Gluttony...or cannibalism!

Tonight's Photography Social is just off Carnaby Street and, as usual, I arrive cutting it fine. The format seems to have changed a bit which is slightly confusing. Instead of just one photo for the team submission, everyone submits a photo for the team photo. Tonight it was "resurrection". I guessed it would be vaguely Easter based but this was a challenge. I opted in the end for a close up of some new leaves emerging on a bush surrounded by the grown up leaves.

The individual challenge was briefly the ten commandments, until it seemed obvious apart some vague idea about not coveting a neighbour's oxen, we'd drawn a bit of a blank, do was swiftly changed to the seven deadly sins. As luck would have it, earlier today I'd taken delivery of a collection of random minifigs because I had an idea of a photo I wanted to do for Easter. Hmm, that gave me an idea. I also had a small bag of tiny Malteser chocolate bunnies too, I could go for "gluttony" or cannibalism, if that was one of the deadly sins. All I needed was a bit of decent light. I stayed at the wooden table in the pub and tried with the aid of iPhones to illuminate the now chocolate smeared face of the Lego bunny to bring life to my vision. The light from the iPhones was too harsh however, so I had to try and harness the overhead lights instead. Eventually I was able to get the shot I wanted. And it worked, I scored myself a ten and another shiny red ten badge. Whoo hoo!

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Discovering our inner Hitchcock

It's a quiet social tonight and I'm in a small group in a fairly desolate area around South Bank. We've all been given the challenge of Hitchcock and everyone seems to be looking for birds. I'm pretty convinced they'll be asleep so I'm more interested in rear windows. We find some but they're not impactful enough so we scratch our head a decide what we really need is a guess appearance of Hitchcock himself at the beginning of his movies. We find a spot where we can get a crisp shadow and to finish the look, a handy rear window. I encourage my team mate to ditch his flat cap and rucksack, and stuff his jacket with my hat and scarf. It has to be monochrome to complete the mood. I'm pretty pleased with our resultant shot and scored us a big fat ten! Whooo!

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Day 289 : number ten with a bullet!

The Frui social group challenge is a bit esoteric this time. We have to dream up a band name and conceive an album cover for possibly their first musical offering to the world. Our group start thinking of reflections in puddles, a little abstract and little urban. We passed a tattoo parlour and were rather taken by the flashing red neon sign but decided to park it in favour of puddles. Surprisingly with the impressive rain today we’re not getting joy from the puddles at all. We’ve only got 30 minutes to complete the mission so we have to step it up. There's a wonderful vintage looking shop and we fire a few shots off with one of our team staring in the window wistfully. We espy another tattoo emporium and we try some close-ups of some of their impressive handiwork. A close up of an eye on a poster, a fire alarm, objects from window displays, parts of signage, nothing is really calling us. We’re heading back via the original tattoo place, I love the red sign and think we could use it.

We all take clean shots but as I am fixated on the lights (like a moth) I purposely focus on them to give a softer look. This finally looks like a potential album cover and I shoot more purposely off-focus to give it a grungier look. I'm the only one who can shoot in square frame and we’re convinced that would add the extra kick to our image.

On returning everyone agrees that this shot is a winner, but what about our name. We briefly toy with a revival of the early noughties Russian lesbian girl band, with DP as our manager (not wanting to play a lesbian) but we didn't think everyone would get the reference AK came up with a considerably better name of “ink.” (With the vital full stop) for our band name and a new indie-rock band is born. For the backstory we decide that this is our difficult first album and creative differences have already beset our efforts.

We scoped a covetable and rare ten for our efforts - whoop!

 

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Don't look down!

Tonight the Frui Social is on a boat, not a boat that sails up and down the Thames but one firmly anchored. I have packed some sensible shoes for exploring later but on arrival I'm wearing my new hot pink, bejewelled and befeathered and exceedingly skyscraper high shoes - no, I'm not sure why either! It was one of those good idea at the time situations. My first realisation of my epic fail in the shoe department was when I attempted to walk the extremely steep gang plank, so steep I had to be rescued. Fortunately once I'd arrived on relative terra firma, albeit a watery one, I could slip into something less fabulous!

This Social’s theme is surprisingly literal maybe due our not very well lit surroundings. We had to photograph water, wheel, street sign, statue, food, and as a curve ball, dog poo. I can only speculate what goes through Henry’s mind when concocting the night’s challenge. The pavements around here are wide and seemingly very dog free. Finally after spending a disproportionate part of our allotted hour scouring the immaculate pavements for the elusive substance and yes we managed it, and took quite an artistic shot considering but was pipped to the post by some soggy Mars Bar fakery.

However the real verses fake dog poo-gate aside I did score a ten out of ten for my statue picture. Result!

What wasn't such a result was changing back into my not-so-sensible shoes and then realising the tide had gone out and the angle of the boat's gang plank was considerably more perilous than my arrival. Doh!

The big pink ten!

Our sunset shoot is going to be a cluster of infamously photogenic stones at Kimmeridge. Our plan was to get there way before the sun was thinking of removing its hat and book the best tripod vantage points as space is limited. This turned out to be a wise decision as sunset approached other photographers arrived and loitered at the edge of the water hoping we’d just leave. But we didn't. We were on a mission.

The plan was to experiment with the magical ten stop filters in conjunction with neutral density grads (as the sky is invariably at least two stops lighter than the mid point (the sea or a handy rock). To make their mystical powers you need to pile in the filters and sloooow down the shutter speed, the challenge I have is 69 seconds is the maximum shutter speed my camera can muster and the desire to get the “milky water” can tend to make my photographs a little dark.

I managed to get the beloved by the landscape photography images in magazines - the smooth creamy sea And I discovered that my filters have a tendency to colour cast, luckily I like pink!