Category: music

B356 – SUCH A GOOD SUNDAY

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After a night out that didn’t really finish till 5am, today was all about two things, food and Sunday vibes. once we had managed to get up and get dressed we decided to head to a proper greasy spoon and eat like we haven’t eaten before. After that the plan was to do something we havent done for ages and just walk around a cool part of town and explore, the destination was Notting Hill and mainly the Portobello road market. what I think both Amy and me like about this area is the colourful houses and cool shops, its a really cool area and somewhere I wouldn’t mind living.

To be honest if you forget about the area, it was just good chilling with Amy and taking photos of the day. We both have been non stop for ages and spending the day together was nice, even though I had to leave in the afternoon and travel to a hotel in kent and now im sleeping in a single bed. but hey, least we got to spent 24 hours together not talking about work and just having fun. So amy if your reading this with your morning cuppa tea, thanks for today and I just want you to know that I am now sleeping in a bed that my legs hang out of the end.

I took quite a few photos of today but I want to show you more tomorrow, I will probably write something more informative about Notting Hill but for now I just want to get a bit of an early night. One thing I did want to mention though is my camera settings at the moment, Im shooting with a lower aperture so my photos are on the boarder of being over exposed, but I quite like the look of photos that have information missing and thats kind of the style that im liking, over exposed and faded.

Heres my photos, enjoy.

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– Notting hill, this photo kind of sums it up –
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– the typical notting hill photo –
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– I do love notting hill but I also love a greasy spoon in bethnal green –

 

B355 – I LOST THE FIGHT

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Yesterday was not a photo friendly day and by that I mean that the whole day until the evening was pretty much one big 9 hour fail. I decided yesterday morning that it was time I put that ikea light we brought a few months ago up, well that light is now in the bin, I dont know who designs lights at ikea but who ever you are, just make it simple but yet effective, don’t just say “hang it on a hook” because that is not a clever idea.

After fighting with this light for a good 2 hours, I was now on my way to John lewis with my tail between my legs, looking for a new light fitting. I did manage to get one, how ever it quickly became apparent that in order to put a light up, you need to know a thing or two about electrics. Long story short, the light is sitting in my wardrobe waiting for an electrician aka Amys dad to put it up but some people out there would be proud of me because at the same time as buying the light I also got a floor lamp, just incase my plan didnt work. So we arent just sitting in darkness, we can still see. Thats what you call future proofing yourself (I have just read this back and realised how boring this all sounds).

After fighting with the flats lighting, we then headed out to meet some of our friends and went to some place in Brixton called, Brixton Jam. its kind of like a disco night at a club, to be honest im not really sure what else happened but I do know that we didn’t get home till like 5am, which is probably the latest Amy and me have ever got home. I know, I know, its a crazy life we both lead.

I think the plan for today is to head over to Notting hill this morning and grab some coffee, and have a pretty chilled out day before I head off to work this evening. So I will be taking my camera and hopefully get some pretty cool photos of possibly my favourite part of London.

heres my photos from yesterday, all photos were taken on an Iphone.

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– you cant tell but this photo was taken at like 4:30 this morning, thank you mr mayor for keep the tubes open 24 hours a day on weekends! –
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– Amy about to clear up on the pool table –
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– dave –

B343 – THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT BIG CHALLENGE…

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Ahh Monday, the one day of the week where those extra 5 minutes of snoozing the alarm make all the difference, especially when you have a 7:20am call time but the good thing about a call time that early is that you get to see London empty and not full of people. this morning I got to walk through the famous Brough market and it was completely empty, not even someone selling fruit or veg, it was just me. I wish I had more time to explore and that I could of pulled out my camera and spent 5 minutes just taking photos but as I said earlier, those extra 5 minutes of snoozing that alarm aren’t something that can be given up lightly.

For my photos today, I really wanted to show you some more snaps from the beach the yesterday but as im expecting a very busy week, so Ill drip feed you guys photos over the next 5 days, I hope thats ok.

After work today the plan was to go to the gym and spend an hour working out instead of an extra hour on the sofa watching tv, I know that might sound like some kind of terrible idea but my reason behind this is simple, if I want to carry on working 12 to 15 hour days (thats including my time writing these blog posts) then I really should start looking after my body by staying in shape. One thing that has made that decision the right one was the fact that in my second week of gym Ive just managed to run 5km without having a pain in my leg from ligament tear 9 months ago. That 5km run was something I had been thinking about in the back of my head for the past two days and then today I got on that running machine and made it happen, I couldn’t be happier and now Ive done the hardest part, which is basically me telling my brain that I can do this and that I just need to take it slowly. when you have an injury like that, you kind of get these weird thoughts that you shouldnt do it and that your injury has come back. All I can say is learn to actually listen to your body and not just that part of your head that is kind of scared something will happen again.

Straight after the run which by the way took me 34 minutes to run 5km, I was thinking about that goal of running an ultra marathon and I know this is something that probably maybe shouldn’t happen for a good two years, it is something I’m going to start thinking about again. my plan is to go on Saturday and get a sports massage and then speak to the running coach about how I might be able to reach the goal of a 100 mile race. I suppose if nothing else, its something for me to work towards.

Sorry in advance both Amy and my parents.

Heres some snaps, I hope you like them.

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– norfolk beach, it literally goes on for miles –
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– bank tube station this morning before rush hour had started –
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– borough market, the best place for food in london, also where they filmed bridget jones and lock stock and two smoking barrels –

 

B330 – DAY TWO AND STILL IN BED

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Day two of virus: I think its fair to say that the virus I have caught must be something never discovered before because im pretty much knocked out, Ive slept for 25 hours of the past 30 hours with only the fair few emergency bathroom breaks. Im supposed to be going in to work today but with the snow, minus 10 temperature I dont think im  going to make it. my plan is to see how I feel in a few hours and then make a call about it.

its definitely days like today where keeping up with this blogging life style is nearly impossible, but with just over a month togo I cant cave in now. for those of you that are new to this website Ill explain a little bit about what im doing here, my plan from April last year was to post three photos a day for a whole year and to go along with that I have to write 300 words, the idea behind this is to improve my photography skills and to also hopefully to improve my writing skills (Which I kind of think Ive managed todo).

when I first started I didn’t realise how much is was going to become part of my daily life and to be honest the idea of skipping a day or just giving up and quitting has been pretty strong but I’m refusing to give in and like to think that i can make it and then in a few years time Ill be able to look back and know exactly what I did on possibly one of the busiest years of my life so far.

So again I think I need to apologies for the lack of photo content these past few days, I know its snowing in london and that can make for some great photos and I wish I could get out there but I need to kick this illness first!

Heres some shots from my flat windows!

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– A view from the spare bedroom, I cant wait till this room has been finished so we can spend more time in here –
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– yep we still have our christmas tree, the plan is to hold onto it till next year, thats what takes up this foreground shot – –
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– I went out last night to get fresh air and some bread, this shot is from inside the apartment complex –

 

B322 – YOU HAVE FOOLED THE NATION. GRANDE BIG MAC.

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Since the whole Brexit thing began and whether your pro Brexit or against the whole situation or maybe your confused, theres one question we can all ask. Is the Grande Big Mac actually worth it? Ive heard a lot of people complain about bread to meat ratio and size and now I’m confused but rather than make a irrational decision, i thought I would investigate.

Ive decided that I would take this into my own hands and find out if its something I would buy or avoid. My plan is judge the  whole process. And first off theres the counter, you arrive and your met by this massive picture of a grand burger and your eyes that you down to the boxes sitting in the heat self, the boxes are pretty much the same size as a size 11 shoe box. No joke they are gigantic. Excitement has started to kick in and now all I want todo is sit down and enjoy this box of pure joy.

So now I have the burger in my hands and its time to dig in, but first we need to put a story to bed, is the actual meat in the burger the same size as the other burgers or has Maccy Dees properly upped the game…

I can tell you with a heavy heart that the burger meat inside is no different, what Mcdonalds have done is just make a bigger bun and sell the country a lie. for me a burger cannot be judged on its size, but rather the contents and favour. If your going to sell me a “grand Big Mac” and call it your extra large burger then please give me the burger to match.

As far as a burger at Mcdonalds goes, a Large Big Mac meal is £5.09 and a Grand Big Mac is £5.49. Thats a hole extra 40p and for that you get more bread. Im not going to talk about health facts or calorie count, because you can eat what you want but in proportion in my eyes. I can tell you now that Im sat on the sofa and my stomach feels like its going to explode.

Congratulations Mcdonalds on a really smart publicity stunt to apparently celebrate 50 years of the Big Mac and that seems to have worked for the first few weeks but now your plan has been uncovered and the people aren’t being fooled. I think we should name your Grand Big Mac, MacBrexit. We understand that they never look like they do on the adverts but this is a step too far,  You may fool the people once, but you will not fool them again. (hopefully).

But on the other hand, Junior Big Mac. That is a great idea, people love your Big Mac Sauce and everyone loves a cheese burger, on that front you have given the people what they want and combined the two and for that Ronald Mcdonald, I thank you.

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– As we can see, this burger box is pretty much taller than the fries box
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– the area of bread is impressive, its basically a mini loaf –
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– I made this picture black and white to help you compare the size of the actual burgers. please, make your own decisions. the Grand is on the Left, Junior on the right  –

B321 – HYDE PARK IN THE MORNING, NOTHING BEATS IT.

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So today Im at the Baftas working not partying I should mention, my plan was probably to show you some photos from before my day, during it and after. but then something happened that I really didnt expect, it was my walk to work. I did what I always do when im at the Royal Albert Hall, I get off at Lancaster Gate and walk through Hyde Park to the stage door. Nothing crazy.

Well this morning as I got off at Lancaster Gate and noticed that the sun was just coming up, it was roughly 7:35 or something (My call time was 7:30 so I was running a but late) As I entered into Hyde park it was unbelievable, the sun was hitting the sides of everything and the water was still, it was literally magical. I felt like I had just walked onto a set of a feature film which was going to win a BAFTA for its lighting, I instantly when for my 5d and then realised I had left my beautiful camera at home, my only choice was to pull out the iphone, and my god Im happy i did. For some reason it just feels right that I took these photos on my Iphone, it gives the photos a feel of just an average londoner walking through the park if that makes any sense. No special lens used, no expensive camera, just amazing light and a bog standard 29mm f2.9 iphone lens. Im definetly a fan of mobile phone cameras and the photography they are capable of.

If I was to give people one top tip about using a phone to get good shots, it would be not to worry about how good the Iphone X is and how amazing the camera is, Im pretty happy with my Iphone 6s right now and definitely don’t think that for an extra £50 a month the Iphone x will improve my photos that much.  If you was to buy an Iphone X on an £80 a month contract, then over the course of 24 months you would spend an extra £1200 on the phone, that means that for the same price you could get a Sony RX100 or Fuji X100f and still have cash left over, now trust me they are some powerful pocket rockets. I personally think Iphone X is over rated, its good but its not life changing. With camera sensors I just think that each sensor model creates its own feel and vibe, at the moment I love the iphone 6s picture quality, thats not to say in a few months or years ill be in love with the iphone X, because I probably will be.

its now coming to the end of my dinner break at work, so Ill stop the rant and if you were hoping to see a photo of my at the BAFTA’s heres one from a few years ago.

Heres my photos from today.

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– I hope Will and Kate are happy with his view –
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– I know I say it most days but the light this time of year is definetly something to rant about –
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– living in East london, you forget how good Hyde Park is –
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– I bloody love london and my Iphone –
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– me in a rare occasion of wearing a suit, I think this photo was taken in 2015 or something. Look at that hand gesture –

 

 

B320 – SAVE YOURSELF!

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Saturday and just like most Saturdays I seem to have at the moment, this one was no different. It involved awaking up pretty early, getting dressed and heading out. The first mission was to get a hair cut but after the que was over two hours, it was quickly apparent that I was going to have to suck it up and walk straight back out the door and head over to Amys Nans house to help with some gardening stuff, not really sure what you call it, but my job was basically to move some rubbish from the garden and fill a skip up.

After we had moved everything into the skip, it was time for me to get a quick lesson in putting up a fence, something that Im pretty sure if push came to shove, I might be able to do my self now. I also got to use a sledge hammer, I refuse to believe anyone that says they instantly don’t feel more manly as soon as they pick up a Sledge hammer and I could of sworn that after I used the sledge hammer I had way more hair on my chest than when I started. but thats taking things to a completely different post entirely.

After my day of learning new DIY tips, it was onto the part I was dreading, the place thats sucks your sole and leaves you broken and craving a cheap fake hot dog, the places I’m talking about is Ikea and for some reason its Amy loves it. I genuinely believe that she would happily walk around there from dawn till dusk. luckily we were only making a quick pit stop there to pick up a wardrobe and some other little things, so we didn’t have to hang around and look at 20 different types of kitchen cupboards. I would just warn everyone out there, that if the idea comes up in conversation to head to ikea on a Saturday night, please try to re-schedule, you will be saving yourself a whole lot of stress.

Anyway, here are my photos from yesterday, sorry they aren’t the best. it was all a bit rushed yesterday.

Oh and sorry if youve sent me a message recently, I will get back to you. I just haven’t had time to sit down and do it. Ill try and get sometime today and respond!

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– At the back of the garden, learning more DIY tips and stuff –
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– Amy rocking the Ikea look –
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– this is just a picture of the train ride, I still love the low light shadows you get this time of year –

B319 – APPLE STOP BEING ANNOYING

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The plan for todays post is to kind of do a recap of the week through photos that Ive taken on my iphone, post like these are actually pretty good todo because I seem to take loads of photos each day on my phone that I just completely forget about until I look back through the phone.

My normal workflow for posts is to dump all the photos on to my hard drive and then edit them in Lightroom before I even think about what Im going to write. From there I open up WordPress and start to think of a way of starting the post. Well today Ive ended up doing things a bit different, all because my phone needs to be updated, so now Im writing this without even decided what photos Ill use. Normally I would wait for my phone to update and then just go through the rhythm  of posting but as today Im spending my day off getting up early and running about to get a bunch of done, like get my hair cut and also put a fence up. Thats something I also only found out about last night and something Ive never done before, so that should be interesting.

This week has really been about early starts, I think Ive been up out and out the house before 6am more times this week than any other week of my life. people will probably call me lazy but I like to think of that as a lucky statistic and something that will probably change from now on, I got a feeling that I have a lot more early starts coming my way.

Something that is also really annoying me that the moment is Apples Airdrop, its like a spoilt child and only wants to work when it choices. Like todo for instant, Im not about to send photos via airdrop to my laptop, and now its making me late. Why does Apple make products that only they can fix, they should just make Airdrop so you can search of your  physical device. Not just wait for airdrop to find your device, Come on Tim Cook, what are you doing with you time at apple! stop making iphones every 6 months and start making your software better. give up on Apple Pages, no one like it, give up with Home pod, its just an overpriced speaker that you can only use with apples products. Apple you have really boiled my blood this morning and now made me late! Stop holding us all by the balls and creating amazing products, then just add some features which dont make it as good as it could be and then slowing us all done. Telsa just sent a car to in to space and you cant even create a piece of software that will allow my iphone to talk to my mac properly.

Sorry for the rant but Apple are in my bad books today. Here are some of my photos from the early mornings this week.

 

 

 

 

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– Walking across London bridge in the rain was actually quite fun –
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– this places makes me realise how old London actually is
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– coming out of Charring cross before everyone else is even up 

 

B318 – TAKING PHOTOS WITHOUT WALKING ANYWHERE?

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After the shoot today my plan involved rushing back to east london to try and catch a demo of the New fujifilm camera, it looks pretty sick and I think I may be in love but on my arrival to Wex Photo in Whitechapel I was met with the news that I was 30 minutes late and as a result missed the demo and the camera. Coming away from the shop feeling like a had completely failed on my post shoot mission I decided that instead of heading straight home, that I should now try and finish on a high and take some cool photos.\

The only problem with that was for the fact that since 5am I had been on my feet and running around carrying peli cases and tripods, so I needed a plan which involved taking cool photos and not really moving a whole lot. Thats when my idea came to me, theres so many cool artists around brick lane, that spend hours and hundreds of pounds painting the walls and adding some colour to this city, its almost becoming an accepted part of modern day society. if you have a nice clean wall, then someone going to put some art on it free of charge. there comes my mini plan for today. Why don’t I find a really cool wall and just photograph people walking past it and see if they even acknowledge it?

Apart from the guy that swore at me and polity told me todo one, it was pretty successful I think. after coming home and looking at the photos, I really like the choice of wall but I’m not sure what I think about the people being out of focus. I would love to say that was a choice but it really wasn’t, I wanted them to be in focus. so maybe I need to re-think my strategy a bit. I think the idea is there, I just need to now concentrate on the delivery now, I will be back and Im now thinking of this idea a lot more. Im not going to say anymore because I dont want someone to steel my idea, but if you do give it a try please send me some of your photos so i can see if you do it better than me.

Heres my favourite photos from today.

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– this is what the wall looked like when no one was standing in front of it –
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– probably my favourite photo from today, hes in my picture and maybe I made it into his –
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– she likes the art –
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– they look like they’ve seen something happening up ahead –

 

 

B309 – CLEAR SKYS AND COLD WEATHER – PERFECT

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Last night was one of those nights, while on my walk to Old street, my photos just seemed to happen. I think half of that was down to the light, I had hit the perfect time, just as the sun was setting and theres this cool kind of blue light in the sky. I know it might sound a bit weird as well but I think it definitely helped that it was ridiculously cold. A lot of the time I walk around and really struggle to take some photos decent photos that I actually like, that definitely wasn’t the case last night.

One of the things I have learnt about myself over the past 309 days is that I really love street photography and take pictures of people and capturing those random moments that we all see happen and that give us those little chuckle to ourselves. thats definitely my favourite thing to photograph, but Ill also take a clear cold night where you are given loads of strong, bright, contrasty colours from shop windows and the odd coffee shop.

At the moment I really don’t have a lot of time to make it down to gigs and music venues to work on that photography project, which is really annoying. The only way I could make it is if I probably stop eating dinner and cut my sleep down but as I think that would probably do more damage than good, for now Im just going to put it on hold and get through the next couple of weeks / months and then pick it up from there. So sorry to anyone that Ive been speaking to about gigs for events, I haven’t forgotten about you.

my plan for the future is to write these posts that night instead of the morning before work, I just dont leave myself enough time and now spent my morning rushing around. theres nothing better waking up in the morning before work, knowing that the post is ready to go. C’mon josh up your game!!!

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– Bethnal Green Road towards Shoreditch –
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– I cant remember if I have taken a photo of this before, but I like this shot so Ill post it anyway –
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– its like the hand it pushing him back –