Day 222: what have I been up to?

I’ve been meaning to create a roundup of my 365 photo a-day blog posts for ages but just haven’t got around to it. I thought maybe after 100 days, or 150 then 200. But I didn’t and now randomly I'm rounding up on the 222nd day of the year. Above is about ¾ of the photos so far, but even though a quick glance shows my obvious obsessions I thought I’d create an Excel spreadsheet (naturally), to analyse the past two hundred and twenty one days in greater detail.

Entirely not surprisingly, the top spot is taken by flowers and other flora at 68 photographs (31%). Then 43 that really defy categorisation, a pink gnome, a silver spoon, a mummy etcetera! Not surprising 10% of the daily shots are sunsets, with the odd (rare) sunrise. I have taken so many more than that but haven’t posted them all.

Then the fourth slot is a new entry; photos of our pointy neighbour, The Shard (7%) followed closely by night/blue hour photography (6%). Then London scenes and stations/trains account for nearly 6% each. 5% is another obsession, all that is sparkly, and then 4% are shots of Richmond (still no deer though). Finally 5 Zentangle posts, 4 Leica flavoured and 2 little penguins!

When I last tackled a photo-a-day project, The Shard barely had a look in and the tendency towards late night photography on the tube was more prevalent. There's always been an abundance of flower photography because I do love them, but I think jewellery is featuring more regularly now rather than penguins. Though in 2013 I did feature my black diamond penguin pendant, cleverly combining two passions there!

By this time in 2013 I'd racked up two fabulous trips to France. On the first long weekend to La Dordogne I ended up with many hundreds of photographs of poppies and the second trip was the luxury barging trip around Burgundy. Not a photography holiday per se, but I sure took a lot of photos. Oh and ate lashings of tasty food and drank some delicious wine. Hmmm maybe 'some' isn't quite the right word here!

But I've been to a wedding, a first holy communion, a Circus performance, a couple of workshops in Kew and others farther away in Kent. I've got my happy on with Happy Camera, delved into pinhole camera photography for the first time and emersed myself in studio lighting techniques. And there's so much more to come.

I've still got two incredible photographic adventures to ahead of me this year, in Lapland and New York, and an impromptu business trip to Barcelona. I foresee an abundance of photography lies ahead, much, MUCH more than my daily shot quota. And I really cannot wait, watch this space!

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Day 18: Another year, another 365 photos

I did wonder if taking on such challenge as a 365 photography project again would break me; but I have to admit that I really enjoyed the evolution of my photography in 2013. And as I've said before, taking a photo a day is not such an onerous undertaking, but writing reams about each image can be. And I appreciate that's entirely my own fault. I will take a photograph and it will provoke some query in my mind as to "when did that first happen or when was it built?", "why is that like that?", "how does this work?", "I wonder if...". And then I can spend hours researching the answers to these questions, which then generally also leads to other intriguing snippets of information and I just have to keep reading. Then, when I've finally sated my fact gathering, I spend more time distilling this new found knowledge (or confirmation of something that I already thought I knew) by sitting down to craft a blog post. And then I wonder where the time has disappeared to. All in all, not unenjoyable but definitely a time thief.

The wonderful PR shot a photo-a-day and posted them on Instagram last year, and really only tagged them. I loved seeing her photos and it inspired me to consider another 365 days, but doubted whether I could emulate her. I'm not sure if I could curtail my ramblings to mere tags, history shows that I probably would struggle to stifle my verbosity.

So to ease myself in, I took the daily pictures but held off blogging them, and making a big declaration that I was tackling another full year of being a slave to my camera. That makes it sound like a chore taking the time to notice the little changes of the season, recording the minutiae of my daily environment, stopping to admire a scene and generally just opening my eyes and being more aware of everything. Who could really knock that as a way of living?

I can easily predict some of the initial images that would find their way to my SD card. Since moving to our new building in November, the view through our picture windows or from the balcony of the city around us is very alluring. I see the buildings opposite my desk starting to turn pink and I have to find a reason to grab my camera and head to the other side of the building and record another sunset. And I do love a sunset. Also our nearest neighbour is the Shard in all its pointy glory, a bit of a picture magnet itself.

I've always been fond of the architecture of Westminster station; concrete has never looked so curvy, dramatic and photogenic. The criss-crossing escalators, the pipes, the girders, the cables, oh and the passengers, it's all rather appealing. And now my commute takes me there very regularly, I predict the cathedral-like station will encourage me to make that location a frequent theme on my blog.

The first weeks of the year are generally not rich pickings for flora and fauna. I did find a cute little red leaf this morning, but there isn't a huge amount of greenery that isn't evergreen. My eyes will be peeled for green shoot alert now. Cross fingers for some snow, I don't think I caught a whiff of a flake in 2014. A good hoar frost would be rather desirable too. I still have a robin in the snow on my winter photo wish list, but both are looking a tad elusive now.

So here I am, eighteen days into the shiny new year, consigning myself to another 365 project and all that entails...eek!

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Poppies, poppies, poppies, poppies, POPPIES!

Ever since I saw the first pictures of the ceramic poppy art installation at the Tower of London, I was determined to spend some quality time there with my camera. It's an ambitious project, called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, the moat around the tower is being filled each day with handmade ceramic poppies assembled and "planted" by volunteers. When complete, on November 11th, each of the 888,246 poppies will represent a British military fatality during WW1.

A year and a half ago our office was very close to the Tower of London and I could walk past there several times a day. I would have loved the opportunity to capture the poppies in every available light in the morning and evening. But we're based over in Bloomsbury now and the Tower of London is not on my normal route. I was lucky to be able to swing by after a visit to a client and circled the path around the tower trying to find the best vantage point for my first poppy photos. Of course it starting raining almost immediately but I was still able to capture some of the splendour of the burgeoning red carpet.

When I'd heard that AL had enquired about volunteering for herself and five friends, I was very keen to be part of the half a dozen early risers. I would have preferred not having to check in at 9am on a Sunday morning but for poppies I was willing to sacrifice sleep and knew it would be worth it. En route I was buoyed by the blue skies and hoped they would linger for our shift of ceramic gardening. I met a lovely woman on the tube who'd volunteered previously and promised I'd have a magnificent day. She also predicted the rain on Saturday would make the ground more amenable to our efforts. Due to the joys of Sunday morning travel I thought I might arrive late, but judiciously jumped in a taxi at Embankment and ended up arriving first, phew!

After checking in we're handed a red volunteer t-shirt and shown an instructional video demonstrating the ceramic poppies being made in the workshop and how we assemble each one in preparation for planting. First we select a rod of a variety of lengths. We feed a small washer, a larger washer and then a spacer, followed by an end cap onto the rod. This is much trickier than it sounds as the washers have to be a tight fit to do their job and even though I'm having to wear gardening gloves to shield me from all that rubberiness, despite the protection my fingers and thumbs are very quickly sore. The end caps are fiendish and all around you can hear the bang bang bang of the volunteers tapping the caps on the wooden assembly tables. When you're on planting duty, you have to remove the end cap (just as tough as placing it on in the first place), impale the rod in the designated location, place a ceramic poppy on top of the washers and persuade the end caps back on again, this didn't get easier. We each undertake a stint of assembly and planting. We rush through our shift quicker than expected and have some quality photography time amongst the poppies. And I was lucky with the blue sky, I just had to get under the tall poppies to capture the poppy red against the blue. I walked around and around shooting over 150 photos from every angle, the poppies against the lake walls of the tower, the red against the blue and the green, the poppies spewing out of the window, the sea of red, juxtaposed against the Shard and the skyline.

Thank you AL for getting us our "red ticket", it was a poignant experience thinking of the significance of each bloom and the tiny part we played in the piece. After 11th November, more volunteers will remove all the pottery flowers and send them back to the workshop for cleaning up and packaging up to send out to those who've pledged for one to support the six service charities that will benefit. I've already got my name down for one, I am sure it will be photographed as well.

#TowerPoppies

 

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Reflecting on a theme

It's sunny, for at least this moment so armed with sunglasses and my camera I aim to tick Coley Street off my list whilst Grays Inn Café toast my ham and cheese lunch time sandwich. My minifig is also sporting sunglasses, and clutching an iPad which gives me an idea reflection-wise.

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It's all about the bunny

The grounds of the Mary Magdelene church in Church Walk is a mass of daisies and wispy elderflower. I want to try and immortalise my minifig bunny and a dandelion clock but they're a little out of reach. The daisies are more accessible though so they have to be the second picture of the RPS Bleeding London photography project. I really wanted to create an image with the bunny and some Cadbury Mini Eggs but I can't find any anywhere. Clearly there's been a run on them over the Easter weekend but as the light fades I'm determined to track some down somewhere.

 

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365 days later...

So this is what the fruit of my labours of a 365 photo-a-day project looks like all concertinaed together. It's been a marathon, often a joy, sometimes a revelation and occasionally results in a photograph I'm really proud of. The photography bit has always been easier to keep on top of than the writing bit. I promise myself that I’ll just write a few words and then I'm slaving over a work of Tolstoy, random reminiscences just pouring out, which then bringing other memories to the forefront. If it were my full time job and I could be paid for it I could indulge in these flights of fancy but that’s a pipe dream so I need to curtail it sometimes.

I must admit I do love looking back on old posts, I've never been a diary keeper and capturing moments, memories, thoughts is curiously intoxicating. And even though it's often a slog to get it all down in a satisfactory manner, I relish the re-reading another day.

The whole exercise has encouraged much introspection, retrospection and I'm definitely aware of a marked difference in my photography over the year or at the very least, my observation. I just notice what's around and about so much more now. I find myself squinting at scenes I spot, imagining how I would capture it. I'm much more aware of cinematography than I've ever been. I catch myself watching a film and thinking about the lighting, depth of field, background bokeh and angles rather than the actual plot. I'm wishing I was there and could photograph that landscape, that cityscape, that situation. I drool over sunrises and sunsets on TV shows and my shutter finger itches.

My passion has clearly become by obsession. I hate being without a camera and even though I carry two of them, it’s extraordinarily rare I resort to the iPhone camera. I've just fallen for my EVF, I prefer the immersion in the image you get looking through the view finder. I rarely review my pictures in liveview too, preferring also reviewing through my EVF. However, as many cameras don't do that I often get accused of taking photos (especially on the tube at night) when I'm just looking at some captured earlier.

I feel I need to continue a project for 2014, and hopefully continue my progression. However, I do need to find a way to make it less time consuming writing-wise, and I suspect that will continue to be my biggest challenge.

I've been very taken by a book I preordered for Kindle on my iPad a few months ago and it suddenly turned up late last year. It is The Art of the Photograph. Essential Habits for Stronger Compositions by Art Wolfe and Rob Sheppard. I do really admire Art Wolfe’s photography and this book is proving to be an inspirational gem. He talks of the importance of surrounding yourself with inspirational items, places to go that provide succour and constantly seeking photos that transcend the subject and create something special for you and the viewer.

Much food for thought to be had for the photographic year ahead. Now what to do with the next 365 days...I’ll get back to you on that!

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Day 303 : third century!

Wow, somehow I've managed to keep this photo-a-day blog going for three hundred days and it’s been really interesting to see the metamorphosis over that time. Actually the 365 day project is a little more than 300 days old because when I realised there weren't enough days left in the year I guessed I'd miscounted along the way. And I had. Somehow back in April and again in July I had duplicated the day numbers. Of course I could just leave it but being a Virgo I knew I couldn't write the text “day 367 : it's the final day of my photo-a-day project” on December 31st. That would just mess with my head! So I painstakingly re-numbered hundreds of posts because really advancing one number each day shouldn't be difficult!

Each century has been characterised by the weather, the opportunity and my surroundings. The first hundred was a lot of dark nights on the tube, some snow and the first daffodils. For the second one hundred, Spring hit and I embraced flower photography especially with the aid of close-up filters. I enjoyed a wildflower workshop in Kent woodlands and a fabulous long weekend in Dordogne living my poppy dream.

The most recent one hundred days had me back in France staying on a luxury barge. This wasn't a photography holiday so I took my photographs when I could, luckily the barge was drifting along so slowly (the speed of a toddling child apparently) that I could easily capture vignettes of the summery French fields alongside the towpaths of the canals whilst languishing in the jacuzzi sipping fine rosé wine. The penguins seemed to take on a life of their own, they got everywhere, plus some other rubbery pals made an appearance. I exhibited a few of my photographs for the first time and the weather turned. The season of mellow fruitfulness hit with crunchy orange leaves, wind and rain. I befriended baby snails and a rubber duck.

So what's in store for the rest of the year? There's an Autumn Colour Photography walk in Kent to complement the Wildflowers in the wood walk in the Spring. Christmas is booked for a lovely little boutique hotel on the North Norfolk coast, I'm hoping for some windswept coastal, big, blue sky photography there.

And in the interim, I suspect the occasional penguin will reappear, hues of orange and brown and more sparkling raindrops. Welcome to the home stretch!

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Day 293 : undercover!

I signed up for a workshop today to consider creating photographs that are a bit more commercial. To perhaps explore the stock sites and deliberate what would make our work more saleable .

We were due to meet last week but the rain got in the way. We were meeting in Cambridge Heath to give us a variety of scenarios we could exploit. I get there for what I thought was an 11am start and it transpires we’re not actually due to meet for another 2 1/2 hours. Well at least after the early rain, the sun is out and I have time for a very fine Eggs Benedict before wandering around with my camera.

When it is time to congregate, the café is way too popular so we decamp to the pub on the other side of the road and Lucie imparts some of her knowledge in the world of fine art stock photography. We peruse various book covers and album covers and discuss how we could produce similar images.

Firstly we return to the park to try out some moods, we start with spooky with a plan to move to happy. But the moment we start formulating our dark, brooding concept the heavens open and we’re in the midst of a proper rainstorm. We don't need to dream up gloomy scenarios, we’re in the middle of one.

We shelter under the Japanese pagoda and Lucie gamely jumps up and down both with and without an umbrella to help us with our “happy” portfolio. The slate grey skies are doing little to assuage our less than jolly temperament.

After being thwarted by noisy boys driving us crazy by letting balloons down we are handed our briefs and set forth to make magic in the persistent drizzle. I have a book cover for a tale about a rich family that aren't what they seem, with the nanny at the protagonist. Lucie suggests I go and check out some haughty dog statues and large ornate gates but they're not doing it for me. I grab a few shots of potential nannies pushing strollers in the continued rain but guess that could be very misconstrued.

I'm not really feeling my challenge I'd like to do something more prop based with maybe a fancy dummy and some pearls. I opt instead to look at some rosé thorns covered in rain drops. I think the single thorn is a stronger image but my renderings are not quite sharp as I'd like.

As we’re all walking along a baby’s red ball rolls into the road and gives us another opportunity for an abstract shot. It's been a day for food for thought and I'm definitely going to consider touting my wares on some stock sites and see if they bite.

 

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Day 239 : don't touch the banana!

After doing my research on MINI last week and seeing the Not Normal campaign they are running I was determined to have a go at submitting one myself. Other submissions seemed to be detailed MINI sandcastles, elaborately crafted MINI cakes, a MINI made out of biscuits, salad and snow. Some of the images are pure photoshop trickery but I wanted to for straight macro photography.

And I figured it would probably also have to include penguins. I already had a 1:87 scale banana coloured mini MINI and my beloved 1:87 scale tiny penguins, really it seemed to write itself.

I had this idea of the MINI, hotly pursued by the penguins over an undulating landscape of oranges. In reality the MINI just looked a little marooned on top of the orange. I needed either a much minier MINI or a much larger orange. I’d thought of using a banana as ’the road’ but hadn't been able to discover a way to keep the banana at the jaunty angle I desired. However really the answer was staying me in the face, oranges! I could carefully balance the bananas on said oranges, pad out the sides of the fruit bowl to stop them rolling and try again. The background was a problem, the wall in the office was plain, good, but just dull and with weird shadows falling across it. I was sat on one of the wheelie stools we have around the breakout table trying to get tiny penguins to stand unaided on the curve of an orange (nigh on impossible) and a banana (slightly less hopeless), which is also where we keep fruit bowl. The wheelie stools are all different colours and an idea sprung to mind. If I just balance the blue one of its side on top of table, my little tableau would have a much punchier background.

In the end I had to resort to Pritt to give the penguins a fighting chance standing on the banana. After I fired off a handful of shots I had to rush and get on a 7pm conference call, hoping I nailed the “Not Normal” brief. I left everything set up with a plan to return in an hour. After the hour of machinations on the phone I go back to tidy up and efficiently the cleaners have beaten me to it. The stool is back in its proper place, the orange restored neatly in a bowl, my penguins and MINI carefully placed on the window sill but the banana - nowhere to be seen. Now I'm not a fan of bananas, but this is my boss’s banana and I'm not entirely sure how attached to it he was. Clearly he’d been hoarding it for a while, but maybe that's he likes them.

Our cleaners are Spanish so when I asked if they knew what happened to the banana, my complete lack of suitable Spanish vocabulary meant I was met with shrugs. I then total inexplicably thought I'd mime the missing banana, as you would. They look puzzled, mildly alarmed and one them just keeps pointing at the fruit bowl saying “orange, orange, orange”, clearly I’ve gone well past the realms of “not normal” now!

But just in case I ever have issues with wayward bananas again and need to interrogate any passing Spaniard, I have been suitably armed with useful phrases “Por favor, no tocar el plátano!” or “¿Dónde está mi plátano”. Sorted!

 

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Day 201 : second century...done!

I’m delighted that I've reached my second century, 200 days into my 365 photo-a-day blogging project. I still struggle to blog each day, on the actual day, and invariably end up playing catch up at the weekend, this one being no exception.

I can see my themes have altered dramatically in these 100 days rather than the previous 100. I've experienced my first studio shoot, finally got to Dungeness again, had a long weekend in France and discovered close-up filters. The first 100 days featured the underground, tubes and stations quite frequently, and occasionally snow. More recently it’s been all about flowers and tiny details. The late, reluctant spring was meticulously recorded, each bud, blossom and raindrop. Each time the sun showed its face I was there with a camera.

I finally got my wish and was able to walk through a beautiful poppy field, it had been raining all day so it was a much muddier experience than I'd envisaged. I took hundred of pictures of poppies over several days and immortalised them in screen savers, ’business’ cards and postcards.

Sunsets still feature strongly, I'm sure I’ll always be a sucker for a pink sky. My miniature people/animals have started to appear more, the close-up filters opening up a whole new world of possibilities. I’ve amassed a small penguin army and they will be popping up every now and then. There's been a smattering of black and white photographs, a handful of blue skies and the infamous Gummi bear murder! Architecture has figured more, there was a bit of a racing car, sparkly things, birds, bees and a Snog (frozen yoghurt).

I've spent more quality time in Richmond with my camera, it is sacrilege I live in such a beautiful place and don't appreciate it enough. I'm making amends there.

And as for the next 100 days...the first 10 are in France, there's another studio shoot coming up and I definitely will be checking out the Hairy Goat mystery day. The clicking continues!

 

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Day 101 : a century plus

I've actually managed to maintain a photo-a-day blog for a whole one hundred days. Okay, I admit the photos aren't always posted in the relevant 24 hours and I often have a catch up at the weekend but I'm just about there. However, despite really not knowing why I started this challenge, it's become very important to me. Some days, particularly the Monday to Friday ones, my sanity is stretched to its limit and pausing for a moment, several moments to look around and find an element of beauty, quirkiness, abstraction and just plain noticing things about me is utterly vital daily succour!

One day I may point my camera up at the sky, pink-streaked sunsets, golden sunrises and expressive clouds, the next day down towards the ground at some bold daffodil head, a pink bud unfurling its petals or sparkling raindrops. Many days I seem to train my camera on, ironically, tube trains, platforms and occasionally passengers...or at least their legs. I've loved my initial forays into photographing a miniature world but still struggle shooting real people's faces. If I needed any confirmation, I'm just not street enough to be a street photographer!

I'm excited as to what the next 100, and then the next 100 and the rest will bring. There's so many great photographs out there to capture, let's hope I can do a few of them justice!

 

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Day 93 : Not Star Wars!

Tonight was Photography Social night and as usual when I see the themes I veer towards abstract interpretations rather than the more literal staging of a scene. With the categories of Top Gun, Being John Malkovich, North by Northwest, Star Wars and Cliff Hanger, plus the bonus of Basic Instinct, it was initially quite tough. My first thought for Star Wars was trying to capture the infuriatingly random bursts of lights that would suddenly appear from underneath a nearby bridge. You couldn't really anticipate when or where they'd next appear so have to hedge your bets and point your camera up towards the part of the brick roof you'd figure would be the most productive. Eventually, before my arms got utterly fatigued, I got something that almost worked, with the bonus it looked a little like a Union Jack.

The team had more cinematic ideas. Get two of our troupe to stand facing one another in some mock fighting stance with a single fist clenched and aloft. Another two would stand behind drawing the beam of a light sabre with a mobile phone torch from mid air to the clenched fist. A final person would shoot the ensemble for a few seconds shutter speed hopefully catching an image with two straight beams clashing in battle. In reality keeping the virtual beams straight was very challenging so most looked a little limp and it being such an incredibly bitter night there was a limit to the number of retakes we could encourage everyone to endure. Fabulous idea though and more dramatic than my fairy light star burst, though I still rather like it.

 

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Day 61 : an egg cup, mini eggs and a miniature bunny

I’d had a vague idea that I wanted to try a little Easter tableau with some pastel Cadbury’s Mini Eggs, a white egg cup and a very tiny bunny. First I had to procure a set of HO small farm animals to get some bunnies. I'm sure the pigs and geese will come in handy for other scenes on another day.

I sorted through my various egg cups, I wanted perfectly unadorned white one but with some small interesting feature, this one I decided fit the bill. The lighting was a challenge, I really wanted the plain white background with a punch on the coloured eggs but no strong contrasty shadows. Im inspired by the elegantly shot images of a Donna Hay styled food images, always so much white. I set the camera up on the table top tripod and took shots whilst the sun was shielded by clouds, and again when it burst through. I think I prefer this version.

 

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Day 4: former leaves

The leaf shadows I'd been admiring again yesterday seem worthy of revisiting en route to the bus stop. I've spotted quite a few patches of this “phenomenon” the last month or so, possibly because we’ve experienced such a soggy Autumn. I'm assuming that the falling, possibly already damp leaves then got rained on further whilst on the ground so as they decomposed or finally got swept away they left these “shadows” behind. The two awful spindly trees that generated all this foliage have not only been extremely prolific for their diminutive stature but are still clinging defiantly to their last leaves amongst their more substantial and entirely denuded neighbours.

Luckily one of these remaining leaves posed obligingly for me as a counterpoint to its dearly departed friends.

 

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Day 3 : really looking!

So this 365 project lark has got me thinking, yes I know “already?”, and I'm thinking “what’s the point?” Whilst stood at the bus stop, this morning staring very fixedly at a tree it occurred to me, I was taking time to look. I could be scanning through the emails I received overnight, down at my shoes or my eyes could be closed silently willing a bus to arrive. But I was looking, really looking. I spotted the sad Christmas tree, neglected and propped up against a post box, the patterns the decomposing leaves had left on the pavement, the last few resilient leaves on the nakedly winter branches. On the bus I was rather taken by the busy pattern on the newly upholstered seats, the incongruous gold ballet pumps topping off a formal suit and after disembarking, the studs in the pavement marking the crossings and the utility covers in a myriad of designs - I always did love a texture.

I wasn't really looking up; the sky was doing that utterly bland thing where dawn breaking has just meant switching from inky blackness to a dim wattage light bulb, just white, white, and a bit more white. Not that a sky has to be blue but it should have some interest to it. A dark brooding sky can have much more vitality with golden whispers of the sun trying to break out giving a halo effect to the clouds. Or some movement and structure of a costal sky that would come to life under the steady gaze of a ten stop ND filter. Today, however, the sky was not up to any scrutiny. We are encouraged to “stop and smell the roses (or flowers, depending on the version you know)” and there must be succour to gain in just stopping and really looking sometimes.

I hadn't found inspiration yet, though the “leaf shadows” may be worth revisiting. But then that begs the question “Why would a photograph be taken at a particular time?” Would it be to capture a moment, a memory and essence? A scene of beauty to enable a revisit albeit virtually or an aide memoir? Or perhaps an incongruous or funny event that might be shared on Facebook later? Documenting an auspicious moment, perhaps for the family album or to share with the world your on-the-spot reportage of the momentous, the challenging, the downright depressing? I know I take pictures of people very rarely. This is me thinking I'm not very comfortable in front of the lens myself and almost surprised when others don't mind so much. Many of my friends take beautiful environmental portraits or capture poignant moments of street photography; I need more encouragement to undertake that form of photography and seem happier taking depth of field shots of artfully displayed food.

In the end for my daily photo, I resorted to rather bedraggled token nod to festivity that sits on my desk and gets wheeled out annually. I had been rather transfixed how the facets in the diminutive mirror balls were radiating the colour from the environs of my desk so after much pondering; today’s tree theme is a faux tree!

I am rather looking forward to some more “looking” tomorrow.

 

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Day 2 : red sky in the morning

So day 2 arrives and a peach of a sunrise to show for it. Okay a little samey after yesterday but you have to go with the flow. I couldn’t locate any nearby shepherds to warn but I suspect these days they rely on a weather app to alert them to inclement weather rather than cows sitting down or a fiery sky at sunrise.

This was taken from a speeding bus hurtling across Richmond Bridge propelling me towards the first commute of the year. If I could have got off the bus and composed better I would have loved the opportunity but time and buses wait for no-one and my real job has to take precedence, sadly! Assuming I wasn’t a slave to a rapidly ticking clock and I had disembarked and walked back to the bridge, I suspect the sunrise would have sneakily petered away to nothing and an early morning sun-kissed River Thames might have been possible but you can never predict whatmise-en-scène would have been awaiting me.

I was discussing the brave decision to try some sort of 365 day project– “some sort” will probably be very appropriate term here! They asked if I had a theme and it got me thinking – is it better to just shoot what takes my fancy on a particular day or does a defined goal help focus the photographer’s mind? I am not sure what the answer is but as I have accidentally fallen in to a theme within two days of the mammoth undertaking I figured I may opt for a series of little theme-lets and see if that leads to cohesion or chaos. So I guess I will be peering skywards tomorrow orscrutinising trees and their foliage.

 

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Day 1 of 365 - starting optimistically!

Whenever I hear of other 365 projects I'm in awe of the requisite commitment. When I followed the way of the Photo Mojo Motivator last year, I can say 'last year' now, I struggled with a fortnight of expressing myself photographically every day. And anyone who actually follows either of my blogs is well aware of my inertia with regards to blogging for so many, many months. I'm still eating and my camera is always close by so the only excuse I can proffer for my continued delinquency is lack of creative wherewithal due to the distraction of “other stuff” getting in the way to write some bon mots to accompany the day’s visual offering.

Well it's only day 1 so I really should be able to conjure up something. It seemed appropriate for the first day of 2013 to capture the tangle of the winter trees just outside my front door against an optimistic blue sky, a sign of good things ahead I hope.

 

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Dotty over spots

When the Jomojo threw our ”circles” yet again I was going to ”re-roll” but fate intervened. When I'd been given the topic of circles last week one of the images I'd immediately thought of was Damien Hirst’s infamous and dare say iconic spot paintings, or to be more correct, his controlled substance series. On a memorable visit to the original Saatchi gallery they had featured prominently and a spot emblazoned mini had been pride of place in the entrance (though Damien himself got into a row about it being art). We'd also discovered that when taking the water taxi to the Tate Modern whilst doing a little art gallery crawl, it had also been spotified. I was delighted to discover one of my clients had a huge original painting in their reception (Biotin-Maleimide) so I get to visit it regularly. It has always appealed to my aesthetics, despite the furore concerning whether they are art or whether they were or not actually painted by Damien’s assistants (it's safe to say the vast majority were). I think the combination of the pleasing lines, coupled with circles and the punches of colour just work. I know so many art critics cringe at this series as they bemoan the commerciality and consider it just too crowd pleasing and certainly not high-end art. I just know that I adore eating in Michelin-starred restaurants but also occasionally plump for an M&S ready meal.

So with all that said when I opened my Observer this today and realised the double page spread of the review section was this exact picture, circles won the day.

Ba-bling, ba-bling!

The Jomojo forced me to resort to 'some of my favourite things' today namely ”jewellery”. I do seem to be inordinately attracted to shiny things, possibly being part magpie, and have acquired a spectacular collection over many years plus inheriting some wonderful pieces as well. Therefore gathering the subject wasn't particularly challenging but it was, however, harder to decide which of the sparkly pieces should feature in the photograph. I wanted the picture to be fairly monochromatic so I started by selecting my smoky champagne diamond and black rhodiumed collection (all courtesy of the fabulous Sarah and all those at Bolder & Co.) Then selecting some random black or white diamond gorgeousness all accented with the Theo Fennell ruby phi symbol. Phi seemed appropriate as it represents the golden ratio or harmony, surely a lucky charm for any artist or photographer plus the rubies are a delicious pink.

It’s ended up rather as a cacophony of bling. If you look hard you'll see a ruby-eyed rabbit peering coquettishly from behind a flower ring and I have now spotted that the tiny date on my watch is incorrect, showing how much credence I normally pay to it. Well if nothing else it gave me the perfect opportunity to have a good rummage through my jewellery boxes and revisit some old friends.

 

 

 

Stationed!

Today’s Jomojo mission is ”stations”. Fortunately I generally pass through a couple of these in the course of the day but luckily I found myself at Clapham Junction, which is billed as Britain’s busiest railway station (I believe in terms of number of trains passing hither and thither rather than merely passenger numbers). It's nearly midnight so I'm a little challenged by low light and not having a tripod about my person have to avoid the long shots of the orange hi-vis jacketed engineers strolling along checking the line as they turn out as fuzzy fluorescent blobs. A more likely shots is one of the trains that come through every 13 seconds (at peak times) and I should be able to capture a speedy streak of SouthWest train-ness even without my three-legged friend.