Flash AAHHHHHHH ! (that was meant to sound like freddie mercury)

For some time now i have been toiling with the wonders of moveable light. but being honest i have had mixed success and lots of trial and errors! Couple of weeks ago i had the pleasure of teamig up with some fellow leeds flikr-ites to get a bit of a lesson in flash. we tripped up to Roundhay Park and had some fun.

This shot of ibecks was where i started....or at least with the camera, neal ad steve had spend a long time setting up the lights to get us this shot. basically 4 big flashes are set up around becks and all on 1/4 power to get this cool effect. being honest i don't have the gear to set all of this up on my own but i would like to try this again. The nature of the fun you have in a group leads to 'playing with other people's gear'. Neal some how had hold of 85mm 1.2....wow is all i can say!

this shot of daf is just uber sharp!
Well after the sun started to go down we played abit more than we expected too, the folly proved to be a fantastic backdrop to these type of shots.


being honest i was so happy with howthese have turned out, really i never thought i would be able to take shots like this! If you would like to see more of the set and some of the set ups check out the group Neal set up.

York visit

Having lived in York for 8 years you eventualy get used to the tourists being everywhere! but going back yesterday was fun as i sort of forgot how people walk round and take the same shots as everyone else!
I tried my best to look at things as per usual a little bit different. i'm not sure if i did but hey!



some of the people out dressed up were great, not sure if they should have thought about what they were wearing before they left the house!

Marc Riboud

the other week i attended a mini conference/workshop on the works of Marc Riboud specifically in Leeds. There has been an exhibition in the Leeds museum that i hadn't actually been to see. His works were taken in 1954 and included a range of street style shots of the areas of leeds like burmantoffs and burley. they show a leeds very different to the one i know and made me ralise that some fo the over the top post proccessing is not needed but a good black and white photo can be just as dynamic. Dye to copyright issues i can't really post many links on here of the original works but when i visited York yesterday i tried to cover this as one of my aims for the day.
Here are a few of my attempts to capture the mood of tourism in York city centre.



What i need to do next is try and lean what settings will make the most effective black and white converstions. A pal of mine paddy is outstanding at this but i have a bit to go yet!

Dragon boat racing

Living in Leeds the main sport is a bit of a toss up between Football and rugby league, so a visit to clarance dock was a bit of a suprise when Dragonboat racing was the order of the day!

The actual races were great an an opprtunity to try and get some more fun use out of my 70-200mm, but as you can see from some of the shots i did struggle to get the angle i wanted. after the course i went to with Andy Rouse who is a STUNNING photographer. his main tips of the day was to get as low as you can. now this was obviously in the context of nature photography but the same applies here. I really wanted to get nearer to the water to get a better shot of the oars going in but the side of thedck said no. So i'm a bit frustrated that i didn't really use the full capacity of my fav lens in this shoot.

As mush as i complain that i don't have a thing about street photography but events like these do make me giggle at all of the fancy dress related goings on!