In addition to this blog, I will be contributing to the new for 2010 Racing Exposure e-zine, which focuses on UK club level motorsport. My articles will mainly be about Ma5da Racing, and associated BRSCC series, with probably a bit of Britcar thrown in.
You can read my articles on Racing Exposure or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Seeing as I’m up in Scotland, amongst some stunning scenery it would be silly not to make the most of it, so along with my Dad we are trying to get out to take photographs each evening, when the light is good.
Our first evening we headed north up the A9, past Dunkeld and then left the car and headed up the hill towards a loch that we thought would catch the evening sun. After a few wrong turnings we came out of the woods into a meadow, where we should have stopped, due to the sun almost having disappeared behind the mountains, but instead we carried on for the loch, by the time we reached in the sun had already dropped. This was a great shame, as the loch was frozen and there was a pretty green cottage on the bank. I’m pretty pleased with the image below, but can’t help wondering how much better it would have been 20 minutes before.
Wow! Where has January gone? It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was up in Scotland for Xmas, I’m going back next week.
Towards the middle of January I had a very busy weekend, spending the Saturday at the SWPP convention in London with my Dad and some of his class mates from his photography course, the main thing I took away from the show was the motivation to try new options for displaying my images, especially printing to and stretching canvas and acrylics.
The Autosport show was great, it is always good to meet up with familiar faces, see all the cars and generally get excited for the 2010 season. The highlight for me was seeing the Ma5da Racing cars in the Live Action Arena, the live show itself was good, but seeing the MX-5s on track, entertaining the crowd, along with the likes of drift cars, Aston Martins, Jaguars and Jenson Button, even though the result, a win for Jonathan Blake in the mk3 was somewhat predictable!
I’ve finally got my wide angle lens, the Canon 17-40f4L, back from Fixation who were servicing it after it sacrificed itself to stop me getting a ski in the face at the Wham Bam Swad Jam last year and am looking forward to using it in Scotland next week.
That is pretty much all the photography news from me, the year has got off to a slow start, but I am looking forward to the rest of 2010 being very busy!
This was me well and truly out of my comfort zone, no motorsport, or pre planned landscape shots, just a post lunch wander along the river with the cameras, which is a nice way to spend a sunny January afternoon with an old friend.
With the sun being quite low and directional getting the sun in the right position was crucial, I liked this image of the two swans, with the light coming in from the front right and semi back lighting the swans, although I’m less than happy that I cropped off the tail of the nearest swan.
I also liked this footbridge for portraits, my portrait style is heading very much towards straight lines heading off into the background drawing the viewers eyes into the subject at the centre of the frame, I need to try a few with off camera flash too, but for the meantime, here is a shot of Elaine on the bridge.
Even though I didn’t post it on the 1st January, the image below was taken on my way home from a new years party.
Being of Scottish/French descent a St George’s Cross isn’t something I’d normally take a picture of, but I thought the light on it was great. I was taking the scenic route home from my parent’s place and stopped at Fairfax’s viewpoint, just outside Naseby, hoping to capture the vista that Fairfax would have seen prior to the Battle of Naseby, minus all the armies etc obviously, but a farmer had dropped a huge pile of manure in the foreground of the shot, so a flag is what I took.
As I’ve already hinted at, 2010 is going to be a busy year, the motorsport season is going to start for me on the 14th February, with some rallycross at Mallory Park (being single on valentines day does have some benefits), with the Ma5da Racing season kicking off towards the end of March. As per 2008 & 2009 I will be covering all rounds of the Ma5da Racing Championship, including their add on series for the Mk3 MX-5s. When I have got more reliable dates for the events I am covering I will put a post on the blog, this should be in a few weeks after the Autosport International show.
My aims for 2010 photography wise are to get published in Autosport magazine again, get my website 100% finished and most importantly to take more photos for myself. In my personal life I’m aiming to snowboard more than I did in 2009, which shouldn’t be too tricky and to get my flat sorted out, before the 2 year anniversary of moving in. I will also make sure that I update this blog (and my development blog) more often.
I’ll leave you with a bonus picture from my new years eve celebrations, regular readers may recognise Simon, my little brother, who threw a nations themed fancy dress party to bring in 2010, any guesses as to which nation he is?
2009 started for me at a party with some of my closest school friends, it looks like it will end the same way, but it has been a busy year in between.
While I was at the party, my blog automatically published it’s first post, I’m a little disappointed that I only managed 25 posts this year, I was oping for at least double that, but I have got a lot of draft posts written, so 2010 should see a lot more posts, along with a slight tweak to to design to fit in with my Photoshelter site.
My main aim for 2009 had been to get images published in Autosport magazine, which I accomplished in April, on my first outing with a new camera (Canon EOS 1D mkII). The rest of the summer and into the autumn was a blur of motorsport photography mainly for Ma5da Racing, I will be their official photographer again in 2010, which with their increased grids and races for the newer mk3 MX-5s is shaping up to be an interesting and busy season.
Outside of photography things that have shaped my life in 2009 are music, I’m sat here writing this blog listening to Lily Allen’s set from a festival earlier in the year, she is certainly one of my artists of the year, a cracking album and possibly my favourite gig of the year when I saw her at the NIA. My favourite new (well new to me) artist is Frank Turner, a punk-folk singer songwriter, who never seems to stop touring, I saw him twice this year both at small intimate venues and as well as writing great songs with meaningful lyrics he seems like a nice bloke to boot!
For me the thing that has jumped out of nowhere this year is Twitter, I’ve chatted to some really great people who I may not have met otherwise and it is usually the first place I hear of any events, be they global stories or more specific to photography, I feel I’ve learnt a lot that I may not have otherwise found.
The last thing that has changed me for 2009 is hitting the gym again, after rupturing my ACL in 2008, my basic fitness level has improved no end, which has helped with lugging camera gear around race tracks, or walking into remote locations for landscape shots, but more importantly for me, it meant that 3 days ago I was able to ride my snowboard for the first time in over 18 months. On that note, I’m going to leave to computer and hit the gym.
I wish all my readers a happy and successful 2010.
PS sorry for the lack of photo in this post, if you’re lucky there may be a first picture of 2010 post tomorrow.
A few weeks back I entered the novice competition at Dunchurch Photographic Society (Novices as in never won one of their trophies, so pretty much open to anyone), I was both surprised and pleased when my “MX-5 Follow the Leader” image was placed 3rd in the print category, as motorsport images aren’t usually the judge’s cup of tea.
This image is my favourite of 2009, by a long way and am glad that it has got some recognition.
A belated Merry Xmas to all my followers!
This shot was taken on Xmas day on the North Inch park in Perth while I was out for a pre Xmas dinner stroll in the snow, I did try a black and white conversion, but felt that this colour version worked the best.
Those of you following my Twitter may realise that I am up at my family’s place in Perth (Scotland, not Australia), we’re just chilling out waiting for Santa to arrive, so I grabbed my Dad’s new lens (Canon EF 85 f1.8) and shot this image of Simon, my little brother, doing what he does best.
I shot it wide open and the quality of the lens really shines through, hopefully I’ll be able to borrow it more over the next few days!
Is the one that’s with you.
Not only is it a book/website by Chase Jarvis, one of my favourite photographers, it is a great way of thinking!
As part of his project Chase and his team have created an iPhone app, which makes post processing and sharing phones from the iPhone really easy, combining two of my passions.
Most of my images taken with my phone are posted on my Twitter feed, but can also be found on my part of the Best Camera website.
One of my favourite arty shots, taken with my iPhone, at the Trafford Centre, I love the simplicity of the black and white conversion:
Fountain iPhone photo