Cambridge

I was in Cambridge a week ago spending most of Sunday wandering around the city centre with a camera and a mission - to take some black and white pictures in a style reminiscent of the great Henri Cartier-Bresson - for the small photography group I belong to. As I'm really keen on streeet photography and fairly blatant when it comes to using my camera in these situations, I approached this project with a certain degree of relish. In the end I picked five or six to convert from colour to black and white. (In Photoshop Elements 2, I used Image>Remove Colour and then adjusted the brightness and/or contrast as I thought fit). Here are some of the pictures, though not necessarily the ones I thought most reflected the aim of the day's shooting.

Depth of field

This week's project for a small photography group I'm involved with is depth of field. Here are some of the shots I took at the weekend outside the Norwich City Hall (a magnificent Scandinavian style building, bu that's another story).

Leicester city centre

I had a pleasant trip to Leicester last week with my daughter. She had never been to Leicester and I hadn't been to the city centre since my student days, so it seemed like an excellent choice for a day out. My only mental images of the centre were the clock tower and the market, but I had seen pictures of the new John Lewis building ands was really keen to see the building and try to take some interesting pictures (though in the end I only had my Ixus compact with me). We took the park ande ride into the centre - and this dropped us off very close to the Highgrove Centre - which is linked to John Lewis by a first floor bridge. The John Lewis is a glossy, shimmering and intriguing piece of architecture - always changing with the shifting light. There are some very keen security staff around the outside - one approached me and explained it was all right to photograph the building, but not the shop frontages underneath....hmm.....I agreed in order to avoid any trouble.

Anyway, here are a few images. There's a marvellous covered fruit and vegetable market and this is linked to a series of indoor markets, and some intrigiung shop frontages as well. Some things about Leicester centre have changed, but it's still recognisable. And we had a very pleasant lunch at Carluccio's too.

I am curious (yellow)

This quirky film title from the 1960s seemed an appropriate way to introduce this subject - just a bit of fun in North Walsham one evening along the lines of capturing images on the theme of colour. After spotting a bright yellow bin near to headstones in the churchyard I decided that would set the theme, seeing as the town centre seemed to have acquired something of a yearning for the colour yellow.

Experimental wedding photography

I've often thought it would be really great to become a wedding photographer, but the market is saturated and it's hard to see a way of breaking in. I think one way is to find a niche market and exploit it, and I've been trying to read around ideas on this in particular and wedding photography in geneal by reading Photo Pro Magazine - they seem to have regular features on this subject that look to be pretty useful. No doubt I have a good deal to think about but I'm trying to work towards this over the next couple of years.

I've been playing arouind with some pretty drastic crops of some pictures I took a few weeks ago at a wedding in Suffolk, and so here just for fun are four images. It gives me some ideas and things to work on - sometimes a crop works and sometimes it just doesn't.

RedBall leaves Norwich

Kurt Perschke's RedBall left Norwich on a high note with an appearance in the Erpingham Gate at Norwich Cathedral on 22 May. Gone but not forgotten. It was only a red ball, really. Or was there somehing more? Amateur photographers had a field day - so watch this space for more. Rumour has it there's to be an exhibition based on red ball photographs in October. Remember, you heard it here first....

Rosary Cemetery

We visited Rosary Cemetery in Norwich last Sunday. The first non-denominational cemetery in England, it was opened in 1821 and occupies a steep and thickly wooded site looking south toward the city centre. It's one of Norwich's undiscovered gems and laid out in a formal arrangement on the site of a former market garden. There are many symbols and monuments and many fine specimen trees along with a wide range of birds and butterflies. There's much interest to be had in wandering through the avenues seeking out unfrequented corners and their stones and monuments. We're going to join as Friends and come along to more of the guided talks they hold from time to time - and maybe even volunteer for some conservation work.