Guernsey Salon of Photography

Some good news - for me anyway - arrived today in the mail today, in the form of a CD from the Guernsey Salon of Photography. One of my images had been accepted for the 2009 Salon,  and the CD contained the results and acceptances for this Salon. My image is "Richmond Park in Winter", which (at the time of posting) is up on the banner to this blog. It's also in my FLICKR photostream - you can click on the link to my photostream in this blog - the image is a few pages in, and its called "Richmond Park in Winter #1" there. The CD also contained a slideshow of the accepted images and mine included also !

Fourth Plinth, continued ....

Passed through Trafalgar Square the other day for the first time since the "One and Other" project on the Fourth Plinth had closed (in mid October). I had heard that a new statue was in place there and I was curious to see it.

A new statue has indeed been placed there - of Sir Keith Park, a World War 2 RAF hero. It's larger than life size, made from fibreglass and should be in place for 6 months (until next April ? It was unveiled early November 2009). It has had some mixed reviews, but then so did the previous project, One and Other, and so will, probably, the next, whatever that will be.

The green coloured One and Other production studio (along with the 2 bright yellow cherry picker type vehicles) have also long since been removed from the Square, giving it back some space.

Points of View

Spent this afternoon at the "Points of View - Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs" in the British Library near St Pancras Station in London. The exhibition covers the early years of photography drawing from the Library's collections. Hardly surprising (and rightly so) that Fox Talbot features heavily.

The exhibits finish in the 1st decade of the last century, catching up to Kodak's box camera et al, so colour photography is still some way off, never mind digital.
Quite a few cameras as well as photographs are on display and compared to today's offerings the cameras look big, bulky and heavy. Coupled with long exposure times its aamazing that the photographers achieved the results they did. I liked the display on the cartes de visite - this were very popular in the mid 1800's.

The exhibition runs until March 7th, 2010, and is well worth a visit. Better yet it is free.

Enchanted Wood, part 2

Another visit to Syon Park, over the weekend to photograph the Enchanted Wood. Not so windy this time, which was better - when you've got the camera on a tripod with the shutter speed in seconds the wind can play havoc with whats left of the leaves, branches ..... This time, a couple of misters were on close to some trees, and the lack of wind made them effective as subjects . So I managed to get a few shots, some of which you can see below.

                                                                  

Two quite different pictures. Whilst they are not the best pictures I've ever taken, I'm reasonably happy with them. I've not done any manipulation on them yet, time enough during the coming winter to do that.

Enchanted Wood

Nothing of note to post this week except a visit to a windy Syon Park to visit the Enchanted Wood. Here are a selection of some photos from that visit ....

St Paul's

Spent a very pleasant, if chilly, time in Central London a few evenings ago. Took my tripod in, thought I'd try to capture St Pauls at night time - from across the Thames. Good location - outside Tate Modern. Made a few exposures - and attach one I liked here. I'll have to analyse this one (and the others from that evening) in more detail soon - I was varying the shutter speeds, f-stops and colour balance in order to achieve different results. That is one advantage (some may say only but thats another matter) of digital photography - tha camera automatically records the technical details of each shot, for subsequent analytical use - you dont have to write down copious notes at the time....



Here's a similar photo of St Paul's for comparison, taken from almost the same position, across the river from outside the Tate Modern - but this one was taken in daylight. Quite a difference ?

Fashion Show

Had a different but interesting Saturday last - I was asked to attend a Fashion Show and take photos of the event. I'd never been to a fashion show before, never mind photograph it.

Photographically, the lighting was was patchy on the cat walk, with the best light at either end. Given crowds milling around - punters as well as others taking photos - using a tripod was not an option. Tried using flash (an accessory on the camera hot shoe with adjustable head, not the built in rubbish) - but obtained poor results.
So had to revert to using the camera hand held.



Managed to get some pictures as the attached show. I've got plenty more, many of which may be described as "too soft". Not sure if they show the clothes off to their best advantage - presumably the purpose of the show. I guess some more experience at events such as these will improve my efforts.