Stop Press - Amazing Discovery!

Stop Press - amazing discovery! In order to take pictures you have to get your camera out of your bag!

I was in London yesterday. I had an appointment in the morning then planned to have lunch and go for a photo walk. But you know what, it was pouring with rain, not a hundred percent of the time, but kind of 15 minutes wet, 10 minutes dry - you know the kind of thing. 

After lunch it was dry so I wandered aimlessly around the shopping center near the Olympic Park looking for inspiration. (This is not where I had planned to go but had the merit of being mostly under cover). I have taken pictures here on several occasions and the shine had rather gone off. I really couldn’t see  anything worth getting my camera out of the bag for.

 Then I spotted some Rosemary bushes in pots outside Jamie’s Italian, not terribly exciting but the most interested thing I’d noticed. I got out the camera and took a few shots and leaving the camera round my neck wandered on. It was as if the sun had come out (it hadn’t)  suddenly I was aware of all sorts of interesting things to capture.

I was drawn to the window displays

The lovers

The bike racks

And, in particular, to this little boy chasing a red balloon

I honestly don’t think I would have noticed any of this if my camera had still been in my bag. The act of taking it out seems to have been the catalyst for really opening my eyes to what was around me.

Lightroom and Christmas Street Decorations

If you aren't interested in my adventures in Lightroom, page down to get to the Christmassy Pictures!

I have this week at last  begun to get to grips with Lightroom. I got it back in the summer prior to signing up to Kim Klassen's   Round Trip course - then the problems began. I had started to use it just for organising my photos and had imported my Photoshop Elements catalogue. Then I realised my hard disk was amongst completely full and that I need to find a solution quickly. Panic! delete a few photos and realise this isn't going to cut it. Next step was to buy an external hard drive and then panic again about transferring the photos without them becoming disconnected from the Photoshop and light room catalogues, or worse still losing the lot!

After extensive research we found out that you needed to transfer the files from inside the programme so I had to choose which to keep connected. In the end I choose Elements as I was more familiar with the programme and felt altogether more comfortable with it. So we spent a day transferring the photos in batches and to my great relief it all worked - I had space on my hard disk and at least I could still use elements!

Next to tackle Lightroom - in theory this wasn't too difficult; delete every thing in the catalogue and then re-import the photos from the Elements catalogue - it took several days before I managed to make myself bite the bullet in case it all went horribly wrong! Then success, I was able to start using lightroom and start on the Round Trip course which I had bought extended access to my this time!

The photos I am sharing today have layouts done with the Lightroom print module - my first attempt and very much a work in progress Enjoy!

These two are taken at the iconic Conran shop in Chelsea. I loved how they decorated their windows and the the pink delivery bike was awesome. 

The Chelsea Conran shop is in an old Art Decco building that used to be a Michelin garage and is absolutely stunning!

I love Christmas decorations and the pictures above were taken in St Christopher's Place just behind Oxford Street, I think  all the silver balls and reflections are just wonderful!

This final set of photos are window displays from shops in the streets just off Oxford St and Regent St.  I adore the rich lush colours and textures

A Sense of Place

No sooner back from Call of the Wild Soul than I was off on another workshop, this time in London, with the wonderful Kat Sloma.  You can find out more about Kat here. 

This workshop ‘A sense of place’ based on Kats successful e-course took place in Hampstead  for the classroom session, followed by a photo safari in the Spitalfields / Brick Lane area of East London. The course also took place on my 39th wedding anniversary but I was given dispensation by my husband on the basis that I let him go to a Grateful Dead concert on our anniversary in 1981 (I didn’t like the Dead at the time I do rather now!)

Having introduced ourselves it turned out to be a small world. I already had a connection with Justine through a photography based Facebook group I belong to, and it transpired that Kat and Fiona had met some of my fellow Wild Souls at an art retreat in Yorkshire last year where Flora Bowley was also teaching. It was also great to meet the other group members Alyssa & Becs. 

The morning was spent looking through the workbook and thinking about what a sense of place means to us individually. The time raced by and after lunch it we headed over to the East End for the photo safari.

I have made a couple of trips to the Spitalfields / Brick lane area recently (here is a really good art supply warehouse there) and taken quite a few photos. There is always something different to see, however, and I had previously only been on a weekday when it’s rather quiet with no food stalls or pop up markets. Also it was really interesting to notice what my companions noticed / were attracted to that I wasn’t and vice versa. All the picture in the post were taken on that Saturday I haven’t included any that were taken on my previous visits.

The first thing that caught my eye was this old fashioned looking  that seemed to be in its own private time zone

Next I  was attracted to this window with its colourful lamps

Then we were into the main drag of Brick Lane itself full of sounds smells and colour. I wished we hadn't just had lunch, the food looked and smelled wonderful!

 Some of the restaurants had very interesting decor!

Another feature of the lane was the fascinating graffiti which was everywhere - I rather liked this one which was more of a collage - is that Patrick Moore in the centre?

I also really liked this sign in a book shop window

Finally as we were heading back I was struck with the wonderful colours of this display of shoes

the whole day was fab - many thanks to Kat and my fellow photographers