"... like a river running through. Running through you..."

Today I witnessed a New Forest Drift.

I went along with some friends who have horses of their own on the New Forest. The Drift is an event where horses and ponies on the forest are rounded up to a pen where they can be branded, wormed and collared, etc. It's quite a spectacle but not an event for the general public for general safety reasons and for the succesful completion of the work that needs to be done without interference.

I got lots of photographs that I am, in equal measure, pleased with and disapointed with. I've not had lots fo experience taking action shots so I didn't mange to get the best shots otu of some of the frames I composed but on the positive side I did get some I was more than happy with.

These first few images are of the round-up itself.

Photograph of the Week #002

This weeks photograph is of one of the flowers my dear Fiance grows in our back garden.

"Talk to meee! Tell me pleeeease!"

Had a whole lot of all-sorts and sundries on my plate as of late but i've got several Brother Grimmer pokers in the fire at the minute which I need to get finished up to pass along to the guys.

For now though here is a little concept piece I've thrown together recently, trying out some ideas.

Do check these guys out;
http://brothersgrimmer.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/brothersgrimmer

Photograph of the week #001

Because whenever i'm not scribbling i'm snapping away with a camera and to compliment the scribble of the week articles, there shall now be "Photograph of the week"

Every week I shall pick a random photograph(that I like) from that weeks(or near enough) snaps and post it here. That's only 52 shots a year... how hard could it be?

So this week, with no more fanfare, a shot of the pirate themed mobile that hangs above my dear sons cot.

What's this? What's this?

I recently got a few more gizmos and gadgets for my camera, some close up filters to go on the lens and an extension tube among other thigs. I decided to have an experiment with these amateur augmentations and see what sort of images I could squeeze out of my camera with them. So I set my miniature photo studio up on the kitchen table, got my lighting sorted (two constant lights on either side and a flashgun) and suddenly found myself lacking anything to snap at.

When doing "studio" macro photography for the first time with such equipment for no real reason other than fun(on this occasion) it becomes hard to think of what to do. I assumed I'd want something with an interesting texture or with interesting features worth zooming in on, possibly something colourful but i'd already resolved to not use flowers as my subject matter.
With a hesitation for thought and inspiration I grabbed up an old stone dragon statue I was given as a gift once and a couple of high quality Nightmare Before Christmas toys that I bought a few years earlier to which I got the below results.

Regrettably this first shot has a slight motion blur to it as my hand must've shaken, most shots were taken with a tripod however.

The last two shots show the same dragon statue, one normal shot(taken to experiment with exposure settigns with flash) and the second one taken with the extension tubes so as to get a close up on the texture of the item.

"I bite my thumb at thee..."

This bank holiday weekend I took my family out to see the jousting at Lulworth castle so that we might see some acts of chivalry and so on and so forth.

The crowd itself exerted no real attempt at displaying any amount of chivalry and so we actually had to leave fairly early on in the event because there was no space or patience present for our little toddler but I did manage to get some shots before we escorted our dear son over to the animal farm that was somewhat more civil.

Once upon a time...

http://www.wip-tricky.com/2010/08/once-upon-time.html#moreSo this weekend past I went down to Throop village with a camera under my arm and a lighting kit over my shoulder to meet up with Matt(Aka Guru Grimmer) to take some photographs of the Brothers Grimmer.

Once there I begun setting up my gear and chatting with the other guys. Lee(Empup Grimmer), Mike(Macko Grimmer), Shawn(Bobo Grimmer) and Steven(Teflon Grimmer) each of them had tons of character and were great fun to shoot.

It was a bit fiddly setting up my "portable-studio" kit in the hall due to tall, angled ceilings but I got it set up... suitably enough and started throwing band members infront of my lens.
Very little direction was needed with these guys to get some excellent shots so it was mostly down to my own abilities at photography to get some good images in frame.

After a couple of hours or so of backdrop shots the guys got back to practicing. So I took the oppurtunity to practice some live action band photography with admittedly mixed results but with some experimentation with lighting and various exposure settings I think I got some good results.

Click here to see more from the shoot.