Second Shot

I was going to write a pretty scathing analysis on my photography skills that Ian and Hoi’s kindly requested from me for their Chinese ceremony. But I won’t.

And this is mainly because most of the photographs are pretty good and only require a few little touches to make them better. As I was expecting, really. But I’m still editing them as I’ve been pretty busy recently and, well, because I’m a perfectionist and if I’ve been asked to do something, I might as well put the effort into getting something out of it for myself.

I’ve definitely learnt a whole load of things to watch out for the next time I’m asked to do some photograph work; not even close to being a wedding photographer (although the money pays well, I still don’t think I want that weight upon me), but not bad for a few nice snaps. I was reading up about wedding photography, more specifically wedding photojournalism - the difference being that the latter is there to document the event, tell the story, all without staging anything. I kind of like that sort of work, suits my sneaky-sneaky shoot-from-the-hip attitude.

One of the main things I concluded was that my current camera lens isn’t great for indoor photography (although, admittedly, it served me well for the large family photograph). So, I decided that I needed (read: wanted) to get a faster lens. And that’s exactly what I did. From eBay.

eBay?! Second hand?! For a camera lens?! Pah!

Yet, I kid you not, even to my untrained eye the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Mark II is a superb bit of glass and is a great (and probably final) addition to my lens range. I was testing it out earlier, under internal lighting, fully open aperture and shot some nice, clean photographs of the niece and nephew. I instantly looked past the orange tint from the lighting (didn’t set the correct white balance) and saw the future; I can now do some decent portrait shots with good brokeh behind the subject. Even taking a picture of the label inside a pair of jeans turned itself into ‘art’.

Only bug bear is that it’s on the Canon 400D with its cropped sensor, which means it’s effectively an 80mm lens. That’s pretty close for indoor shooting (except portraits). I’m going to lose a lot of wide-angle advantage of my other 17-70mm and the flexibility that it affords; I’m just going to have to stand further back from the subject.

Mind, it does give me an excuse to get a full-frame camera…

Congratulations to Ian and Hoi, our recently married couple. It was a lovely day that you let us share together. Sorry we couldn’t stay longer, but we’ll see you on Sunday for food-eating goodness. And hopefully with our group present.

You’ll have a great future together. All the best and with love.

A belated Merry Christmas and a fantastically happy New Year to you all.

I was again down at the London Thames, freezing to death with a numb bum having sat on the floor for two hours until 12am, and saw in the new year with Ting. And the fireworks were lovely, too.

Hope you all had fun and have recovered enough for the start of the final weekend before starting work. Make the most of it.

Cheers.

Inspiration hit us when Ting showed me the Dot to Date calendar rejects (by Dan Usiskin) that were being sent out, of which we received ones of the Millenium Dome, Westminster/Big Ben, and St Paul’s Cathedral.

Without the full form of the Dome present it was easy to visuallise some else entirely, especially when you see it upside down. And that is exactly what we did.

Combining our (lack of) cinematic knowledge, we came up with “Independance Day: London”; the (now classic) climatic scene has been recreated with London architecture and with the aliens showing far greater technological knowhow than previously, as they take the Millenium Dome for a ride. See other people’s (and ours!) handiwork here.

Finishing late on a working day is never fun, so it put a smile on my face to see about 16 nuns (obvious by attire) dining out at the local Italian restaurant, Bianco Nero.

Just seeing them, through the window, all animated in discussion and seemingly joyful really made me feel good about nothing in particular. Now I think about it, it was very much like a Scooge moment, peering unnoticed into the welcoming warmth of other people’s lives and home.

It’s times like these that I wish I carry my camera around.

Ian’s Stag do at an archery fun-course event thingy was a pretty novel day out and definitely a whole load of fun. I always thought that shooting an arrow was something that required great skill and, to an extent, it does; however, to actually have the arrow hit something is a completely different story.

With all the relevant notches and guides on the bow and arrow, it’s relatively straightforward to nock-draw-and-release an arrow at a target (or, at least, somewhere in its general direction). The biggest problem - or test of skill, shall we say - is actually hitting the target (at all!). But in the spirit of team play, it was always a bit of a laugh and generous cheering for each other when arrows went sky-high or hit the killzone.

The day was set out well. It wasn’t just target practice but a variety of foam animals placed on hay-bales or strung-up, split with a nice hot lunch. And some how, we managed to top-and-tail the team scoring ladder with our two teams.

Following that up with a decent meal in a local pub/bar/restaurant, a night in with beers and Boogie Nights, and that sealed a decent night in with the guys.

And, once again, congratulations to Ian.

They had all the pretty ones locked up and working in the departure zone of Moscow airport.

Air stewardess just stuck her bum in my face.

Nice.

Sent (this last post before I fly home from Moscow) from my Windows Mobile phone.