Jun 16, 2013 |
I’ve been doing a beginners photography course recently at Matt & Pete’s Photo School, which has been loads of fun and I feel like I’m learning lots and improving rapidly. Tomorrow night that comes to an end for me – though I suspect I’ll be back for more.
They also run regular photo walks, which are exactly what they sound like. You walk around and you take photos, while talking about the area, and about photography.
I’ve just returned from this afternoon’s one. It was led by Pete (above), and it was a really great way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Birmingham.
There was a small group of us, and we spent a couple of hours wandering around Digbeth at a very leisurely pace, going places you might normally never walk, and stopping to pay attention to details that you otherwise might miss.
I took a whole bunch of photos, did lots of experimentation, played around with the camera settings, made loads of mistakes – and ended up with about 40 photos (out of 140 taken) that I thought were worth looking at.
Below are a few favourites. You can see the rest in my Flickr set.
View the full set.
Feb 12, 2010 |
Narnia, possibly…
My strategy for navigation when out on my bike is pretty much “Oooh… what’s down here?”
Today, as usual, I went somewhere I’d never been before and found this secret pond (well, I didn’t know about it) relatively close to my house. Not quite sure how I’ve managed to go this long without knowing it’s there…
Here’s a map link. It’s that light green bit in the middle of the trees.
Sadly, the enormous heron that was standing next to it took off before I could get my camera out. That would have been an even nicer shot.
I then got on the canals and ended up at the Landrover factory, before heading home along regular old streets.
This was the round trip, give or take.
Oct 30, 2009 |
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a Music As Culture project with the band UB40.
They’re going to be playing a gig at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth on Tuesday to raise money to help the venue pay for a new soundproof roof over the courtyard, so that they don’t get shut down due to the noise complaints.
They’re in Switzerland at the moment, performing their last festival gig of the season, but they’re back in Birmingham tomorrow. Meanwhile, they’ve been taking short videos of the band rehearsing, soundchecking, performing and hanging out, and I’ve been uploading that to the site.
(more…)
Oct 14, 2009 |
I’ve been travelling a lot in Europe recently, and I’ve come to the conclusion that making a great, vibrant, creative city is really, really simple.
What follows is my 5-step plan to better cities. If you get these things right, ALL else will follow.
(more…)
May 12, 2009 |
On Saturday, I went around to visit Clutch, who has just become a father in the past week. I got to meet Donnie for the first time and do a bit of a catch-up with his dad.
Seems like they’re doing really well – sleeping and eating’s all happening as it should. Well, it is for Donnie at any rate.
Everyone in the house is amazingly calm and mellow (though that could be the lack of sleep) and I think Clutch and Collette will be amazing parents.
Clutch and I talked, as we usually do, about whisky, work and music. Had a couple of really good ideas about Clutch’s exciting, forthcoming major music project – which I can’t really tell you about yet – but it’s going to be amazing. Like, super amazing.
Clutch and I had a whisky or two, and then popped down the road to Craig’s house where he and Executive Producer Robson were making a new podcast.
We gatecrashed and will (theoretically) appear on the next installment of the Friends of the Stars podcast [caution: link contains rather a lot of swearing].
I dread to think what we said.
