Editing your own work can be a painful process. Take these 3 images below, which were taken within the space of a minute at the East Finchley Festival yesterday afternoon.




At the time I was convinced that the middle image was a winner, with the conductor’s hands framing his face and the drummer hitting the cymbal. Only when I reviewed it later did I realise that there’s quite a lot of dead space at the top of the frame. The image on the right fills the entire frame, but the drummer is no longer playing. The left image strikes the right balance, with the conductor filling the top of the frame and the drummer playing, but this time the conductor’s right hand is partly obscuring his face.




Which begs the question of which image is the “best” one? I’m still undecided, which is where you come in :-) Simply reply to this post, saying which image is your favourite and why. Personally my biggest worry is that all 3 images miss the mark in some way, and that none of them are the “best”...

Conductor #1	Conductor #2	Conductor #3

Bangkok #1	Bangkok #2	Bangkok #3

I’ve just started sorting through the photographs that I took when I visited Thailand and Malaysia in August 2002. It was an amazing 3-week journey from Bangkok, through Malaysia to Singapore, and looking through the photos has made me wish that I was there again! I took 30 rolls of film during those 3 weeks and I’ve had them developed and scanned, but never made any prints or put them on the Web. Until now :-)




The first album contains nearly 100 photos of Thailand’s colourful capital city, Bangkok.




Website: Bangkok Gallery

I sat my City & Guilds Photography - Level 2 exam last night; 45 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour, with only 40% required to pass. The questions ranged from the straightforward to the ridiculous, with my favourite being:

Why does a tripod only have 3 legs?

a) it costs less to make
b) it’s easier to level and adjust
c) it’s lighter
d) it’s easy to adjust

I nearly spluttered out loud when I read the question, then I saw the answers…Who wrote this thing?! For your information, I opted for answer b) it’s easier to level and adjust. I’ve still got no idea if that’s right or wrong…

Just as I leave the M1 at Junction 8 on the way to work, there’s an amazing field ablaze with poppies, which I’ve been meaning to photograph for the last couple of weeks. On Friday of last week I made a quick visit during my lunch hour; all of these photos were taken using my 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens.

Double Poppy	New Wheat	Single Poppy

I learnt a few valuable lessons during this brief shoot:




1. Taking close-up photographs of wild-flowers is enough to make the air turn blue (with my swearing), as even the slightest breeze is enough to ruin your composition and focusing. I can understand now why a lot of flower photography takes place indoors!




2. Depth-of-field is all-important in macro photography. If you take a close look at the “New Wheat” photo, you will notice that the top and the bottom of the wheat is less in focus than the middle, which is where I focused. I think the aperture was f/2.8 for this shot - it should really have been around f/5.6 to ensure that all of the wheat was sharp, whilst keeping the background out-of-focus. Next time I’ll use the DoF button on the Canon 10D and take a selection of shots of the same subject at different apertures.




3. Attention to detail is all-important in macro photography. The “Double Poppies” photo has some annoying elements in it that should have been removed; I completely failed to notice them!




4. You need a lot longer than 1 hour to do justice to your subject and yourself. I was literally running round the field at one point, desperate to realise the next great idea that I’d had, before having to go back to the office.




5. Always wear a hat when exposed to 28 degrees sunshine in the middle of the day…

We spent the final day of our visit to Belgium in the town of Bruges, about 1 hours journey from Brussels on the impeccably clean and quiet Belgian trains. Bruges is apparently the most-visited place in Belgium, being particularly popular with the British, who like its antiquated, medieval feel - the centre of the city hasn’t changed very much during the last few centuries, at least according to the guidebooks anyway (I’m sure Bruges residents would probably disagree).




Anyway, we had a few short hours during the heat of the middle of the day to quickly walk around, and obviously take a few photos. The Brug and the Markt in the centre are the obvious places to visit, but the outskirts of the city centre have a much more peaceful feel, some interesting sights and far less tourists. Here is a small selection of my favourite photos from the day.

Bruges #1	Bruges #2	Bruges #3
Bruges #4	Bruges #5	Bruges #6
Bruges #7	Bruges #8	Bruges #9
Bruges #10	Bruges #11	Bruges #12

I’ve now finished adding the best images from my recent trip to Brussels and Bruges to the Travel section of my other personal website, www.markgoldstein.co.uk. There are 18 new albums and 264 new photographs in total.

Website: Travel Gallery

Due to the 3-day Jazz Marathon which was held during the weekend of my visit, there was only one night when the Grand Place was empty of a) hundreds of people and b) a huge music stage. Luckily the weather held and I was able to take these shots, including one when the Town Hall was illuminated with different coloured lights in time to classical music…

Brussels at Night #1	Brussels at Night #2	Brussels at Night #3
Brussels at Night #4	Brussels at Night #5	Brussels at Night #6

The view from the back window of my house is not what you would conventionally call picturesque or beautiful, but it does give a great view of the sunset. Last night’s was spectacular in a muted, British kind of way, so I very quickly set up camera and tripod and exposed a few frames. These images were taken with the Canon 10D and Tamron 75-300mm lens, with an aperture of f/22 and shutter speed of 6-20 seconds.

Urban Sunset #1	Urban Sunset #2	Urban Sunset #3

I’ve added a new Brussels gallery to the Travel section of my other personal website, www.markgoldstein.co.uk. At the moment it contains the best images from the first two days of my recent 5-day trip to the Belgian capital, including some that haven’t been previously published. I will be adding more photos during the course of the next week.

Website: Travel Gallery

One of the travel guides that we took to Brussels (the Rough Guide, I think) contains a route around various street murals in the heart of the city, which we followed on Day 2 of our visit. The weather hadn’t improved - it was still overcast, cold and wet - but the murals were a good way to see some of the less-touristy areas of the city.

Street Mural #1	Street Mural #2	Street Mural #3
Street Mural #4	Street Mural #5	Street Mural #6
Street Mural #7	Street Mural #8	Street Mural #9

This is the set of 10 photographs that I am submitting for Unit 5: Exploring Colour Photography, Theme 1: Colour and Pattern of my City and Guilds Photography course. They were taken in the City area of London, around the Lloyds building, Leadenhall Market, St Pauls and Cannon Street.




All 10 were taken with my Canon EOS 300 on Jessops ISO 200 print film and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan IV. The 10th image is missing as the negative is really, really scratched, which unfortunately I didn’t notice earlier - the film scanner really shows up the scratches. Consequently one of my final prints is not great and will probably lose me a couple of marks, although the scratches aren’t too noticeable…

Colour & Pattern #1	Colour & Pattern #2	Colour & Pattern #3
Colour & Pattern #4	Colour & Pattern #5	Colour & Pattern #6
Colour & Pattern #7	Colour & Pattern #8	Colour & Pattern #9

Continuing my journey around the Belgian capital of Brussels, the interior of Saint Michael’s Cathedral is just as impressive as the exterior, with some amazing stained glass windows that span the height of the cathedral’s walls. Here are a few photographs, all taken hand-held with the Canon EOS 10D and Canon 20-35mm lens at ISO speeds of 800 or 1600, with the pop-up flash used on the third one to brighten-up the foreground.

Stained Glass Window #1	Stained Glass Window #2	Stained Glass Window #3

As I’ve just about finished the mountain of coursework, essays and photo-mounting for my City & Guilds course (at last!), I thought I’d share the photos that I’m submitting with you. It’s obviously a bit late in the day for me to change them if you don’t like them, so fingers crossed ;-)




This set of 10 photographs will be submitted for Unit 2: Starting Photography, Theme 1: Faces, Places and Events. They were taken at one of the Stop the War demonstrations held in central London during March, so in the light of recent world history, they have an added poignancy now.




All 10 were taken with my Canon EOS 300 on Kodak Elite Chrome EBX 100 slide film and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan IV. I’d forgotten just how much grain there is in a scanned film image - the 10D is definitely spoiling me on that count.




I’ll try and post the images for my other 2 units during the next few days as well.

Stop the War #1	Stop the War #2	Stop the War #3
Stop the War #4	Stop the War #5	Stop the War #6
Stop the War #7	Stop the War #8	Stop the War #9
Stop the War #10

Saint Michael’s Cathedral, situated halfway between the Grand Place and the Upper Town district, is one of the most impressive churches in Brussels. The stained-glass windows inside are even more breath-taking than the exterior - I will be posting some photos of those tomorrow.


As you can from all that fantastic detail in the sky (not!), the weather during the first day of my visit was not great from a photography point of view…

Saint Michael’s Cathedral #1	Saint Michael’s Cathedral #2	Saint Michael’s Cathedral #3

The Grand Place in Brussels is an amazing focal point for the city; the gothic Town Hall, the brooding Maison du Roi and the other guild houses that line the square all battle for your attention. Galeries St Hubert is just around the corner - there is a Jacques Brel (famous french-singing crooner) year-long festival at the moment, hence the banners.

Grand Place Restaurant	Kissing Couple	Galeries St Hubert

Cherry Beer	Brussels Town Hall #1	Brussels Town Hall #2

These 3 images were taken on Friday 23rd May in the breath-taking Grand Place in the centre of Brussels, a couple of hours after we had arrived. It was early afternoon and raining; not exactly the best time or conditions for photography…


I’ll be posting a selection of images, probably 3 a day, roughly following the order in which I actually took them. This means that the quality will gradually improve, in line with the Belgian weather conditions, which were overcast, damp and rainy to begin with, before becoming sunny and hot for the last 2 days of our stay.


From now on, all images will be posted on this page as thumbnails so that the initial download time is reduced. You just have to click on a thumbnail to open the 600 x 400 pixel version. This larger image may take some time to download if you’re on a 56K dialup connection, as they will be anything between 40-100Kb in size.

Well, as you can see from the 9 (!) new entries for today, I’ve arrived back from the Belgian capital of Brussels safe and sound, despite the best efforts of the French air traffic controllers, who decided to extend their strike by a day just so that my flight would be delayed (or so it seemed last night anyway…).

I’ll be posting a selection of the best images from my trip over the next few days, once I’ve copied them onto my PC and sorted through them. I’m also hoping to publish a full account of my completely digital 5-day trip; what worked well, what didn’t work so well, how chips are served with every meal, that kind of thing…

In the meantime I’ve been busy catching up with all of the new announcements from the photography world; please let me know if I’ve missed anything. I’ll be replying to all PhotographyBLOG emails tonight, and all new members should now have received introductory emails with the links to the free screensaver and wallpapers.

Phew!

I’m finally escaping the mountain of work that is my City and Guilds Photography coursework, and jetting off to the Belgian capital of Brussels for a long weekend. The latest issue of the UK magazine Practical Photography coincidentally has a feature about Brussels being a great place for photography, so I’m really looking forward to getting away from my books and actually using my camera for a change. Hopefully the weather will be OK, although Brussels is supposed to be a great city at night, so even if it rains all of those puddles will reflect the night lights. I just need to work out how to fit my tripod into my rucksack and how to get all my extra hand luggage past the RyanAir staff!

Consequently I won’t be updating the site or answering any emails from tomorrow until next Wednesday. Have a good weekend!

I haven’t taken a single photograph in the last 10 days because of my City and Guilds Photography work, so I’m raiding the cupboards, so to speak, and posting the last of my Covent Garden images from my recent visit at the start of May. This photo was taken in the indoor market section, handheld at ISO 800 on the Canon 10D and Tamron 75-300mm lens, focusing on the two old ladies sitting down in the middle.