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Japan, here we come
You may have noticed a relative lack of postings around here since last month – this is due to keeping a low profile in advance of our next big trip, which starts Friday: Japan and Hong Kong! To say we are excited about this one is an understatement, considering that we booked the tickets in January and so have had 10 months to work ourselves up into a lather. We’ll be visiting Tokyo, Hakone, Nara, Osaka, Fukuoka, Kurokawa, Kumamoto, Hiroshima and Miyajima, Koya-san, Kyoto, Takayama and then back through Tokyo before heading back via a layover in Hong Kong.
Clearly, there will be photos. I am undecided but I may do a few Instagram-style photo posts while on the road as teasers, before unleashing the “proper” photos once we’re home.
In other news, I’ve been invited by Getty Images to license some of my Flickr photos for sale through their stock service. The method of choice from them seems somewhat random (there seem to be a lot of South American desert shots for some reason) but if it results in some extra income, then who am I to question why?
A night and a day in Istanbul
Another week, another work trip, this time to Turkey to visit a partner. Luckily I was able to cap my trip off with a free night and a free morning to revisit this beautiful city. From the tourist hotspots of Sultanahmet, through the fish sandwich vendors of Galata, and the bazaar district up through to the Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul once again proved itself to be a most photogenic city and I look forward to my next visit there.
These photos may also be found over on Flickr in case you’d like to comment or share them individually.
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- Phoning Home, Yeni Camii
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- Sandwich Vendor, Galata
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- Desolate Alleyway, Galata
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- Blue Mosque at Sunrise
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- Suleymaniye Camii Ceiling Detail
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- Fish Sandwich Boats, Golden Horn
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- Hagia Sofia and Fountains
Photography from Bangkok, September 2012
A couple weeks back I got back from our holiday to the Greek islands and immediately had to turn around and fly to Bangkok for a business trip. Once business was out of the way I was able to spend a little bit of time visiting Bangkok, camera in hand, splitting my time between Jim Thompson’s House, Chatuchak Market, and the classic must-see temple complexes of the Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho and Wat Arun. It was a short visit – my first since 2001 – but a highly fulfilling one.
For a change I am trying out WordPress’ built-in gallery view for my photos – click on any one to start a slide show – but if you’d like to see them in a still larger format go ahead over to my Flickr set for the usual goodness. Also this is best viewed in a proper browser window – so inside an iPad Facebook window, or inside Google Reader may give you some formatting issues.
Photos from late summer trip to Mykonos and Santorini
Once in a while you’ve got to remember to have a good old fashioned summer holiday, free from agenda, without every step being checked against a multitude of websites beforehand, with no plans beyond getting a tan, having a bit of a wander, and eating some good food.
This was one of those holidays. The Cyclades are a classic Mediterranean holiday destination, whose only mission in life is to host, for six months of the year, hordes of tourists, be they day-trippers from the cruise ships, two-week honeymooners, backpackers, or, in our case, casual island-hoppers.
Mykonos
Our first stop was Mykonos, with its classic maze-like old town, the bars of Little Venice, the inevitable decorative windmills, the beaches, the gays, the party crowd, and the omnipresent meltemi wind, always lashing the northern coast and making every beach visit an exercise in finding the optimal way to make sure your beach towel doesn’t turn into a sail. We largely avoided the “party” beaches and the ones where the sun loungers were almost on top of one another, and found some nicely sparse ones to the southeast called Elia and Lia. But we won’t be showing you the beaches here, because, well, that’s boring. What you’ll see below is a selection of shots mostly from Mykonos Town itself.
Sunset at Little Venice, Mykonos
Harbour fishing, Mykonos Town
Nap time, Mykonos Town
Kitchen of Niko’s Taverna, Mykonos
Railing and blue sky, Mykonos Town
Blue door, Mykonos Town
We enjoyed Mykonos and would go back, but the jewel in the crown was yet to come…
Santorini
Santorini is the glorious island that launched a million postcards, the result of a massive volcanic explosion that blew the top off the mountain island and left just the rims of the caldera poking above the Aegean. Since then, on the main island that remained, Thira, the steep rims of the caldera have been colonised by dramatic cliffside villages, blocky white “cave houses”, blue-domed churches and luxury villas stacked on top of one another, tumbling down the hills. It is immediately dramatic and beguiling, and we were lucky enough to have snagged a lovely little villa in the village of Firostefani, just north of the main town (also called Thira). We made a number of excursions to other destinations (the beaches at Perivolos and Vlychada as well as the towns of Pyrgos and Megalochori and the fishermen of Ammoudi Bay) and had some truly excellent food at places like To Psaraki in Vlychada and Aktaion and Mama Thira in Firostefani. It was a grand way to end the week.
Typical Blue Church Dome, Imerovigli, Santorini
Bougainvilla, Firostefani, Santorini
Santorini Caldera Coastline
Oia, Santorini
Lazy Cat, Oia, Santorini
Sandstone Cliffs, Vlychada, Santorini
Inter-generational fishing, Ammoudi Bay, Oia, Santorini
Classic Blue Church Dome, Oia, Santorini
Church Bells, Oia, Santorini
Of course the first thing every tourist guide and dog-eared Lonely Planet will tell you is that you shouldn’t miss the sunset from Oia. So we, along with every other tourist in Santorini, duly trekked north to participate in this mass ritual of sun worship. And I mean every other tourist. Despite the crowds we snagged one or two nice shots…
Sunset Crowds, Oia, Santorini
Panorama of Oia at Sunset, Santorini
Oia at Sunset, Santorini
That was to be all for our Clycladic adventure, however I knew that when I got back to London I would have to turn right back around the next day and leave for Bangkok on a work trip. More to come on that matter…
Of course, as ever, there are more photos from this trip to be found over on Flickr.
Until next time!
Paris, August 2012 – Photos of River Life
Due to a corporate reorganisation at the day job, I am now reporting into our Paris office, and this will involve regular trips to the City of Light. Poor me.
Of course, despite having been to Paris many, many times, it would be remiss of me not to take a camera along, at least on the overnighters, and so in that spirit I present some frames from my most recent outing, which happened to coincide with a beautiful summer’s eve. The Olympics were being shown live on a big screen in front of the Hotel de Ville, but I found my entertainment doing a lazy loop around the Ile St Louis and the Ile de La Cité, and perusing the pleasures of the Paris Plage, which seemed full of good-time Brazilians partying as the sun set over the Seine. In the evening I went out again into St Germain, always a rich photographic hunting-ground, and I remembered to bring my tripod…
You guessed it, there are more photos in the relevant photoset over on Flickr!
Seething as I am asked not to take pictures on my own street!
I just dashed off this fun little missive to the location manager, sub-manager and Brent Council Film Office contact for the location shoot that is going on across the road from me right now. Try to gauge my mood here.
Update 30 minutes later – wow, that was quick, they have replied to my letter – see the bottom of this post.
To whom it may concern,Hi, I live on [my] Road, and, having been on a film set before once or twice, was naturally interested to see a location shoot rock up on my humble street (despite lorries loudly arriving post-midnight last night).Whilst on the way to do some shopping I whipped out the iPhone to do a casual snap of the film crew in action, to show my absent girlfriend later, when I was approached by one of the gentlemen from [Security Firm Name] who asked me not to take a photo. I was standing on the public pavement at the time.I am a photographer on the side and am, as you will see, very protective of photographic rights. I’m going to get pedantic here, but you need to hear it.I explained to him that I had every right to do so, as I was on public land (see http://www.photographersrights.org.uk/page6/page6.html) and furthermore he was a visitor on my street, not the other way around.He tried to explain that there was a “custom” of not taking photos of film crews, which was a new one on me. I said he did not have the right to ask me to stop – not even a policeman’s badge, much less a high-viz jacket, would give anyone the right to stop me taking a photo from a public place – and he demurred that I had the right to take the photo, but then he had the right to wave his arms around in front of me (which he did not do) in order to prevent the photo. I admit that this is technically true, but he would have been harassing me if so and the police might have got involved. I was called “argumentative” for sticking up for my rights. Damn right I am.The point of all of this is that you are filming in a public environment, and so am I. You have a permit, I don’t need one. For your information I took an oblique photo (not video) of the crew, no cast members, and nothing plot-threatening (to be honest, rom-coms are not my cup of tea). But that is not material. As long as I am standing on public property, I could have had my professional camera out, shooting right into the action, and been within my rights.I understand your desire to protect copyright and prevent plot details leaking, and I am excited to have this sort of action in my street, but your desires do not outweigh my rights, and I am not going to be cowed by some guy because he happens to be wearing a vest.ThanksLuke Robinson
This was the admittedly very conciliatory and friendly reply, sent within thirty minutes. Fair play, I am a bit less seething now.
Hi Luke
Thanks for your email.
You are quite right, we have no right to stop anybody from photographing on the street, we only try to avoid flash photography or sounds ruining our shots, but that’s all, and this is usually just a request.
I am surprised that any of my security crew would have stopped you from using a camera in the street, only to ask you to be careful not to use a flash or something similar.
Please accept my apologies if this has caused you any inconvenience at all, I can assure you that this is just a misunderstanding, I will ensure that this does not happen again.
Photos from London 2012 Olympics Day 14 – Men’s Basketball Final (USA v Spain)
I was extremely fortunate that a certain friend of mine decided to move home to Australia, and equally fortunate that he had a kind thought for me, as I ended up with his tickets to the USA v Spain basketball final on the last day of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
As usual in the actual Olympic venues there was no problem bringing in my 70-200mm F2.8 and 1.4X extender – and these were juuuuuuust about enough to capture some of the action from our seats in the rafters.
It was an unexpectedly close match, with a lot of action on both sides of the court, and if you went by audience volume alone then it seemed like Spain was winning for most of the time. (I must say that thirteen years absence from America makes me slightly cringe to chant “U-S-A” like a pumped up frat boy, but I managed it.) There were the expected celebrities – although no Jack Nicholson – and the expected results at the end. USA 107, Spain 100.
As usual these and more shots of the match (and the Olympics) can be found over on Flickr.
Also, I would like to echo the sentiments of many, many others when I say that the Olympics was a real pleasure to host in London, and my didn’t London pull it off? So many emotional moments, so many shared highs and lows, and now back to the sordid business of normal life. I was very fortunate to go to a few events, and was happy to share the fortune with others by giving some tickets to those who had missed out. We will not see the like of these Games in our town again, at least not in our lifetimes. So it was truly special to be here, and I am thankful for it.
Now, if they had only not bolloxed up the closing ceremony…
Photos from London 2012 Olympics Day 7 – Men’s Hockey + Olympic Park
On Friday, August 3rd 2012 we returned to the Olympic Park to see the Men’s Hockey matches, Spain v South Africa and Belgium v South Korea. Though we arrived late due to underestimating travel time, we still caught some of the first match and all of the second. The atmosphere was merry for the Belgium / Korea match, as while there were a fair few Belgium fans and a smattering of Korean fans, the vast majority of the crowd were neutrals who took up the Korean cause as the supposed underdogs – cue curiously British football-style chanting of “We love Korea, we do, we love Korea, we do… ohhh Korea we love you.” Mexican waves abounded. And the hockey wasn’t bad. We joined the throngs afterwards ambling back towards the park towards Stratford and got to see the Stadium, the Orbit and the other buildings in their full night-time regalia.
Spain wins against South Africa in Men’s Hockey, Olympic Park
Olympic Men’s Hockey: Belgium vs South Korea
Belgium fans watch Olympic Men’s Hockey: Belgium vs South Korea
Olympic Men’s Hockey: Belgium vs South Korea
R.U.N. Outside Copper Box, Olympic Park
ArcelorMittal Orbit by Night
Olympic Stadium and Orbit by Night
There are about double the number of shots here shown in my photoset over on Flickr – go have a look.
I also did a cheeky little 360 degree panorama on the iPhone from inside the Riverbanks Arena which you can see here.
Photos from London 2012 Olympics: Day 3 – Olympic Park
The big gig is here. Despite many weeks and months of hand-wringing about expected meltdowns in London’s transport system, fears of a security catastrophe, and the shambolic ticketing website – of which your author has been a vocal critic – in the end, the twin factors of Mitt Romney sticking his foot in it, together with Danny Boyle’s bonkers and brilliant Opening Ceremony meant that most of London collectively decided to park the cynicism for a while and get behind the Games.
Speaking personally, we did reasonably well on ticket allocation. We were allocated Men’s Boxing Final in the initial lottery last year, got given Men’s Basketball Final tickets by a very considerate but absent friend in the last week, and managed to score, by persistent refreshing and the occasional head smacked against the desk, both Men’s Preliminary Round Hockey tickets and ground pass tickets to the Olympic Park.
It was those last Park tickets that actually came first chronologically, which was handy as it allowed us to have a look around the site without any pressure to be in any of the venues at a particular time. Photographing the Park was a funny beast; it’s all so massive that you are tempted to just do panoramas the whole time – but the volume of people in-shot all the time makes this a complicated prospect. So I mostly settled for detail shots rather than sweeping landscapes. We are back in the Park this Friday for the hockey so I hope to revisit some of these.
Olympic Stadium and ArcelorMittal Orbit
ArcelorMittal Orbit, Olympic Park
Wildflowers along the canal, Olympic Park
Nicole Cooke MBE being interviewed by the BBC, Olympic Park
R U N, Copper Box, Olympic Park
Norway Fans, Olympic Park
Storm Gathering over the Basketball Arena, Olympic Park
Park Live East Screen, Olympic Park
Wind Turbines at Sunset, Olympic Park
Sunset reflected on the Water Polo Arena, Olympic Park
More to come…
Timelapse videos: Enough already.
This might be just sour grapes – after all I have never gotten it together to actually buy or make a timelapse motion control rig – but I reckon the internet has enough timelapse videos now.
There is nothing technically wrong with them. The creators deserve kudos for the time, energy and technique put into capturing all their timelapses – something which by its very definition is a time-consuming and laborious exercise. Some of them are great showreels for their creators.
But here’s the thing: they all seem to blend in together after a while. If you keep up with photography blogs or websites, you know what I am talking about, I feel sure. Every video seems to feature some combination of the following:
- Cityscapes (bonus points for river traffic in harbour cities)
- Landscapes (bonus points for moving stars and/or aurora borealis)
- Stirring piano music (must be earnest and if possible contain grandiose string sections) *
- Suspiciously uniform two-metre horizontal travel (blame the dollies)
- Tilt-shift (optional extra)
- Vimeo (well where else would you put it, duh)
I am ready to see someone do something new in the world of timelapse videos. How can this already-stagnating format be invigorated?
*I swear all of the timelapse videos in the last year have used the same music, but it is so generic that it is impossible for the human brain to recognise it when heard repeatedly.
Mortal Coil 