Tattoo Convention: Sparks Will Fly

I lied, I'm a liar. I thought I had posted all the Tattoo Convention photos I wanted to but this one was half finished in Photoshop.

I've added some of the sparks on the right of the photo as they were only heading in one direction, I reduced the exposure on the crowd behind her until they disappeared and I've added a red-green-yellow colour dodged gradient which has added the teal and rose hints to the photo.

Gradients have been featuring a lot in my post production experiments, sometimes they're very obvious (example 1 & 2). Sometimes I will use a layer with a gradient map and they're a bit subtler (example).

I hope you like them all and my experimentation is working.

 

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Greenwich

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"This is where people come to die." 

The above is a quote from my friend who observed that Greenwich is full of couples and families with kids, the living dead in her opinion. They're not living the fast life of an east end girl and have opted for the more sedate charm of south London.

Being a Greenwich resident I've come to appreciate that charm, it's nice round 'ere and I imagine that the student population make sure it's not as slow and quiet on a Saturday night as it is on a Saturday afternoon. 

I like the quiet sometimes, I like moments like those above. I hope you do too.

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Starlight, Star Bright

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More autuminal shots from the weekend. I was shooting straight into the sun and using the branches and remaining leaves to create these shadows and starbursts. It hasn't worked as well as I would have liked and I'm wondering if reshooting will be easier/more fun than doing a bit of photoshop.

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620 Hawkeye Special

Impulse buy, but it's not going to end up in a drawer unloved and unused like. I want to fix it up, clean it up and then maybe use it, even if that means I have to fashion the 620 film myself.

Researching the Hawkeye I've found this article on the Brownie on Wikipedia which I've yet to read, the most interesting stuff I've found has been on Youtube, where I've found some enthusiasts and a guy who told me about the knob on the top which I need to pull to open the camera up. I haven't managed to open it yet, it feels like it may be stuck.

This guy has a similar model to me, I think his is older... his opens up and it takes 120 film so he has more chance of using it than me, I'm jealous.

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Fall Down

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Kids Stuff/Adult Stuff

Londoners may recognise the lights in this diptych as the signs you find around Soho outside the bookstores, lingerie shops and video stores of London's seedier side of the West End. 

Soho has toy shops aplenty but the one in the foreground won't be familiar to the usual purveyor of vibrating phalluses and studded paddles, no, those belong to GOSH! the comic store.

I don't actually believe that kids are the only audience for comics, I'm currently reading some Adrian Tomine which is not suitable for kids at all, but I wanted to choose a title that highlighted the dichotomy of this one view.

 

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Bestival Festival 2011: ♡♥

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Searching for The Decisive Moment

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I've been sitting on these images for a while now, the plan being to make a large album of photos I've taken within the 'decisive moment', but the project never really got legs and instead I've put photos which would have fit into this gallery into lots of other smaller collections.

So in a bid to break up the Bestival and Tattoo Festival photos (I only have two more sets of them to post, I promise) I thought I would share these.

A woman striding out of the gloom on a sunny afternoon, a couple sit on a the steps of the South Bank parade framed by the shadow of the bunting, a lad flicks a football in a busy park eyes set on it and both feet off the ground and a man looks directly into camera as I intrude upon his time with his girlfriend, his expression neither neutral or angry.

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Bestival Festival 2011: Tweedledee & Tweedledum

"If your name's not down, you're not coming in."

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Bestival Festival 2011: Enjoy The Sunshine But Prepare For Rain

How very British!

 

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Bestival Festival 2011: Crystal Panda

Crystal Castles were playing at Bestival! Wait, what did I just type? "Crystal Castles were playing..." What the hell!!! Why didn't I go see them? Where was I during their performance? I have no excuse... What? They were on the main stage? You got to be f--cking kidding me? 

I suck at being where I want to be at festivals.

 

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Tattoo Convention: Graf

I was in two minds about posting these. I don't feel like they're good photos, they're not good photos, but the art in them is so vibrant and quirky that I felt like I wanted to share it.

It was possible to win this massive piece which was made on the day by serveral graf artists live in front of the attendees of the convention.

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Bestival Festival: Colour Chameleon

I was not the only person at Bestival with a camera, there were lenses of all different girths and lengths and on more then one occassion I found myself staring with mouth agape due to lens envy. There was even a young man with a vintage large format camera exposing one large frame at a time in a wooden camera on a wooden frame.

I'm not sure what Ms Boy George (above) is lining up in her viewfinder but she was crouched long enough for me to take a few shots and didn't notice me snapping away. I wonder if anyone took any sneaky pics of me... please, no, not on fancy dress day!

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Tattoo Convention: A Few of My Favourites

I love this guy's tattoo! I've not featured the whole thing in the shot, sorry for being a tease, but it really was magnificient as you can tell from the suggestion of scale and intracacy you see here.

This lady had a few admirers amongst the convention goers and none more admirer than her owner.

This ladies tattoo, made up from godesseses and cobras and all manner of other things stopped at her neck and covered every other visible inch of her body.

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Tattoo Convention: Vestibulum est Iaculis

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Dancing, acrobatics and other sports lend their selves so well to photography, I'm ashamed that I've only just got around to point my camera at these athletes. I'm always very impressed with photos of dancers, they always look so good. I think it's the positions they contort their selves into, the posture and poise, there is always something impressive about that.

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Tattoo Convention: Periculose Ferventes

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Bestival Festival 2011: Tamer and Lion

The theme of this years fancy dress was Superstars and Popstars, but the theme isn't strictly enforece (nothing is strictly enforced at Bestival) so you will see all sorts of fantastic costumes.

These ladies, I can only assume (because I can't remember what they told me), are a stylish lion and a lion tamer, nothing to do with the theme at all, but they look great.

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Tattoo Convention: In Tincidunt Vivamus Tripudiis est Punctum

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Bestival Festival 2011

I'm getting around to this quite late, Bestival was some time ago and although I did the dutiful thing of updating Facebook, tagging friends old and newly made in the haze of my festival days, I neglected my blog and flickr, I can only appologize it's been a busy few weeks.

Well, here's the first in a series of photos from the festival:

Bestival is a four-day music festival held at the Robin Hill country park on the Isle of Wight, England. It has been held annually in late summer since 2004. The event is organized by DJ and record producer Rob da Bankand is an off-shoot of his Sunday Best record label and club nights.^[1] The initial Bestival attracted 10,000 people, growing to 55,000 in 2010. In 2006 it was voted the Best (Medium-sized) Festival at the 2006 UK Festival Awards, and it was voted the best major UK festival in the UK festival awards 2010.^{[2]...Read More}

- I took this photo while waiting to watch: Beardy Man - Watch his 2009 performance here.

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Do You Remember Summer?

Hi London, 

I know you're feeling a bit down and wondering where our summer went? Feels like you may have blinked and missed, right? Well, we did have a few good days, I have photographic evidence here.

If that trip down memory lane isn't enough then I hope this summer scene from London's South Bank makes up for it.

No? Well, I tried.

-- 

South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark (which is properly Bankside) and was formerly simply known as Lambeth Marsh / Lower Marsh. It developed much more slowly than the north bank of the river due to adverse conditions, and throughout its history has twice functioned as an entertainment district, separated by a hundred years of use as a location for industry.^[1] Change to the current use of the South Bank began in 1917 with the construction of County Hall at Lambeth and the Festival of Britain in 1951 redefined the area as a place for arts and entertainment and the name 'South Bank' was formally adopted. It now forms a significant tourist district in central London which stretches from the near Oxo Tower to the east to the London Eye and County Hall at Westminster Bridge in the west.^[1] A series of central London bridges connect the South Bank to North London, including the more recent Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridge.^[1]

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Tall Structures by Water

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Aenigmate Per Speculum

I know! I know that I've used this title before, but I like it, I feel the phrase adds foreboding and mystery. Unlike many photographers I do believe that a title affects the reading of a photograph. It can encourage further interpretation or it can simply tell the viewer how to interpret the photo bluntly and without subtlety.

For a title, take your time and consider it or take no time at all and forego it.

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Deep In Conversation

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Notting Hill Carnival - 2011

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Notting Hill Carnival - 2011

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Salsa Dancing - Notting Hill Carnival

The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event which since 1964 has taken place on the streets of Notting Hill, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea , London, UK each August, over two days (the August bank holiday Monday and the day beforehand).^[1] It is led by members of the West Indian community, particularly the Trinidadian and Tobagonian Britishpopulation or 'Trinis', many of whom have lived in the area since the 1950s. The carnival has attracted up to 2 million people in the past, making it the second largest street festival in the world^[2] after the Rio Carnival held in Brazil.^[3]

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A Lesser Squirrel Would Baulk at the Challenge

Not this one though

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Covent Garden

The morning of my birthday I woke up and was still a bit tipsy from the night before. Wearing last nights clothes and smile I made my way to Covent Garden where I had arranged to meet my friends and family for lunch at 12pm at 12:45pm when the majority of my guests deemed it convenient for them to show up (at this point my mother and dad still hand't made an appearance) we all sat down for lunch at Wahaca for some Mexican Street food.

Before 12 though, I took a walk around and took a whole load of photographs, three of which I'm posting here. I hope you like them.

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Covent Garden ( /ˈkɒvənt/) is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Laneand Drury Lane.^[1] It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum.

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