Another week, another shoot, beautiful colours and some lampshades.

Another week (and a bit), another late blog, another self-inflicted challenge but thankfully a successful photo-shoot.

Last Sunday I was lucky enough to be invited to the Tobacco Factory Market in Southville where ace lampshade maker Ruth McAllister a.k.a. Quincy Lampshades set out her stall. Ruth was interested in having some shots she could use on her website, twitter feed, facebook page or other publicity.

I was somewhat unsure of what to expect. After all, I am neither a serial market goer nor did I ever think I would ever be photographing lampshades. Always up for a challenge I was happy to oblige and thankfully the results were good.

Ruth builds a wall of lampshades on her stall that is quite stunning with a fabulous mix of colours and designs all jostling for pride of place.

I really want to thank Ruth for asking me to do this shoot with her and I look forward to some of the images appearing around the internet very soon.

All my favourites are on my web site here. Please come over and check them out. I feel sure you will enjoy looking at them as much as I did capturing them.

Ruth has also blogged about her experience and is showing her favourite images from the selection on her blog here. Please show your support by dropping in to say 'hi'.

Kevin

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Second Day Of My Workshop - and my Sweet Shot Tuesday Post 21/06

Last week I was telling you about the first day of two day workshop I was attending run by award winning photographer Morag MacDonald of Documentary Image. The first day was talking about how to gain control of your camera through effective use of the manual settings.



Day 2 of the workshop was building on the lessons of Day 1 and really concentrated on how to use the correct exposures to match the type of image you are trying to capture whether the deciding factor is the amount of light available, the speed of the subject or perhaps something a little more special.







I was excited by the opportunity to capture one of those images (it must have a special name) where a subject is static but the world around them is whizzing past. 






These were my favourite of the session but the later outdoor shoot provided further opportunity to play with exposure and capture .... rain .. yes rain, there was loads of it. But it provides its own opportunities and it take them where I can.




There are more images from the workshop on my Flickr stream which I hope you'll enjoy.


Kevin

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Revisiting The Basics - My Sweet Shot Tuesday 14/06

I am lucky enough to be on a two day course run by award winning photographer Morag MacDonald of Documentary Image. In some ways it's quite a basic course but being mostly self taught I wanted a course that would try to break me out of any bad habits I'd got into and make sure I understood what I was doing and why.




The premise of the course is to teach you full control of the camera by the using it in fully manual mode. Today we were playing with one of my favourite photographic toys, depth of field.

I have uploaded my favourite images of the day to my Flickr stream but just wanted to show a couple here because I've really rather enjoyed taking these. They come to you "out of the camera" as we are encouraged to get the exposure right first time and save on the need for post processing.









We went to an old dock side area in Bristol which is still mostly undeveloped from the days when Bristol was a bustling port city so there is lots of old debris still around which makes for interesting images.





Kevin

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Music and Furniture - Quite A Combination For One Week

Wow what a week - there seems to be no let up in the opportunities I've been presented with in the last few days to update my albums. It has pretty much got to the point where I've started to fall behind with the editing, cataloging and writing so now it's full on to start to catch up some.

Over the last week I was allowed to take a small photoset of keyboard and flute duo  Tranquillo as they played and was invited to shoot a Furniture exhibition being put on by a collective called Furnish.

OK perhaps not the sexiest of shoots (the furniture that is) but it was  great opportunity for me to get involved in something very different and have the challenge of photographing objects under exhibition hall lighting.

The images below are samples from both of these sets.

These girls busking at Cardiff Bay were a duo called Tranquillo  and were kind enough to let me take some shots of them as they played.

There is something about the Black & White of the keyboard that just lends itself to being reproduced in a Black & White image.

 
Perhaps my favourite shot of the set. Shot with a Pentax M50 lens I love the clean lines of the furniture in the foreground whilst the background start to dissolve away behind it.

Again, shot with the Pentax M50 I think great lines, good lighting and to me the intricate shadowing below the seat just adds to the picture.







As always I hope you have enjoyed these and that you'll visit my Flickr stream to see more.

Kevin


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Colours From A Market - My Sweet Shot Tuesday Link 31/05

I had the pleasure of flying to Newcastle last weekend, the main objective being to see 'Take That' in concert. The evening was everything it was built up to be but that's just the background to this piece.


Because of the flight times we had a whole day to kill on the day following the concert, so after taking advice we took ourselves off on the tram to Tynemouth.

When we got off the tram we were confronted by the most amazing Sunday market full of all sorts of new and second-hand goods, so while the ladies in the party took themselves off to see what was what I took out my camera and started looking for some images that I would enjoy looking back on. 

The beads above were on a stall run by the good folk from Bubbly Beads and they were good enough to let me take some shots for a photo story which I'll publish sometime soon















My objective was to find colours, fill the frame and most of all practice manual focus, yes that's right, practice manual focus.

These are some of my favourites. What do you think?









Kevin


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A review of The 3rd Floor Gallery - Cardiff Bay

When the day job takes you to the same location day after day it becomes quite difficult to find something different to do when you decide to take a break outside.

It was both a pleasure and a surprise to come across the Third Floor Gallery tucked away by a busy cross-roads in the heart of Cardiff Bay.

The gallery, called that because it is situated in the 3rd Floor of an old office building, can be accessed only by using the entrance buzzer and being buzzed through the front door.

After tentatively making my way up the stairs was greeted by a lovely lady who offered me a cup of tea and I started to look around what was on show.

The gallery is very airy and quiet with just a hint of traffic noise from below. It is in an excellent location and well suits its purpose.

The website outlines a number of activities going on within the space and via twitter and facebook I saw details of a photographic 'show and tell' event where you were invited to take your own images along to show them off.

The collection showing currently, and through to 12th June is 'The North' by John Bulmer. In brief, it is a selection of images taken in the North of England during the 1960's and 1970's .

The gallery is well worth a visit and I certainly enjoyed the images on display in the current collection. If you are in the area then do drop in and show your support.

See my own growing selection of Cardiff Bay images on my flickr stream.

Reflecting On Looking Forward

I cannot believe what an intense week it has been. Last week I wrote about my photoshoot with Paula which still has me buzzing and I'm sure that it's an event that I won't forget for a long time.

But I have to look forward and that is what I am doing now. This last week I have been working on ...... well I can't actually say yet but it's all to do with me taking a step forward with my photography and I hope to be sharing this with you soon.

It pains me to say it that so much effort has gone into putting some building blocks in place for the future that I've hardly touched my camera in recent days so my pictures this week are taken from a set I took recently when researching locations.

I love images of reflections, they're often not easy to come by so I catch 'em while I can and this one is no exception

My second is this waterfall feature which I think works quite well. My opinion is that if you can get the shutter speed right and capture just the right amount of movement in the water then you can come out with a really good shot.



I hope you like them.

Kevin


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