The year in review. Well so far ;-)

Been a very hectic month, finishing up my current feature film project at Framestore. But it's done! Complete! Finito!

Feels awesome as it's only recently sunk in that I was the sole vfx td on one sequence, a somewhat tough sequence too. And I pulled it off. Glee :):):) Plus I had other shots to work on.

Walked the usual routes around London again, camden down to leicester square, but was a little tired as I walked a fair bit around town yesterday, so headed to grab some lunch (at 4pm!) at Ultimate Burger along Tottenham Court Road. Not bad, but nothing yet beats Gourmet Burger. Or that burger stand at the Speedway circuit.

While I am still feeling emphoric, at the same time, I am feeling very, very drained, and am looking forward to next week's break. Had the D200 with me all the while, but was more happy just enjoying the winter breeze, and wasn't in the mood for shots, though I saw a fair few.

I need to get back into the rhythm of shooting wildlife again, especially while it's still cold, I need to see what kind of behavioural changes there are to the deer at Bushy and Richmond. Am hoping to visit Scotland again :) Shoot the artic foxes in the Highland Wildlife Park, hopefully they still have their full winter coats on. And catch the polar bear, Mercedes, who has moved up to the park recently.

I've been informed about my next project, looking forward to it. Nanny McPhee 2 has been awesome as I started with the team very very early, and stayed right up to the end.

Oh btw, cameras are simply not as cuddly as plush wolves. But I am certain my colleagues will find me hugging a plushie at work disturbing, so I decided to hug my 16-85 + D200 instead. Hey, I'm eccentric. Not wierd. Eccentric.

:P

GW

Nightsound at the Esplanade, circa 2008

I'd shot this way back in 2008, and recently decided to re-visit it as I want to do photography in Jazz clubs and such, and hopefully this is sort of a "what I can do" and "no I've done it at least once before and I didn't mess it up. Too badly." presentation to people who may be interested. Most of these shots have been re-processed to reflect my current tastes.

The way I grade my photos has changed quite wildly over the year or so.

Many factors would attribute to this, including a new camera as well as further in-depth understanding of Bibble Pro as well as the myriad of plugins I use.

These were taken mostly with the 70-200VR (a rental, back in the day) as well as my trusty D200.

I remember cringing at how bad the noise was, however revisiting it today, I didn't really feel much oddly.

Nowadays, especially when doing B&W, boosted hi-1 on the D200 actually needs more grain added via plugins :P

One thing that hasn't changed is my love for random dutch angles.

This shot above though, I have no idea how I graded it a year ago. I could not re-grade it to get the same feel, so this is the original, not sure if I had turned the noise reduction on or not.

Color contrast yeah?

End of the day closing up.

Another B&W dutch shot o.0

I'll leave the full frame shizzle to the pros, us amateurs just shoot :)

Till next time :)

GW

Not much this weekend

Project is due to finish in a few weeks, and with the weather, have been too distracted to go find new wildlife parks to shoot at. I am planning to go back to the Highland Wildlife Park after this show is done, hopefully to shoot the Arctic foxes and Amur Tigers in the snow :) :)

Caught this shot on my way to work, an interesting juxtaposition of a small antenna, versus a very big one :)

Wondered how it'd look like pano-fied, and gave it a go:

4 shots stitched. Epic fail though. I should have gone closer. Way closer. Drat. Anyways.

Went for an hours break around Trafalgur square, found the fountains really deep frozen this time. Sadly, I couldn't find any good shots, so the record above of the frozen fountain will have to do :)

GW

Is it 2010 already?!

Even though I was at the new year's festivities, I think the reality of it being truly 2010 only just hit me. Like... 2 minutes ago. Anyways, here's a quick recap of what I managed to shoot over the new year weekend.

Uh yeah, this photo above is the test shot I did in preparation for the fireworks. Having got there rather late (half past 6...), it was impossible to get a good position for the fireworks directly in front of the eye. The next position I found (above) was on the bridge above embankment station. I reasoned that there is a foreground element, it's at an angle, and I can get the whole area of the fireworks if I go fully wide, and I can take horizontal shots with the bridge in view as well. Good, no?

Unfortunately, about 7pm, the whole lot of people were told to leave the bridge as there would be no people allowed on that bridge after 8pm (!!!!!)

Quickly moved off to secure a new location, but couldn't locate any good ones :(

Found this eagle structure and the moon in one piece. This is a fair crop at max iso, wish I was carrying my 70-200 for a better crop + 2 stop faster shutter, however I wasn't planning on using it that day. My bag was crammed with food and water for the vigil till 12am anyways.

I then decided to get dinner with some friends in town, and watched the fireworks from one of the overflow viewing areas. Well that was yesterday :)

Today I popped by work, but they were doing maintenance upgrades - couldn't even log on, so I went off to explore Trafalgar square before deciding what to do next. Found the fountains there somewhat frozen over! No wonder there was a fair bit of grit on the ground when I left my place this morning.

Couldn't decide where to go, and was suddenly feeling tired, so decided to just explore some of the side streets near Convent garden, then went home after getting some fish and chips.

GW