Archive
Wedding Photo Gallery – Courtesy of Dean Govier
Some good memories and good images to be found in Dean Govier’s coverage of our wedding festivities back in late September of this year at Longstowe Hall – go have a look. Dean is very competent and professional, and has an artist’s eye. And he’s a good sort. Recommended.
Copyright @2013 Dean Govier
Glastonbury Festival 2013
After a break of three years, we returned to the Glastonbury Festival and it was one of the best ones yet – the weather for the main days was lovely, the sheer quality and variety of entertainment on offer was mind-boggling, and of course many of our fellow revellers made for a great atmosphere throughout.
Musical highlights included Chic (staggeringly good), the Rolling Stones (epic singalongs), First Aid Kit, Goat, Tame Impala, Jagwar Ma, Ondatropica, Molotov Jukebox, Evan Dando, John Fairhurst and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
Other assorted moments of happiness:
- Seeing the One Minute Disco in the Theatre Field. Basically a completely innocuous white van pulls up in the middle of a bunch of people, the back shutter rolls up and two men in boiler suits scream out ONE MINUTE DISCO! At which point dance music starts blaring out of the van and people run up to have a boogie. Sure enough, more or less one minute later, the music stops, the back shutter rolls back down again and it’s back o to being just a van, leaving a group of very bemused people.
- The view from Flagtopia / the top of the Park field either at day or night was simply staggering.
- Getting into Heaven at Shangri-la and finding not only posh, clean, flush toilets, but also the Snake Pit club, where our eyes were opened by a bondage / dominatrix / pyrotechnic act involving flaming whips and not a lot of clothing.
- Sunny afternoons getting into the spirit of things. Ondatropica at the West Holts stage, with its Colombian salsa, was just the ticket. And the sun coming out on Sunday just as First Aid Kit sang “Emmylou” got me a tad emotional.
- Great food from Goan Fish Curry, MeatLiquor (Dead Hippie burger), Anna Mae’s pesto & bacon mac & cheese, Buddha Bowl veggie curry, Grillstock pulled pork bun. Yum.
- Finding out that my “poo” photo which had been made one of the Amnesty International postcards turned out to be the best-selling one of the festival.
Only “lowlight” was occasional overcrowding and a bit of lairy behaviour in the Pyramid field – but on the whole not much to complain about!
The photos below are just a sample. Many more can be found within my Glastonbury 2013 Flickr Set.
10 years ago today: I was a zombie in “Shaun of the Dead”…. on my birthday.
June 10th is my birthday.
10 years ago I had a very unique birthday celebration. A friend was on the production staff of a film they were calling “Shaun of the Dead”, and myself and my friend Graham had been invited to be extras on a couple of different occasions. The first one was back in May 2003 when we headed for North London to do some location shooting, which resulted in me being immortalised for literally three or four frames of film as “man at bus stop.” Some of my finest work. Obviously I impressed with my background artiste skills and so – surely nothing to do with our friend on the crew – we were invited back for a night shoot in New Cross in which the zombies were to surround a derelict pub, which had been refitted on the outside to act as “The Winchester.”
Our friend had advised us of a 6PM call, so we arrived in New Cross slightly early and, it being my birthday, had a beer to kill time. We swung by the town hall which had been commandeered as a unit base, to find it swarming with other eager extras, many of whom seething with pure nerd energy, waiting for the action to begin. We found it a bit overpowering, and when our friend told us that realistically we wouldn’t be needed till at least 9pm, we repaired to a nearby pub and decided to have some birthday pints – all in keeping with the theme of the film, or so we thought.
You can guess the rest… our call time kept being pushed back and back until we actually closed down the pub, and we were beginning to look like zombies before we’d even had any makeup. Speaking of which, it did occur to us that we hadn’t had any makeup applied yet. We waddled back to the unit base, which by now was swarming with nerd-zombies, who had all queued to get makeup from the handful of makeup artists. However, when we went in for makeup we were the only people left to adorn. Graham and I ended up, for expediency’s sake, with three women apiece working on zombie-fying us, and I remarked that my birthday was looking up!
Unfortunately now we were in zombie makeup, drunk, and with the call time being pushed back and back into the wee hours, we devoted our energy to practicing our zombie walk on the pavement with the casting director, James, himself in zombie getup as well, and idle hands being the devil’s tools, we soon noticed the dodgy off-license down the road. We soon convinced the proprietor to open the beer counter up for us (for a monetary consideration) and before you know it there was a queue of bored-looking zombies buying Red Stripes and wobbling up and down the road to the unit base.
Graham and I realised they had actually started shooting some of the main actors, so we snuck through a park and watched the “White Lines” scene where Shaun and Ed see the “wasted” punter – actually a zombie-fied casting director James – ambling down the road. I was glad nobody caught us spying on this shot as we would have made quite a picture, hiding in a hedge, covered in blood and holding tins of beer.
I am ashamed to say that by the time we were actually required to perform our duties as “background artistes”, swarming a car outside the pub, and doing a classic zombie swarm shot surrounding the pub, Graham and I were very much the worse for wear, having the times of our lives, but not necessarily being completely attentive to all the instructions the director and first AD were bellowing out. We were background zombies – we didn’t have the physical wounds and special contact lenses given to the foreground zombies – but somehow we always seemed to end up near the front by the time the swarm had “swarmed.” Occasionally this resulted in an annoyed “cut” and an instruction for the background zombies to remain in the background! Consequently I am not sure I have ever identified Graham or myself in these shots, though it’s hard to tell given we all look alike!
(We were invited to the crew screening later that year where I apologised to Edgar Wright for letting the side down – I begged extenuating circumstances).
When all was said and done, it got to 4:30 in the morning, we were finished shooting, and marooned in New Cross, needing to get back to North London. So what did we do? Why, a night bus, of course. Upon boarding we realised that we had never gone back to unit base to clean up, and thus we were still in full zombie getup. I have never had so much room on a bus before or since.
Did we have fun? Yes. Did we make a good show of ourselves? I am not so sure. But am I sure that I will never have a birthday party like that, ever again.
My thanks to the crew for their indulgence and the opportunity to have been a tiny, broken part of this cult classic.
January Snow in Queen’s Park
Snow is a rare(ish) thing in London, so when it arrives, two things happen. The first is that all transport systems immediately fold under the pressure at the first snowflake. The second thing is that everyone, yours truly included, rushes out to take pictures. Here are mine.
I will resume normal Japan-trip service shortly.
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…
A Winter Trip to the Isle of Skye
Last weekend I flew up to Scotland for a jaunt out to the Isle of Skye, accompanied by my trusty pal Corin and our able guide, David Langan, who escorted us out to the Isle of Skye for a full long weekend of trekking around Skye in search of the perfect landscapes. We braved 300m+ vertical hikes and gale-force winds in pursuit of our photos. I am happy to say that one or two of them came out.
Glen Shiel Reflection
Elgol Sunset
The Old Man of Storr, Sunrise
Glen Brittle Fairy Pools
Talisker Bay
Breakish Beach looking out over Applecross
Ord Beach - Rock Detail
Ord Beach (View of Loch Eishort)
The photo below may be somewhat pedestrian, but I had to shimmy out on to a ledge over a giant cliff to get it, which was the only way to shield the camera / tripod from the gale-force winds on the clifftop. The winds were so fierce, a waterfall nearby was blown back over the top of the cliff before any water actually fell. So this photo gets included, no matter the quality!
Neist Point Lighthouse
Duisdale Beach
Duisdale Beach, Sunrise
Torrin Beach - View of Loch Slapin and Blaven
These and more photos can also be seen over on my Flickr feed.
Open Letter to the UK Home Office about the Imminent Closure of the IRIS E-Gate System
Forgive me for a temporary diversion into non-photographic territory.
For those of you aren’t one of the nearly 400,000 UK-based frequent travellers who use the IRIS system, it is a rare case of something that takes a good deal of pain out of travelling internationally. It is an automated system installed at several UK airports which allows registered users to gain entry to the UK merely by looking into an iris scanner. If you are like me and are A) a frequent business traveller or B) a non-EU citizen, this is a life saver. IRIS lets me breeze past hour-long queues and I am often at the baggage carousel before the bags have started coming out.
However, for one reason or another, the system has never quite taken off. I have an inkling that it’s down to the fact that the need for pre-registration has put a lot of would-be users off, especially when the registration offices within Heathrow and Gatwick have been keeping increasingly erratic opening hours, and unfortunately with the austerity measures it now means that these offices have largely been closed. Word has been seeping out that the programme’s days are over, and that the machines will only be run until such time as they malfunction or start to need maintenance, at which point the system will be shut down.
I was upset enough about hearing this that I have written to the appropriate address within the Home Office. If you are upset about this as well, I would urge you to do the same.
To: irisinfo@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
To whom it may concern:
I write to express my displeasure at the imminent closure or retirement of the IRIS e-gate system.
I am an expat US citizen who has lived in London for many years. I will not be eligible for a UK passport until late 2012, but I have an Indefinite Leave to Remain visa and a US passport. I am a frequent business traveller, and because of the IRIS system, I have saved countless hours I would have otherwise stood in a queue.
With the staff reductions underway at UKBA, and the resulting pressures on the remaining border agents, surely this is not the time to be adding to the numbers of people having to queue for inefficient manual checks?
However, if the retirement of IRIS is a fait accompli, and it is only a matter of time until the system is decommissioned, then may I enquire what are the planned alternatives for frequent non-EU national travellers such as me?
I am thinking along the lines of one of the following suggestions:
- Addition of non-EU expats to the e-passport system – This would seem to make sense considering the sizeable investment in the e-passport infrastructure throughout the UK airports
- Alternative automated biometric e-gate system – I have heard rumours of a facial recognition technology, and again I would suggest that this be extended to cover non-EU nationals
- Separate queue for longterm visa holders / resident expats – In past times when the IRIS machines have been malfunctioning, I have occasionally seen an “IRIS queue” spring up at an adjacent border desk, for people who would normally use the IRIS machine. Surely this could be a low-cost alternative solution in which you have a dedicated queue for long-term residents (people on ILR or work permits) who simply needed identity verification rather than the lengthy entry interrogation posed to tourists and other temporary non-EU visitors?
Lacking any of the solutions above being put into practice, the prospect of once again joining the non-EU passport queues fill me with dread, and make me re-think my need to travel at all.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Luke Robinson
Mortal Coil 