Right I’m sorry but today’s post is just three pictures of a pigeon. I wish I had more to write about but prepping for this trip is taking up all my time, I literally stepped out the office to get an amazon parcel. When I saw a pigeon and took the chance to chase it around this mini park. I think I managed to pull it off and get the shot.
Sorry for the short post, but I’m just really busy at the moment. I promise tomorrow will be a good one.
After one stollen package and then one being delivered to the wrong flat, my new flash gun has arrived, its one of those ones that sits in the hot shoe on top of my camera, so naturally the photos tonight are of Amy and me, testing out the flash after dinner. its only the Amazon basic Flash, Ive been looking at getting on for a while now and the other day amazon had a sale on and were selling them for £20 with prime, so I thought it was time to see what these things are like.
and first things first, it was so easy to set this up, i have no idea about the technical side of it, but focusing in low light is so easy, im not sure if the flash, kind of works as an auto focus or what, up all the stills came out sharp. What is also really good about the flash is that it draws all the other light, so even in “well lite” area’s you get a much better image, for £20 this has got to be on the cheapest camera essentials you can get, I cant wait to take more photos and really see what its like.
Tonight was just about going out after dinner and seeing if it works and what we can do with it, Ive already started thinking of some cool things I can do. I really like the idea of shooting some fast movement stuff, like skateboards, boris bikes or even the occasional pet. for now though you’ll just have to check out these photos I got of Amy at 9:30 last night, she’s a good egg that one.
Heres the snaps, let me know what you think or if you have any tips for using the Flash, I want to up my low light photo game.
Thanks again amy for being my model!
This weekend was mostly spent painting my living room and kitchen, it was only meant to be the living room, but after we raided Homebase for just about everything they had we said “F@ck it lets paint the kitchen too” . Lucky amy left me to decide on the colour, she said it was my choice and she wouldn’t get involved. when she said that I knew it would be a cool wall. What she actaully meant was, I would pick colour and then she would do the rest, Lucky I wanted bright orange, she was happy with that, so we ended up getting a very very bright orange.
then it was just a case of painting the whole thing, which is ok for the first 4 hours but doing a few coats on the ceiling was horrendous. but theres no better feeling than looking back at your work and getting that feeling on self-accomplishment.
any way I completely forgot to take any photos till like half 9 and night, so heres a few close ups of my favourite parts of the room. theres still work to be done, so Casa Del Josh isn’t finished yet. But we are close. Very very close.
When I first started this how photo project thing, I was thinking Im going to carry my 5d around with me everywhere shoot raw photos on a 24-105mm lens and probably a 1×1 light panel just for good measure. turns out that so of the time that can actually do more harm than good, a lot of the time if I pull out my 5d it gets to much attention, and people freeze up, don’t want there picture take and think i’m some kind of pap.
thats when the Iphone comes in handly. If like me you have a point and shoot and you put the lens in water, so now it take about 2 hours to start up properly and your in a bit of a limbo at the moment, waiting for your next camera, then I dont think you can go wrong with the iphone its the perfect camera for a blog. If you are really up against it for time, you can take photos, edit them and post them all from a phone. Im trying not todo that at the moment because I want to learn more about Adobe software, but if I have no time then the iphone is a life saver.
heres the IPhone SE camera specs.
12 MP, f/2.2, 29mm Lense, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash,
Its not about how many Mega Pixels you have its about what you do with them!
check out my favourite iphone snaps from the past week.
Yesterday was all about the rain, it literally chucked it down for the whole day. it was like a monsoon an english monsoon, but still a monsoon. The highest rain fall was in recorded in Kenley with 44.8mm of rain thats 1.78 inches!! when you compare that to places like Thailand where they get an average of 170mm of rain, things anit so bad, but I still go completely soaked on the way home.
One thing I love about the rain in London is seeing how different people deal with it, some put plastic bags on there heads and run around, some use a new paper and others just dont care. its the people that don’t care about the weather who make me smile, they anit letting the weather beat them, from the ones wearing a t shirt in the rain, to the guy who’s reading the newspaper while getting soaked (see my photo below), its all about beating the weather and sticking two fingers up to those pesky rain clouds. i think those are my favourite kind of londoners.
Last night, we went up on my roof not like climbing up on it, but going up to the communal roof terrace. I don’t have a fob for the roof, so knocked on a neighbours door, the amazing women called paula, opened up. shes this really cool lady whos lived in this block for nearly 32 years, making her one of the oldest residence. ( she also has a number of classic motor bikes in the underground car park) making her a legend.
Well she came out on the roof with us, not because she didn’t trust us, she just know that Sandra our building manager, is watching at all time. we love sandra, but she scares me. Anyway, Paula was telling us about the time that the libertines threw a massive party on the roof and would pee off the side 50 meters up on the pavement below and how she regularly saw pete in the lift. Ive heard this story before from random people in Bethnal Green, but this confirms it. The Libertines are the ones to blame for us not being allowed to have parties up there, because they took it to the next level. it kind of makes me happy that they did this, even though I wasnt there. I know my parties could never of topped that and its nice to know that if these walls in the block could talk they probably talk about the time the band threw a massive party and played some absolute bangers while Pete Doherty pee’d on the pedestrians walking below.
Anyway heres a few pictures from Amy and mine’s adventure to the roof terrace last night.
right I think we can all agree that tuesdays, should be a day of no work. its the one day each week, where you forget about the weekend you just had and still to far off to think about the weekend you have coming up. they’re just a day where you work, go home and get ready for Wednesday. I always try and mix a Tuesday up, to give it something a bit different, but yesterday I had nothing. I just worked, had a mini shoot half way though the day, which was a bit fun. So on my walk home, I decided to take some photos of cool shadows, that mix it up abit. see what weird shapes I could find, that normally you would just walk past, but with the light being so SICK in the summer, I wanted to use that to my advantage.
Heres a few snaps.
P.s my camera is still broken, I stuck the lens in a bucket of water to take some underwater pictures of crabs and now its got water damage, im hopefully buying a new camera on Saturday,
remember the corrupt files from yesterday, well they anit corrupt no more, after finding over half of my raw files on the CF card corrupt and unuasable, but I sat down and managed to fix them with out the help of google.
all I did was take the card out, back up the files to my computer, then put the card back into my camera and shoot a few bursts at a shutter speed of 250 and there you have it. all files were restored. Im not sure what part of the process restored the clips but im just happy it worked. so to celebrate me getting my photos back, I thought I would show you what they look like when they are corrupt.
Amy and me also went for a little drink last night to celebrate me fixing my photos and because we had seen each other in a while so I thought I would surprise her with a little drink up at some cool bar near me called Satan’s Whiskers. She had a cocktail, I had a beer.
check these little bad boys out.
Firstly I have to say, the Beetles have a zebra crossing on Abbey Road, the Libertines have a cracked out alley way inbetween Bethnal Green and Hackney, its literally called “up the bracket Alley” it used to be called Grove Passage, but someone stole the road sign and now probably has it hung up their mothers wall. the reason for this is because it was the location of the Up The Bracket Music Video.
Heres a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_g6zNuP_I
This alley has become a shrine to the band, with people writing on the wall about their memories of the band and the impact they had, its actually an amazing alley for that reason, but what makes it even better is the fact it stinks on piss and covered in smashed beer bottles. It kind of makes it that little bit more special. that fact you have to walk through a black cab repairs garage under some dark bridge off of the main road, definitely adds a bit of an uneasy atmosphere to the whole thing.
I was at the gig a few years back where a guy stripped off naked and climbed the lighting rig, for no reason what so ever, accept they are at a libertines gig and thats what happens.
I genuinely don’t think my writing skills are good enough to describe this alley way and what it feels like to walk down it, Ill have to get my friend matt green and his “creative writing degree” to help me out on that one.
but trust me if there is one thing you HAVE todo next time your in London, take the adventure over to “Up the Bracket Alley” and check it out, don’t take your phone or go there after dark though it might not be the same experience.
Heres my photos of Up The Bracket Alley!
its now only three days off me having posted three photos a day for 100 days, So today i thought it would be a good idea to show some pictures thats Ive taken but haven’t been post over the past 97 days I’ve been doing this. and then today I can head out and make sure I take even better photos for you to have a look at over your Sunday morning coffee. Sometimes its just easier to keep things simple.
joshfspear.com 