The celebration of Midsummer's Eve was from ancient times a festival of the summer solstice. Some people believed that golden-flowered mid-summer plants, especially Calendula, and St. John's Wort, had miraculous healing powers and they therefore picked them on this night. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southwards again.
In Sweden, Mid-summer celebration originates from the time before Christianity; it was celebrated as a sacrifice time in the sign of the fertility
Thanks wikipedia.
Anyways... Every year a load of Swedes all meet up in Hyde park and have a little picnic and a bit to drink. So I went off to join my Swedish friends and get to have some fun.
the day was alot of fun and for once I was up very early, 10 in the morning! I know - what a shock for this trainee vampire. I spent the next 8 hours sitting in the park with alot to drink, amazing food and a game of Kubb (a lawn game where you knock over wooden blocks by throwing wooden sticks at them.)
Before long I had to leave but it was a really nice day with great friends and a great start to one crazy weekend!
Full set of images will be on my site or on this LINK.
The other week me and Fluff where sitting on the sofa and we started to chat about going on a trip, We had talked about Brighton a few days before and it was the first place I checked. With the bus only costing £4.50 (pre person per trip) it looked like a no brianer.
first things first ...Tea!
So we booked the trip for the next Sunday and spent the rest of the week doing all the work and borning things you must do and before we knew it... IT WAS SUNDAY!!!
Sea Birds
With midsummer the day before (I did have a few drink :s ) I was not in the best space to sit on a bus for 2hours, with food packed and fluff taking care of me we got to the sunny shores of Brighton.
We had just under 8 hours on the beach and we did not waste any of it, We hit a cafe for tea and then walked along the pebble beach took in the sights and enjoyed the sun along the pier.
The Beach
The images are on the site (LINK) but here are a few for you to check out here.
After alot of walking, some fish and chips and a beer while watching the first half of the England game (Before we lost). We made our way home and died almost as soon as our head hit the pillow.
Sun Set Down South
Looking back I do wish I had some more gear with me, A tripod would have been night but we did plan to travel light and with all the walking about it would have been a pain in the arss! But I'm sure for £4.50 I can do it again!
Funny the things that come up when your looking around on facebook these days.
As you might had read in an earlier post this month, I went to a beach burn in London. The usual people where there but we had a few more togs then normal, I chatted as I always do with everyone but one of the guys was not shooting stills but video.
This is what I found on FB tonight:
It is some good work and for once I got some footy of me spinning. This is his YouTube Channel feel free to check it out.
Today I was just scrolling over canonrumors.com and after drooling over the Canon EOS 1D-X (Really sexy camera thats way outa my league)
I came across something that made me soooo happy I almost needed to change my pants. My dear old 7D is going to be getting a Firmware update!
You can check out the full details on this LINK but ill give you my high lights.
IMPROVED RAW MAXIMUM BURST : from 15 to 26 RAW
IMAGE RATING CAPABILITIES = Adding rating to images to help with workflow later
MANUAL ADJUSTMENT FOR AUDIO RECORDING LEVELS = A big deal for videographers
FASTER SCROLLING OF MAGNIFIED IMAGES = Great for checking focus
These are the onces that made me smile and happy, there are more but you can read the full review at canonrumors.com on this LINK.
Getting an update on my iPhone a while back completely changed my phone. It was like having a whole new toy with some many more tricks up its sleeve that I did not even think of getting the iPhone 4s. Now this does not look to be as big of a change then with the Apple OS but with all these little twecks I really am looking forward to updating my baby as soon as it comes out!
For some silly reason to do with a bonus for the Olympic the bus drivers of London went on strike today.
Did we know about this before we went out, Of course we did not! Thanks to the news channel we where watching for the better part of 2 hours before we left the house told us nothing on any strike.
Alot on the Queen meeting with former members of the IRA, sorry Sinn Fein.
So Fluff went off to dance and I just went home, but I did grab some images of the drivers on the picket line.
There was 3 different picket lines (about as organized as normal bus drivers) at one depo in Camberwell. Some had horns and some with whistles - Took me back to my raving days!
More Money - Less Work
There was also a group across the road outside a shop, once again like any normal bus drivers. I get they want more money for working over the Olympic but lets give them a bonus IF they do a good job!
After last years riots, The police took no chance's
One thing that did catch my eye (other then the filth that made my eyes water when I was walking down the street) was that there was alot of police and i mean alot, i counted 4 Vans 2 cars and 4 of these half piglet half WTF bike things (above). I feel rude calling them bikes but its hard to describe
A husband coming home after a year of service in Iraq to find his wife with a child. The reason is just so unbelievable that it could only happen in the America. Now I can say alot about 3D films (most of it being that there crap and not worth the money) but this just takes the biscuit!
If you did not read the image above - The woman told her man that she was made pregnant via a 3D porn film she went to see with the girls! any normal man that had not taken to many shots to the head could tell you that this woman has been getting her jiggy on with some other dude but no, this man said and I qoute
"I see no reason not to believe her as these 3D films are very lifelike. With the technology of today everything is possible" - really!
the woman then went on to tell the paper that she was thinking of suing the cinema and the producers if her husband did not take the child as his own
Now you might think im mad if you did not read the 2000AD comics but Judge Dredd never EVER took off his helmet unlike in the movie with Sylvester Stallone. And unlike that flop this does look good, A little bit to much like batman for my liking but you cant win them all.
This new version is staring Karl Urban in the lead roll, Some of you might know him for The Lord of the Ringsor even the very badly done Doom. I always remember him from The Bourne Supremacy as I always liked that roll.
Someone that court my eye was that Lena Headey looks to be the heel(bad guy) in the movie, I am looking forward to seeing her grow out of the part most people know her from as the evil Cersei Lannister from the TV version of Game of Thrones
As a photographer you want to let as many people see your work as you can. At the same time you want to let people know its your images with the hopes you might get some work from it.
With the age of the internet really taking off, there are a lot of people that use images that they don't own for there own use's. I myself have seen other people use my images without ever asking me for my permission...
This brings me to watermarks. At first they used to put a big ugly text through an image so people could not use them without permission from a tog. This worked for a while but soon enough things changed.
After a while people did not care about having the text through an image, you still see this all over facebook now. Go on check, I dare you! I bet that at least one of your friends have a copyrighted image up on FB.
Old Style Watermark
Photographers being the level headed people that we are, just changed with the times. Our watermarks stopped being something that made people look bad but became our calling cards. This little logo in the corner is shown to everyone that see's my images. A little advert from every person I shoot to all of their friends.
New Style!
I have used this mark (above) for a while now but have never been super happy with it. I wanted something that would look good on both light and dark photos. I could not get it working right so I added the dark backdrop to make it stand out from the image behind. This is something that fixed the problem but I really did not like the layout.
I want something thats is not to prominent and does not disrupt the image. The two watermarked images below are what I have been working on and I am happy with them both!
Full Name Clear
I like that with the first image you can see my name clearly and people will be able to just google me from just seeing the watermark. Yes I have Googled myself and I am now the complete first page!
S.E.P idea
This second one also has my name but a little smaller, with the added abbreviation of S.E.P (SkinsElliottPhotography) and I think it does look nice. Only trouble is that if you put SEP into a google search you get "Software Engineering Professionals" or SEP.com.
Let me know what you guys think as I would like to hear what you have to say on my designs
I think I just saw one of the best looking, open world games I have ever seen, And after watching the trailer below I am dying to find out more info on this title.
I love games that give you choice and have more then one way of finishing it. I have always given the benefit of the doubt to games that look funky as long as they give you the option of completing the mission in different ways. Now I have been scared by buying titles from trailers before but I will always get these games in the hope they make more games like it (voting with my wallet).
I have owned and LOVED games like Deus Ex(both the original and the Human Revolution) Hit-man, Shemiu, Fable, Tenshi, dynasty warriors and open world games such as all the GTA, Prototype, SpiderMan2, True Crime, Red Faction... Ok ok I'll stop now, Watch Dogs looks to be the game I have been wishing for for a very long time.
Anyways... WATCH!!
Do I need to say any more?
First - The look:
Smooth is the word that comes to mind, This is something the Cat from Red Dwarf would start licking himself over, It has a look of the new Deus Ex mixed with the dark side of Uncharted. The water effects are really nice and looks like the creators are taking alot of queues from the adventures of Nathan Drake, but then all of a sudden without a world or warning - It becomes True Crime!! Personly I am hoping it comes out with the polish of one of RockStars amazing sandbox legends!
The Game Play:
The phone looks likes a heavily used hacking tool, locking into everything for coms to street traffic lights. The free flow running with the gun play and the cover mechanic does look very smooth without to much in the way of jerky movements.
The driving does worry me a little, If felt more like the car was flying then rolling along the floor, the reason why I said more True Crime then GTA.
After Thought's
Watch Dogs is coming from UBISOFT and they are good to new IPs. Remember this is the team that gave us the assassin's creed games (Yes i'm saying NEW IP as with AssCred there slowly driving it into the ground). Fable offered you choice but under Peter Molyneux's hype they never lived up to a truly open choice game.
I loved the look and feel of the new Deus Ex games, with its film-oir look mixed with a slice of Blade Runner. The game had a little of everything I like - Open world, Stealth and some RPG elements. Watch Dogs adds what looks like a GTA style sandbox to the Deus Ex formula. With this new dimension I can see Watch Dogs joining the list of legendary titles above.
If this game delivers on everything or even 80% of what they showed here in this Gameplay trailer... Were in for one hell of a good game!
This is one to keep your eyes on friends, As far as I have found out its coming to PS3 and Xbox, most likly with a PC relise down the line as well. Look for it in 2013 but dont be shocked to see it in the shops by Christmas!!
You herd it here 1st guys, remember my name when your ordering your copy!
To work this out you have to find its opposite, Death!
Yes this is going to be one of them Deep and meaningful blogs.
Now I believe in balance in all things, night and day, cold and hot, yen and yuan or life and death. There is balance in everything and when it comes to feeling alive, you tend be be near death. There is a saying that I heard a long time ago that said "There is no point living if you cant feel alive" and I have tried to adopt this as my motto.
I might only be 27 but I have seen and lived through some amazing times, both bad and good. Someone very close to me died at a young age and even though I miss him every day his life tough me a very big life lesson. Everything comes to an end but its about enjoying it while you have it. Now this person was told he would not live long but got 4 times the amount of life that he was given, yet he did almost everything he wish.
Now this is just my belief and to a Christian this might sound mad but I believe that when you die, you energy or life force goes back into a big melting pot with all of your life's lessons energy and feelings to give energy to more life. This is both a Gian and Buddhist view, but when you find enlightenment then your soul itself will end, making true death - as in really dead, No heaven or fields full of my loved ones but a peace or nothingness.
Cold? Not really. If you think about it I will see my loved ones all around me, there energy in other items or people around me. In my heart and soul with thoughts and feelings that guide me in my day to day life.
To me the meaning of life is death as the meaning of death is life. I do not fear death as I dont fear life. Balance is the key to everything and everything is the key to balance.
Last Friday was my brothers birthday, and one of my friends, make that 2 of my friends and from what I have found out there was a few other birthdays as well lol
Anyways after we popped to my brothers to wish him a happy birthday I headed off into town for the 1st beach burn I have been able to go to in over 7months, So for the first time in ages I got to shoot my friends and get some fresh burns on my arms.
Was a good event, I did not get there till after 23.00 so I most likely missed all the fun stuff but before the tired came in, We headed off to the Waterloo tunnels. And it was alot of fun with the music playing the the fire burning... Must do it again some time soon!
The full set of images are on my site so you can see them on this LINK!
E3 (Electronic EntertainmentExpo) is the biggest weekend of the video gaming calender, It is the showcase of all of the years upcoming games and consoles.
This is the event that we 1st saw the PlayStation, trhe revile of the new Xbox kinect and many other great things that have felled mine and many others life of joy and happiness.
Every year i scroll the net looking for news and clips to find out the news and trailers, But this year Xbox was very nice to live stream the event on the xbox itself.
I just exported my set of images from the wedding, I have 71 images in total and I think there is some amazing shots but I am not 100% happy with them, I wanted to give myself the task of a week to finish all the edits and have them uploaded.
I did have some trouble with memory when I got back to London. I had 38gb of images from the trip (There is still around 10gb on a laptop thats on a trip around South Sweden) But I only had 8.75gb on my computers hard drive - The math NEED MORE MEMORY!! So after spending 2 days fixing this problem, I did not end up backing up my images till Wednesday.
Once I did get them on the computer I had around 1100 images , I found it easy to knock off the extra's down to 261. Now when it coming to editing you have to have a good workflow. What I do is start with P and X, P=Picks X= Rejects that way you can just delete the crap ones right away. Next I only view the picks and then go through them all over again, dropping the ones that don't hold up the 2nd time around or ones that I already have.
After that it gets a little easier because now you only have around 50-100 images and you don't even look at the none pick ones any more, After that I start doing my edits. Now I don't really use Photoshop that much, LightRoom4 has all my needs, with many easy and simple editing tool. I give the whites and blacks a bump use some noise reduction and spot removal if needed and thats it. For a normal image anyways, but this being a wedding I wanted to add a little something to really show off my work.
Now here is some of the images that I have finished and I am hoping to have the final gallery up on my site in the next few days. So you checking my blog gave you the 1st online look at Rozies and Pedrams Wedding images... Enjoy!
I feel your pain!
Farther of the Bride
Good turn out!
A new start
Yes, That is a sword for cutting cake deer
Hope you liked the taster and I will post a link once the images are live on the site!
As some of you know last weekend I went to a wedding in Sweden, When I herd about this i through it was the perfect reason to rent myself a lens for the 1st time. Since I now have a canon I knew the lens I would "borrow" for a weekend being only one real chose, Canons dirty White Canon!
A good looker as well!
The Canon 70-200mm F2.8 USM IS Mark ii... This lens is going for around £2,000.00 (but you can get it for around £1,800 at a push) And most of you would ask,
"WHY WOULD YOU PAY £2K FOR A BIT OF GLASS?"
If you don't know I am sure this blog will not tell you but I do like to try the impossible and with this lens you can make the impossible - possible.
Gives 4 stops of IS
Now this is not a full review but I can say this much... I am in love <3! They way its made, the way it shoots and even the way it looks, everything about this glass tells you that its worth ever single penny you spend to own it. This it at the TOP of my VIP warning list (donations welcome btw) The bokeh is creamy enough to spread all over a nice hot crumpet. Nom nom nom! Its sharp enough to shave with and I have never seen so many people move out of my shot then I did with this lens on my camera!
2.8 All The Way Baby!
Now I used this all weekend and it was amazing, fast and quick, the colours where perfect and the range of 70-200 on a crop body like my 7D give it a range more like 112-320mm. This is a great lens for everything you can think of when you need a little more reach then the normal lens gives you. Now here is a test shot from the lens I took in the park before I (HAD) to give it back.
I remember the 1st time I saw her, Her pologones where ruff but she was a hottie, But in later years every single time she came out with a new title I just felt like I was being taken for a ride...
Its been a While!
After seeing the new trailer of her latest action game I have to say that this puts Lady Lara Croft back into the lime light with not a lemon in sight!
This does look alot like Uncharted but with a far better and less cocky protagonist and that's always a good thing! Anything to get away from Nathan Drake, The smug git! As well as having this on my Xbox as well will also be a good thing as well, lol
Last week I got an invite to check out a place where some of my friends are staying, Its an old fire station in South London and being a spinner I loved the idea of spinning fire indoors for a change.
Alex Getting a Lift! - on 2 wheels
Trouble was that I was flying early on Friday morning and this was set for the Thursday night, So I grabbed some gear and headed off to see my friends for a few hours. I had already packed and Fluff as norm was many hours behind me. I left her to the packing and Jumped on a bus.
Enough room for Poi
The fire station itself was not hard to find but getting in was interesting, Some of my friend where heading down as well so I just waited for them and we all went in together. Now when I tell you this place was big i'm really not jocking. IT WAS HUGH!!
A mini Shoot
The main room was big enough for a full footy pitch and there where many side rooms and floors all over, We spent most of the night in the main room with some spinning going on all around us, some music playing in the background and some skaters scooting around on there decks.
As the night was coming to a close (for me anyways) We headed to the roof to see the view, and a really night one as well, I got a nice image for everyone on the wide angle with the skyline in the background.
