More faces from Occupy London

Bombadil.
Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

I have been making progress as a portrait photographer. Or should I say, a reportage-style portrait photographer. In my previous post, I told you how I "had to overcome a secret fear that I have: photographing people". Perhaps I should have been clearer. I have made quite a large proportion of my income from photographing people - particularly people at work - in what I call "Industrial Portraiture".  I have no fear of photographing them, because I know that they have been prewarned of my arrival. I also think I am good at getting them to relax and to do exactly as I ask, posing them and carefully building the shot. I get some pleasing results.

With street shooting, like the work I have been doing at Occupy, I take people by surprise. They are not really expecting me and are certainly not expecting me to stop them and ask them to allow me to make the images. It is that initial encounter where I am uncomfortable, but I'm getting used to it now and will soon have enough experience of working amongst people who sort of know they might get photographed as part of a news event, to taking things a step further and working with people who will be taken completely by surprise.

Around the Fire.
Left to right: Joseph, Leo, Paul
Photographed at Occupy London's Finsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

So: Occupy London Finnsbury Square.
I arrived at the camp just after lunchtime on a freezing afternoon.  The first person I encountered was Joseph, who was building his shelater out of scrap wood. I asked him if I could take some photographs and he was kind enough to say, sure.  He was a bit shy, but I clicked a few of him - fairly wide shots - sawing a piece of board. It always takes a few shots to get my mojo up and running, so I decided I'd come back to Joseph later and walked around the perimiter of the camp taking (mostly bad) general shots of the tents and shelters.

The camp has a lot of tents but there weren't a lot of people in evidence, save for a group of three around a fire in a metal bucket. I asked their permission to take some pics and Leo, an Irishman with a gift for swearing that only an Celt can have, was most welcoming. "Take all the fecking pictures you want. Who are you working for?" I explained I was working for myself and was still a bit in the dark as to what I would eventually do with the Occupy images.

Leo

Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

With Leo were Bombadil, a (retired, I think?) English teacher and and other bloke, a jobless Engineer, also called Paul. "Croist! All the feckin' Pauls in this feckin place! This feckin' camp should be Called St Paul's! Feckin' hundreds of you c**ts!" Leo helpfully pointed out.

Paul

Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

I got down to shooting and as the boys relaxed, started listening to their banter and joining in. Topics were wide ranging, from the trivial to the intellectual. Bombadill was talking about sonnets, in particular Shakespear's genius with them and Leo was talking about feckin' Saabs which he feckin' loves. Paul recounted an anecdote that had something to do with helium-filled blow-up sheep attached to a scaffold, attached to the church in his village in Linconshire.

What they weren't talking about was any sort of activism. I got the impression that they're just hanging out, ready to take part in any protests (for whatever cause) should they arise in the future. They were camping. With their mates.  I don't doubt for a minute that they all have deeply held convictions, but once again, Occupy's lack of any concrete core message seems to have taken away any chance of them really doing something. When I pointed this out to Leo, he said something about "at last someone who's fecking honest enough to say what they think".

 Ash
Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

Men came and went, sharing the warmth of the fire, taking turns at splitting scrap timber with a hatchet for the fire, joking and telling me about various scrapes with the law, the bailiffs etc. I was having a good time, constantly shooting, listening, trying to keep track of my notes (I failed in the end) and being introduced to new feckin' people. There was Raffy, a skinny young bloke with the world's most unruly hair, apparently the camp's accommodation bloke. Ash, an artist whose shelter was brightly painted, festooned with found objects and decorated with stenciled art. He showed me inside his place - his "dreamspace" where he had further atworks and carefully collected items. It was pin neat. There was another feckin' Paul whose role I wasn't sure of - he's a very pleasant Scotsman.

Raffy

Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

Every now and then Leo would disappear inside his shelter to check on his feckin' wife. Loud violent shouting, thudding and crashing would ensue from within as he "disciplined" his "wife" - a carboard cut-out of (I think) Cheryl Cole. "Where's me feckin' tea, ya lazy fecker?" Clearly the camp clown, but equally, no one's fool. These protestors are not the mindless ne'er-do-wells many would like to imagine them to be.

I shot until my camera shutter button started showing signs of its age again, refusing to allow me to autofucus or check exposures, so, with the light befginning to fade, stinking of woodsmoke and frozen to the bone, I headed back to Old Street tube station, Lightroom bound.

Another Feckin' Paul

Photographed at Occupy London's Finnsbury Square camp. Click to enlarge.
© 2012 Paul Davey Creative

Say what you like about Occupy as a movement. But once again, I found the individuals to be fascinating, kind, obliging and excellent, willing photographic subjects.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

The Faces of Occupy

Click images to enlarge.

Having trudged countless miles around London photographing streetscapes, back alleys, construction sites, dereliction, the Thames, bridges and beloved landmarks, my eye has grown jaded. I have stopped seeing; little seems worthy of a shot. Yes, in this vast city of 7 million people, with its streets and housing estates, its grit, grime and grandeur I, astonishingly, had become creatively blind.

One of the speakers at Saturday's event. He spoke about Julian Assange, about getting him freed, about sinister machinations. Real or imagined?

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

Something had to be done.  I also had to overcome a secret fear that I have: photographing people. In the past, I have had confrontations with not-so-unwitting subjects catching me trying to create candid images and to be honest, I have always felt uncomfortable with "taking" photographs as opposed to "making" photographs. I had a long talk with myself and decided that to grab the bull by the horns was the best move. I was going to go and do some street photography of people. Not only was I going to do it, I was going to master it.  It turns out that I am a long way from the mastering objective, but I have taken the first steps.

A couple of weeks back, I headed into Camden, got busted by an old Italian guy in the market when I took a quick snapshot of him and was very sternly asked to delete the image. I did so. I felt bad. I should have asked first and explained what I wanted to do. He would, most likely, have cooperated.  I felt like a thief. Just a few moments later, in another part of the market, I met King. King, like me, is a Zimbabwean. We struck up a conversation and I asked him to let me take some photographs, explained what I wanted and he was only too happy - and I got some great images. Images that honour what he does, and, I hope, honour what I do too.

King. He creates mobiles  from drinks cans and jewellery from cutlery.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

Fast forward to this weekend just gone and penniless (so no fuel to go on my usual countryside walk/landscape shoots) I headed into town. Arriving at Euston with no real plan I wandered through Bloomsbury and eventually found myself in The City. Paternoster Square to be more precise. I noticed it was clogged with barriers and a heavy security presence; Occupy had tried to set up camp there in October. I though I'd go and have a look at the camp surrounding the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, and get some photographs - of people.  Which is what I did - all of them candid, all of them of people who, as media-hungry protesters, were quite happy to be photographed. It was a rich feeding ground and I got several reasonable candid reportage-style shots.  I headed home cold, but satisfied.

 Smoke break. 

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

When I got home, I downloaded the images in Lightroom and was after looking at them all, a little less satisfied. It was clear that I had rushed some of the shots I initially thought were good and they were flawed in some way - not sharp, not properly exposed (I always under-expose deliberately by a stop to preserve highlight details - but these were all over the show) and some were poorly composed - I would have to crop them - something I don't like to do because it lowers the resolution of the already low (6.2 Mpx) images. Sigh. They'll be fine for online and small prints.

 Sheila. She was recording the St Paul's bells with a dictaphone and writing notes.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

I published a few of the images on Facebook and was flattered by a few of the comments I received. But I knew I could do better. I also knew that I could have been more honest about the images.  I had photographed them with my current opinion of left wing activists, and had commented about them with the same mindset. I still felt like a thief. And like a bombasitic, opinionated, narrow-minded right wing fascist. Indeed, someone for who I have a lot of respect for even told me I was a fascist - albeit a loveable one.

 Mark. A homeless man with a wild range of conflicting opinions.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012 

I had to do better. I knew I could do better and I knew I could be fairer. I would go back. I would engage directly with individuals in the camp, explaining what I wanted to do, asking them their names, asking why they were there, asking, asking, asking. And listening. I took my notebook. I took down names and frame numbers. I had conversations and best of all, I began to understand. And when I got home, I was less disappointed than the previous evening. I had a small number of what I consider to be good, honest portraits of strangers I had gotten to know a little.

 Aaron

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

My throw-away rate was still far too high.  Shooting landscapes is a far more considered, methodical task than shooting portraits. You can take your time with landscapes. With portraits, shot during a conversation, things happen a lot quicker. The subject flits in and out of focus as they move and gesticulate - far too fast for my ancient lenses to cope with. Add to this the low light levels thanks to heavy cloud, a flashgun that takes its own sweet time recharging, no image stabilisisng and my still-to-be-cured mixture of fear, timidity and guilt and the overiding ingredient needed for the images was luck.  Fortunately, I did, to some extent, get lucky.

 Indigo.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

I published a few images on Facebook and once again, got some very kind, positive comments. I also felt a lot more credible with hese images. They were not stolen. I can vouch for them. They have a back story. The people (mostly) have names. They are more intimate. They are kind.

 Indigo and Elijah. Indigo is eighteen, first came to the camp with her parents who wanted her to see how the other half live. She stayed. She told me she does go home for baths as home is just ten minutes away. Elijah is an Aussie, arrived in London after spending time at Occupy Berlin.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

I also came away with much more of my own opinion of the whole Occupy movement. Was I impressed by them? Not very. Did I gain new respect? For some individuals, yes, for others, no. Occupy is a loose assembly of disparate agendas. Many of them are loopy, many of them want to wipe out one system and replace it with another, founded on ideals that ignore such immovables as human nature. A small corner of the camp had the "Tent City University" where workshops and talks were being held; active activism. But the rest of the camp was largely peopled by people who were just "there". Cohesion seems not to exist at anything more than a superficial level and there are clealy several factions within the camp whose regard for the current leadership is low. There is an undercurrent of jealousy. There is a plethora of mixed messsages, of diluted and uncompromising positions, of militant and pacifist ideals.

 Mada. A lovely bloke. A full time activist who has lived in the camp from day one.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

But there is also hope. Some small miracles. Homeless people feel for he first time in a long time, that they belong. They have a shred of identity, a little scrap of dignity, of feeling that they are part of something good, even if some of them may have misinterpreted the mixed messages at the core of Occupy. I can live with that and I respect that. There is Joey, a long haired, bearded, bespectacled homeless character who has appointed himself the camp's bin man. He has a position, a responsibility.

The camp itself is filthy. Cooking smells mix with powerful body odour and the stench of portaloos. The ground is stained with spillages of indeterminate origin (the smell of urine pervades) and there are cigarette ends, the odd condom package, styrofoam food punnets, water bottles and Starbucks coffee cups. There are banners and posters with various messages, requests and dubious "facts" relating to the haves and have-nots. Bewildering.

Photograph © Copyright Paul Davey 2012

I am gald I visted the camp. I am glad I listened. I am no closer to a grounded opinion of my own, other than to say, they are a mess. A blight, that on the one hand, demands attention on the landscape of the current system, and on the other is self harming, thanks to the idealogical free-for-all that accepts almost any agenda that goes against the "system". Whatever that is.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

A little catch-up

I really do need to make more effort with this blog, but at the same time, I'm trying not to write just for the sake of writing something; this is not about quantity, its about quality.

Kensal Green Night Shoot

First off, a brief report on my efforts to spook myself. On the full moon before Easter, I decided it would be clever and energetic to get off my backside and do some night shots in the Kensal Green Cemetery. It never ceases to amaze me how good I feel when I make the effort to go and take photographs instead of "doing the usual".

Cross and Moon
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Unfortunately, by the time I'd cooked dinner and eaten, the moon was quite high in the sky, so I had to write it off as one of the subjects for the shoot. There is a broken fence that has replaced the cemetery wall that collapsed (how clever is it to have hundreds of graves, all subsiding right next to a 16ft wall?). I snuck in through the gap in the fence and started wandering around the various graves and monuments that I know are good subject matter.

I have not done much night photography and was quite disappointed by the very urban, very bright sodium glare from streetlighting, coupled with the fact that the Heathrow approach path was running west to east, right through the darkest bit of sky. I set up a few 30 second time exposures and ran around various monuments illuminating them with a small LED light, with mixed results. I also did a few shots over 30 seconds with my flashgun hand-held, flashing once at the beginning of the exposure and once (after re-charging) at the end, dashing between two different positions so as to give two light sources per exposure. Again, varying degrees of success.

Sentenel 3
Click to Enlarge
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Note to self: Get some portable battery-powered studio lights, get permission to shoot in the graveyard so guerilla tactics can be avoided. In other words, make the shoot a proper, planned production.

One shot I wanted involved a musoleum. I wanted to flood the inside of it with light and have it illuminate the ivy-clad tombstones outside. I set up my tripod and composed the shot (note to self: bring a powerful torch to enable acccurate manual focusing on the subject) then st the exposure to 30 seconds then hoped, skipped and jumped over the jumbled graves into the mausoleum with my flashgun, firing it twice at various walls. I repeated this a number of times at various aperture settings. Results? Medicre. Spook factor: Medium-high.

One of those shoots I was glad I had done, despite results that were below my expectations. Over the next few months I want to master night photography. Plenty more trips to the cemetery!

Easter in Wales

St Brides
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St Brides is a lovely bay in Pembrokeshire, Wales, west of Milford Haven
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Over Easter me, my lovely lady and my splendid daughter went to Wales. To Pembrokeshire, in fact to enjoy a week with the bulk of my family at a place called Saundersfoot, near Tenby. Which is near Pembroke. Which Is near Milford Haven. In Wales. Got it?

Obviously, I considered it a clever idea to take my camera gear and use the week essentially as a long landscape shoot. In the end, I shot over 1,000 raw images which will probably shake down to no more than 20-30 "keepers" - not that I ever throw any photographs away.

The Church Doors
Skrinkle Bay, Pembrokeshire
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

The last week has seen Lightroom and Photoshop sweating as I clean up and manipulate the images, and my RedBubble account has seen a lot of action as I upload said images and then 'farm' them - posting them to various groups, plus Stumbling them etc.

Kite Surfer, Tenby
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned on this trip was to be more grateful of the opportunity to shoot in such a stunning location . I thought I was being a good, diligent photographer by getting to Saundersfoot harbour 10 minutes before sunrise. In truth, I wasn't. I should have been at a previously recce'd location at least an hour before sun-up. I should have pursued just one photograph instead of machine-gunning the entire area with my camera and every lens I possess. The results were inevitable: a couple of okay shots standing head and shoulders above a hundred or so entirely mediocre pics.

That said, I did come away at the end of the week feeling quite satisfied with several photographs, some of which are now for sale.

Sister and Niece
Wisemans Bridge, Pembrokeshire
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

I'll be going back, possibly in the summer with my son and his girlfriend and I promise to be up and shooting at least an hour before dawn, and will also shoot at sundown and for at least an hour after.

Nab Head, St Brides Bay, Pembrokeshire
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

With my 28-200mm lens out of action, I was unable to use my 72mm polariser on my, essential for photographing landscapes at this time of year when the sun is low and there is a bit of haze from the sea. I missed it an awful lot, even holding it over the 58mm front element of my 50-200mm zoom. But what I also missed and MUST get were a range of neutral density filters to help tame the low-sun glare.

Dawn Patrol
Photographed as the mist cleared in Pembrke Dock, just after sunrise
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

On top of this, the sea mist - invisible most of the time - coats the front lens element and on my wide angle, this created havoc with sunspots. A lens shade that I can mount onto the hot shoe is another "must". Oh, and image stabilised lenses. Did I mention a new camera? I need one. NEED, not want.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Sunday in the Countryside

Having attended a swanky engagement party for my very good friends Ian and Heather on Saturday night, and having had my equally good friends Sue and Fernando staying with us overnight, I was unsurprised to wake up on Sunday morning with Hangover Vulgaris.

Despite having gone to bed late and quite bladdered, I was still awake early, fighting to fall asleep again. Then I remembered that Mr Button and his friends had some work do do so I staggered through to the sitting room ("lounge" is almost a banned word in our house. Chavvish, apprently) to watch the Aussie Grand Prix. Yay for Jenson!

Eventually my lovely lady got up and so did my splendid house guests. Teas and coffees all round, accompanied by bacon sandwiches. Yum.

Roots.
Click to enlarge.
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey.

Post Bacon sarnie, S & F had to go back home and reunite themselves with their daughters and I decided to go on a photo shoot.

Recently, I've felt as though my photography is getting into a bit of a rut. I'm not seeing properly. I'm just looking and there's a difference. My forays into the urban underbelly have been to be frank, a little underwhelming. I've returned with images, yes, but nothing that gets my heart racing. Nothing that I can look at and think, "I wish I'd shot that! Oh, wait, I did!".

On Saturday afternoon I had done yet another shoot at Kensal Green Cemetery - a rich feeding ground for my camera, but having spent many hours there in the past, It was all a bit samey. I have yet to process the 200-odd frames I shot there.

For a change, I decided that I would use my car for the first time in about four weeks and head out into the country, swapping urban grit for the countryside. Good decision! I drove west along the M40 into Buckinghamshire, exiting the motorway at Stokenchurch and then winding along some of the lovely narrow country lanes, eventually stopping for a walk up what I think is called Chinnor Hill. It was so good just to be out of the London area, watching some type of Kite sweeping across the sky, seeing people out with their dogs (Labradors have such proud faces when they are carrying a very large stick). I climbed the hill and took a few photographs - nothing staggeringly clever or anything, but worthwhile just for the pleasure of being outdoors in the countryside.

Spring View From Chinnor Hill
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

I decided to move on and spent an hour or so just getting lost, avoiding anything as vulgar as a road capable of two way traffic. I eventually found my self in a place called Lee Common where I got out of the car, grabbed my tripod and gear and took a large number of exposures of a little cottage and its surrounds on what I think might be the Lee Common. This cottage has no driveway, no road passsing its front gate, nothing. It was just there in the middle of this lovely parkland with an avenue of trees leading up to it.

Avenue
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Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

The light was fantastic - a warm golden quality and the sun was still low enough in the sky as to make shooting a pleasure; long strokes of sunlight painted onto the lush spring grass. Total feelgood!

Lee Common Cottage 2
Click to enlarge
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey

Eventually I moved on wanting to find somewhere to shoot the sunset, but ended up getting trapped into a whole "A" road and then Motorway situation and before I knew it, I was London-bound on the M1, Sylosis blasting out LOUD on the stereo.

Perhaps the best news of the weekend though is that the clocks have gone forward again: Summer has been switched back on!

Rudderless on Sunday

Today, after staying in bed till NINE THIRTY, I decided to go and shoot in the Elephant and Castle area of London and then head west-ish to the Brixton/Clapham in search of urban grit.

Well, I got to Elephant and Castle, but when I came out from the underground I was navigationally discombobulated. I couldn't tell my north from my south-south-east. Elephant and Castle is basically a huge traffic roundabout (gyratory for the Americans) and pedestrians get to cross this roundabout by a series of tunnels where no doubt, they keep muggers. Fortunately it was Sunday today so all muggers were off duty.

Weathered
Detail from a derelict shop front, Elephant and Castle
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this image here.
Click to enlarge.

After wiggling my way round the roundabout in a roundabout fashion, I ended up roundabout where I thgought would be the best place to proceed west or thereabouts. Don't ask me the name of the road, but I can assure you that it was still a London Road and I had not stepped via the tunnels into a nether world. I think.

I proceeded in a westerly direction, guided by the aeroplanes on their approach to Heathrow. I zigged and zagged through the quiet Sunday streets looking - hunting - for photographic opportunities until I found myself by the arches supporting the railway line into Waterloo.

Stacked Boxes.
An interesting piece of architecture, Lambeth
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

I love railway arches but sadly it appears so do many other people and the once grunky arches are now all boringly refurbished with neat roller shutter doors. My quest for urban grit was quashed. Whenever I did find a smidgen of ghetto grime, I attempted to photograph it. Alas, my efforts were not spectacular. And it started raining. I'd left home not ninety minutes before with just a few well art-directed fluffy white clouds in the sky. Now my camera's almost non-existant weather sealing was being challenged by H20 droplets. Yep, its not waterproof. Or showerproof. And neither is my camera bag.

Old Pipes
Detail from a railway arch, Lambeth
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

Now, I do love London but: Why, when for many, many centuries it has rained every second day or thereabouts have they not yet passed into law that commercial buildings must have a canopy that covers the pavement? I come from Zimbabwe where senior government officials happily drive through police roadblocks carrying headless torsos. Where stealing a man's hard-built business is considered not to be a problem and where child molesters are looked upon fondly as loveable rogues. But design a building that does not offer the pedestrian shelter from the rain and all hell will break loose. And It only rains for three or four months in Zimbabwe - and even then it has the decency to rain from 4pm sharp till about 4.32pm - and that is it!

Locked
Detail from a railway arch, Lambeth
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

I got wet.

Eventually I made my way to Waterloo and got on the tube to go home.

Naturally, by the time I got home, Noah had beeen stood down and the sky was once gain blue with cute, fluffy white clouds. I had a brief look for action on Redbubble but there was not much to be had, so I decided to go on a second shoot, just walking from my house through the Mitre Bridge Industrial Estate and then back along the canal. Not very inspiring, but s usual, I did manage to find a few half opportunities, so I took them.

Linear Security
Mitre Bridge Industrial Estate
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

One shot I didn't take was of some "yout's" in silhouette crossing a bridge. They saw me and subjected me to a bit of verbal abuse. "Stop fuckin' abusing my fuckin' human rights!" one of them yelled. "Please God, give me the chance to show that kid what abusing his human rights actually is", I wished. I'll say no more, lest I end up in jail for the crime of wishing kids these days would have some mannners.

Derelict Office Block
A 1970s office block that's been abandoned by the Grand Union Canal in Harlesden
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

I had a wander around the grounds of the derelict office block I have visited before, amazed at the amount of shoes left lying around... I took a few more broken window pics and yet again chickened out of actualy entering the building. Its spooky.

Mast
Willesden, London
Copyright 2009 Paul Davey. Buy this and other images here.
Click to enlarge.

Well, as happens in this modern world, the sun lowered in the sky and I walked slowly along the canal, stopping to see whether what I thought might make a shot actually would (it seldom did). Unfortunately there wasn't much by way of quality in the evening light, thanks to a distant bank of clouds weakening the sun's rays, but the stroll along the canal towpath was good anyway as I calmed down from being yelled at by the "yout's".

Not my best day's shooting, but there are a couple of 'interesting' images...

Absence

Convergence
Available for sale as a greetings card, laminated print, mounted print, Canvas print or framed print from here.

I do apologise to the handful of you who read blog for my failure to post since January 2nd. There is a good reason: I was too lazy.

I have spent weeks procrastination about which online 'showcase I will sign up to so as to display and hopefully sell, some of my photographs. In the end, I decided to sign up with two, deviant art and redbubble.

Tower Bridge
Hopefully a more "gritty" image of this much photographed landmark.
Available for sale in various sizes and guises here.

Of the two, redbubble seems to offer the better finished product - and a generally more mature membership; its more serious. I have so far found deviant art to be rather "high school", but we'll have to see. I am only using its non-subscriber service until such time as (if) I feel its worth spending the money to sign up. Its all about costs and benefits.

I have so far sold (Thanks mate- you know who you are) one photograph through Redbubble (It will be slow to build up sales) and have made, wait for it, a profit of £7.20 - which is my 20% mark-up over cost price. So I will not be buying my Dutch barge any time soon :-)

Cutty Sark
This stylised image is of the hoarding that surrounds the dock where the Cutty Sark is being restored in Greenwich. It was one of those "white sky" days, so I gave it a subtle tweak in Photoshop!!
Available for sale here.

What I have little doubt tat I will be doing in the fullness of time is signing up to SmugMug's pro service. But I need cash and want to be selling only my very best 12-25 Megapixel Tiffs from there. Those photographs will be obscenely expensive and in very limited issue.

Work is a bit slow at the moment - typical of this time of year but I do have a few jobs that I'm churning through with a couple of other potential opportunities in the offing.

Light on

A cold, post Christmas Sunday had me itching to go out and take some photographs. I had been ogling lots of other photographers' websites and was inspired. I didn't have time to travel far, so I decided once again to walk from home and see what I could dig out. I thought I'd pay close attention to how the light works on objects and see what I could come up with...

Pavement: Into the Light
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
Click to enlarge

A Wife-Beater Meets an Appropriate End
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
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Slow Dance
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
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Tracks
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
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West London Sunset
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
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Hot Cross
Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative
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I fancied a Chinese

Ha so! Yesterday I gorged on Chinese food. Probably some of the best I've ever tasted, despite the fact that it was cold and I'd done my best to bugger it up by adding various oils, ointments and salves.

Mmmmmm. I shot this hand held, the chopsticks in my left hand and the camera in my right. That it is sharp is a miracle. (I flipped the image to make the chopsticks right handed). Will probably tweak the background food a wee bit in photoshop to knock it back a little more.

You see, I was shooting it. And food photography is time consuming and fiddly. And making food look delicious often means strategically placing dollops of oil or other colourful stuff - in this case quite seriously hot (but very red) chili goo.

Mini spring rolls. Delish!

I was shooting at my client's place in Wimbledon. The area I had to work in was far from what I'd call ideal and I had to do some weird lighting set-ups to compensate for the conditions - daylight from the right, and diffused, filtered daylight coming through a fibreglass roof panel. I used my tungsten 250 watt lights, one through a white brolly and the other reflecting off a silver brolly. A nightmare white balance scenario. But it all somehow worked (thanks to Adobe Lightroom ;-).

Probably the finest spring roll I have ever had. I bit the end off to expose the ingredients. Danny the Chef uses his own combination of spices giving them a unique, delicious flavour.

I often fantasise about having a nice, big studio with a full kitchen set-up so I can properly do food photography - I like doing it, but never quite get the ideal conditions. I have shot in busy kitchens during lunchtime service - had the head chef and his line cooks all about ready to kill me - horrible lighting conditions too - far from ideal. I've shot dishes that were prepared for a tasting session - very irritating because as as soon as I'd arranged everything the bloody waiters descended on the dish. Three times.




So yes, a studio would be nice. But: I work with small businesses. They don't so much ask for me to take photographs as I suggest it. Their budgets are tiny so they'd never be able to afford a medium format studio shoot with stylists etc. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to give them original photography. I make my clients afford it by striking a deal with them that I can sell the images I shoot as stock photos, and charge the client a very affordable fee to cover some of the cost and for licencing to use the images. (Note to self: one day I will get round to making my proper, transactional stock library.)

I could of course, search one of the many microstock libraries and buy quite competently shot (sometimes) images but I never find precisely the image I need and apart from anything else, I like taking photographs. I also feel that the designs that have images I've specifically shot are more 'crafted' rather than 'assembled'. I feel better engaged with the work and more satisfied (should that be less unsatisfied?) with the end result.

As usual, I got a major buzz out of shooting yesterday. I love it. I love the way that even though I don't quite trust myself to deliver the results I want, I generally always do. But I am also beginning to feel massively hamstrung by my ancient gear. I get good results with it, yes, but could do so much more with the potential offered by the latest equipment. Its time for a major re-equipping exercise:

Canon 5dMk2
Canon L series F2.8 70-200mm IS
Canon L series 24 - 105mm IS
Canon L series 50mm F1.2 prime
Canon L series F1.2 85mm prime (scary bucks!!!!)
Canon 580 EX II flashgun
New portable lighting kit...undecided as to what brand lights combo at the moment.
Lots of other nifty things

I wish.