Zoooooom, Booooom, Ooooohhhh

FIREWORKS!!

This is the first time I've shot fireworks without the assistance of Firework mode on a compact digital camera. Instead I set up a tripod, put my aperture to f11 and my shutter to bulb, waited, and then kind of just hoped. It was fun. First I scouted around for a good spot to take shots with another photographer, Suki, and then I imagined the sequence the fireworks may go off in and tried to think about the shot I wanted. I really wanted to capture the fireworks being over the bridge, I got that shot, and a bonus shot too.

I now want to purchase a shutter release cable, because I ruined at least two shots with shaky hands. I also want to revisit Newham at night because it has amazing potential for night photography, also because I missed the sun setting behind Canary Wharf.

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Hubbard Park, Meriden, CT

Probably one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been too. If you have the opportunity, please see it in it's entirety.

Here is a small snippet.

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Dottie for Dottie's

You know when you see a queue for a store, a really long, slow moving queue and, you think to yourself "I need to be in that queue, because whatever they're waiting for must be AWESOME!"? Oh - you don't know about that? Well, it's totally normal, I assure you, I do it whenever I see a big queue, because it is totally normal.

So, I joined a random queue in San Francisco and ended up waiting in that queue for an hour. Not content to wait alone, I forced my old friend and two new friends to wait too. They hated it. Until we got in doors and ate that is! Two Open Road breakfasts, two specials (Lamb & Fennel Sausage omelet with cream cheese inside) and some great coffee! GREAT COFFEE!

Enjoy the photos... don't drool too much.

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Monterey: Cherry's Jubilee Car Show

I've been on one 'lads holiday' in my life time. Amsterdam, 'with the boys' in my early twenties. It was fun. But there is something about that sort of holiday that voids spontaneity without alcohol, destroys the chance for serendipity through plans and decisions made by committee and dulls creativity through abuse of brain cells.

In Monterey I spent a morning by myself and took the opportunity to explore the town, and on my way to the beach found a collection of hotrods, muscle cars and other classics. I don't know much about cars, but I know when I've fallen in love, and looking at some of these machines felt real close.

So here's a collection of pictures from the 8th of September. Later, on the 10th of September I took a video and some more photos using my iPhone, by this time the cars had moved from the beach to the high street in town and they had doubled in number too. That video will be edited and uploaded soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these:

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Zeke Dance!

The Bay on a Sunny Day

This is my last day in America and I visited the Golden Gate Bridge today and went full tourist mode and grinned and posed whilst on the other side of the lens. The photos I took of the bridge aren't fantastic but I'm glad that I took them, GGB is a fantastic fete of engineering and quite a sight to behold, and as such it has been photographed a million times over, and fantastically well too.

I took these shots for a panoramic because the view beside the bridge was so awesome, even on a foggy day! San Francisco is a great city, and The Bay is magnificent. This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but serves to remind me that I came, I saw, I fell in love with SF.

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Decoy

Look at this photo. Nice isn't it. I've put my URL at the bottom of it. It is all a ploy to get more traffic to my blog. I work hard on my blog. Tell people about my blog!!! Everyone should know about my BLOG!!!

WHY AREN'T YOU OUT TELLING PEOPLE ALREADY!!

DISCLAIMER: This photo is in no way representative of 'what I do'... but it is pretty.

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The Kids Are Alright

I took some time out of my schedule of gazing towards the horizon, praising the mountains and being thankful for a cloudless Californian afternoon and went to a real cute cinema in Monterey to see a film I had hope to see call The Kids Are Alright. 

Not only does this movie star two of my favorite actresses, Annette Benning and Julianne Moore, but the subject matter has parallels with my life which I wanted to see explored by someone else, because although it's a subject I'm willing to discuss it isn't one with which many people have much experience, so it was nice to see another perspective even if it was through a cinematic medium, making the 'conversation' quite one sided.

The whole experience, the film, the theatre, this town... it has all felt like a serendipitous randomized iPod selection, every song chosen was fitting and apt, each melody poignant and evocative. I know that that isn't much of a film review, but I'm really just trying to review my day, not the film specifically.

Here are some more photos from Monterey. Enjoy.

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Brooklyn Carnival - Labor Day

I missed Notting Hill Carnival this year, oh well, I went to Brooklyn and saw how they do things instead.

Here are a few photos from the day, I headed out early because things were a bit too hectic.

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Fairfield Panoramics

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I went down to the sound to grab some shots of the sky as I have no decent sky photos to sample from and I often take photos on overcast British afternoons that could use an injection of east coast USA in them. I ended up taking far more photos than I had anticipated, including these panoramic shots.

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iPhone: Crazy Horses

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Posted via email from stephen walrond