“Cheer Up!” (May 06 2003)

It’s hard to believe, on a grey, overcast, drizzly, British Sunday morning, that the weather was like this only a couple of weeks ago. This field of rape is amazingly just around the corner from the industrial estate where I work; a large aperture was used to blur out all of the man-made paraphenalia in the background (pylons, electricity lines, motorways…) and to focus on the flowers.

Now, I must stop procrastinating and get back to the mountain of work that is my City and Guilds project. Only a couple more weeks to go…

“Attention Seeker” (May 03 2003)

Some people will do just about anything to get themselves noticed :-) Not content with standing on a box, this street entertainer resorted to standing on a bollard to gain an extra advantage over the other nearby performers. Plus dressing up in a black and white jumpsuit and painting his hair and face gold. Some people…

“Pose for the Camera” (May 03 2003)

Today’s photograph features a Covent Garden street entertainer in the middle of his performance, happily looking in the general direction of my camera and smiling at the same time. Now that doesn’t happen all that often. This guy had one of the most elastic, expression-filled faces that I’ve ever seen. Must be all those long years of entertaining the London tourists.

“Return to Covent Garden” (May 03 2003)

I’ve decided to try and balance out all the news content on this site by posting more photographs, hopefully a new one each day. Please accept my apologies if this site turns out to be more of a traditional photography, ermm, blog than you initially anticipated :-)

As promised in my earlier lengthy post, here are a few more images of London at night.

Tower Bridge	London Church	Office Reflection

I’ve lived in London for about a year and a half now. During that time I’ve strolled around the streets, taking photographs for my City and Guilds photography course and just for myself. But in all that time, and all those photographs, I’ve never once ventured out after dark, or even remotely near sunset for that matter. In fact, I can’t recall ever taking a photograph at night full stop, unless you count the sunrise pictures from Thailand (but that’s another story).

Last night I took the tube into Central London, into the City, probably my favourite part as it’s so quiet once all the workers have gone home. First, I decided to try and photograph the sun setting behind Tower Bridge, but quickly discovered that the sun sets around the corner of the Thames, and that there isn’t a good enough vantage point. As the light faded, I crossed and recrossed the bridge, vainly trying to find a good location. No success.

Instead I made the best decision of the evening by setting up in the grounds of the Tower of London, right by the Thames, and waiting for the bridge lights to come on and darkness to fall. Wow! What a spectacle. I’d seen other people’s photos of Tower Bridge at night, but never in the flesh before. My own image of this much-photographed landmark now adorns my computer’s desktop; I’ll post a couple of images later.

Which brings me onto the image in this particular post. Again, another London landmark that is well-photographed, but one that probably every photographer should have in their collection. Lloyds of London is one of those buildings that you either love or hate, but at night it gains an almost ethereal quality as it is lit up using white, purple and green lights. I only took a couple of photos, as it was late and proper black darkness had fallen (apparently not the best time to take night photos). This is the best one of the two.

Here are the technical details for anyone who’s still reading. Camera was the Canon EOS 10D. Lens was the Canon 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. The exposure time was 60 seconds at f/22. Tripod mounted. This is actually the Small JPEG extracted from the RAW file, which is about 500Kb in size. Opened in Photoshop 6, NO adjustment to levels or contrast, resized to 400x267 pixels, then USM applied at 150% / 0.5 radius / 0 threshold. Chose Save for Web and saved as JPEG - Quality 50 (medium). Final file size is 39Kb.

Taken in a suburban garden in Nottingham, England, on an annoyingly windy Spring afternoon, with the Canon 10D and 50mm f/1.8 lens.

Tulips #1	Tulips #2	Tulips #3

I’ve finally found enough time in the day to completely re-design my other personal site -:- http://www.markgoldstein.co.uk. You can view a selection of my photographs. You can leave your comments on them or sign the guestbook. You can buy a photograph as a print or for use in graphic/web design.

I’ll be gradually adding more photographs from my archives during the next month or so. If you find any bugs or have any questions, then don’t hesitate to email me (shameless plug now over…).

Website: markgoldstein.co.uk

During Easter I “visited” a partly-derelict factory building that I had previously noted down as being a good photographic opportunity. I tend to make these mental notes all the time, and then forget about them a few hours/days later, but I couldn’t forget this location as I frequently drive past it. And it is a pretty imposing building. After taking the first 15 or so shots on manual focus without realising and without actually focusing, I think the remaining 40 images managed to capture some of the spirit of the place. Here are 6 of my favourites:

Dereliction #1	Dereliction #2	Dereliction #3
Dereliction #4	Dereliction #5	Dereliction #6

Inspired by a Salgado photograph of Mumbai train station that I saw a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try and replicate the blurred crowd effect that he achieved, albeit a little closer to home. Liverpool Street Station has an upper balcony with good views of the main concourse below, so I thought this would be an ideal venue for shots with a static station clock and timetable and blurry people rushing by. I planned to use digital and film - the images on film would be used for the “Photography of Movement” module in the City and Guilds course that I’m doing.

So, picture the scene - I’ve found the ideal spot, set up the tripod, mounted the camera, checked the settings, taken the first picture - then “Excuse me Sir, what are you doing?”. I felt like saying “What do you think I’m doing?”, but instead decided to be polite to the British Rail employee. Good move, as John the team leader quizzed me about why I was daring to take photographs in a train station. I explained that I was a photography student, whilst waving a Jessops Student Discount card in his face. Another good move, as it turns out that all commercial photography is completely banned, unless you pay for some kind of licence. Even so, I had to sign a form saying that I wouldn’t use the images for commercial gain, and I was allowed 30 minutes maximum in the station.

I went back, set up again, took what will hopefully be some effective images for my course, before being interrupted by another BR employee. “What are you doing?”, “I’ve spoken to John and signed the form”, “How long will you be?”, “15 minutes tops”, “Make it 10 sir”. Power-mad.

And I originally thought that it would be fine to take pictures in what is one of the most public places I can think of. Silly me.

Here are a few more early examples of what the Canon 10D and myself can do, this time coupled with the Canon 20-35mm USM lens (which equates to 32mm-56mm on the 10D). These shots were taken after visiting the Salgado exhibition at the Barbican in London on April 17th.

Barbican Tower	Barbican Church	City Reflection

I’d almost forgotten that I’d entered the Better Photo monthly competition, but it seems that I’m one of the Finalists for April :-)

“Hi Mark

Congratulations… you have placed as a Finalist in this month’s BetterPhoto Contest! 6397 photos were entered into the competition; it is an honor to have your image selected among the top 301 Finalist photos.

Your Finalist photo: Notting Hill Carnival Dancer (#90070)

This image can be viewed - along with all of the Finalist images - at:
April Finalists - Page 6

During the next few days, the judges select the top winning photos. If
your image is selected as a winner, you will be emailed again.

Again, congratulations on placing as a Finalist - keep up the great work!

Jim Miotke
[email protected]”

I spent most of the morning and early afternoon at the London Marathon, just down the road from Tower Bridge. Here is a selection from the 100 or so frames that I took with the Canon 10D, mainly using Al Servo mode and a large aperture of around F/4-5.6. Hopefully there will also be some good shots from the 6 rolls of film that I put through my film camera. My not so funny story of the day was managing to grab 4 shots of Paula Radcliffe on her way to breaking the World Record yet again, only to realize afterwards that the aperture was inadvertently set at F/22, resulting in slight, let’s say, “creative” blur…

London Marathon #1	London Marathon #2	London Marathon #3
London Marathon #4	London Marathon #5	London Marathon #6
London Marathon #7	London Marathon #8	London Marathon #9
London Marathon #10	London Marathon #11	London Marathon #12
London Marathon #13	London Marathon #14	London Marathon #15
London Marathon #16	London Marathon #17	London Marathon #18

It’s not often that a photo makes you say “WOW” out loud in a very uncool 80’s kind of way, and especially not a photo that you took yourself. This is one of the very few photos that I’ve taken recently that has had that effect on me.

And, as with a lot of pleasing images, it nearly didn’t happen at all. I had a spare hour after work to drive to Ashridge Country Park, near Hemel Hempstead, to try and catch the sunset. I’ve been there a few times before, but I’m still not certin where the best vantage point is. I was literally running around, tripod and camera over one shoulder, trying to find a good view as the sun slipped ever closer to the horizon.

In the end I plonked down the tripod and used my 75-200mm zoom lens to isolate the sun and the dead tree, cutting out a lot of irritating foreground clutter. At the time I didn’t think the photo would be anything special. Now I don’t think it’s such a bad effort after all :-)

Ashridge Sunset

I’ve not posted anything here for the last 2 days. Very unusual for me. You may be wondering why? Well, as the title of this post suggests, silence is indeed golden. I’ve taken the metaphorical plunge and bought a Canon EOS 10D. Despite my “Just Say No Kids…” remarks at the start of this week, which have provoked quite a bit of debate, I’ve changed my mind and done a complete about turn.

First impressions are positive.  I particularly like the way that I can take a photo, review it on screen and immediately see if the exposure is correct (via a histogram) and even which parts of the image are overexposed (they flash to indicate over-exposure). Several times yesterday I needed to re-shoot and use exposure compensation to prevent the highlights from “blowing-out”. I can’t remember ever doing this with my Canon EOS 300 film SLR. The auto-focusing and shutter are very responsive; the camera seems more responsive and zippier than the EOS 300. In fact, the 10D feels just like an SLR with an LCD display on the back, which I guess is the point really.

I’ve only had a couple of hours shooting with the 10D, and you can see the first images in the next post. However, without jumping the gun too much, it already feels like the right decision for me. I think the 10D is a sunstantial upgrade from both the EOS 300 and the Minolta Dimage 5, and it’s already allowing me to try new things and instantly see the results. At the end of the day it’s only a camera, but hopefully it will be a camera that ultimately improves my photography.

I spent the weekend trying to track down the all-singing, all dancing Canon EOS 10D in London.
I found one on Saturday and checked that it was compatible with all my existing Canon lenses. I didn’t buy it. I found another one on Sunday at a cheaper price. I didn’t buy it. That’s right - I turned down not one, but two chances to own the Canon EOS 10D.

And you know what? Unless I win the Lottery (which I never enter), I’m not going to buy one. In the shop, the 10D felt like an expensive, capable, quick focusing camera, with a very bright LCD and clear viewfinder. If you’re in the market for a DSLR, then you should consider buying this camera. But that’s just it - I realised that I wasn’t in that market, at least not for the time being.

I mean, who am I trying to kid? I’ve been interested in photography for about 2 years. I currently own a Canon EOS 300 with a couple of consumer lenses. I go out to take pictures once or twice a week, maybe 15-20 rolls of film in a good month. How can I justify spending ?1500 on a camera body, especially when the general advice is to invest in good lenses, rather than a good body?

So instead, I’m planning to upgrade over time to the EOS 30, better lenses, a decent tripod and some filters. I’ve still got a lot to learn. And the latest, greatest DSLR, however “affordable”, is not going to provide any shortcuts. Not unless I win the Lottery…

Following my recent submission to and rejection by Practical Photography magazine a few days ago, this is what I defiantly said: “I’m going to try again and submit the same photos to another UK magazine, Amateur Photography, which features the portfolios of several readers every week. I’ll let you know how I got on…” Guess what? Yes…my photos have been rejected again! This time the reason given was a little more blunt:

“Sorry, but your material is not suitable for use in the magazine, this time, but do not hesitate to make a further submission in the future”

Now that sounds like a “No” to me!

I could call it quits at this point and give up, but I’m going to have one more try and submit the same images to the Judgement pages of Photography Monthly, another popular UK magazine. I’ll let Lee Frost and Daniel Lezano decide if they’re any good…

I realised during the weekend that I’ve been spending more time recently writing about photography than actually going out and taking photographs.

So this week I’ve resolved to get outside and enjoy the first flush of Spring. Every lunchtime at work, I’m going to leave my desk, go somewhere and shoot a roll of film. The pictures don’t have to be particularly good, and I may ultimately think “what a waste of time and money”, but I need to do something to break out of the winter apathy.

As I’ve only got an hour or so to spare, I can’t go far, so the small town of Hemel Hempstead and the surrounding countryside will have to do. I’ll post a few of the best shots (if there are any!) at the end of the week.

In the meantime, if you’re struggling for inspiration or you keep finding excuses to stay indoors, why don’t you just go out for a couple of hours and take some photos, any photos, just to get back into the swing of things?

On Saturday I sent off a submission for the Hotshots pages of Practical Photography, which feature pictures sent in by the magazine’s readers. 3 days later, and this morning I received the dreaded rejection slip…

Now, I’m not too disheartend, as the Hotshots pages of this UK-based photography magazine feature less than 5 stunning images per month. With the power of hindsight, I was almost certainly aiming too high, but it was worth having a go. And I got more feedback than simply being rejected. The reason given was number 3 from the following list:

1. Poor camera technique. i.e. poorly exposed or out of focus
2. Technically good, but the pictorial content could be better
3. Good pictures but needs more impact
4. Great shot but sadly we can’t publish them all

So at least my 16 images of street entertainers were judged to be pretty good, and by my reckoning, number 3 is only two steps from actually being published!

I’m going to try again and submit the same photos to another UK magazine, Amateur Photography, which features the portfolios of several readers every week. I’ll let you know how I got on…