in a fantastic location high up over the half-way line and settled down hoping that no one came to claim them. And no one did so we were very lucky. We were sat in amongst a collection of locals who all seemed to know one another and were very vocal in their support for Mallorca. And their distaste when the referee or linesman ruled against their team! I think Jonny must have heard every Mallorcan swear word in one night – it was great! I’m glad however that he can’t remember any of them.

Across from us were the ultra Mallorca fans who unveiled a few banners at kick-off; they also led all the chants as well.

We had a fab view so I made this panaorama (click on it to see it large):

At half-time the locals all gathered around and caught up. I guess it was because it was the 1st game of the new season. Jonny and I ate our baguettes during half-time (so yes, Jonny had baguettes for breakfast, lunch and dinner!): In the second half Mallorca scored and the crowd went crazy: They managed to hang on and won the game 1-0 and all the locals were very happy, as were Jonny and I as we were supporting Mallorca for the night.

One thing I noticed is how similar to British football Spanish football is - at least based on this game. The hoof to row Z exists here. Strikers who can score are at a premium. And there are plenty of men in the crowd who let off their frustrations by shouting at the ref!

We went home very happy to have seen a decent game of football, a Mallorca win and had a great experience.

Mallorca-Saturday

2011-08-28T08:43:00.001+01:00

Saturday was a mix of activity and chill out – we hit the beach in the morning and then chilled out in the air-conned reception of our hotel in the afternoon.

Before we hit the beach we had a quick couple of games of pool by the pool. Unfortunately Jonny took a 2-1 lead for the holiday so far – I will have to try to peg him back and hopefully overtake him during the rest of the holiday!

On the beach we hired a pedalo and had a very enjoyable hour out on the (not so) high seas!

While on the pedalo I managed to make this panorama of Puerto Pollensa. Not one of my best as some of the individual photos are a bit wobbly due to me being on the pedalo! But it gives you an idea just how pretty the resort is I hope. As per normal with one of my panoramas, click on the photo to see it much larger:

Our afternoon was spent chilling in the hotel reception where I was able to watch Sky Sports all afternoon while taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi.

As I write this it is Sunday morning. Today our plan is to muck about in the pool this morning, chill out in the early afternoon – possibly watching the Grand Prix or Man City v Tottenham – and then just before 4 we are off on a trip to Palma. We are off to the Real Mallorca v Espanyol La Liga game. Really can’t wait for this as I’ve never been to a Spanish football match before. It is a shame that we can’t see Mallorca v Real or Barça as I can’t say I know any of the players from either side (embarrassingly I had to look up what strips both teams play in as I didn’t know!). But if Mallorca were playing one of the big two I guess we wouldn’t have got tickets so easily!

Mallorca–Friday

2011-08-27T15:52:00.001+01:00

On Friday we hired a car for the day and headed over to Hidropark in Alcudia. Like last year we had a blast on the slides and in the pools, especially the wave pool. This year though we had a new toy to play with – an underwater casing for Jonny’s Flip video camera. This fantastic gadget allowed us to take his Flip into the pool and make videos which was great fun.

In the wave pool at Hidropark we made a video of us playing with a ball while we waited for the waves to be turned on. We then recorded the waves crashing over us. It was a great test for the underwater casing as we both got submerged by the waves at regular intervals! Unfortunately these videos are too large to upload from Mallorca so I will add them when we get home next week.

As well as having fun with the waves Jonny also enjoyed the slides. I captured him on the foam slide where he attempted to make a flip video at the same time. He struggled to keep hold of the flip camera so the video didn’t come out so well but my shots came out OK. I’ve put them together as a movie and you can see that below:

While Jonny queued for that last go on the slide I quickly went up to the highest slide and made this panorama of the park:

Mallorca–Thursday

2011-08-27T14:46:00.001+01:00

Although Thursday couldn’t match the amazingness of Wednesday, it was pretty close. Jonny went scuba diving in the afternoon and we preceded that a delicious lunch at our favourite cafe, Dolç Sa Pobla.

We first discovered Dolç Sa Pobla on our first visit to Puerto Pollensa back in 2005. Jonny used to wake up at 6AM every morning. This made getting breakfast a problem as most of the SPAR supermarkets (that sell lovely bread and pastries) don’t open until 8AM. So I had to drive around and find something open and I found the Dolç Sa Pobla. It was rammed full of locals having their morning coffee and ensimadas. The quality of the food was amazing so we have been frequent visitors to the cafe ever since.

On Thursday we went there for lunch before Jonny had his scuba diving session.

For our lunch we had some delicious bocadillos, which are toasted baguette open sandwiches. I had a serrano ham and tomato one while Jonny had a normal ham one.

The waitress:

As with last year, Jonny went on a Scuba Mallorca Bubblemaker session that gave him 45 minutes in the water. They dived deeper than last year and Jonny had a great time.

Lewis, one of the instructors, demonstrating the inflation system:

Jonny dived in the same cove he did last year and also the same place we moored at the previous night on the Tudor Dawn. Overlooking the cove is this amazing villa that apparently is owned by a British banker. It cost him a cool 40M euros!

Jonny trying out his equipment:

Jonny and Lewis:

Jonny and Tom, the other instructor:

While Jonny was diving I went for a little swin over to the 40M euro villa and then made this panorama of the cove back on the Scuba Mallorca boa (click on the photo to see it larger):

A blog about Friday is next!

Mallorca 2011–An Amazing Wednesday

2011-08-25T10:40:00.001+01:00

Jonny and I are on our hols in lovely Puerto Pollensa in Mallorca. And we are having a fantastic time, as per usual. It is very hot and sunny – much more than on our previous holidays in Puerto Pollensa when we have been there in late May / early June. But that makes the pool and sea even more refreshing.

Yesterday was our first full day and it was an amazing day. We started the day splashing in the pool at our hotel. Jonny especially liked playing with his inflatable:

We then went snorkelling in the sea followed by lunch at Stay . In my 3 previous trips to Puerto Pollensa I had always assumed that, because it looked posh, it would be really expensive to eat there and they wouldn’t serve anything that Jonny would eat. I was wrong! They do a day time menu which is not only reasonably priced but had at least 3 dishes Jonny would eat. As an example Jonny had the BBQ ribs and fries – very Jonny friendly! – for less than 10 euros. So we ended up having a fabulous meal for less than 30 euros in a wonderful location. Bargain!

Jonny certainly looked a cool dude in his shades and hat sat on the veranda at Stay admiring the wonderful view:

So all of this was pretty fabulous. But this wasn’t the reason for the day being amazing. That was what came at the end of the day – our Sunset Cruise on the fabulous Tudor Dawn sailing boat. Words can’t describe how lovely this was. The Tudor Dawn is run by a really lovely English couple called Susie and Simon. They are both wonderful hosts and made Jonny and I (plus the 5 other people on our cruise) feel extremely welcome and at home.

Simon captains the boat while Susie got the kids – Jonny and 2 lovely girls, Zola and Zoe who were about Jonny’s age – to help with the rigging and stuff:

We then set sail and zoomed across the bay towards the lighthouse. It was amazing just how fast the boat could travel just on wind power!

After an hour or so of sailing around the bay we headed for the same cove that Jonny scuba-dived in last year to set anchor.

We then all dived in to the water and swan and snorkelled for a bit. Susie laid on some wonderful tapas (and ham sandwich for Jonny) while we watched the sunset behind the mountains. If I have been more relaxed than at that moment I can’t remember it! It was wonderful!

I had noticed the San Miguel boat when Jonny had been snorkelling earlier and couldn’t understand why anyone would want a boat that had San Miguel plastered all over it. We soon discovered that the boat was in fact owned by San Miguel as a small dingy soon sped over to us with some ice cold cans of San Miguel and handed them out – just like Duff Man would in The Simpsons!

As well as the San Miguel boat we were entertained by this man on a board in the middle of the sea using an oar to propel himself along. Looked very precarious to us!

Zoe, Lola and Jonny enjoying the sunset:

All too quickly the sun set behind the mountains and we upped anchor and headed back to port. We arrived having had an amazing experience and one that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone wanting a lovely, relaxing cruise with great hosts, food, drinks and views. Simply stunning in fact. So if you are heading to Mallorca I would recommend you book a cruise with the Tudor Dawn.

Today we are heading off to Scuba Mallorca again so that Jonny can have another scuba dive – should be great!

Alison and Ian–A Wonderful Warrington Wedding!

2011-08-21T16:44:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I was extremely fortunate to cover the wonderful wedding of Alison and Ian. It was a really special day and it was an honour and privilege to be able to share the day with them. Some of you might remember the pre-wedding shoot I did with Alison and Ian last October.

It wasn’t just a wedding of two lovely people but a coming together of two countries – England and Canada as Alison is from Canada. It was wonderful that so many of Alison’s family and friends made the long trip over to share in her special day.

It was also a sign of how much Ian loves Alison (and also how much his friends and family wanted to be there) that Ian and all of Ian’s friends and family turned up and didn’t go to the pub. Ian hails from County Durham and most of his family and friends support Sunderland with a few who support Newcastle. Unfortunately for Ian, he had arranged the wedding date and time well in advance of the football fixtures being announced, and due to finish 5 minutes before the start of the wedding was the Sunderland v Newcastle game! Unfortunately the match didn’t quite go in Sunderland’s favour but I think everyone soon forgot about that once they first saw Alison walk down the aisle – she looked absolutely stunning!

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, what you want to see are the photos no doubt. Below are my highlights of the day. If you want you can see the full set of photos (warning – there are 315!) you can by viewing the full gallery on my website here.

Canon PIXMA MG5250 review–in one word, wow!

2011-08-17T21:59:00.001+01:00

Those of you who know me will know that I am a tech-geek at heart. I first became interested in photography not because I wanted to take artistically pleasing photos but because buying a digital camera was the next gadget to own. A love of photography came much later.

So I like my gadgets – HD TV, Sat Nav, iPhone, DAB radio as well as lots and lots of camera gear are all owned – so it may surprise you to know that I haven’t owned a colour printer for about 20 years. I had been put off my a number of things – the high price of ink, the poor quality of the prints, the speed of printing. And most important of all, the fact that Photobox, Snapfish et al could do a much better job for a lot less.

But earlier this week Jonny really needed to print out a few invites for his birthday party and, after failing to get his Mum’s colour printer to work, I finally realised I needed to buy a printer. So after a bit of research I plumped for a Canon PIXMA MG5250. This was partly because it got almost all 5 star reviews on Amazon, partly because I am a Canon camera man, partly because it was also a scanner and copier (ashamed to say I didn’t own a scanner either!) but mainly I bought it because it was only £75! Seemed a bit cheap too me. I was a bit suspicious that something so cheap could be a good printer let alone good at 2 other things as well. But the 96 reviewers on Amazon couldn’t all be wrong so I decided to go for it.

And I am so pleased that I did as it is a simply stunning bit of kit. It is quick to print normal documents, and prints duplex too so is good for the environment. The quality of normal documents printed on cheap photocopier paper is pretty impressive. It takes separate Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow inks so should be cheaper to replace inks. And I can connect via Wi-Fi so no annoying leads. But it is as a photo printer that it really excels.

I bought some A4 Canon Matte Photo Paper and ran off three different photos of Jonny tonight, each one printed A4 borderless. I used the Print module in Lightroom 3 and set the Colour Management to AdobeRGB 1998 and print quality to high. I expected the prints to come out nothing like they did on the screen but was completely wrong – they looked almost perfect and pretty much the same as the same photos did when I had them printed out by Photobox. Yes, each one took a few minutes to print, but the time spent is worth it.

My photos of these print outs really don’t do them justice as they need to be seen to be believed, but hopefully you can get a feel for just how good the prints are by looking at these and the ones further on in this review:

Here is a comparison of the original images on flickr compared to the print outs:

The last one of Jonny playing with his Nintendo DS is especially good quality considering that due to a hard disc failure I have lost the original file and had to rely on a 2000px wide version.

So as a printer I am very, very impressed with the Canon PIXMA MG5250. Especially for the price. But what is it like as scanner? To find out I took the print out of Jonny posing for me in his hat and used the scanner to scan it it. And this was the result:

I think this is pretty bloomin’ amazing really. Yes, it isn’t perfect, but this image is how it looked after being scanned – I haven’t altered the levels or colours using Lightroom or Photoshop. And with a few minutes of editing I reckon it would look almost perfect.

So, in summary – the Canon PIXMA MG5250 is an amazing bit of tech. It is a brilliant printer and a very good scanner and, for the money, a bargain. As to whether I’ll agree next year after a year of use – and more to the point, a year of ink refills – remains to be seen, but so far, 10/10 from me. If you are in the market for an all-in-one printer, scanner and copier I can thoroughly recommend it.

PS I have just noticed that the photo of Jonny in the Science Museum Cafe must have been flipped in Lightroom as the version on flickr isn’t identical to the print out. But the quality of the colours in both are pretty identical.

PPS I am also aware I haven’t tested the copier bit of the MG5250 but I would imagine that this would be good as well. But as it doesn’t have a document feeder it would be fiddly for a document of more than a few pages in length.

Paul’s 60th Birthday Party

2011-08-14T08:48:00.001+01:00

Last night I was invited to the 60th birthday party of a friend of mine, Paul. Paul was in my A level photography class at Hillsborough College a few years ago and we have kept in touch. It was lovely to be invited to the party, especially as it was being held at one of my favourite pubs, The Rising Sun Inn on Fulwood Road.

As well as being a great party full of lovely people it was also a perfect way for me to test my newly calibrated Sigma 50mm f/1.4 and Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lenses ahead of Alie and Ian’s wedding next weekend. And I am really, really pleased with how sharp the photos are wide open. All that calibrating with test charts has paid off I think!

Anyway, here are the photos:

Test shots and stings

2011-08-13T17:10:00.002+01:00

I decided to do some candid street shots this afternoon to give my new Canon 50D a work-out with my Sigma 70-200 f/2.8. I had used the micro-focus adjustment setting on my 50D to try to make the focus as sharp as possible as I was disappointed with the sharpness of the photos I took at the Grenochase last weekend. Although I seemed to have the focus set perfectly using controlled conditions and a test chart I wanted to test it in real shooting conditions. And I am pretty pleased how these have turned out.
These girls took one look at my camera and wanted to pose so I was only too pleased to take their photo. I focused on the face of the girl in middle and the focus was spot on.

Glamorous shade

I then spotted an old friend. I say friend, what I really mean is weirdo that I have photographed before, back in 2006. He looks a bit like Stan Lee I bet this guy couldn’t draw a decent spidey:

I’m going to a friend’s birthday bash tonight so expect to see some photos of the do on here tomorrow.

PS I forgot to mention the sting. Unfortunately I got stung by a wasp on the back of my neck while I was shooting this afternoon. The little blighter got between my neck and my camera strap and when I tugged on my camera it got squashed and stung me. It flew off and I was left with a throbbing neck. It is still painful now, almost 2 hours later....

Dreamy red berries

2011-08-07T11:22:00.001+01:00

It has been a while since I entered the AVForums monthly photo competition, April in fact. The theme this month is “Red” and while I was hanging out my washing this morning I noticed that a tree in my garden is filled with lots of red berries. I thought these would make a good subject and grabbed my new 50D and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 and snapped away.

I wanted to take a dreamy sort of shot with some of the berries in focus with most out of focus. The sun was shining strongly directly above berries and I wanted to capture this light too. I think I’ve been successful and the photo below is my entry.

I am not sure how many votes I will get, but I will find out at the end of the month when voting starts.

Grenochase 2011

2011-08-06T10:23:00.001+01:00

Last night was the annual Grenochase in Grenoside, a race around the village. And this year there seemed to be more runners than ever before and more people out watching than previous years. It also seemed like more of an “event” than before as well. There was a band performing on Main Street, The Angel had a hog roast in its beer garden, there was a burger van in the community centre car park and the whole village was buzzing – it was great!

The course is pretty challenging – it involves a very steep hill climb – and I was full of admiration for everyone who entered. There is no way I would be able to finish it!

Anyway, here are my photos from the event:

Ernie Biney in the Celtic top, J. Whitaker in the white top, W. Duggan in the red, Revd Martin Kilner on the far right

R. Oldale

Jon O’Keefe (l), M. Gregory, Joe Walker, Joseph Marshall

Joe Walker

M. Gregory

Louis Penty, B. Oldale, J. Mirfin, Sam Rollitt

E. Watson, J. Beatson, Jenny Morton (57F and one of my friends from my day job)

Jenny enjoying the start

P. Harris

The local vicar Revd Martin Kilner

Sam Rollitt

M. Gregory

J. Hallam

Ernie Biney

S. Riley

Joseph Marshall

T. Peaker

B. Cooper

D. Robinson

Robert Godley

The winner of the race

Jon O’Keefe, powering home

The winner and friends

Sam Rollitt

J. Beatson

M. Gregory

S. Duckworth

J. Whitaker

J. Hallam

T. Cox (left) finishing fast

M. Burgin

Ernie Biney finishing

The Rev finishing

W. Duggan

Joseph Marshall

L. Schofield

S. Riley

C. Hallam

B. Cooper

T. Peaker

Jen, finishing fast

New Camera–Canon 50D

2011-08-05T13:03:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I treated myself to a new camera – a lovely Canon 50D. Well when I say new, what I really mean is a new second hand Canon 50D. Anyway, this is a very camera-nerd heavy post so if you visit here to see my latest wedding, event, gig or Jonny photos you may be disappointed. But if at heart you are a nerd, just like me, then read on!

I had been thinking of getting a 50D for a while so that my current Canon 40D can replace my trusty, but very old, Canon 350D as my back up body. That way I have a quality backup for weddings and events just in case the worst happens when the vicar says “and you may kiss the bride" at the same time as my camera blowing a fuse. Although my 350D was a pretty good camera back in the day, it doesn’t cut the mustard now.

I bought the camera from Harrison Cameras in Sheffield which is an excellent shop. They usually have a great 2nd hand selection and I was thrilled to see a 50D for sale on their website yesterday, especially as it wasn’t that much more expensive than ebay. Plus they were offering a 1 year warranty with it. And when I went to the shop and saw that the body was immaculate and was told that it had been traded in only last week by a “careful lady owner” so she could buy a 60D I was easily sold.

Assuming the image number matches the shutter count, she had only taken 1900 shots, so the camera is barely run-in. She hadn’t even taken the protective film off the screen at the back!

One of the main attractions of getting a 50D for me – apart from the extra 5MP in resolution, better LCD screen and the ISO of up to 12800 – is the fact that the 50D allows me to make use of micro focus adjustment. This is where I can fine tune the autofocus of my lenses to make sure that when I shoot wide open – eg f/1.4 on my Sigma 50mm or f/2.8 on my other two lenses – that the images are as sharp as they can be.

I have had my suspicions that my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 front focuses at wide apertures – eg f/2.2 or wider. This means that if I select my niece Alice’s left eye as the main focus point, as I have in the image below, instead of this eye being sharply in focus and the rest of her less so, it is actually her nose that is in sharpest focus. And this isn’t what I wanted to happen. Admittedly you won’t be able to tell in the small image posted here but it is noticeable if I print out the image at A4 or larger.

The great thing with my new camera is that I can set up the camera so that whenever I use my 50mm lens the camera will automatically compensate for this front focussing. Which means that the next time I take a photo of Alice, or anyone else for that matter, at a wide aperture, their eyes will be in focus. Hurrah!

Normal service will be resumed on this blog tomorrow – no more camera-nerdyness. Instead, there will be photos from the Grenochase as that is happening tonight!

Alice–4 weeks old

2011-08-02T22:30:00.001+01:00

Jonny and I have spent a lovely few days with my niece / Jonny’s cousin Alice. She is now 4 weeks old and is even more beautiful than when I first met her just over 3 weeks ago. Hopefully my photos get this across.

Uncle Marcus and Alice

Alice, Uncle Marcus and Mummy’s touch

Daddy feeds Alice

Then winds her – burp!

Jonny has a cuddle…

Alice loves her cousin Jonny!

At our last visit Alice was wearing a sleepsuit that covered her feet so I missed out on the clichéd (but lovely) shot of her tiny little feet. But this time because it was so hot she was barefoot for all of our visit so I got plenty of opportunities for feet shots!

I also wanted to capture her tiny little hands too!

This unfortunately is a rare sight, Alice asleep in her moses basket….

Jonny took an excellent video of Alice using his iPod Touch and she really loved watching herself on the screen when Jonny played the video back!

She even got the hang of this touch-screen malarky!

So thank you Alice for being such a beautiful, and cuddly, muse. It has been wonderful to spend so much time with you. Hope to see you again soon! xxx

Hazel & Steve’s Party 2011

2011-07-31T07:05:00.001+01:00

Last night was Hazel & Steve’s annual fancy dress party and a fab party it was too! The theme this year was “Space” and there were some amazing costumes as you can see from the photos below:

Marvin the Martian (Hazel)

A collection of Spock’s

Marga as Princess Leia and Anne as a NASA employee:

Steve as Ziggy Stardust

Hazel’s Dad as Ming the Merciless

Me, as Darth Vader

The most inventive costumes of the night!

The Men in Black!

Rick as Prof Brian Cox

To infinity and beyond!

Jonny as Luke Skywalker

Tramlines 2011–Interactive Panorama

2011-07-25T12:47:00.001+01:00

After the highs of the weekend it is back to normal life today – no Tramlines and no queue jumping pass either. But as promised yesterday this is not my last Tramlines post, oh no!

Yesterday while Johnny Foreigner were playing the Main Stage at Tramlines I headed up to the back of Devonshire Green and made this 360 interactive panorama. I think it looks pretty cool (especially if you ignore the join at the back!).

If this works you should see the panorama in the box below (it may say “click here to download attachment”; if it does just click the link and then it should work). Navigate around by clicking and dragging your left mouse button. Use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out – try to spot yourself! By the way, apologies that is flash only so won’t work for iPhone/Pad – sorry.

You can also see this in all it’s full screen glory by clicking here (you might have to do the “click here to download attachment” business here too):

Full Screen 360 Interactive Panorama – Devonshire Green, Tramlines 2011

This is the more boring, static version of the panorama if you can’t get the flash to work (click on the image to see it *large*):

Tramlines–Sunday Part 2!

2011-07-24T22:05:00.001+01:00

Here is the final blog for today, which contains the photos from the last 3 bands of the Main Stage - Johnny Foreigner, The Futureheads and Ash.

First up are Johnny Foreigner. I’d never heard of them but apparently they are big on My Space and they drew a pretty big crowd who seemed to know all words. But as most of those singing were at least half my age that was probably why I hadn’t heard of them! They were pretty good I thought – sort of pop-punk with a bit of attitude. Not that I was that excited but the lead singer of Johnny Foreigner – the one with the hair – stood next to me for Ash after I had finished in the press pit.

Next up were the Futureheads. They were good and had a good stage presence but it was a bit obvious that they only had two songs. Both of those songs are excellent but the rest were a bit average really. Having said that those hounds of love were calling (whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh)…

The sun was a problem with these photos as it was shining straight across the stage and providing a very harsh light. But I coped.

The headliners were Ash, old faves of mine. I saw them live in 1995 and 1996 back when I was bright young thing and I was interested to see if they had aged as well as I had. Judge for your self below!

So that is it. The end of Tramlines 2011. It has been a simply amazing experience. Thank you so much to Paul, the Tramlines Director of Photography for giving me the opportunity to be involved – I’ve loved every single second of it. Roll on Tramlines 2012!

But just because it is all over, doesn’t mean that I won’t still be blogging about Tramlines. I took lots of photos today with a view to making a panorama of Devonshire Green and the Main Stage. Still need to process them so I will blog about that next week.