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Come and visit us sometime....

Not one, but two...

During my walk-about in the West End this afternoon, I came across not just one, but two traditional BT red phone boxes. These are now pretty rare....

Marylebone Lane - TWWSI

I tripped out to get my shots for www.thewayweseeit.org - two sites in-and-around Oxford Street this afternoon. They we're the Mount Street Gardens (just off St Audley Street) and Marylebone Lane (just north of Oxford Street). Interestingly, apparently, Marylebone Lane runs along the course of the Tyburn river and hence it's wigglyness. Here are a couple of my shots of Marylebone Lane.

Interestingly, during the course of the afternoon, I wallked through Grosvenor Square. It appears as though the US has managed to persuade the Metropolitan Police to totally block off the west side of the square (where their Embassy is located) from traffic. Once again Londoners suffer (or are inconvenienced) by the US' "anti-terror" aggression.

Hillyfields panorama

I scooted up to Hillyfields this morning to take this panorama photo of South London. You can see that it was very sunny - but with a biting wind. Looks like autumn has finally arrived. The photo is a stitched-up one - made up of seven shots. When printed up it'll be 4' wide.

Lamberhurst Vineyard, Kent

Sara and I continued our quest to taste lots of British wine this afternoon - by visiting Lamberhurst Vineyard in Kent. This vineyard has 28 acres of vines (although some are only a few years old and not producing yet). The wines were ok - but one struggles (well at least we do) to justify paying probably twice as much as one would for Continental European or New World wines.

Given our desire to buy a vineyard (Sara's starting at Plumpton College on Friday - studying Viticulture and Oenology) - this pricing is a bit of a dilemna. I can't to see how British wine will have mass appeal at these prices or exclusive appeal at the current quality. Of course, there are notable exceptions (like Nyetimber, Chapel Down and Camel), but these are not the norm.

Perhaps a cheapie place in France is in order in the first instance?

Finsbury Square - TWWSI

Apologies for the lack of posts recently - trying to recover from 4 months at the DWP and a busy weekend.

Tripped out today to bag my shots for www.thewayweseeit.org - this time at Finsbury Square. I struggled for inspiration at this fairly uninspiring City Square - and got accosted by a security guard for taking photos of motorbikes (apparently one was stolen recently). Anyway, here's the said motobike shot. It's one of my 3 submissions....

The reason I can do this on a Monday is because I've finished at the DWP...and am taking a couple of days off before I re-join the fray back at the DTI!

"Two mice" Wolfie

The local mouse population must be in dire straits this morning - as Wolfie's campaign of death and destruction has reached a zenith. This morning we were greeted with manic "yowling" at about 5 in the morning - normally a precursor to something grisly being left for us in the kitchen. True to form, there were 2 mice presents - a dead one on the kitchen floor and a decapitated one on the hall mat (also dead). Now, as Sara has the "screaming ab-dabs" with anything to do with rodents, clean-up duty fell to yours truly, once again. I have my uses.

The Gun in Docklands

Tripped out today to what is fast becoming a bit of a favourite venue in chez tressillian - the Gun pub and restaurant in Docklands. This time it was with Sara, Naomi and Ben. The river was very active - London sailing barges, cruise liners (yes!), tall ships and yacht racing - you name it...we saw it! Very easy to while away an afternoon watching the world go by.

I've been itching to get a shot of three very old cranes by the main lock into the Canary Wharf waterway system - which just happen to be by the pub. This is my humble effort.

Deptford waterfront

Last Sunday I also tripped down to the riverside in Deptford - not an easy task given it seems to be largely monopolised by industrial units and ugly new apartments. I did stumble upon a very quiet square with an ancient cobbled alley (called Watergate) down to some river steps. It was hightide, so not much opportunity for exploring the foreshore. This weekend would have been better (but didn't make it) as there were low spring tides in the morning.

This is a photo of the old warehouse adjacent to the alley. Note the lilac window frames - not the sort of thing one traditionally finds on old industrial buildings!

The way we see it

This is a bit of a shameless plug for a fantastic idea and web site - http://london.thewayweseeit.org. The idea is to get people out-and-about taking photos of a London landmark (or street, or building, etc., etc.). The basic idea is that every Friday a new location is posted on the site - and photographers have 2 weeks to take some photos and upload them. When the 2 weeks are up - the site then displays a gallery of photos of the location. Amazing how everybody has a slightly different perspective....

I've just uploaded my 3 photos for the Marble Arch gallery. Marble Arch closes this Monday - so check out all the photos from then. My submissions, unfortunately, are not great - but it's a start.

Call for help

Attached for your viewing pleasure is another of the graffiti shots. Unfortunately I'm still a few slices short of a loaf when it comes to exhibition material.....so I need your help.

All you Londoners out there - I need you to keep your eyes peeled for similar examples of this sort of stuff - and then e-mail (photoblog@tressillian.com) or post a comment below with directions to it. Thanks!

More graffiti

Looks like Graffiti may be one of the themes of next year's exhibition - managed to get some more, very colourful examples of graffiti (actually, more like a wall-mural) this morning. Today's outing was down in Deptford in SE London.

Deptford is well known for it's riverside location - and for being the place where Princess Margaret trysted and Philip Marlowe murdered. In the past an area with significant deprivation and urban decay - it's being substantially regenerated.

This shot was taken down a side street - just off the High Street.

Kent coast

This Sunday the weather was glorious - so Sara and I tripped out to the seaside in north Kent. The idea was to get some pics of the beach huts in Whitstable (actually Tankerton-by-the-Sea). A couple of the shots are attached here - I'll post some more over the next couple of days. You can see that the sun was very bright (and harsh) - but I managed to get some highly saturated shots with the help of a polariser.

We also managed to grab a couple of hours and some fish-and-chips on the beach in Margate and a blast down to Dover to catch up with some family.

British eccentricity and tradition - Last Night of the Proms

For those of you that didn't know it already - it's official. The British are nuts. Sara and tressillian are currently watching the the Last night of Proms:

• Land of Hope and Glory - aka Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance (done already)
• Sea Shanties (happening now)
• Rule Brittania (coming up).

All, of course, accompanied by flags, whistles, horns, claps, bobbing-up-and-down, humming, etc., etc..... Only the British could put on a show like this?!

Brockley cemetery

Brockley cemetery was bathed in later summer sunshine today - as I wandered down there during my lunch break. Conditions were quite contrasty - with bright midday sun and shady trees, etc. Here's a B&W snippet of the half dozen shots I took.

This was taken with the new Canon 70-200mm IS L - notice the sharpness of the image. I experimented again (but not on this image) with ultra-slow shutter speeds at the 200mm end of the range. Fantastic.

Please comment.

Blog drive - no. 2

Following the success of the earlier blog-drive - we've got another
challenge...to increase our rating on "blogarama". This needs your help -
click on the little button bottom left and when asked, please rate the site.
This will help pull in more punters. Thanks!

Did British Romans shave?

Just had dinner with a couple of our local friends - both into archaeology (professionally). The (a)typicial, post-dinner, alcohol-fuelled discussion wandered into an in-depth discussion about whether British Romans shaved - and if so, with what....Perhaps we should get a life?!

Anyway, the concensus was that they did - as all contemporary illustrations depicted them as clean-shaven. However, therein lies the rub - was it with iron, copper or bronze razors? I postulated that because there was no evidence of any razors at all (be it iron, copper or bronze) that it must have been with iron - as copper and bronze last longer in the British climate and soil types - and iron oxidises and disintegrates. Not, I might add, a wholly supported view amongst my learned archaeology chums. "No evidence is no evidence" one pompously stated.

Ok. This is your opportunity to add to the great wealth of knowledge that is academic British archeaology - let us know your own thoughts and theories - I'll forward them on to my archaeolgy chums.....Click on the link below and air your views. Do it now - you know it makes sense.

Image stabilisation

Now the next test - showing how the image stabilisation works. Both the shots below were taken with the Canon 70-200mm L IS USM - at 200mm and 1/30 sec. Ordinarily you'd need a shutter speed of at least 1/250 sec for this length. The un-IS image shows the sort of camera shake one might expect at 1/30 sec, the IS image is also at 1/30 sec but is roughly equivalent to a "normal" shot at 1/250 sec. That's 3 stops.

Non-IS




















IS

Staggered!

Well, all the reviews and write-ups suggested that the results would be impressive - and they were. Here's a simple comparison of the Sigma and the new Canon L. Both shots were taken at maximum aperture (f/5.6 for the Sigma and f/2.8 for the Canon), 200mm focal length with adequate shutter speed to avoid camera shake.

Check the results out for yourself......

Canon 70-200mm L IS USM


Sigma 28-300mm

New lenses arrived!

I've just taken delivery of 2 new lenses for the camera - I've made the (expensive) leap to professional quality lenses. You'll remember from the article posted some time ago, that I was frustrated with the quality of my day-to-day lens.

Anyway, the lenses are the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM. They are very, very large and heavy - mainly because of the large, constant maximum aperture of f/2.8. They will be fantastically versatile - because of the f/2.8 maximum aperture and the IS on the 70-200. IS stands for Image Stabilisation - bascially the lens has some clever electronic gizmos in it that reduce camera shake. This allows 3 stops slower shutter speeds. At the 200mm end of the range, it means that you can hand-hold at 1/30th sec! With the f/2.8 one can take shots in very low light conditions.

I'll post some test shots later when I can find a fork-lift truck to carry them around for me.....