The fountain of colour

I ended a photo walk early as I had to be up early for a long long days work. The last place I ended up before swiftly jumping on a bus to Victoria station was Marble Arch. This fountain is next to the arch put there by Westminster council to attract visitors to the area. It is a fantastic place to be at night with people travelling on Boris bikes (on drunken adventures) to come and see it.

The fountain changed colour during my long exposure from blue to pink. In post production, I merged the two colours together bringing out the best of both. It creates something that the eye could only dream os seeing when you are actually there. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Thin wheel

I have promised myself that at some point this week I will go out in and around London again for a photo walk. My reserves are running low in the pre-processed photo department so I need to either choose some of my rejects to process (this can actually uncover some hidden gems) or go out and take some new ones. I will be busy with a new job from next week so don’t know how much time I will actually have, but I will take every chance I can to keep on posting.

This is a photo from Hyde Park during the christmas period. A huge christmas fair and market names Winter Wonderland is set up. There is a huge big wheel (okay not as big as the London Eye but still pretty massive) temporarily erected. It is the largest freestanding wheel in the world, I think. This is a side on view of said wheel.

Christmas Still?

Is it too late to still post christmas photos? I’m gonna say that its never too late. Does Covent Garden still have their decorations up? I guess they have until the 6th January until their bad luck sets in. 

Its so easy to take good christmas photos in London. Everything looks so christmassy (if thats even a work). These giant ball balls reflect the light so well and turn into huge disco balls. All you need is some club music and the night is sorted.

Spinning Neon

Earlier I posted a shot of a ride at the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. This is the same ride from another angle. I am not sure what I prefer. This one shows the ride spinning while the bright neon lights draw in passers by. The tripod I was using had to be modified for this shot to fit thorough the railing of the ride. I saw modified, I mean used as a monopod while it precariously rests on a ledge with me trying to hold it steady to the best of my ability. As you can imagine it took a few tries until I was happy with the brackets.

Now christmas is over its time to plan for New years. We have a rule in my house that it cannot be called that. We call it my birthday for obvious reasons. The bad thing is that New Years Eve is always an anti-climax, especially this year as I will be working on a boat on the Thames.

Neon at the Wonderland

This was not the first time that I have gone to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland at christmas. I went last year but wasn’t able to take many decent photos as I was with family. This time though I went on a dedicated trip to take photos. I got a lot better shots then last time. It may help that now I am more experienced now but also it helps to be around fellow photographers for inspiration and enjoyment.

As soon as I saw this ride I new what I wanted to do. The colours and textures lend itself perfectly for HDR. I got a few from another angle with the ride spinning that have come out well (considering I had to fashion a tripod so I could lean though the bard on the far side). I will post one of them at a later date. Enjoy on this final run up to christmas.

Wandering Around Deck 10

I have so many photos of the ship that I don’t know if I should post them all. They are full of colours that only Disney could pull off.

Happy Pills

As you can imagine this shop caught my eye as I was walking past it in Barcelona. It wasn’t its minimalistic white with bright colours, but its name. I dont know about you but here “happy pills” is a term used for drungs or antidepressants. Here it is cleaverly used to describe my drug, sweets and chocolate.

yummmmmmmmmmm, Sweet Heaven.

Barcelona has lots of markets but I went into one just off La Ramblas. It was heaven for taking photos in and luckily I had my 50mm 1.4 on the camera which made everything Bokahlicious. 

I had seen a photo from Barcelona ages ago, from when I first went there in 2006. I had no idea where it was taken but it was of a big stall of colourful sweets. It just so happened that in that market in Barcelona I came across a sweet stall. It looks very similar to the one I saw a picture of but I don’t know if it’s the same one.

We finally reached our home port for Europe, Barcelona.

After a very long transatlantic we reached my favorite city. I have been to Barcelona before and had always wanted to go back so i was very happy. We would come back every 10-11 days so I would get plenty of chances to explore all the little alleyways. 

You can get lost in the gothic quarter as there is so many little nooks and crannies to explore. I found this graffitied section of a building site down one of these streets.

I would just like to use this post to say a big hello to all my new followers. I have had quite a few recently and I will get around to looking at all your blogs soon.

I was going over my images to make a portfolio the other day and came across one of my very old images. He is still there protesting after all this time.

lushlondon:

Sad War- People have been protesting out side the houses of Parliament for decades but some people haven’t left since 2001 to try and stop the Iraq War.