Cuba Colour

Cuba is a stand out location for street photography - everywhere you look there are colourfully dressed people standing by colourful buildings, which they often match so well you could almost think they had been professionally placed by an artist.

Even the sea seems to compliment the colours worn

and I love this blue and white combination

The stalls at the farmers market look colourful too.

Despite my love of colour I am going to end this final post about our Cuban adventures with a couple of desaturated pictures. Why? because I like these particular images better like that, and I wanted to include them! Enjoy!

Saturday at Spitalfields

Last Saturday I attended a street photography workshop at Photography Course London. The practical part of the day took place at Spitalfields, one of the places to be in London on a Saturday. We were asked to pick a theme and I started off with couples

I began quite well taking a wide view of what might constitute a couple - could be either friends, lovers or friends of the four legged variety.

Then I got kind of distracted by things or people I just found interesting

not normally a huge fan of back an white but this lady came already colour co-ordinated making it a no brainer!

I was also hugely attracted by people who were dressed slightly unusually or doing something out of the ordinary and really couldn't resist these fabulous ladies

or these guys

But back to the challenge, couples! A bit later I saw some different couples some of whose members were canine, like this pampered pooch here who travelled her own cushion.

But this was my absolute favourite couple

That's all folks, join me back in Italy next time!

Its not the Leaving of Liverpool ........

My trip to Liverpool last month was my first time in the city and I absolutely loved it! only problem was that my reason for being there at all was to attend a 3 day art workshop led by the wonderful Orly Averini. The down side to this great opportunity was that there wasn't a lot of time to explore the city. But these were my highlights

I loved the docks with their mix of ancient and modern, topped by the original Liverbirds

no time to take a 'ferry cross the Mersey' though'

or even paddle ourselves across

We did make it to the Tate though!

Liverpool provided lots of great opportunities for Street photography

I loved that there were pianos provided for the public to play

One of the best things apart from the great food in some fabulous restaurants was our visit to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

We hit it at just the right time in early evening with the sun streaming though the windows and turning everything jewel coloured - just fabulous!

All just fabulous we were so sorry to go and definitely mean to come back!

“Farewell to Princes’ landing stage River Mersey fare thee well
I am bound for California, a place I know right well
So fare thee well my own true love
When I return united we will be
It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me
But my darling when I think of thee”

— Traditional

Putting on the Ritz

One of the gifts we were given for our 40th wedding anniversary back in October was a voucher for 'Tea at the Ritz', an eagerly anticipated treat. I thought I would book for sometime in February as this would serve as a lovely treat at the point we were getting fed up with winter weather. So in January I rang up to book and discovered that the first available Saturday (if you wanted to have tea roughly at tea time rather than 11:30 in the morning) was August! At this point we regrouped and agreed the thing to do would be to take a day off work and managed to book for the end of April a couple of days after my birthday for the 5:30 sitting - we were on!

Before going for tea we took in the David Bailey Stardust Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which I shall be writing about in a future post, Then we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked along Piccadilly towards the Ritz Hotel.

We passed the Royal Academy at Burlington House, popping into the courtyard to view the fountains, then it was on to the Burlington Arcade which comes equipped with doormen

The Burlington Arcade is home to one of my favourite shops Laduree, home of the perfect macaroon. We first discovered them on holiday in Paris and we thrilled when a shop opened in London, they are an expensive and rare treat however! (and yes we did buy some)

How to choose? (salted caramel is my favourites)

Of course I couldn't resist a little street photography

This lot were trying to figure out where to go

Then we had arrived! The decor was pretty plush as you might expect, rather reminiscent of the Palace of Sans Souci in Berlin

The tea, which started with a glass of champagne, was as you might expect, delicious and there was plenty of it.

The service was, of course, excellent

and we had a wonderful time

Photo Heart Connection January

This month for the first time I am joining in with Kat Sloma's Photo Heart Conection. The idea is to 'Deepen the connection between your photos and your heart and soul by participating in this monthly review of your images, to find the one that best connects to your heart.' after much thought I choose this image of someone I saw on the tube in London.

I got on the train at the terminal ( where it is not underground) and noticed this man sitting in the corner opposite me - I thought he had the most amazing face somehow full of humour and wisdom. I reminded myself that my word of the year is courage and asked him if I could take a picture - he agreed and though you can't really see it ( I had my 50m fixed lens on) made a kind of Jazz hands gesture. In that moment I felt a real connection with this stranger here on the London Underground where our our paths intersected for a brief, (he got out at the next station), moment.

Exploring With My 50mm Lens

This week most of my photography times has been spent on class assignments for Kim Manley Ort's 50mm class. I was particularly excited by this weeks themes of street photograph and portraits. The former though is especially challenging with a 50mm lens as you really have to get up close to people, whereas normally I zoom in on people with my 55- 250 lens. In order to resist temptation I put this firmly in my camera case and left it at home.

The first part of the weeks assignment was around street photography. This was a bit of a challenge as I had a very busy week at work and not much time to take a break. On Tuesday however I had half an hour between meetings and rushed into town for 10 minutes intensive photography.

The first challenge was to get some interesting shots with in the time frame I had. The short time meant I couldn't go right down the High St where there were likely to be more people but had to stay at the top of town which is more sparsely populated. This caused another problem in that it was difficult for me and my camera to blend in to the crowd and it was pretty obvious that I was taking pictures of people. my first attempt at overcoming my discomfort was shooting through a shop window, in this case a nail bar / beauty salon.

Then I tried shooting from the other side of the street - what I most love about this image is the pipe, you don't often see them nowadays and it reminds me of my grandfather who was a great pipe smoker.

Finally from a bit of a distance away which meant I had to crop a fair bit, and even then I think if those two had been at all awake they would have noticed me!

That was it, time was up and I had to head back to my meeting!

My next opportunity came on Friday when I headed off to London - I had a bit of spare time so I headed down to the South Bank near waterloo Station to see what I could find.

I started off with a cafe shot

Then I found theses kids in the skate park, they seem to be practicing for some kind of show and were being filmed.

The next picture is a bit of a crossover between street and portrait - this guy was sitting opposite me on the tube I thought he had the most amazing and happy face so I asked if I could take his picture - happily he said yes!

Next was the portrait assignment and I was wondering how to find model in the short time I had available to me. I was beginning to think I would need to fall back on my husband which would have been OK but not ideal. Then I had a brainwave! I have my hair cut by the daughter of a close friend who has a hairdressing salon at a small department store. Her daughter who is a singer / songwriter often helps our when she hasn't any other work on, so if she was there maybe she would model for me.

She was there and agreed so once my foils were on we repaired to a stairwell at the back of the shop where there was natural light and not a lot of people. As well as having a fabulous face she has a lot of fascinating tattoos and I couldn't resist taking some closeups

Her eyes are also particularly dramatic

but my overall favourite is this one which shows off her lovely smile

Street Photography the Hows, Whys and Wherefores?

Last Thursday I went on a street photography workshop run by Photography Course London - it was fab. The day started with a review of the history of street photography and some tips on staying safe and legal - then we were out on the street!

Luke the tutor gave us lots of hints and tips and succeeded in making me see things / people / places in a different way. In particular, I began to notice things I just wouldn't have noticed before, like people's faces lighting up as they entered little patches of sunlight.

This guy was beautifully framed by the shadow

We also looked at the possibility of developing series of images - I saw an awful lot of people with mobiles!

Another possible theme was people through steamy windows - I took a few, this was one of my favourites

And this one with the legs - had a bit of a play in Photoshop here too

Some pictures have more of a story than others

and I wonder where people's journeys will take them?

In amongst taking all the photographs I have been pondering the ethical issues of street photography. Should you ask permission? I have sometimes, but the downside can be that subjects may start to pose rather than look natural. Most of the photos I took on Thursday were of subjects walking towards me. Sometimes they were aware I was taking their picture, sometimes not, it certainly didn't seem appropriate to stop them in their tracks and ask them if they minded. Maybe intention is a key issue? Is there any intention to exploit in any way? absolutely not! The final question I asked myself was would I mind if someone took photos of me and put them on their blog? I really don't think I would unless the photos seemed disrespectful in some way , which I hope none of mine are. Anyway I'm going for it!