The Royal Wedding Three Days of Photographic Nirvana

My three days in London photographing the royal wedding were unmissable.  For those that think why photograph a wedding? Then think again!!!I didn't have permission to enter the Abbey.  But the circus that developed around it was fascinating.  The worlds media were there in force and they worked themselves up into a frenzy.  Witness the cream of world "anchors" out on the streets around Buck House and the Abbey.  and the cameras everywhere and of every type.  Days of building small camera platforms for coverage and then all the hand held video camera crews roaming the street searching for the "soul" of the population.  What they found of course was a lot of unusual people many of whom had travelled from the US and Australia etc to camp out in front of the Abbey.  And on them photographers pounced.  A little like Catch 22 they could not sleep in their pop up tents because they were always being woken by CNN or CNBC or XYZ.

And then the Royals arrived and they ran a show that involved thousands of military and police and it all played out in front of us on the Mall with an energy and verve which was remarkable to observe.  And to photograph.  The Lord of the Rings like rush of the Death Eaters swept down the Mall with a determination that cannot be seen on the television screens.  The video images will move on but the still image captures the moment for posterity!!!!!

Attached are some rush images.  The important ones will come later after some reflection. 

Kate and Wills on the Mall

Family Wedding Image

Andrew and family

Cavalry rush down the Mall

All that shinny brass not to forget the head gear

Demonstration against war

Stan Peppar 91.  Friend of the Beatles and Chelsea Pensioner

Channel 5 Presenter for the Kate and Wills Wedding

Three Weeks One Easter - Chamonix Retreating Ice

I have just returned from a joyous three weeks in France.  What was planned as an Easter holiday was in fact more like a summer holiday.  Daily temperatures were up in the mid to high 20's and the smaller resorts were closed.  There was a lack of good snow on the Grandes Montet except up high.  And even then under ski it was a dusting of powder on top of an icy basement.  All thoughts of skiing the Vallee Blanche disappeared when I saw the "dry" and rocky nature of the bottom half of the glacier.

All around was bare ice where normally there is snow cover.  And evidence of crevasses opening up where previously they did not exist.  I attach some photographic evidence.

Shrinking and collapsing Glacier Du Bossons

Chamonix Aiguilles

Bossons and Gouter

Classic view of Mont Blanc and icy Aiguilles Du Midi

Filmic Delusions

A short update on my photography and where it is going and what decisions have been made.  This review will be expanded on my website under the title "state of play".

So here goes. The dilemma is do I shoot film i.e. large format film or do I shoot digital. Well having shot both I have a very good comparison. The tool of choice for comparison has become an iMac with a 27" screen running Aperture 3 with the full NIK software range of add ons. So how do they compare. Firstly having come back from Nepal more than a year ago with 18000+ images, something I am not particularly proud of, I had a major challenge to manage this material. Out of this has come an understanding of how to manage a large dataset and that means, for me, Aperture 3.0. And Aperture means an Apple iMAC. A really key thing is the ordering and management of the database. Aperture in conjunctions with the 27" screen allows me to manage and review the large group of images more quickly and more efficiently than anything I have used in the PC world. It helps me to get to the best image. With the addition of the NIK software for black and white conversion and local colour control.

So what criteria do I apply. Quality and quality and finally quality is the starting point. Sharp well exposed images. And here is where digital technically wins out. The exposure in digital is always better than in analogue. For as much as I try. Period. It is also sharper. On Large format analogue the optics are better. Strange that but the area of focus and depth of field control is better on my large Format camera than my Nikon D700.

So where does it take me. If all things are equal, and they are not, then you would go digital for the convenience. So why are they not. The digital images on the iMac are clearly sharper. Finally for those stuck on film who believe that film has a quality that is missing in digital I suggest they try NIK software’s Silver Efex Pro 2. A truely remarkable piece of software.  For those of us who were brought up in the dark room.  We could never have imagined that such a magical tool would be invented. The black and white conversion tools can reproduce anything you can imagine that is “filmic” and beyond.

I rest my case.

Converted by Nik Silver Efex Pro

Original image

The Optimism of a New Year

 I saw out the old year and ushered in the New Year in the dark at the Loch Morlich campsite.  Tip - toeing around on wet sheet ice, photographing the caravans and campervans.  They had an infectious optimism that I hope comes through in these three images.  They decorated their "vans" as if they were Christmas trees.  And a fine, surreal sight it was with the bright , vibrant colours reflecting off the ice. The twinkling of fairy lights.

Andy Linden Mundungus Fletcher in Harry Potter

It was a great surprise and treat to see Andy Linden in the new Harry Potter film.  Alasdair came home last night raving about the film and about Andy.

We met him at the Edinburgh festival on two occasion.  In the first he tried to persuade us to visit his show which we duly did.  Andy then after the show we bumped into him in the Gilded Balloon.  He has a very memorable persona - well suited to the opening scene in HP.  He was of course a little taken aback when I whipped out my D700 and took his portrait.  How close we got is seen in this 24mm mug shot of a memorable guy.

KOS - Life is a Mark Warner Beach

I went to Kos a Greek Island on holiday.  It was meant to be a total break and a beach and sailing holiday.  Nevertheless I decided to do a mini project on it and took my Sony D100 with me.  FOr two reasons.  Firstly I wanted to do a short documentary on what it was like to be o this type of holiday, never having been on one.  Secondly I wanted to be discrete in my photo taking.  also I have a real concern of destroying camera in a beach environment.  Sand, from my experience can be the end of a camera.  As it was the Sony did not disappoint and was as discrete as I was able to be.  I still got carried away and started running around on the beach poping in an out of boat huts and such and taking images which turned heads - what is he up to?  The "bairns" don't like it either.  So I was on my best behaviour.  It was after all a holiday!!!

I have on return generated a Blurb book.  You can see it on blurb.com  called KOS 2010.  All the images were taken with a small compact camera.  Yes it is not remotely as good as the Nikon D700.  Nevertheless the best camera you have is the one you with you at the time :-)  The camera review websites are continually searching for the super compact.  The tiny camera that will replace the big camera!!!  The holly grail of cheap but not cheerful - wonderful.  Well the Sony Cybershot series has always impressed me.  They are tiny cameras.  If the light is good then they will give you a perfectly usable image which you can exhibit up to A3 in size.  For 99% of people it is what the image tells you that matters.  They are not pixel peepers and cannot tell the diference between an image from a compact and a full frame sensor.  I still cherish the images from my first cybershot which had a mere 5mp.  My current camera has 13mp. http://www.edgehill.co.uk/gallery.php?gid=7