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.

Rich girl

This girl was walking through a park carrying an oversized wooden pound sign under her arm, and that's enough of a reason to take a photo.

She has to be rich, she has big money! :-P

A dog and his balloon

So far December hasn't disappointed at all. It's cold and dreary, and everybody is bundled up in big dark coats, gloves and scarves. So it's always nice to see something more cheery, colourful and a little different around this time of year.

And to think I was going to put my camera away because my fingers were getting cold... pfft. Moment almost missed.

Lego jacket

Strange fashion choices ahoy:

I won't knock it, I think her style is kind of interesting. But I don't know how comfortable it is to have a bag strap over the Lego blocks. Surely the weight of her bag is digging the blocks into her shoulder...?

Trapped and abandoned

A toy boat stuck amongst some pond weeds.

I would have liked a seagull or duck to be in the foreground near the boat (it would have made a nice scale reference), but seeing as all the bready goodness was being thrown on the other side of the pond, they didn't bother coming my way.


Shot in jpg with my Lumix because Lumix raw is so slow to write and my Nikon is being serviced. I miss it already :/

Kimono

You don't see this everyday in London...

This lady stood out so well in the crowd, and her look was a refreshing change from all the backpacks, chinos and denim worn by regular tourists. I wish I was able to get more pictures of her kimono, but it was a pretty busy day when I took this, and it was right beside The Ritz hotel next to the bus stop and tube entrance to Green Park, so crowds of people came as standard.

"If, for example a guy was walking down the street with a parrot on his shoulder..."

(60mm f5.3 1/500 ISO-100)

I know, my last entry totally set me up for this post.

I was walking up some subway steps when I saw a guy walking in the opposite direction with a couple of blue things on his shoulders. I couldn't make out what they were until he was close enough, then out came the camera and snap!

The funniest thing was that when I held the camera up to my eye both of the macaws suddenly turned their heads and looked into the lens, as if they were posing for me. Even the one on the man's right shoulder looked forward so as not to be obscured by his head. The man on the other hand just looked straight ahead and carried on walking LIKE A BOSS, while everybody around him looked on in amazement. And so they should.

If I could change anything, a full body shot of him walking would have put him in a better context, but he was already close to me and walking quite fast so I ended up half-bodying him (plus my camera was in my bag, argh!). I also would have liked some bystander reactions, but nobody was in frame when I took the photo (just my luck, really).

Keep on rockin', Parrot Man!

Street signs

I read something in a photography book about "many" and "one" with regards to composition. I don't remember the exact points made, I'll need to read that book again.

55mm f/5.6 1/50 ISO-100

This is an attempt at "many", slightly cropped at the top edges to give the impression that the signs go on much further than the edges of the frame.

18mm (27@35mm) f/4.5 1/80 ISO-100

The same moment taken at a wide angle and the situation is different, now it's a street photo showing some people looking at signs (I like how the Titanic sign is upside-down... intentional?). I like that they are looking up, making the wall feel enormous. And is the guy pointing to the Jack Daniels sign?

Street photography is something which has sparked my interest recently, but as I'm not the most confident person in the world I sometimes feel a little pervy taking photos of random people on the street in normal situations. If, for example a guy was walking down the street with a parrot on his shoulder, then out comes the camera and I capture the (unusual) moment, but if a group of people are standing in such a way that is completely ordinary, but photographically quite interesting then I'm a little bit hesitant. The last thing I'd want is to get punched in the face for a misunderstanding. I'll try more, picking my moments obviously, but I probably should also learn how to duck and weave just in case.

(D5100, 18-55 kit lens)