I'm a Photographer, not a Terrorist: Media Event - New Scotland Yard

This took place earlier today outside New Scotland Yard.

Some photos from event:








More photos by clicking here

Rain?

I'm saying it rained... but it really rained last night!

We have a sunken garden/patio area at the end of the garden. After last nights rain it should probably called a "sunk garden"!



There's about 5 inches of water in there!

Project Studio - Part Three

Back's feeling a lot better, the wood and plasterboard has been ordered and delivered. So it's time to start the next phase.

Step one - Insulation
At the moment the ceiling has no insulation, just joists and the wood of the roof. After looking at the varying alternatives I decided some stuff that looks like silver foiled bubblewrap!

You staple it to the the surface you want to insulate, so very easy to install. This is what it looks like before the plasterboard it fitted into place:






Part Four - Panel the inside front wall (Coming Soon)
Part Five - Plasterboard the ceiling
Part Six - Build the Storage Area
Part Seven - Build the Photo Wall
Part Eight - Paint!


Project Studio: Part One, Part Two

A bit of a gap...

There's been a bit of a gap since the last 'blog'!

I damaged my back (again) in October so haven't been working on the studio.

Then I broke a tooth and then I got that flu bug that was going around! Add onto that a few contracts ending* it wasn't a good end to the year.

* Current work climate not good

I been out doing a few bits of photography, but nothing to write about really. But it's a new year now so hopefully things will start to pick up.

Filters on a Nikon 14-24mm lens

The AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is a superb lens, but... You can't put filters on it. There is no way to attach a filter in the normal way to the front of the lens as it has a built-in 'tulip' hood.

Perhaps, you might think... you can put a rear mounted filter on?
Nope. Nikon didn't allow for that either.

For a few weeks now I've been thinking about what to do, how could I fit my filters onto this lens. Especially my Grads for landscape work. I'll also need filters for Project 60.

Then, I had an idea...

Take one Nikon D3, a 14-24mm lens, a Lee push on 100mm filter holder and a filter.


Take off the lens cap...


Cut the front of the cap off...


And then attach the filter holder...



Job done!

A little bit of vignetting at 14mm, but all clear at 18mm

Taking Stock...

Back in February I thought I'd join up with a few Stock Libraries, not to make my fortune but to hopefully make a few sales and add to the 'Gear Fund'.

I joined four different libraries; two general ones and two specialist ones.

The specialist ones, I haven't submitted any work to yet as I want to make sure I have enough quality images that they'd actually want.

The two 'general' libraries I joined were Alamy and PhotoShelter. PhotoShelter was a new library, based in New York and I thought it would be a good one to get in to. I sent a submission, they liked the photos, they even choose several of them as "Editors Picks" which I was quite pleased with. I carried on adding photos to their library and had nearly a hundred photos there when they decided to stop taking photos and close down that part of their business. A great shame as I liked the way they worked.

Nevermind..!

Alamy on the other hand is a UK based library with global coverage. So far I only have 172 photos with them (which is really small scale) but a couple of weeks ago I got another sale. That's two in two months. Nothing that will pay off the mortgage, but some extra pocket money!

Here's the photo of my most recent sale:


My other photos on Alamy can be seen here

Project Studio - Part Two

Things are progressing...

The left hand side and the back have been cleared of holly, beach trees(!) and nettles. The right hand side is still covered with brambles and spiders the size of... well... large fat spiders!

That section will be cleared later.

For now, it's a case of treating the wood and painting the windows and upper panels.

Two days work and this is the result:


Not looking too bad.

Started sorting out the inside as well. Cleared some bits, thrown some others away...





Next task...

Box up all the books, magazines and comics that I brought with me(!) and clear up all the old bits of wood, sawdust and rusty old tools.

More photos coming soon...