Nice to get back to Franks again this year with Emma. I’d already been once for the VIEW summer party which was rammed. Seems to be best to go at the weekends or get there early on a week night. Same kind of thing as usual, good food, views and Negroni’s. We had a great time although had a little too much sun.
And of course someone turned up with their tomato plant. As you do.
OMG the cat video went viral!
It does also explain how you see stuff in your feed once then a million times later as different groups all catch on.
Via & © @megpickard
I had some time to myself yesterday so caught up on a few bits and bobs including remembering that I had a folder of images from Feb that I hadn’t done anything with. This also coincided with me thinking I should give my Vimeo account a little more love.
I offered to help Max record this event that he wanted to stage as part of his application for a place at Cooper Union Architecture School in New York. I can’t remember the whole idea but anyway we went down there and set up in an afternoon until the tide came in. Freezing for me but worse for Max. We did a load of stills and I ended up with all these extra shots which seemed ideal for a time-lapse. We drew quite a crowd from the tourists on the Southbank who seemed pretty confused if it was an installation piece or just some idiots with a camera and too much time on their hands.
And this is it – a 20 second clip of him going in for each and every shot and getting completely wet and freezing each time. Suffering for his art.
And with all those photos I also did this really bad stitch of him coming out of the water in flippers which I did share at the time. Most importantly his application was successful and he even got a scholarship too.
I recently signed up for a new service called Everpix after seeing it featured on Daringfireball, which I read religiously. As it was free for the first year I gave it a go. The idea is that it uploads all your photos and then organises them for you and shows you highlights as well as applying some form of image recognition to show you landscapes, people and so on. It connects with iPhoto and has clients for iPhone/iPad and Android. It can also use a watch folder and just update each time you drop a photo in there.
I have found the idea of photo and memory quite interesting and always love going home and seeing family albums with photos in. I want to be able to refer to my photos in the future in an easy and accessible way but the sheer number of images I take makes this task pretty hard. I’m still struggling to finish printing and updating these albums but do want to do it. I worry that these memories will be lost, along with some of the names and places that go with them in say 40 years time.
So in the short term I’ve come to really like the Everpix daily email that they send. It’s amazing and sometimes quite thought provoking to see what you were doing one or two years ago. Even the mundane photos are enjoyable.
Was it really two years ago I did that photo shoot?
Was it really I year ago that we went to Wales with Matt & Graham? We should go again!
Yesterday was Emma’s Birthday. Whilst I’m rubbish at buying presents except from the pre-prepared list she gives me, I did want to have one small element of surprise. So I booked a couple of tickets for the viewing platform at the Shard and got out of work early. Of course as soon as I said “Meet me at London Bridge” she knew what was going on.
We both used to work at London Bridge and got a bit of a shock without that dark old roof in place. Lots of light, lots of construction work still ongoing but still on its way to being completely transformed. I’ve taken loads of pictures of the Shard from Peckham so it was nice to go and see it up close and personal. Having been up the Empire State in New York and had a hellish time we were both pleasantly surprised about how nice the experience of going up there was.
There was plenty of space, you could get to see the view easily and it was nicely detailed for the inspecting architect to visit. I was actually really impressed with it all. You arrive into a large enclosed space and then are able to go one level up to a more open section. At that point you’re actually right up against some of the shardy bits which is pretty amazing.
It’s amazing seeing the city beneath you, especially when you’re able to see deep into the street pattern of areas you’ve walked and cycled around for years and years. The way the railway cuts through the city is also quite incredible.
Following that we wandered into Borough Market to have a few drinks at The Rake. It’s been a while since we drank there and again Borough Market has changed so much. Still the beer and company was good and I managed to get this wonderful photo of Emma.
That was then followed by birthday dinner at the Dragon Castle at Elephant and Castle. Happy Birthday Emma!
Architectural photographers tend to work alone generally, there are exceptions but we’re a funny bunch and don’t generally collaborate with other photographers. So for this recent project it was a real pleasure to work and collaborate with my good friend Jim Stephenson (or Brighton Jim as I call him) to shoot a series stills and record some video footage of series of temporary pavilions or installations set in a beautiful landscape. This was part of Studio in the woods summer event, which is now in its seventh year. It was originally started by Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio who I worked with back in 2001 in Bath. This year it was run by Studio Weave and they were able to secure some public land to use in Stanton Park just outside of Swindon for the first time. Rather than try and describe it myself here’s the description from the project website.
Now in its seventh year, Studio in the Woods is a five-day outdoor summer workshop led by a group of award-winning architects and engineers aimed at architectural students, practicing architects and a wider audience with an interest in sculpture, landscape and the direct experience of making and building with materials to hand.
Studio in the Woods is an ongoing educational programme promoting the exchange of architectural knowledge and skills through experimentation and direct experience.
The practices leading the workshops were Studio Weave; Invisible Studio; Gianni Botsford Architects; Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios and Erect Architecture.
Jim and I were able to record the series of five completed installations around the forest on a beautiful scorching hot summers day. We shared the tasks of shooting stills and video, each coming up with ideas and critiquing the proposed shots. We quickly picked up a method of working and by the end of the day had the collaboration down to a fine art. The collaboration continued into the editing of the video and stills and I feel we both got a huge amount out of the day. It’s great to work with someone else creative and would love to do it again. More people should try it!
All content in this post is © Andy Matthews and Jim Stephenson.
And here’s a few of my favourite shots from the day which I’m really pleased with.
Love seeing robots work in factories. So elegent and graceful yet also slightly sinister. Ok, so it’s a bit of a PR piece for Tesla but damn it’s beautiful.
It’s not often you see London in a completely new light as pretty much every single angle has been covered, and then done to death. These shots via With Links* and shot by Rupert Jordan prove that this old city still has some fresh perspectives left in it yet.
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