I stumbled across a weekly photo competition on Flickr called FlickrFriday and thought I would enter that this week instead of PhotoFriday.
This weeks theme is “Keep it simple” and, as any British person will tell you, that means meerkats.
But please still consider voting for my entry in last weeks PhotoFriday, “Neglected.” I’m entry number 123.
This is a long way of saying Thank You to F for the Olloclip, the ideal gadget for someone who loves both their iPhone and photography. Literally only available a couple of weeks before Christmas (for iPhone 5 at least), it still arrived before the 25th.
For those that don’t know, the Olloclip is an attachment for the iPhone’s camera. It looks like this:
It sits over the iPhone’s camera. It has three lenses on two sides. On one side there’s the fish-eye adapter, on the other is a wide-angle. If you unscrew the the wide-angle it becomes a macro adapter.
For most of the last year I have been in an office with no natural light. Well, I say office. It was really a conference room with a dozen of us crammed in, two to a desk in my case. Cables everywhere; at one point they almost shut the project room down for health and safety violations.
But — getting to the point — a couple of months ago we moved. And not only was there natural light but I got a window seat. And what a view.
This was the first wedding that I’ve been to in a while where I have not been the photographer in some capacity. It was nice to avoid the pressure! The disadvantage of course is that I was not always — not often — in the right place for the best shot.
It still didn’t stop my trying.
Welcome to the British Summer. Taken on my iPhone on Regent Street, just outside the Apple Store, this morning on my way to work.
I’ve photographed a few weddings before, but this one was different. The others have all been for friends. This one was for a friend of a friend, someone I’d never met before. In the end I don’t think that made any difference, but I was much more conscious that I mustn’t get in the way.
The short version of this post is: congratulation to the happy couple! Enjoy your honeymoon and see you when you get back. The longer version follows…
A month ago I drove up to the midlands for a wedding where I had been asked to be the photographer. It’s not the first time that this has happened but it is the first time that I’ve been the “official” photographer and it’s also the first time where the wedding has been in a church, white dress, limo and all.
A few people asked me what I wanted for Christmas. As ever I couldn’t think of anything and facetiously suggested a Ferrari. Apparently even toy models are more expensive than you’d think but a red Lego car is within range for a joke gift, and that’s absolutely fine by me! I loved Lego as a kid, and I still do!
But if one toy is good then two are better. So I had to play with my new Lego and my new flash together.
It seems that the weather is not without a sense of irony1. In the year that is the hottest on record, in the UK we’re having a very early cold snap, complete with snow.
I did think that it was all archive footage, since the papers were full of coverage yet there was no snow at all in London. And then this morning the pavements were covered. When I went out for a bite to eat at lunchtime I took my camera with me…
I’ve missed the New Year celebrations on the 31st December for about fifteen years now so it’s getting beyond the point where you could consider it an accident. Indeed, the cold and the crowds both in Trafalgar Square and afterwards on the Tube don’t exactly encourage me to make an effort. Luckily Chinese New Year is at a more civilised time, is less busy and slightly warmer.
Still, it’s the first time I’ve ever made it!