2013 365 33

Zoot alors! It's week 33. A lot of this week involved getting ready to travel to Swansea for my first ever roller derby tournament. About a dozen bouts to shoot in two days, so a lot of prepwork involved.

The death by accidental misadventure of my 70-200mm lens during the week has also added to my sense of panic but a relatively inexpensive (2nd hand) replacement is on its way as I type. Hopefully it gets here on time.

12/08/13

I'm still getting a lot of fun from my 8mm fisheye lens. I took this on a visit to the Ulster Museum today and really like it and some of the other shots I got. OK, so it's HDR'd to within an inch of it's life but so what?

13/08/13

Very small and select secret gig this evening for Belfast punk/oi band Runnin' Riot. Got the chance to hear some of their new stuff ahead of their forthcoming CD launch. There's a chance some of my shots will make it onto the CD cover. In short, it was a blast.

14/08/13

Had my first visit to Castle Espie just outside Comber this week, a haven for a huge variety of birds. I don't do wildlife, but managed to get a couple of half-decent shots. This has to be a day of note as it was the last shots taken with my Tamron 70-200mm lens before it bit the dust big time. Adios my old amigo, you will be missed.

15/08/13

Old shot that I've done before, but not with a fisheye lens. It gave me several other ideas for shots involving a fridge that I naturally didn't get around to.

16/08/13

Had been on the lookout for a set of these blocks to use in the pregnancy/bump project I've been working on for the last few months. It's nearing the end, but we have a few set up shots we'd like to get and spelling out words with these blocks was one of them. Again, the temptation was too much for me. Sorry.

17/08/23

Mods vs Rockers fair and festival today? Sounds like a great idea and an opportunity to get some great shots. How wrong was I? It was dull, there was nothing worth seeing and this was the only shot I came away with. Lesson learned.

18/08/13

Full on zombie shoot with the ladies of Belfast Roller Derby this evening. I had three ideas for shots, two of which worked and one of which I was disappointed with. This was one of the ones that I felt worked very well, although it took a bit of fiddling to get the lighting right. I ended up with two remote flashguns balanced on my stomach and dialled down to 1/32 power to get it just about right. Using the fisheye again, and it also worked really well for another shot - but you'll need to check in next week to see it.

367-50 Week 43

Week 43 starts with me feeling worse than I've felt for a long time. The anti-allergy drugs I have to take to counter-act an attack of my eczema have left me feeling completed wrecked. I've been tired and sleepy all day and my mood has been very low. I suspect that the shots from early in the week will not exactly be "keepers" as they say.

3/09/12

It's a crap shot, but the effort was made. The inside of my greenhouse at night on a long exposure. Peppers to the left, tomatoes to the right. The white light trails at the rear are the tracks of the torch I was using to light up the plants.

4/09/12

If i was feeling bad yesterday, I was feeling worse today. Full blown 'flu descended last night and it was mid-afternoon before I was able to crawl out of bed and even then I only got as far as the sofa. I only took this shot because the dog came and sat on me while I as lying on the settee and my camera was sitting beside me. This is Honey, she's not mine (before you jump to conclusions) and her owner had kindly called in to make me something to eat and a cup of tea. The Jameson's was a bonus.

5/09/12

Tonight's post-dinner fun was provided by everyone trying to programme a mini-BigTrak to run through a slalom course made out of our shoes. A test of geometry and logic if ever there was one. I failed. This was the first time for many months that I had all 5 of my children who live in Belfast together in the house for dinner. It was noisy, hectic and there were (as always) dozens of not always linear conversations going on over the dinner table. I'm aware that a lot of the talk between all of us is in some bizarre form of code ("Barbourspeak?") with frequent references to things, events and people that no-one else would ever pick up on or understand. And I just love it. Probably the best pick-me-up after a bout of the 'flu you could get.

6/09/12

First full-blown school run of the year today, and this was breakfast. I'd forgotten the complexities of getting two girls ready and out to two different schools and the painful experience of driving through Belfast at that time of the morning. No-one died or was late for school - have to count that as a success of sorts.

7/09/12

Don't know what to think about this shot; I'm not even sure that I like it. It's an HDR'd shot of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. I was bored after working at home all morning and needed a bit of fresh air, so took a walk up the big lane at Stormont. Took my wide angle lens to take this and when I got home and had processed it the lamposts were doing that "converging verticals" thing and looked a bit like bananas. A bit of a youtube search later and I worked through fixing it in photoshop. Worked out all right. Or as George Formby used to say "turned out nice again."

8/09/12

The 3rd annual Belfast Zombie walk was on this morning in the grounds of Stormont Estate, as part of the Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival taking place across the street in The Stormont Hotel. Poorly attended this year compared to last but fun none the less. On the left is George Clarke, main man of Yellow Fever Productions who will forever live in my memory as the man who brought us Battle of the Bone, Belfast's first (and only) kung fu zombie movie and the only film where I was able to attend the international premiere. I also had my picture taken with two Start Wars Imperial Troopers. Just saying - not that I'm a Start Wars geek or anything.

8/09/12

But seriously - this was the dashboard of someone's car. I must have looked a bit suspicious standing pointing my camera in through the windscreen. These were blowing around in the breeze but think I've got them sharp enough. Loved the colours - couldn't resist taking this picture and just saw it as a nice wide crop right away.