Hi, Hola, Bonjour , Ciao , مرحبا, 您好, bok, hei and welcome.

My name is James Murray and I live in London, England but love to go exploring in foreign climates. Coming from a design background I look at photography as an extension of this, recording the lifestyles and architecture that make up are world.

My passion for photography started when I first picked up a film camera (wow I miss the darkroom), capturing the moments of my accident filled childhood. I transferred this passion into my studies mixing in all of my design influences to create my own style.

Architecture and photography are the perfect blend each complementing the other. As a HDR (High Dynamic Range) enthuiast, I use this technique to enrich my images.

I have worked as a photographer since 2010, taking photos of the enviroment that I lived in around London, selling images as artworks and to companies. In 2011 I worked for Disney on their cruise ships with the big mouse himself. Onboard I worked as a portrait and wedding photographer, learning new techniques and feeding my travel bug.

Every photo is a memory; there is no better way to capture it then how you see it, not how the camera sees it.

 

Stacky Theme by Andrew

Congratulations Disney Magic!

Todays photo is in honour of the Disney Magic Cruise ship. It has been voted the best cruise ship in the world by a survey carried out by contravener. Take a look at all of the results here.

I am proud to be a part of this and it was a great 6 months of my life. Mickey and I still keep in touch every now and then and he is going to head the celebrations on board (expect a lot of crew parties). You can see the beauty here docked in Castaway Cay (the Disney island for those of you new to the blog) in the Bahamas. I am always disappointed with the pictures of this place as the sky is never interesting although it was great weather all the time there apart from one accession where nature decided to bombard us with its monthly storm.

Castaway Paradise 

The recent tragedy of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has made me think back to my experience on the Disney Magic. For those of you outside of Europe (or those of you that live in a hole), the cruise ship Costa Concordia owned by Carnival hit a rock off of Italy’s west coast. The ship was sailing from the port of Civitavecchia which is the main port of Rome. The boat I was on done the same journey as this one for 3 months so I know the area well. The death toll currently stands at 11 but there are still many people missing.

I was lucky enough to only have one emergency (but many medical emergancies, a story for another time). We discovered a fire as smoke pored through the ceiling in the atrium where were were taking photos. I won’t bore you with the procedures but basically we told the bridge and had to act like normal. If didn’t help that they announced “red parties”, a code term for fire, over the pa system that meant everyone was asking us what was going on. A fellow photographer said to a 6 year old boy that it meant that we hit a whale to much amusement to everyone around.

In the end the fire team put it out very quickly. It was caused by welding in the room above which set alight an empty stateroom. 

This photo is another from Castaway Cay in the bahamas. You can see the Disney Magic cruise liner in the background docked at the disney island.

Magic in Key West

I have so many more photos of Key West left to share with you. It was my favourite port in the Caribbean and a close second overall. Everytime I got off there I would go mad with pictures. The place is so different to what I am used to and I would move there in a second.

You must get fed up of seeing this ship but it was my life for 6 months so tough luck. I can never get bored with it as it is such a beautiful place to be and you should go on it if you can.

A Disney Paradise

Who ever knew that it was so hard to post a video. Due to copyright issues to the soundtrack from torn in my time-lapse, some countries are not able to view it. I had to post it on a different sight that you can see here.

Right now onto todays photo. Another from Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. This jetty is just as you get off the ship on the way to the main part of the resort. You can see the typical Bahamian sky as great as ever.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Madeira Harbor

I was working a lot in Madeira so didn’t get much of a chance to go explore most of it. I went to the centre of town and then walked back through the harbor back to the ship. 

People always say to me that you have been to some great places. Yes I have but I have not seen them. I got to spend around 3 hours at a time exploring the places we went to which is not enough time to “see” places. I want to go back to some of the places to see the true side of them. One day I will.

Smoke at Castaway Cay

The ship never shuts down its engines while it is in port. I have no idea why so perhaps someone out there can tell me. This was taken, like many photos before, at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. You must be getting fed up of pictures from here. I have shown you so many but it really is a paradise island. I had more fun here they any other place we went and got to be here every week while we were in the Caribbean,

You Cheeky Monkey

I got to know the monkeys well in Gibralter. I spent a whole day photographing guests with them on top of the Rock. They are everywhere, taking every bag that they come across. They are looking for food and snatch it away right from your hand. We would guess what guest would fall victim and it became a fun game.

This is one of the culprits relaxing after a long day of harrasing tourists. You can see the Disney Magic in the harbor below. Believe it or not we actually walked back to the ship from here. It took us forever as it was further then we thought.

Four in a Row

Hello and welcome to another week. Today is a photo from the Caribbean. I didn’t get off the ship much in Grand Caymen. It was generally used to catch up on sleep and do the laundry. I did venture out twice though and went to a nice Italian restaurant with some friends. On my way back I did a bit of my very own Urbex. Well sort of… I stepped over a badly placed bollard onto some wasteland to find this rotting boat.

You can see four cruise ships on port that day. The one in the centre is my home, the Disney Magic but I can’t remember the others. I think one was a Royal Caribbean and another a Carnival ship.

Preludes on the Disney Magic

Deck 4 on the Disney Magic cruise ship was home to many things but one of them was the Walt Disney Theatre. The entrance of this was called Preludes and was home to a large picture of Disney himself.

We set up character lights here nearly every day and was a place the the big Mouse and friends would come and sign autographs and take photos. after setting up here many times you hear enough tours to pick up a bit of trivia, so here it is… There is one thing missing from the photo of Walt Disney……. Can you guess?…… no not mickey…… he always had a cigarette in his hand but it was photoshopped out for this mosaic.

There trivia done and I think that I actually said part of the tour word for word.

Deck 9 on the Magic

I had such a great time working on the Disney Magic Cruise Ship. It is an amazing place to work at as you can imagine. Disney does do all things that you thought impossible.

I think HDR is the only way to do the ship justice. It captures all the colour and texture of the surroundings which is made more intense at night.

Signals on the Magic

The family pool, as you can imagine, was the most popular pool and was always full of guests. Even late at night there would be someone around enjoying some of the activities around. This was taken in the early hours of the morning just after I had finished work for the day.

The bar/restaurant on this part of the ship was called Signals, hence the name of the photo. I ate here a few times after a late finish and the food was really good. Anything was good compared to the crew food though.

The two covered pools in the foreground are jacuzzis that were always occupied mainly by teens who were socialising with new friends. Adults usually found sanctuary in the adult pool where it was alot more peaceful.

Serenity in the Harbor

The ship has just gone back over the Atlantic and I am upset that I am not back working on it. I may go back one day but for the moment I am happy back in London.

The ship was back in Key West on Sunday so I thought I would mark the occasion with this photo of it in Key West harbor. Everytime the ship is in port my Facebook gets lit up with where everyone is. The joys of free Wifi in restaurants is hard to forget. It is so different to the really slow ship internet and did I mention that its FREE!!! 

Anyway enough of that. Its hard to make the ship look bad when it is in such a beautiful surrounding. I have said many times that I want to live in Key West. For those of you that haven’t been I would suggest that if you are in Florida, pop down even just for a day. The chilled atmosphere will do you wonders.

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.

The Lifts (sorry elevators) of the Disney Magic

One thing that I couldn’t get used to was all the Americanisms. Time after time many Americans stared blankly at me when I said that the nearest way to a toilet (another word some americans had a problem with instead of restroom) was “up the lift”. I would always forget to say elevator and soon remind myself then giving myself a mental kick.

I spend most of my time by these lifts as all photography studios were set up in the atrium in the afternoon. This photo doesn’t do the chandelier justice. Disney do know how to decorate.

Model Citizen

These model people always fascinated me when walking back to the boat in Key West. There are many of them, each with a different pose. A couple looked over on to the harbor, and when there is no boat there, out to sea. 

Just around the corner there is a large sculpture formed of many naked forms posing. It is strange to see something like that out in the open but Key West is a very relaxed place and was one of my favorite places to be in the Caribbean.