The Way We See It

No photo for today's entry. I'm doing a mixture of recovering from a heavy weekend, and trying to catalogue all the photos I took. I therefore have a new photo site for you to look at. The Way We See It is an excellent London photo blogging site. Every week the owner, dicksdaily, puts up a location for people to visit, take photos of, and submit to the site.

I am quite looking forward to joining in with this community. I think it is a woderful idea for getting out and about and taking more photos of places one would not otherwise consider visiting.

Snowing!

Last night the conditions were perfect for snow to happen in Streatham. Here are some photos I took this morning on the way to work.


Snowy Weeds


The light looks like a bright candle


A Snowy Tree


Light and Dark at Streatham Station


Cold and Waiting for a Train

The Millenium Dome

It's been a few days since I last posted any photos on here. I haven't been out and about to take photos for nearly a week now. The last time I was out, however, there was beautiful sunshine. I walked all the way to the end of the West India Docks and took the following photo.

Millennium Dome from the Thames

Flickr Badge

Woohoo!

I have finally managed to get my Flickr photostream onto my photoblog. I'm very excited about this as it is a way for you to see some of the photos which do not make it to this site.

Enjoy

Panography

I recently read an article about panography. It is where one takes many photos of a subject (large building, town square, nice view). The photos are then arranged in an overlapping mosaic kind of way to form the full photo. The is technique can be found on the Photojojo website in the tutorials section.
Today I completed my first attempt at a panograph.


La basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre

This is my first attempt at a panograph, and I can already see where I could improve. I have a couple of ideas for future ones which I will show off here and on my flickr.

Feel free to tell me what you think of this in the comments area.

Photo Websites

I have decided to put the addresses of photography websites I find interesting on my photoblog. First into the foray is photo.net

The site is a user led critique forum/community. I am not a member of this site, but visit here regularly to veiw some truly amazing photos and read the odd article in the learning section.

Out for a Walk With a Phone

At the moment I am on a bit of a health kick so I try and go for a brisk walk as often as possible. Yesterday I decided to walk to Streatham Common to take some photos of the Rookery [map].
The Rookery is a Victorian Garden (actually visited by Queen Victoria at some stage).

I entered the woods from the Eastern end of the Common and walked through the woods to the Rookery.

Into the Woods

Once in the Rookery I spotted this lone flower in small stream running through it. I thought it looked lonely.

The Lonely Flower

Onwards down the hill into the walled garden.

Western Entrance to the Walled Garden

It is is very peaceful in this garden. Even in winter there is some colour.

The Centre of the Walled Garden and the Wishing Well

At the end of the rookery, some more pillars leading you back up the hill. The photo of the sqirrel isn't particularly good, but it was nice enough to pose for all the passers by, so it's photo makes a guest appearance.

The Eastern Exit From the Walled Garden and the Posing Squirrel

Finally, on the way home, I saw that someone had trapped cemented a flower pot to a wall around their garden.

Trapped!

This photo invokes a feeling of being trapped. This plant will never be free. **sniff**

The main reason for this entry is to show that, with a bit of patience and a steady hand, reasonable photos can be obtained by using a 2megapixel camera phone.

Photo With Movement

I am in the middle of a blog post which will cover my journey to and from work. While doing this I attempted a bit of a study in movement within pictures. Most of the photos looked pants, but I did take one on the platform of New Cross Gate station which didn't come out too bad. Here it is:

New Cross Gate Station at Night

I like the mixture of static and movement. I think it works well in a photo about a train station.

The Scarlet Ibis

While trawling through my old photos last night I found this picture of a Scarlet Ibis I took while at the World of Birds, South Africa.


The Scarlet Ibis

I love this photo, the red of the ibis is made all the more vibrant by the drabness of soil, rock, and dusty plant.

I highly recommend clicking on the photo, or here to see it in full size.

15/01/07 - This post has been edited to correct Red Ibis to Scarlet Ibis as this is the species name.

Geotagging Rocks!

As you may notice, on the sidebar I have a link to my flickr photostream (all the photos I have marked for public viewing).

Flickr is a great website for storing photos on, although only 200 can be stored unless you sign up for a pro account (about $25 per annum).
One of the things I like about flickr is the ability to geotag photos. Basically, this is placing your photos on a map in the location they were taken so that anyone looking at the map can see what there is to see in that area. My flickr map is located here. As you can see, I only have a few photos geotagged at the moment, but I will add to them whenever I have photo worth placing on there. Zoom in on one of the sets to see exactly where they were taken.

If you want to see everyone's geotagged photos you can go here.

Graffiti

I went to Chalk Farm last summer and while walking back to the tube station I saw this bit of graffiti.



Cleaning up Chalk Farm

It is kind of in the style of Banksy, but doesn't appear to be politically motivated like a lot of Banksy's stuff. I like the wit of the picture, which is what made me stop and take the photo.

Most of the wall was exposed after some of the concrete fell off. The artist painted the cleaner around that part and ehanced the brickwork with paint.

When One Just Isn't Enough

I decided that I should stick to only one entry per day lest I end up running out of quality photos, but thought that my first entry on this blog was a bit too lame. So, below is a picture I took last summer while wandering London.

Waiting for a Sweetheart

I saw this and thought of someone waiting for their sweetheart to arrive. A "I'll leave a flower in the letterbox so you know which door to knock on", kind of message.

I particularly like this photo because it is an impromptu photo. These are my favourite types of photo as you cannot plan them, but they can be some of the best you've ever taken. I took this with my 2 megapixel camera on my phone.

Lower pixel cameras do have their uses. After all Daguerre didn't have any fancy cameras and lenses!

In The Beginning...

Everything has to start somewhere. Like this blog.

It starts here.

A bit about this blog...

I have recently got back into taking photographs again. I'm not brilliant at it, but enjoy taking photos. Every now and then I take on which makes me sit back and nod my head in a satisfied way. The overall aim is to have those photos appear on this site. However, I'm going to start with just random ones which I may delete as I run out of space.

About the author...

I live and work in London. I live in Streatham, and work near Canary Wharf.

In fact, here are a few pictures of where I work:

My Desk

And out the left and right windows of where I face from my desk:

So there you have it. Certainly not the biggest bang of any blog beginnings. Hopefully I will do the good wine thing and get better with age.