Off Ground Touch

Off Ground Touch, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

This guy runs a mobile Massage service from his bike, very environmentally friendly, and I took a few shots for him for a magazine ad (never heard of the magazine but it looks dead trendy - called "eat me") and a bit of a press release that he's putting together.

Expect that some of the images will eventually be used on their website: www.offgroundtouch.co.uk/

Cool to be taking pictures on a parrticular brief, which goes against all my usual instincts. Fun though. Although I felt dead ill on the day. Glad to get home of the cold in the end.

Vicar

Bride and Groom framed, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

He's not a priest. Had to keep telling myself that.

The catholic Atheist in me found it hard to use the correct word.

A lot like hard work

A lot like hard work, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

Shocked at how long the processing has taken for the wedding pics from last week.

Note to self forfuture: keep next day totally free for processing - don't fill the day with kids party.

Probably just me being a perfectionist, but even the pics that are relatively straightforward need a little work, and some of the more arty ones a little more.

On the other hand, this evening the work has been distracting me from toothache, so there's a definite up, this evening.

At the moment I'm mainly putting up the arty shots, which are likely to be the ones that stay on Flickr, but I will be putting up a range of others, at least once the happy couple have seen them.

First Wedding

Black and White or Colour, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

On Saturday I photographed my first wedding.

I'll be posting more pictures to my Flickr photostream in time and the blog, but I'm particularly pleased with this one.

It was an interesting experience, and one which I'll feel comfortable recreating, for money (this was a freebie) at a later date.

It's pretty challenging, trying to get a mix of the standard, expected shots, combined with the kind of creative shots that are the reason I take pictures in the first place. I pretty much got all the standard shots, which was a relief, no problems there and a sprinkling of the more creative "arty" shots that I'd hoped for.

I was extremely tense in the run-up to the wedding, sleepless nights aplenty, and there was lots of pre-planning involved.

I rented a Nikon D300 (lovely camera) for the event, and in the end used that as my main camera for the delay, my D80 slung over my shoulder with a bigger zoom for close-ups.

Still reckon I've got a bit to learn. I tend to be the sort of photographer who records events, but I reckon that to do this stuff successfully it helps to be able to encourage the couple to pose a bit more or to be more creative, and that requires more of an adventurous mindset on my part. Got ideas for next time though.

Still processing all the images, bit of a task in itself, but for me it's the only way to really get the images as I want them.

Next task, help them put together the printed Wedding album, a whole new challenge in itself.

Contacts on Flickr

Spirit of the staircase 2 (l'esprit d'escalier), originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

I'm pretty choosy about my contacts on Flckr. Increasingly so, because you get a lot of dross appearing in your contact pictures otherwise, but I still have shedloads of people in my contacts section. 356 as of this evening. Note: I have nowhere near as many Facebook Friends and even fewer (I typed less originally then corrected myself) actual friends (thank heavens).

But on Flickr I have 356 contacts.

Some of these have billions of people attached to them as contacts. As far as I can see it literally everyone who "contacts" them will get the compliment returned.

In the most positive light this is very polite.

In a less positive light it suggests that these users are very self-promotional. If that is truly a negative, I don't know. I use Flickr to get people to look at my work, which is self promotional, they're just taking it to an extreme I wouldn't consider. I can call it sharing as much as I like, but like many users I'd be pretty pleased if I sold some prints as a result of my Flickr activity, so I know it does go beyond that for me.

The real problem with this for me is that I genuinely enjoy looking at some of the photographs from other users, and if you add everyone then you never see anything you like. Ten billion photos of badly exposed cats, or poorly cropped puddles; I just don't need it. I do have pictures of puddles in my favs, and also the rare shot of a cat (which has to be really good to get there - if you've got a cat, or any domesticated creature, in my favs, feel very pleased with yourself - top marks), but I like the contacts section to contain, well at least 20% of stuff I can enjoy, and maybe 1% I can really love, and too many contacts weights the odds in favour of ugly cats.

For the first time in ages though, I checked my contacts notifications. If someone adds me as a contact I will always, but always, give their photostream a look. First page only sometimes, or a couple of pages if I quite like their work, but am not sure if they will regularly get near that 20%. It's a bit choosy and particular, but so am I.

Sometimes I check out the profile, but not that often. Maybe if I really like their work. Today though I checked someone out and noticed that I was one of about 20 contacts.

Which impressed me. I mean that shifts the whole self-promotion thing the other way. How cool to only have the people that you like a lot to appear in your contacts.

Of course I am probably reading far too much into this. Most likely a casual user, as I used to notice that most people had shedloads of contacts on Flickr. So as I went through checking out the people who'd added me, I looked at their contact number numbers too, and was suitably impressed to discover that most of those who'd added me had relatively low nos.

What does this mean? I honestly don't know, but I've recently had a spell of using Flickr less than I would like, and taking photos less too, life being what happens whilst I'm busy making other plans to paraphrase John Lennon, and I've been trying to work out why I was still getting a steady stream of hits. Not from blogs or external sites so much, but from the internal Flickr hits and this is my only explanation.

So, I'm flattered potentially, even though my logic may be off and I may well be deluding myself terribly (hey I'm writing a blog read by almost no-one though - so self-delusion is clearly part of my armoury) but if I am right, I do feel slightly envious of their lovely vanilla dross-free contacts list.

Maybe I'll go thorough my contacts and do a little pruning of numbers myself. Only a few, here and there, and if you're left at the end it must mean I really like your work. Maybe.

I maybe selling myself short though. I officially have one "follower" on the blog. Woo.

Leysdown on Mars

Leysdown on Mars, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

So this is my most popular image.

In terms of hits alone. It gets loads of hits. Nowhere near one of my favourites, but it's very popular and I suppose striking in a way that I feel almost detached from given the chance method of it's creation.

Good cloud though, and the angle of the wide-angle really does give the sky a vaguely 3-dimensional effect.

Actually though there is an element of accident in many of my favourite photographs that I've taken, but I'm happy to take responsibility for those. This seems more automated and computerized.

This is my second most popular, and as and there was also a large degree of fluke to it's creation.

There were loads of other light-stream, long exposure shots that I took that night around Saint Pauls, and initially I reckoned that I had messed this one up, but I hit the button and the Bus decided to park smack bang in the middle of my shot. However once I saw it I knew that I was indeed done for the day.

No need to take anymore as I had my shot.

Wedding bells

Sunshine Portrait, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

Doing my first Wedding in a couple of weeks.

Nerve-wracking thought.

It's for a work-mate, cost only, which gives me, in theory the chance to take my pictures in a relatively stress free environment. The happy couple are fairly relaxed about it, but it's important to me, to make sure I do a good job.

I'm in the process of trying to "monetize" the whole photography thing, and weddings are the obvious starting point to fund all the lovely equipment I want to buy. I fancy some lovely Nikkor glass rather than Sigma.

Also, I'm in the process of setting up a website to start offering freelance photographic services (i.e. not doing wedding on cheap) at http://www.anthonygibbonsphotography.co.uk . Bit of a work in progress at the moment, though I'll have it finished by the date of the wedding on the 30th October. It's a Google website thingummy, so a bit generic and dull, but I'm going to re-host it and stick up a more fancy html-built website in a couple of weeks.

Also going to sign up to Shutterstock and put a selection of my best shots, or stock-photography friendly shots on to sell them.

I might not be able to give up the day job just yet, but I can dream.

Once in a lullaby

Once in a lullaby, originally uploaded by AnthonyGibbons.

I was pleased with this shot. A chance capture of a caravan in Leysdown.