Bian lian

Also known as the Chinese art of face changing.

I took this at the beginning of the year during the Chinese New Year celebrations in Trafalgar Square. I got there a bit late and started off at the back of the audience that gathered for the main stage. The weather was really wet and a lot of people who weren't prepared for the downpour were driven away, so I slowly made my way towards the front of the audience. I eventually ended up at the front of the stage, umbrella in one hand and camera in the other.

This performer was brilliant. It was extremely difficult to see how he managed to change masks so quickly. I've seen a couple of pics online where other performers have been sloppy and are "caught" at the moment where their mask changes, but the transition from one mask to the next on this act were just too smooth and very well hidden, and he was very fast.

I was mostly on shutter priority and burst mode by the evening, taking 3 or 4 shots per press. I bumped up exposure compension by about 1 stop so that I could keep my ISO fairly low, reason being that I only have my Tamron travel lens with a good enough reach and it's not brilliant in low light (I'd also just learned about exposure compensation so this was a bit of a test :D ). I shot in RAW which filled up my cards quickly but helped with retaining details in post-production. My camera also got rained on pretty hard despite me having an umbrella, but it survived the night thanks to my trusty microfibre cloth (pretty lucky for a camera/lens setup that has zero weather sealing).

Some of the other quick change masks he used. I didn't snap them all as I actually wanted to watch him perform:

The man behind the masks.

 

If you know his name, please let me know :)

Ribs

Under the southside of Blackfriars Bridge.

Repeating lines, contrasting light and darkness, would convert nicely into black & white... of course my attention was drawn to this view :)

Under The Shard

Well, almost under The Shard.

I wanted to photograph The Shard from a different angle so I decided to look up for an abstract view, rather than across the river or down the street to take the whole building in (which I've done many-a-time :D ). It was a cloudy day which gave the sky a fairly even tone and as I looked up a plane flew into frame which helped to put the negative space into context (at least I think it does. I could just be sounding arty for the sake of sounding arty. Ha!)

Left Out

The way the girl is gazing off into the distance makes it look like she wasn't included in the trio's game, but she wasn't really. She was just looking towards her mother who was out of frame.

The camera sometimes lies.

Boats and More Boats

Also pedalos.

It was the right-left-right-left, fading into the distance that I liked.

2 Sides to Every Story

I saw this scrawled on a pavement somewhere in central London (I don't really remember where exactly).

As well as the obvious, I also liked the earthy colours and ambient lighting of the whole scene.

I remember thinking it looked kind of intriguing, but very out of place. It wasn't near any buildings of significance (government, etc) where the "message" might have had some impact, it was just under a tunnel of scaffolding. You usually end up finding interesting scenes in weird places.

Black, White & Blue

(Regents Park)

The bending reflections of those vertical bars in the water was the first thing that caught my attention. I wanted more than just an abstract image so I waited a few moments for some of the local wildfowl to appear in frame. Fortunately for me the birds that decided to do so were a black and a white one, paddling (floating? wading?) in opposite directions.

Alien Terrain

This picture reminds me of satellite photography, showing blocks of buildings, areas of Autumnal woodland and large bodies of water. There's even scattered clouds in the top right corner. It's actually the top of an old wooden post I'd seen on the bank of the Thames.

This was a way more interesting photo opp than The Shard (I love The Shard, but I've seen it so many times that it can get ordinary-looking) and it's always a nice change of pace to find something less obvious when you're surrounded by tourist attractions.

Notting Hill Carnival 2013

What I wanted to do: walk the entire Notting Hill carnival route (from the top of Great Western Road all the way round to Ladbroke Grove).
What I ended up doing: walking against the route and deviating from it at the bottom of Great Western Road (the crowds got a bit too big to pass). Mission almost accomplished.

I've never walked the full carnival route from start to finish (or finish to start, whichever way you head). It takes a lot of patience and careful timing. Leave too early and there's nothing on the street, too late and you'll just see the tops of other people's heads. I live really near to the "holding area" of the route where the floats and dancers line up before starting the procession at 12 noon, so I could either walk with the flow and look at people, or walk in the opposite direction and re-join the procession somewhere in the middle. I started with the former, got to the top of Great Western Road then walked back, as going against the route would provide better photo opportunities. Crowds are good for street photography and candids but if you're only out for that when there's a carnival going on around you're a bit odd.

Some of the day's better shots:

 Air drumming

 Where's Wally?

This guy was fun, he was really feeling the music.

Train tickets costume.

 "On the Beat". For the bobbies.

I didn't ignore all street photo opportunities. This kid standing on a window sill with black bar shades was too good to pass up.

Eternity Drum. One of my favourite pictures of the day. You can really feel the energy and fun in their performance.

Then I couldn't walk the rest of the route (Great Western Road was completely rammed out, and basically one-way) so I had to take a detour through Portobello Road...

...snapping one more street shot along the way for good measure.


Also goes without saying that Monday is the day to go. Sunday is a little more chilled (kids day and all) but you don't really get the full-on experience of big costumes and crowds of people. And travelling light/safe is good. I carried my little Lowepro Toploader rather than my big Crumpler Cupcake, my camera was strapped into my Pacsafe strap and I had just the bare essentials in my front pockets.

Umbrellas

It was the repeating patterns and bright colours that caught my attention on this drizzly day. I also liked that because the 2 girls were talking to each other they smushed their umbrellas together for a double canopy.

Smush is a silly word.

Spider Hunters

I saw these kids climbing trees in the woods behind my house in the Philippines. What they were doing was looking for spiders, which they would later pair up to fight against each other. Mr. Orange decided to climb the trees, while Mr. Red was on the lookout, directing Mr. Orange to where the big arachnids were.

I kept this shot in colour rather than convert to black & white as the orange and red t-shirts contrasted really well against the green leaves. The colour also helped to define the imaginary rule-of-thirds lines; the picture is divided vertically by the two trees flanking the diagonal trunk, as well as horizontally by the dark green tree canopy up top and light green scrubland down below. The kids sit nicely on the horizontal lines, with the diagonal trunk and Mr. Red's face leading your eye upwards to Mr. Orange.

Photo Set: Animals (B&W)

In alphabetical order, I suppose:

 Gullwings. One up, one down.

 Power-pigeons. Grime and grime.

Sausages in the park.

 Trellick pigeon. I tried to focus on the bird but AF chose the building instead. Oh well.

Webdrops. 35mm goodness after the rain.

Chihuahua

Just playing with colour levels and shooting from-the-hip while on-the-move.

Should I have composed and centred the shot? Probably.
Do I care in this case? Nope.

Welcome Hearts

The recent sunshine is welcome addition to an English summer, we haven't had a dry one for a couple of years now. It also lends itself to creating a lot of high contrast black & white compositions as well as overblowing highlights in certain pictures. I probably should get a ND filter of some kind, maybe a cheaper variable one (I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend serious coin on something I won't use much). For this post, however I thought I'd dig in my archive and find a nice colour pic.

Taken last year around May (before it started raining from June-September, haha). I was drawn to these little doors mainly because of the textures and contrasts between the different colours. Add the clay coloured wall, and it wouldn't look too out of place somewhere in South America. But this was on Regent's Canal, and those are a couple of old door panels from a canal boat.


I'll probably upload a whole batch of b&w photos next time; one-at-a-time is neat for analysis and reflection but some don't need it, they're just nice pictures.

Tail feathers

This black & white conversion thing I'm on is really addictive :)

I saw this man in the park sitting in front of a sprinkler, one of those sprinklers that rocks back-and-forth, spraying in a fan shape. The shape reminded me of a peacock's tail feathers. I just had to wait a few seconds for the sprinkler to tilt upwards, fortunately he was so engrossed in his book to give a damn about me pointing my lens in his direction.

Like Daido

I don't really blow out the contrast in my pictures (I don't feel it's really conducive to the ones-and-zeroes "perfection" of digital cameras), but after watching Daido Moriyama's documentary Near Equal (or, Stray Dog of Tokyo) on YouTube I thought I'd have a go.

I tried it on this all-black clad lady set against a white background and I think it turned out pretty neat. This is also one of the first "let me try and shoot people from the hip like a stealthy street photographer and not look like a perv" shots I ever tried.

What I like about Moriyama's style is that he takes photos of pretty much anything, finding beauty and interest in subjects most people would ignore completely, and he did most of it with a simple Ricoh compact film camera. He also doesn't mind snapshots either. Some photographers don't like the word (I sometimes have that internal struggle of trying to justify snapping away like a maniac) but he revels in snapshots.

It also makes me wish I had a camera that wasn't so bulky and imposing, yet still feature-full. Something like a Fuji X20. The silver and black one is nice... yeah... yeah... yeah...



Here's a nice video by Tate Modern about Daido Moriyama, a bit like a concise version of the full Near Equal documentary. And it's brought up-to-date as he's now shooting in digital (but still with a simple compact camera).

Linerider

I pretty much shot from the hip, pointing the camera at the road and waiting for cyclists to ride past. I was also walking alongside the cycle lane, hence the shaky and off-kilter shot, but I much prefer an out-of-focus subject as it adds to the feeling of speed, as does the road markings and uneven road wear (which converted nicely into black and white).

Family affair

A candid shot of Vinny, my godson.

Over the weekend I was at a family celebration and, being the guy with a half-decent camera (i.e., non-smartphone, non-point & shoot) I automatically became the day's "official" photographer. That meant taking the typical posed and organised photos to document the event.

Most people there were savvy to candids; you point a camera at a person and as soon as they see you they usually change their whole persona. I saw my godson playing in the garden, looking through a glass door and, seeing how he wasn't concerned with my camera at that moment took the opportunity for a non-posed shot.

Just the right amount of stuff I like: candid style, reflections, interactions and of course a nice black & white conversion.

Self shot

Not a huge fan of the "selfie".

This is my version, all lines and shadows; my silhouette, some crazy paving, and of course pigeons. But that's London for you, pigeons everywhere.

We used to called them "MySpace angles", particularly the ones where you'd place the camera up high and shoot downwards. Of course nowadays Facebook has all but slaughtered MySpace to be the self-indulgent stage of the moment, and front-facing cameras on phones have increased self-shot portraits to no end. The selfie lives.



My favourite "selfie" of the moment. Thanks, internet!

It's the ridiculous phone and duckface that does it for me.

(via)

Tunnel vision

I took this because of the converging lines and vanishing point. The walls and ceiling were also painted gloss blue which contrasted nicely with the reflected yellowy-white light from the striplights and patches of daylight on the walls. It did, however lend itself much more to black and white, especially where the shadow is interrupted by those box windows. I like how the repeating lines are much more prominent, and the ladder-like shadow on the ground is bolder. It's no longer about contrasting colours and now about the composition of strong lines and repeating elements.