Author Archives: Lewis

2010

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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?

A look back at 2009

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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.

3rd place in a photography competition

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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.

Merry Xmas

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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.

Waiting for Xmas

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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!

The Best Camera…

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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

Fountain iPhone photo

Ma5da Racing archive

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Over the next few weeks I will be uploading my archive of images shot over the past 2 seasons for at for Ma5da Racing.

I’m starting with 2008 which seems ages ago now, hopefully by the time it comes to post the images from the Winter event at Brands Hatch on the 7th November I will be up to date!

This photo was taken from the gantry at Woodcote and shows all the drivers at the start of Ma5da Racing.