A bit of a mish mash of pictures in this one – from no less than 4 different cameras 
I’ve been forgetting to post these images I took on Seamus‘s Leica M6 in Dublin, some time last year..
Tri-X 400
Nice work cutting the head off above, eh.
Taken with another one of Seamus’s cameras – Hasselblad XPan I think. Shooting panoramic is quite interesting but also very strange. I think having so many more features/subjects in a picture makes it a lot harder to compose.
To my trusted digi now. Autofocus, yay.
A few months ago (December to be precise so 7 months ago!) in Trafalgar Square, I spotted this guy dancing and singing Michael Jackson tunes. I’m not sure why I didn’t post these at the time.
I’d actually seen YouTube videos of him before – example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpRmrSYrwEA He’s got skills this guy has!
It makes me laugh when others walk past pretending they don’t notice such people.
This guy joined in, and pretty much upstaged him!
As you can see, he drew quite a crowd, but he hardly reacted to them. He just carried on dancing and singing in his own world. I wonder how he reacted to MJ’s death and whether he still does his performances..hm.
Back to film, and this time the Nikon F3, with APX 100.
These pictures are from a few months ago, when the Tamil protests were taking place daily in Parliament Square. They lasted a month I think.
These women were on hunger strike:
Their badges say “Stop Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka”.
Brian Haw, as some of you will know (I’ve mentioned him on a number of occasions) has been living in a tent in Parliament Square for the last 8 years, “to protest against the injustice and suffering caused to the people of Iraq by the UN economic sanctions and the bombing of the country by the US and UK“.
I’ve spoken to him many times and although his mood has often been of anger (towards the government), it has never been directed towards me, until now.
I simply asked him how he was (as I often do), and some other general questions, to which he replied “How do you think I am? You’ve asked me fucking stupid questions”. He then told me to “Fuck off”. OK Mr. Haw! Great way of getting support behind you, and considering I’ve pledged his cause numerous times.. and even given him mince pies at Christmas : )
I suppose living in a tent for 8 years and receiving abuse from the public does that to you. He’s in the background in the above shot. The man in focus was one of his aides, who quickly stepped in when he heard Brian swearing at me.
Back to digital and some more recent stuff. East London:
A bit of a ‘fuck’ theme going on here.
Going to work at 6am, I came across a fox.
They’re common in the suburbs although generally they just run away as soon as they see someone, except this one just loitered around as I took some pictures. I was glad I had my camera on me!
I wanted a bus to go by to take this shot but gave up after waiting for a minute.
Full-view to read:
The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is open to one person every hour of the day until October to basically do whatever they want:
I’ve only been to Trafalgar Square twice since it started and seen nothing very interesting going on so far.
Peter Joseph (writer and director of the Zeitgeist Movie) came to London to give a talk on the Zeitgeist Movement, which was quite insightful, although I found some of the ideas to be a bit contradictory. Still, it was very interesting and I’d recommend the movie to anyone who hasn’t already seen it.
A blurry Peter Joseph:
So, that’s all for now. I have a lot of India pictures to go through still – I should really get them online soon!
As always, thanks for reading. Comments are appreciated : )
Canon 10-22mm f3/5-4.5.
I’d forgotten just how wide this lens really is – the last time I used it was in 2007 I think! Having mostly used a 50mm, 35mm or 18-55mm at its widest, a 10-22mm is all the way at the other end of the spectrum, i.e. WIDE.
You can literally be just a few centimetres away from a subject and capture not just the subject but everything around it, and best of all, often the subject doesn’t even realise they’re in view :P
Mucking around with it at work
When I took the above, I was so close to the guy he was practically next to me, which is why he didn’t flinch when I took the shot. OK, so it’s not a great image, but it demonstrates just how ridiculously wide this lens is.
Walking around the Brick Lane area. This guy pointed to my camera and said “What is that?”
Me – “Erm, a camera – what does it look like?”. He asked me if I was going to take a picture of him, so I did. He went on to ask what I was going to do with the picture. “Put it on your bedroom wall?”. Puke. Inevitably, he asked for my number and where I work and whether I wanted to go into his restaurant for a drink. No thanks mate! Points for trying though, I guess. Or maybe not.
I went to Cork for the day for work.
Take off!
I landed, walked 5 mins over the hill to the meeting, walked back over the hill, and took a flight back to London. Yay for business trips.
The airport in Cork is pretty small and I didn’t have enough time to go into town, so I just sat on the grass in front of the airport for a bit, taking, er, self portraits to demonstrate just how windy it was. Oh, and also to demonstrate how easy it is to take self portraits with a super wide lens!
(^ Dirty lens and didn’t bother using the heal tool in Photoshop)
I didn’t get a window seat on the way back so no more plane-view pictures 
I met up with @jimeh and @jonromero who were in London for something uber geek-related.
%)
We went to my favourite tunnel in Waterloo. I must have taken hundreds of pictures here over the last year or so.
It’s amazing that a year on from the original graffiti festival, whenever I come here people are still tagging their stuff. It’s a never-ending evolution of art.
Southbank is a great place to walk around – things are always happening, like this breakdancing show.
They picked a boy from the audience and helped him do a headspin.
The real thing:
I think he did around 20 spins. Pretty impressive stuff.
Michael Jackson tributes.
Downside of a wide-angle – you have to get REALLY close if you want to capture details. I literally took this on my knees with the lens touching the ground, and still it’s nowhere near as close as I’d have liked it:
You’re just about to lose:
You lost! Hah.
If you don’t know what that’s all about read this – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)
The most ridiculous ‘game’ ever. According to Jon it’s hugely popular in Athens where people put signs around streets to catch people out. Madness.
Free-runners practicing in the Southbank area
How cool is that? I could have literally watched it all day.
(I got my 7th DD for the above shot, which I’m quite proud of I have to say!)
One of the best crepes I’ve ever had! Feta cheese, red peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn, and hm.. some other stuff I don’t remember.
The Tate Modern – the ultimate tourist gallery.
One of the strangest exhibitions I’ve been to lately. I don’t remember who it was by but it was made up of slide shows of naked people doing odd things.
A couple of weeks ago the weather was amazing – 30C, not a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze.. perfect. I took a day off work with the intention of going to Wimbledon, except Andy Murray was playing which meant ridiculous (more than usual) queues. So the choice was – queue for a day without a guarantee of getting in to watch any tennis (so basically waste the day), or do something else?
Decided to go to Brighton instead! 
Sunshine, sea, and chips. What more could you want?
Warning – don’t feed the seagulls chips unless you want to be surrounded by big flapping birds. It sounds obvious but I still did it.
It felt like I was on holiday – perfect way to spend a day off work.
This dog kept playing coming to us and wanted to play so we threw pebbles into the sea and he was going in to fetch them. His owner was a lovely old lady who started up a conversation and told me I looked better than all the other girls on the beach! How sweet!
To end the day, I won a toy from one of those grab machines that never work (except for this time!). Yay.
Pros of the 10-22mm:
- Wide enough for sneaky shots
- Surprisingly light for its size
- Great for architectural shots/landscape/occasional self-portraits :P
Cons:
- Not ideal for close-up portraits. To fill the frame up, you will literally need to be a few cms away from the subject which is pretty intrusive
- Edges can get skewed/distorted
- A small matter of ££. It’s £700.
More shots with this lens in this post – http://www.tanya-n.com/?p=325
Cheers for looking/skimming/reading 
