A couple of hours in Brighton

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I had to pop down to Brighton for a meeting yesterday, and had a couple of hours to kill afterwards. It was sunny, and I had my little RX100 plus my iPhone, so…

Oh, and if you’re wondering were the watches have gone, normal service will be resumed shortly 🙂

An hour in Clacton

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I had to drive down to Colchester yesterday, as I had a couple of lights to drop off for repair with Bowens and they’d promised to look at them straight away to save me driving down there again (thanks guys – great service). I was expecting to have a few hours to kill so nipped across to Clacton on Sea; in the event I had a bite of lunch and received a call whilst I was finishing my dessert to say that they were ready.

I find seaside towns quite fascinating in the winter and would have liked to have spent a bit more time down there. As it was I had about an hour in total, and then decided to head back in order to beat the motorway traffic. Still, a good day as my lights are now working properly (new switches on each) and I got a handful of photographs.

Some shots from New York

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I visited New York back at the end of January/beginning of February, and spent some quality time with my beautiful daughter (who teaches English to under-privileged children in the city, which makes me very proud). It occurred to me that I’ve not posted the photos from that trip here, so I’ll put matters right here and now with the selection below. Hope you like them 🙂

New York City

Central Park

Freedom Tower/World Trade Centre Memorial

Long Island

A bygone era

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I was just looking at the photos from a recent trip to New York, and I really do love this one as it kind of typifies the city for me. I was walking through downtown Manhattan to see the Freedom Tower, and stopped on West Broadway when I noticed this old neon sign for a liquor store; it was like a throwback to decades gone by and the watercolour finish I just gave it in Photoshop seems to work nicely, and enhance that “bygone era” feel.

It’s so easy to spend your time in NYC looking up, but some of the best shots are closer to the ground.

New Year in Paris

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Some shots from a lovely trip in Paris – we went early on New Year’s Eve and came back on Sunday night.

I do love this city, and next time we go back a French guy I was chatting to is going to take us down to the unofficial catacombs!

Anyway, many of these were taken on my iPhone as we were so layered up with clothing, scarves and gloves that carrying a camera about was somewhat irritating.

New lighting set-up

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I’ve been tinkering a bit of late, so I thought I’d post a few shots taken with what may prove to be my default set-up. This consists of:

  • 1 x Speedlite 580EXII, used on camera (but bounced) and the trigger for
  • 2 x Bowens Esprit 500 studio heads

The flash was set to manual and used on 1/4 power, with the flash heads on 1/2 and full power respectively. The camera was also on manual, set to f/22, 1/200sec and ISO 200; I didn’t meter it but a couple of test shots left me happy. This is what it looked like…

And these are the shots taken today, with just a little sharpening and vignetting in Photoshop…

Feel free to post your thoughts, if any.

This took me back

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A while ago I was asked to take some shots for a jewellery website that’s under construction. The jewellery is bespoke and beautiful, and the designer actually made Bea’s engagement ring as well as our wedding bands.

Anyway, it had been a while since I’d shot any serious photos (although I’d never done anything like this before), and matters were complicated by the fact that when the lights that had been hired for me were unusable; I therefore had to shoot everything with natural light only, balanced on some precariously broken steps outside the French windows. Still, I was quite pleased with how they came out, bearing in mind I had to put up with shallow depths of field and shutter speeds that were in reality a little too slow!