bikes and things

Work is pretty manic at the moment and quite a few late nights have been worked over the last few weeks. It looks like it’s going to be like that up until Christmas. After a very late night on Thursday I finally succumbed to the cold that seems to be doing the rounds (man flu). So after a bit of a sleep this morning I headed out to the Southbank to try and have a play with the D700 and also the new grip I’ve got for it last week. It’s kind of odd using it when doing portrait shots but nice to not have to throw your hands right over to reach the controls.

So it now looks something like this. Larger, more batteries and that set of vertical controls. Obviously it’s also a lot heavier. I managed to get a set of higher spec AA batteries which means I can get the full 8 frames per second out of it, although it’s not something I can imagine using that much for Architecture. It’ll definitely help when doing an all day shoot though to avoid taking a charger with me for lunchtime.

Here’s a few shots from today before I went home and got back into bed.

One of my favourite buildings, or rather collection of them, in London is the Barbican. I’ve been meaning to go and do some shots of it for a while now but never quite got there. I had the lens with me from a job on Friday so headed over there this afternoon for an hour or so.

The light was stunning today and lovely and warm but quite stark and contrasty. I played around with these for a while in Lightroom but ended up going for black and white in the end. Pleased with the few shots below.

Not a bad view from our new flat over London. I love the way the light changes during the day.

Whilst not a gig I normally I would have signed up to go and see, the good Janey Mac bought us tickets to see them last night at the Hammersmith Apollo. They really are incredible live and spine tinglingly good. This version doesn’t really do it justice as to how good they are live.

Here’s two rubbish pictures taken with my phone also.

We visited Franks Campari bar the weekend we moved flat – about 4 weeks ago now. We got very drunk with Patrick and Smiley Kim (her real name) when we should have been at a gig in Victoria park. It was raining and we got drunk in South London instead. Silly but fun.

Was shooting with the LC-A that day. Whilst the lens has some pretty bad distortion going on it’s got a great contrasty feel to it and is incredibly sharp in the middle of the frame. Love this little thing and it works really well with this load of expired Superia I have.

The views over London are incredible. It doesn’t take much to get above the rooflines and see the full panorama available. Lovely to watch the storm pass in the distance and see dusk fall over central London.

I’ve said a number of times how much I like the Hipstamatic application on my iPhone but this is a slightly more creative use of it. Patrick holding a bike light to illuminate their faces with the incredible view from the top of a car park in Peckham behind.

We’re moving out of our flat on Weds to somewhere a bit cheaper and also a bit closer to the Gowlett – our favourite pub. So at the moment we’re packing our entire belongings into cardboard boxes. Almost theraputic in a way. We’ve got two men coming with a van to help move us which should make it a lot easier. Then we have the rest of the week off to organise, put books in shelves and eat pizza.

Even if a driver of an HGV is looking he/she might not see you if you’re on the inside. This little video shows just how bad the blind spot is. Obviously this could be sorted with better mirrors but even so it’s still breathtaking!