Random Thoughts on a Vague Theme of Photography - A Blog
Lots of New Galleries
28 Sep 2013
I've been doing quite a lot of work on the site lately, trying to get more of my pics uploaded. So far I've added the rest of the London and West Yorkshire galleries, all the Midlands and Lincolnshire ones, and the Manchester pics, which currently is just a single gallery.
So, here's a nice pic of a cat in the British Museum...
And one of Coventry Cathedral at sunrise...
A Month of Gigs...
11 Jul 2013
As you may or may not know, I am very much into my gigs... June was a particularly busy month for them, with three in the space of as many weeks. What I don't like so much is editing the pics, as I can only take my compact and hope for the best, and trawling through lots of not-that-good pics (when I know how much better I could do with better equipment...) is a bit frustrating! I have now done all the gig edits though, so am back on the 'normal' editing, which I'm generally still fairly up to date with. Once I do get up to date, I have several ideas for quite specific things I want to shoot, but that will have to wait for a later post...
So here's a rather nice pic of a certain Mr Bon Jovi...
And one of Sir Cliff...
And as I already mentioned that there were three gigs in June, I'll complete the set with a pic of The Who playing Quadrophenia...
Ok, so it's been a while...
10 Apr 2013
I know, I know... it's nearly a year since I last posted anything on here... what can I say - you know how it is, you keep meaning to do something and never quite get round to it...
That doesn't mean I've not been shooting and editing though; amongst other things I've done quite a lot of exploring in the last few months, so the collection of Urbex galleries has now reached eight, or nearly 1,600 photos... I've also managed to catch up with my eternal backlog of editing, though it remains to be seen how long this will last! I'm now trying to keep on top of the editing, rather than accumulating several months' worth to do, so I'm starting to get more stuff added to the website. Some of the stuff I'm adding is from soon after I started shooting though, and isn't really up to my current standards, but looking again at the pics I feel aren't so good will hopefully inspire me to re-visit those locations and produce some higher quality images! So don't be surprised if some of the older pics disappear from here at some point...
As always, if you want to see my latest pics, the best place to find me is on Twitter, as I generally upload my favourite pics there as soon as they're edited; on this site I only upload a set of images once the whole shoot is done.
So, time to pick the image for this post from nearly a year's worth of stuff... let's have one from a snowy Scarborough, taken on my birthday holiday earlier this year...
Exterminate...
30 Apr 2012
I've added a couple of galleries of random stuff - the Daleks, when they decided to visit Sheffield, and the Luminarium, which is a coloured inflatable sculpture, and looks much better than it sounds!
An Array of Daleks...
Some Beautiful Colours
By the River
08 Apr 2012
I live by a river, and I love to look at, and (try to) photograph, the various creatures I see around here. My favourites, but also the most elusive, are the kingfishers. I have managed to get a few pics, but I'd love to get some more! I also often see a heron - they're fantastic birds, huge and elegant, and sort of stately when they fly. For some reason they always put me in mind of something prehistoric, like a pterodactyl...
Mostly it's just the usual suspects, like mallards and moorhens, but even these are quite fun to watch. Soon I'll be looking out for their chicks - baby moorhens are like tiny balls of fluff with huge feet! There are also some rats; I know many people don't like these, but I think they're cute. They've also just had babies, and the little ones even cuter!
I'll put up my nature gallery at some point, but meanwhile here's one of a rat, with his eye on a discarded crisp... (this pic should be animated, provided you're using a browser that supports animated images...)
A Busy Few Days
03 Apr 2012
Over the last couple of weeks or so I've been to some great places and taken loads of pics, which is good, but also means I'm snowed under with new stuff to edit, as well as continuing to work through all my old stuff. Within 10 days I visited The Deep, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and Kirkstall Abbey, and must have taken well over 1,000 pics! Not sure I got a better pic of Kirkstall than the one in the previous post, but got some equally good ones in the same location, and a lot more pics of the outside, due to the weather being so lovely.
I've also slightly updated the website; it's now possible to link to an individual image. This will be useful to me even if nobody else notices! And it was a function I wanted, and managed to program, which is always very satisfying!
Here's another pic of the Chapter House at Kirkstall Abbey:
Some large teeth at The Deep:
And some randomness at Yorkshire Sculpture Park:
My Early Stuff
15 Mar 2012
Now I've got this site pretty much working how I want, I've been working through all my old photos, re-editing as necessary, and ignoring dodgy stuff in many cases! But I have found the occasional gem of an image - the pic below, taken at Kirkstall Abbey near Leeds, is an example. I'm also finding lots of places I want to revisit, so I can take some better pics!
The Exploration Files
07 Mar 2012
One thing that fascinates me is dereliction. Old or ruined places are all at once creepy and beautiful, peaceful and unnerving - the last due to the fear of being caught! It won't be to everyone's tastes, but I love the textures in these places, all flaky fading paint, rusty metal and crumbling brickwork. You also often get brilliant lighting, where bright sunlight streams in through old skylights or the remains of a roof. It's always interesting finding fragments of what was once there, and wondering how these places, especially the grand old houses, came to end up this way. Clearly I'm not the only person to visit them, as often you find amazing graffiti pieces on the walls, and it's always worth returning to the same place to see if there's any new artwork.
The Urbex (urban exploration) folder is labelled Part 1 as this is only a very small part of what I've photographed; since I intend to limit gallery sizes to 200 pics, or possibly fewer, then more than one gallery will definitely be needed!
Bronze and Steel
05 Mar 2012
I've been meaning to get a photo of this sculpture since it was moved outside Meadowhall a few months ago. It used to be inside the centre; even if I'd found a good angle to shoot from, I rather doubt I'd have been allowed to shoot in there! Saturday was the first time I've been there and thought of shooting the statue, when it's actually been decent weather, but I'll definitely be shooting it some more.
A Quiet Weekend
27 Feb 2012
Sometimes it's nice to not do much at a weekend, maybe wander into town and take a few pics, but not do a big shoot which would generate a lot of editing! So this weekend I took a few pics in Sheffield Cathedral, and some (mostly of crocuses and snowdrops) in the Botanical Gardens.
Here's one from the cathedral:
And a crocus - it must be nearly spring!
The Sun Court
15 Feb 2012
I've finally finished the pics from the Scarborough trip, and added them to the gallery. And just because I love this pic, I thought I'd post it here too! Next time I really must shoot this at sunrise...
A Musical Interlude
13 Feb 2012
As I've sort of become my friends' band's official photographer, it's about time I added the pics of them to the site! I definitely don't claim to be much good at the gig stuff though...
Here's a pic - the rest are in this folder.
Quick update, and a random photo of a clock...
01 Feb 2012
Updated the site yet again, hopefully the galleries will load a little faster now! And maybe I'll be able to spend more time editing and less time coding! Just added the Scarborough Castle gallery too, and a couple of new portraits, so here's one of those...
Some Random Bits of Trains
23 Jan 2012
On the way back from the Scarborough trip, we spent a couple of hours at the National Railway Museum in York. Lots of interesting, random, and shiny things to photograph there! The elegant and iconic Mallard is also there, though I'm not sure I've managed to get a good enough pic yet... must do better next time...
Here's one of the random train details...
Tinkering with Website Design
17 Jan 2012
So, even though this site has only been live for a couple of weeks or so, I've already redesigned it! The gallery pages now work differently, and are hopefully better!
Meanwhile, here's another pic from Scarborough Castle...
Some Fascinating Little Fishies...
14 Jan 2012
While in Scarborough, I visited the Sealife Centre. I really wish I had a better camera, as most of the pics from there are quite grainy, due to me using a high ISO... it's dark in there and the fishies move quite quickly!
This little creature is a leafy sea dragon, and was definitely my favourite thing there...
And I just couldn't resist adding this one! (This should be animated, though not all browsers will display it as such...)
An Intro
12 Jan 2012
So, I thought perhaps I should have a blog type thing on my site, in case anyone should be interested in the random things I may write! If nothing else, I'll be able to add pics from a shoot before the gallery is updated (as I probably won't be adding to the galleries until I finish editing a particular folder of images), so the pics here will be a little preview...
To start with, here's one from Scarborough, where I spent a few days for my birthday earlier this week! :-)
