Exploring the London Borough Market

The London Borough Market has to be the most difficult place to visit. For me anyways! This is my 4th, read 4th attempt to visit it, and it had me going in circles for a good time today, ignoring the last 3 times where I went off on a totally wrong tangent ;-)

Not all the stores were open, but it was still fairly busy.

Trying to get over my difficulty in shooting people.

Another view of the market.

In other news, I again asked the permission of one of the more interesting store owners for a shot, was declined, saying that he was too self concious. He was fine with me shooting the stall and all, just not himself.

Me, I actually came away not feeling dissapointed, but actually quite delighted, for two reasons: I'd asked for permission, and that I actually worked up the courage to do this.

Going to be so alone on new years'.

GW

Breaking barriers

Another lazy day off. Decided to go out for a walk around Trafalgar Square as I've not visited there for a while. The morning started out very nice, but just around noon time, the temperature started to drop rapidly. It was so cold, when I got back home and popped open my camera, the CF card inside was cold...

Street is not my forte. But I'm trying.

 

 Wish that sign wasn't there gah.

An interesting Z-shaped cloud formation. Took a bit of finessing in Bibble to get it silhouetted as I'd instictively upped the meter by 2/3s of a stop, and got a "correct" exposure but not an exposure I wanted. Messed with the color balance as well to get the blues more insane.

Finally, I went over to Convent Garden market. There was one particular store owner that stood out for the rest, I wanted to take the shot, but as usual, couldn't.

After fussing around outside the market, I decided to ask permission, the worst that could happen is he'd say no and I could just go home crying but he said yes. Evidently, he is well photographed, but from what I could hear from his neighbour, not many people actually ask for permission.

I took 3 shots, shutter was very low at 1/15 of a second, around 55mm, 5.6 @ iso 800. VR saving my bacon here, but the first shot had major subject motion from the furball. I think they turned out very well, and I will be sending him prints.

GW

Exploring London on Boxing Day

Thought I'd explore central London, or whatever was within walking distance for a bit. Went to work first though, but didn't stay long. Went out for food, lusting for some Chicken Katsu, but the good places weren't open. Yet.

Next down the list... Nandos... oh yeah. hot spicy peri-peri :3 But they were only open at 2pm! GAH! Next best thing, went down to chinatown and got me some grub. Did two quick runs of Daytona USA, decided I'd rather spend some time finishing a book I borrowed (Ross Lowell's Matter of Light and Depth), so trotted off home.

I did take the scenic road home though:

Decorative items at Fernandez and Wells... I hope they are decorative! Ouch!

A little addendum: It may not look like it, but this was taken using Niel van Niekerk's flash techniques. SB600 was pointed to the right, flagged with black foam board. The flash was zoomed in to 85mm. Attempts at using CLS failed, sadly - ambient light was probably too high. I didn't bring my radio triggers out today gah.

Many floats and balloons around, I'll just put one up for interests' sake.

Fox at a window display of http://www.beyondthevalley.com/

Wanted to get the BT Tower inside a triangular frame, but this is the best I could manage.

Where does your eye go to? Light or Dark?

I did some google map calculations... I think I walked like 9 miles yesterday... no wonder my legs are tired. Yes, I'm healthy, but not fit ;-)

Visiting Tattenham Corner

Visited Tattenham Corner, which is a residential area near the Epsom Downs Racecourse.

Corner of the high street near the supermarket.

The mist covered everything that day. On a clear day, you should be able to see the major landmarks from the viewpoint near the race course, such as the BT tower in london, St Pauls etc (!!!). Super heavy crop as I was too lazy to pull out the 70-200.

The pedestrian underpass inside the race course.

Walking the dog. Another heavy crop.... this time I did want to pull out the 70-200 but it was wedged at the bottom of by bag. Gah!

Xmas is quiet

Xmas is quiet, and with public transport generally non-existant, I could only hoof it around the neighbourhood.

I liked the bold, contrasting colors. Also, the vehicle seems to have been perma-locked in place?

The Camden Locks are uncharacteristically quiet.

The water looks so damned cg...

Many of the usual places were locked up, but I found people wandering about the locked up areas, how did they get in?

Nobody. Dead. Silence. Only a few tourists were wandering about.

White VS Black.

How did they get an XL cap up there, boggles the mind.

Exploring London

Just walking around London with my D200. Does this count as street photography?

Framestore: NUKE SITE LICS :)

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1772/framestore-joins-the-nuke-crowd#more-1772

So awesome :) Having now moved mostly to Nuke, it's a little unsettling since most of the shake stuff needs to be adapted. Thankfully, much of the workflow can be quickly adapted, just need to know what the new nodes do.

But dang, tab creation of nodes like Houdini, *stability* and a very quick load time. I wish every place would just switch over to Nuke for vfx comping :):):)

GW

Facepalm

So today I was adjusting some forces on my particle system. Looks reasonable (to me) but I was thinking... "hmm... what happens if I drop the vortex force by a stop?"

*DOH*

Wireless Flash with High Speed Sync

An interesting question on photo.net on what camera can do wireless flash with high speed sync, so here's what Nikons can do:

Quick shot of my main wildlife cam.

The camera used to take the picture was:
- a Nikon D200
- a Sb600 flash
- 55mm 2.8 AIS Manual Focus Micro Nikkor (40 years old maybe?)

Shooting data is F5.6/400 at ISO200. Note that the sync speed of the D200 is 1/250, D300 is 1/320.