Here’s what *not* to do.

Here’s what *not* to do.

Don’t accidentally open a packet of kitten food for Kiska and think “Rats. I’ll just leave it on the side with a closed tin of food holding the end shut until tomorrow. There’s no way the kitten will smell it, jump up, find it, move the tin, take it to another room, savage it to shreds, and leave the ragged and perforated packet completely clean of kitten food.”

Don’t do that.

The Camper Page

Ooh I got a camper. Ooh it’s great. Well, by every metric it’s worse than my car, but my car is not a camper and everything that gives me knocks the car into a cocked hat.

The Tattoo Page

So I got the tattoo I’ve been considering for years. Just the one, but I made it count. I bloody love it. This page is a record of the work for tattooist Rianne Farrow (All Sacred Tattoo Parlour / Instagram), who did an amazing job and, I assume, whose loft conversion I financed…

These images can all be clicked on for bigger,

Creative Photography Workshop

I agreed to host a creative photography workshop for Royston Camera Club and these are the things that I pulled out of what was, to be honest, an extremely difficult location (all the good stuff was far behind barriers) at the wrong time of year (summer) and day (mid-day)…

However, the point was to not expect to take any good images - rather, to experiment with a particular approach and simply observe the effect and learn from it such that in future you might use what you have learned to create something that is interesting.

I took just a 100mm Macro lens and planned to only take hyper-close-up clips of the event.

I failed.

Mostly I played with multiple-exposure in order to facilitate somebody else’s experimentation.

Images:

5-exposure multi with burst-firing. I like this technique as a sort-of long exposure with added texture.

It is fun to change one parameter for different exposures. This is just two exposures of lego figures, one of which is out of focus. I like the effect. Thought that the blurred image may be too blurred, but a re-take with less was not as effective.

Experimenting with blend modes. The previous images used Average, but this uses Dark. It’s not an interesting image, but it was educational to use dark mode to marshal the light in the image around the frame. More exposures would have demonstrated this more clearly, but this is just two, with a rotated camera for one of them.

Burst-mode 9-exposure multi, Average mode. Works well for movement I think. Shame I clipped the bottom of the horse.

Creating shapes with simple forms. 5-exposure (obviously!) using Light mode to keep the tent and lose the sky incrementally. The blurry one is bloody irritating.

Sometimes you just grab an opportunity regardless….

…Or you just like alpacas.

Using Light-mode with 5-exposures though it does look like four to me…. The display was just two columns of candy floss buckets and I moved the camera sideways for each exposure. Rather than create a rectangular wall of floss, the blend mode increasingly allowed the brighter sky to erase the buckets, leaving a scree-slope-shaped pile of colour that I rather like.

Open wide.

My favourite use of multiple exposure is to keep one point static across the exposures, or to follow a particular (usually curved) element to pick it out. This is the Fun House…

…Or do the opposite and just snap in random directions and levels of tilt to portray the chaos of a location.

Using Dark Mode craftily to keep the black-clad BMX riders in front of the bright sky. This and the next one were particularly satisfying because they were jumping away from the sun, so their faces were lit when upside down.

I prefer the first one but this is ok.

If you came to the workshop I hope you enjoyed it. I did not last particularly long in the heat and on the uneven ground..!

My First Vera Playa

It was my first (and last?) visit to Vera Playa this week, and I’m writing more than anything else to see if the process clarifies my thoughts any… It’s been a mixed bag, but I can’t work out if that’s Vera, social phobia, searing heat, Spanish (of which I have none), vegetarianism, beach holidays not really being me, or what.

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I Invented the Dress

Last year I kept finding myself idly working out what the best thing to wear would be that allowed for easy undressing and dressing, or temporarily covering up, without hopping around on one leg or pushing muddy boots through pairs of trousers.

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Cambridge WNBR

My first World Naked Bike Ride! Despite initial apprehension, it was amazing. I’ve never been the epicentre of so much joy. Usually in a city everyone is in their bubble (including me) but goodness me a pack of naked cyclists doesn’t half illicit some real smiles and waves.

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Rosie's Graduation

Rosie graduated today! So proud.

Click to view the full images.

After Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the deaf man,
And nobody saw him.
The doorbell was flashing and ringing
But he just wasn’t coming.

Poor chap, he never went missing
and now - who knows?
We called the police. “We will be fifteen minutes”
They said.

The constable knelt at the letterbox.
”He won’t hear you, he’s deaf” we were yelling.
Without turning his head he replied
”I’m not shouting, but smelling.”

Based on a true story. After an hour and a half of banging on neighbours’ doors, about a dozen policemen, and a back door smashed into three pieces, the gentleman shuffled up the road from Sainsbury’s.

Conversation with Small Boy Outside of Our House

“Is your house haunted?”

“Nah.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve lived here a while and really checked.”

“But you can’t see ghosts…”

“Of course, but if you call a ghost they are not allowed to pretend they aren’t there.”

“But you can’t HEAR ghosts!”

“Well… How do you know there ARE ghosts?”

“Because my Mum’s a scientist.”

Fictional Album Covers

Something to do whilst bored or on the toilet…