Category: travel

B345 – ANY TIME IN THE PAST 100 YEARS

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Thursday morning and last day of shooting for the week, I literally couldn’t be happier. For some reason this week just seems to have taken it out of me and now I’m ready to get a decent sleep and hide away from the terrible weather than seems to be on its way again.

Back when i had a life, my week day plan was always to wake up like 45 minutes earlier, grab a coffee, sit on my sofa and open up my laptop and just start that days blog post but over the past 3 months that has really changed and now its just about getting the posts done at anytime I could. Well today I have decided to do my best and sit on the sofa with a coffee and spent some time just writing these posts, its probably my favourite way of doing it, and I maybe running out of time pretty quickly but you can never rush and artist (unless you have a floor manager and production team that would kick your arse if your not at work for your call time).

to lighten the mood a bit, I want to show you guys this morning are from… Yes you guessed it the other day at the beach in Norfolk, I promise its my last day of showing photos for that walk, but taking Landscape photos of the sea one on side and these really colourful muddy cliffs on the other with overcast clouds, I think really sets the mood and almost gives them a timeless feel. like those people on the beach in the first picture could almost of been there at anytime in the past 100 years, theres nothing in shot that I can see which would give away that its 2018.

I hope everyone is having a good week, here some the last of the photos from the weekend.

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– this photo to me, could of been taken at anytime in the past 100 years –
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– I should really take more photos with things in the foreground, I think its a cool style of photography –
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– just a crow sitting on a pile of sand. I tried to sneak up on it to get a better shot but it saw me and flew away –

 

 

B344 – PREMIER INN HATFEILD – 8/10 – “worth the stay and good food”

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So tonights Premier Inn is somewhere near a motorway around a town called Hatfeild, thats as much as I know about where Im staying to be honest and out of all the Premier Inns Ive stayed in, this one could be the best for customer service. The food was a bit slow but you cant judge a hotel off of one slight mistake, the rooms are clean and the food was actually pretty enjoyable. Today I decided to try something that has been a bit controversial and go for the fire noddles with chicken ( for an extra £2), and it was actually a pretty good choice and right now I know all those Wagamammas fans out there will be saying ” but it doesn’t have a thing on wagamammas” but thats not true.

With a place like wagamammas your standards are a lot higher but with some where like Premier inn its just about getting some sort of food inside you and today thats exactly what i got, good, kind of fresh food at a decent price. what more could you want.

I know this is going to sound like a first world problem and to be honest its not something thats a deal breaker but one thing I dont like about Premier Inn, is the length of their corridors and numbering systems. I know that they need to fit a certain number of room in but please guys add a few short cuts or something because when someone like me who travels with 10 bags and 15 peli cases needs a room we also need it to be easily accessible from the reception which 9 out of 10 times is not that case.

But for all its worth I would have to give this Premier Inn a 8/10 and a 4.5 star travel rating, its a place that does everything it says on the tin and also has a really good sized car park, which is perfect for long wheel base vans.

Hatfeild premier Inn on the M25 you have served me well.

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– these corridors are just a bit too long for someone with so many bags –

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– the best sight someone can see after a long days work, the famous premier inn bed –

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– my dinner the fire cracker noddles with chicken – pretty decent and quite healthy –

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 –

 

B342 -THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOS.

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As this post is being written and photos are being edited, I am sat next to a bin on a floor, while travelling on a busy train back to London, as the person next to me is watching Marley and Me on his Iphone without the use of headphones. So its pretty difficult to keep positive and stop myself from standing up and politely asking him to watch something a bit more up beat. I mean who watches Marley and Me on a train journey?

Anyway, apart from this current situation today day has actually been pretty chilled out and that’s how a Sunday should be spent, chilling, sleeping and eating. Firstly I should say congratulations to Amy, It fell on her shoulders today to cook up her speciality breakfast for everyone which is kind of like baked Spanish eggs and its one of my favourite breakfasts. She smashed it and everyone thought it was a great little dish.  I did mean to take a photo of the dish but I think its fair to say that everyone just dug in before I even remembered to grab a photo, so sorry about that. I think I’ve posted the recipe before but if anyone wants it, let me know and ill track it down. Its really simple but yet effective way of getting ready for what ever the day throws at you.

After all that Amy and me decided to get some fresh air and head down to the beach for a little walk, and what walk is complete without my best friend the Canon 5d. we didn’t go that far but it was the perfect conditions to take some fun pictures. I feel that my photography style is changing so much at the moment and Ive gone from wanting bright blue sky’s and a strong sunny day, to loving the over cast flat lighting that we have been having recently. It really adds a completely different element to each shot.

My plan recently has also been to use a lot paler colours, as most of you know I love black and white photos they always look so strong, but at the same time just saturating photos to the point where they feel black and white but still have hints of colour mixed with my favourite nifty 50mm lens just feels right at the moment.

What do you guys think about de-saturated photos, do they work? I feel like if you leave the white tones over exposed and keep the shadows to a minimum then it really feels like you capture a moment in time but then add some extra style to almost help create a story behind the shot. Its something that I feel just works kind of perfectly at the moment, maybe its just this time of year and that it all change in a few months, but for now I’m really happy with this kind of weather (By the way this is my Sunday night rush hour train thought process, so if non of it makes sense to you, just check out my photos and see if that helps make it any clearer).

Hope your all having a good Sunday! Oh and Happy Mothers day mum, you’re card will be there tomorrow. Sorry its late!

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– walking along the beach, didnt notice the bird sat on the post at the end till I started editing it –
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– amy going for that country sheek –
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– breakfast ingredients –

B341 – NOTHING LIKE A ENGLISH SEA SIDE TOWN

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Saturday in norfolk are mostly about chilling out and just sleeping whenever possible and thats kind of what I’ve done. Yesterday we did the usual dog walk in the morning and then sat around watching films / rugby before heading out with Amy’s friend’s for a meal and stuff. its been the first time in like 6 months since amy has seen some of her friends so its was kind of like a mini reunion.

What I love about coming to norfolk is the kind of sea side town vibes you get, when we took amys dog dexter on the walk we took this path that takes you through a proper english caravan site, with all those static caravans, which this time of year look completely abandoned expect for those few dedicated caravan people, you then head into the sea side town of Sheringham which has some how survived this fate of so many other sea side towns around the country and is still booming, with local butchers and of course the arcade’s with those amazing basketball games and 2p machines but most of all you have to love the local pubs which feel like they have been there since the beginning of time. my favourite is the Welly and now they even have WIFI. who would have thought it.

Its kind of amazing what when you think about what has happened to sea side towns around the country in the past 15 years, a lot of them I feel like are making a come back and a pretty fast one at that, when you look at places like cromer, it must have lived on a knifes edge for a few years while its locals made the decision to move on or stay put and fight it out and try to keep cromer alive and to say that while walking round Cromer briefly yesterday new cafes are opening and smart restaurants are starting to appear. If I had some cash I would quickly buy some old flats overlooking the sea and in a few years I guarantee that those places will be worth a small fortune, especially in the holiday season. So everyone come to Norfolk and have a mini break, you wont regret it and probably wont break the bank doing it either.

Anyway heres some photos from yesterday.

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– dexter on a dog walk, I think someone needs a drink of water? –
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walking through a caravan site –
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– at one of my favourite places in the world, The Welly pub / Cromer –

 

 

B340 – Happy Friday 

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Yesterday after work it was all abit go go, I had to get from the studio back to my flat and pack ready for a weekend in Norfolk. I did manage to sit on my sofa if a bit while I’ll took my shoes off but was then back up and out the door heading for Liverpool Street station. 
But now we have made it here and really enjoying our Saturday sat surrounded by baby twins and a girlfriend who can’t leave them alone.  

My idea of the photos today was to just have some fun with my iPhone and camera on the way up to Norfolk, however the photos you see below are only from my iPhone as I want to show you my other camera photos later on this week. And I know I’ve said it before but I love the iPhone camera, it is so handy for just capturing moments on the fly. And yes the Samsung camera is amazing but for me the iPhone just does the job perfectly, I suppose in a way it’s like comparing a canon to a Nikon camera. 

In other news, I think the plan for today is just to relax and chill out before heading out later to Cromer and going to my favourite pub, the Welly. I’m even taking a day off from using my Laptop normally I would set up in a corner of the room somewhere and edit / write these posts on my laptop but today I’m just doing this from my phone and not thinking about life too much. My plan each day is always to write at least 300 words and I’m not even sure if this is 300 words but to be honest I’m not even going to check. I think it’s best if you just enjoy my photos and briefly read this. 

Anyway, hope everyone is having a good weekend. And enjoy these photos. 

– arriving in Norwich last night, happy Friday –
– the train on the way up, you know it’s been a busy week when your enjoying a 2 hour train journey –

– I wonder where he got his ballon from? –

B339 – PEOPLE DEEP IN CONVERSATION

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Firstly I just need to say that I have no idea how I’m going to get through the last 25 days of this photo blog challenge, about 100 days ago I was trying to think of a cool way to finish this, one idea I had was flying to somewhere like Mexico for the day or doing a big finale, but not my goal is just to complete 365 days. Days like today make that challenge harder than thats been for the past 339 days. I dont mean to go on about it but today has been especially hard because the whole day has been spent somewhere I cant photograph and then by the time I get home its 9:30pm. but I suppose thats there winners win right?

the past couple of days Ive been thinking of a new game plan, and ways that I can keep the photos creative and at a high standard, one idea Ive got is to make sure I take loads of photos on the weekend and then ration them out throughout the week. I know, thats not techincally three photos each day, but it still counts right? I think thats going to be my only way of getting through this without having to post terrible Iphone photos that lets be honest no one really wants to see.

If Ive learnt anything so far, it would have to be that I absolutely love photographing people and capturing moments between people mid conversation or if I can, while they day dream. So I think what ill do for todays photos is show you some other shots from Speakers corner, a place where people are deep in conversation with strangers about literally any topic.

I think this whole thing has become a group effort, if you keep reading the post and enjoying my photos. then maybe, just maybe we will come out the other side of this blog. right now Im scared that one day Ill just sleep for 60 hours non stop and miss few days. but until that day heres some cool photos of people deep in conversation.

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– I would love to know if this conversation was based around a Macdonalds coffee cup –
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– I dont think this man agrees with the statement made –
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– this guy was just happy with life –

B336 – THE CREATIVE PEOPLE OF LONDON

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So its now like 10:30pm on monday night and im just laying in bed writing this post, since sunday Ive had the photos lined up that I wanted to post today but Im not sure on the words that should of with them.

Tonight Ive been out for some drinks with some friends, I should really say it was a company I do a bit of work for lates christmas party but I suppose their more just freinds, who sometimes give me money to pay my bills and stuff. but anyway it was nice to see each and every single one of them and it was annoying that I couldnt stay later but I need to get a decent nights sleep for an early start tomorrow, so im sorry I didnt see the night out till the end.

Anyway back to the photos, the other day while walking around hyde park I cam across this guy who was making some massive bubbles with some weird looking device and washing up liquid, and well because of my rekindled love for the 50mm 1.8f lens it was only right I put that focal length tot he test and see if I could capture a reflection within a bubble and to be honest I kind of think I managed todo that and one of the photos Im really happy with, I also wasn’t sure with what todo with the colours, you all know I love black and white photography and would love to only ever take black and white photos but I thought this time I would mix things up a bit and chuck some bright colours in there just to see what you think. Thats the whole reason this blog is here in the first place, to see what i like and what I don’t like. and you’ve kind of got to thank the city of London for being full of creative people who just think on a different scale!

Ill let you guys do the judging, do you prefer my black and white portrait shots or these kind of crazy colour shots (its ok to say both by the way).

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– my favourite shot from the day, look at the bird in the bubble –
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– its looks a lot easier than it actually is, wind was a nightmare –
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– the colours in these bubbles are amazing, they look like mini planets –

 

 

 

B334 – SO UNDERWELMING!!!

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So this is a post about something I thought would have worked out completely different. If you’ve ever been to my flat you would know that a lot of the time you seem to find cables and camera gear in the most random places, under the sofa, in the bed room and sometime even in the Bath room. Its not my fault its just what happens, no one know how is happens it just does. I think its Amy, she seems to be the one who finds most of the cables and gear so it must be her that leaves it around the flat.

Well today I woke up and went to the sofa, under a cushion to my disbelief there was a CF card, the said card is the same as the one that my camera uses. for those of you that dont know what a CF card is, they are basically bigger SD cards and its what my camera uses to record the images too. This got me exicted, could this CF card be from a few years ago and contain amazing photos that I completely forgot about? could it have evidence of a past flat party or maybe a christmas I forgot about? Well the answer is no where near as exciting as this, its a CF card I lost earlier this week and only really had some photos of a shower head from a hotel, a photo of my dog and some shots of the beast from the east. it coudnt of been more disheartening. I was really hoping for some amazing shots I hadn’t seen for years.

As this has really let me down I feel that I should still post these photos to show you what I went through this morning and to make up for it Im going to quickly jump in the shower and then head out and do my best to take some amazing photos in West London! thats my aim for today!

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– THIS IS MY DOG MOONEY AND SHE LIKES TO SLEEP –
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– this is my last photo from the beast of the east I promise –
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– a shower head in a hotel I stayed in a few week back. I took this picture to see if my 50mm lens still worked, not because I like showers –

 

 

B333 – THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A VERY DIFFERENT BLOG POST

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Well I suppose its fair to say that I definitely all kicked off again yesterday right? that snow came out of no where and really started playing with peoples mentions, even Waterloo a train station that has around 250,000 people use it each day, decided that the prospect of snow on a Friday was too much and had no choice but to shut up shop. fair play though, I would probably do that if I knew i could. after all its Friday and I don’t use Waterloo station so I cant really rant about if, but if I did have to use Waterloo last night then it this would probably be a very different blog.

For a friday though it was pretty hectic in a non hectic kind of way, after working in east London and having quite a good finishing time, I then headed into town for a different gig and I have to admit I hadn’t done much research on but turnt out to be a pretty good laugh. Im not really sure if I can say what it was yet, so I might just leave that one for a few weeks and when its out in the open, Ill let you guys know and we can talk about it then. Sorry but thats just the way of the world.

I have got a killer plan today, today im basically doing a really Life admin day, including haircut, gym signing up, clothes shopping and some finances. Im then going to finish up by cooking a meal Ive never cooked before and sitting down to enjoy a good movie, I know that doesnt sound too fun, but I really want to start saving some money for a Leica and maybe going out drinking isnt the best thing for that. I really want to take some cool photos today so I might travel out when its dark and have some fun with the nifty 50mm lens. who knows.

Heres my photos from yesterday.

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– I love seeing bikes with snow on just one side, it looks really cool and abandoned –
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– before the gig, I stopped off for coffee at this really cool cafe in Soho, it was literally full of people speak Chinese and all they served where Marcha cakes –
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– see here are the Match cakes! if you ever walk around Soho and want a coffee / tea / matcha cake, you should stop here. Im not sure what the place is called, but you should try and find it! –