Fashion City York!

Well, it was an amazing weekend which I would love to write more about at the moment but I desperately need some sleep! So for now I'll point everyone in the direction of the Fashion City York website, and my page of photos from my site.

Fireworks!

February 26th was the finale of the 2011 York Viking Festival and the first time I've actually got to see this event (I missed it the previous year), I'll certainly be attending the 2012 one as well and would highly recommend that to anyone.

It just so happened that this was the day I was to see my son also so it was a perfect opportunity for a day (and evening) out in York. It also meant that he ended up visiting me house again, albeit briefly so I could get the sandwiches ready before going into town on the bus. It's only the second time he's been there (usually easier to just see him near where he lives) and it was lovely to just be able to sit and chat to him at home for a little while ... well until the game on the Wii loaded and then he got engrossed in that. Still enjoyed watching him play on the Lego Star Wars game as that was something we use to do before I moved.

We had a really good day and, thanks to a fantastic friend, also an absolutely wonderful evening at the finale event since we were able to get into the VIP area and had a great view of the "warm-up" (quite an apt description of Flame Oz) act (shown above), the final battle, boat-burning and amazing fireworks display.

[ Note: The event is really well organised and I suspect that almost everyone had a really good view of what was going on, there seemed to be plenty of space for everyone to see the main arena anyway ]

It was a long day and my son was very tired by the end of the evening and fell asleep on the way back to his house, I only managed to stay awake on the trip back home back singing along to the CD (Glee and other music as I recall) at the top of my voice! So, very late back home and tired myself but happy that we'd had such an amazing day.

For anyone interested, the rest of my Viking Festival pictures are on my website.

Goodness it's cold!

Just went out for a quick cycle around, I had been feeling like getting out alot this week but when it actually came to today when we have glorious sunshine I just didn't get round to it. Until I finally snapped and decided I needed to get myself out and about no matter how lazy I was feeling!

Really glad I did push myself to get out as I feel so much better for it now, even if it was a bit of a strain cycling around York in the cold - just shows how out of condition I am after nearly a month of not commuting to work on my bike (due to the snow/ice mainly and then Christmas of course).

Just hoping that the weather next week is a few degrees warmer than it has been so that I can get back to my cycling commute - need to save money even more now given the rise in the cost of diesel, and more importantly I really need to get back into shape (or a less fat shape anyway)!

Night photography ...

Yes, I've been filling my time with all sorts of things and being completely lax about updating this blog (as usual it seems)! I really can't remember everything that has been distracting me but I certainly seem to have been busy and there's been a fair amount of photography involved. Which brings me to last nights activities.

I finally got around to doing some night photography in York - I don't know why but I've always liked the view of cities and night and particularly the bring and colourful lights. I'm looking forward to when winter really sets in with cold, foggy, air and the light, warmth, and sounds of people enjoying themselves spilling from the houses and buildings in the city. I think I'm thinking Victorian Christmas here which I should really stop doing as it's only September!

Anyway, the picture above is one I got last night while a friend and I were wandering round York, camera's and tripods in hand trying to capture something of the beauty of the city. Really is quite nice at night with the clear sky, relatively warm air and the occasional group of tourists being escorted around on one of the many ghost walks. I think I might do this more often, particularly at the beginning of the week when the pubs and clubs, and streets even, fill with people after a more alcohol-fueled view of the city.

I had a really nice time and got some more practice at night photography, certainly need more and definitely will be exploring more of the city.

[ P.S. There is another image of from last night on my website and also some from the photoshoot I was involved with at the Corn Exchange in Leeds ]

Motoring Through the Ages!

Sunday turned out to be rather a surreal day! We started off heading to Tatton Park to meet up with a friend who was at the BMW show. Sounded like a good excuse to get pictures of cars and of the fabulous park itself. We spent several photography-packed hours there, taking pictures of cars, army Jeep, and finally Deer. The picture above is obviously from the BMW show.

I should point out at this point that I've got nearly 1000 images to process and sort out from the weekend so it'll take me a while to get them all on the website and DeviantART, will post another blog entry when I finally manage to do that.

After Tatton Park it was back to York to quickly dump our things and then rush off to do a photoshoot that Rachel had organised with Maddy. The shoot was at Maddy's house and quickly evolved to include a harp, a cat, Maddy's Mum and then a rather amazing vintage car that her parents own!

I should explain that both Maddy and her parents are pretty cool (for want of a better expression). This shoot came about simply because Rachel was doing her usual thing of constantly keeping her eyes open for people who are particularly photogenic and who could fill a role in some creative idea that happens to be bouncing around in her head at the time.

Since Maddy is sixteen Rachel, of course, made sure that her parents were fine with doing the shoot and it was her Mum who arranged everything in the end and was so welcoming and enthusiastic about the whole thing. In fact, so much so, that she ended up participating in the shoot as you can see from the picture on the left (I've deliberately de-saturated the colours to try and make it look like an 'older' picture). For anyone that is interested, the location is the York Racecourse car park.

In itself this made for a perfect and rather amazing shoot ... and then it got even better, some friends of Maddy's parent's turned up in a, erm, new purchase.

I really didn't think the day was going to turn out so amazing and fantastical when I got up in the morning! It really was such an enjoyable day and certainly one to remember! Also further proof, not that it's really needed, that York has some amazing, hidden gems in and around the city; and not just the cars, the people too.

I would have been early, but ...

... I was busy taking pictures of the balloons!

On my cycle route to work I pass the York Race Course and I'd seen one balloon lift off from there earlier in the week but just hadn't got close enough to get any decent pictures.

When I had a second chance I made sure I got really close and took as many pictures as I could! It really was a quite amazing sight and the glorious sunshine and clear blue sky just made for, hopefully, fantastic photographs.

I'll process the rest of the photos soon and put them up on my deviantArt page.

York Wander

On Saturday I decided to enjoy the fantastic weather (while we had it!) and wander out into York to get my York card (free admission to certain attractions, discounts, library etc) and also a Minster pass (again free entry).

I took quite a few pictures on my little outing and will link to these when I've got them all processed (even going to try doing some HDR images). When I got into town I was drawn to York Camera Mart to see if there were any lenses I could dream about being able to afford. Big mistake! They had a 2nd hand 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens in the window for only £99!

The big problem with owning a 5D is that I can't use the cheaper EF-S lenses that fit the crop-sensor cameras from Canon, e.g. my old 350D or the 550D, 50D, etc. I need to get the full-frame lenses that fit EF mounts. In simple terms - I have to get lenses with a red dot on them instead of the white dot!

This lens had the red dot! It goes without saying that I bought it; shouldn't have but took the opportunity of getting a cheap lense to fill in the range that I have (now have 50mm prime, 80-200mm zoom, and this 28-105mm). Felt a bit bad about spending more money and really need to get control of my money.

Anyway, it took me a while to get use to using this lens - in particular I've not done much in the way of scenary shots since getting the 5D but now at 28mm I'm able to get a wide-angle picture and the image above seemed to come out quite well. I feel a little less bad about spending the money given the results but I really need to stop getting more now!

Fashion Event

This is the last event that Rachel intended to run for now as it takes quite alot of effort and she is so busy with more pressing matters anyway.

We had quite a few people turn up this time and I'd like to say that I managed to capture it all in photographs, but I didn't. Instead I spend the time before everyone arrived taking pictures of Rachel in the, only slightly extreme for her, make-up she applied for the night.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time, it was nice to meet new people and catch up with friends such as Freya who was modeling some of the clothes on the night. And I have to say that Stonegate Yard is a fantastic venue and does really nice food as well.

I'm Famous ...

... well, not quite, but for the first time someone, other than my friends, has re-published a post from my blog which I'm really quite pleased about, their version actually looks better than the one hosted on blogger here!

The post in question is Empowerment Through Style and can be found here on the Directory of York website. The screen shot below shows my entry on their blog page:

Now, if only I could get my website to look half as good as that I might be on to something!

York Photos

Rachel and I hadn't been out for a walk around York for quite some time so we finally managed to get ourselves into town to take some pictures, get some exercise and spend some time together. Sadly didn't get much in the way of good photos, still think I need to work on focus, composition and probably even post-processing. I guess I could use the excuse that it was a little flat in terms of light (well, so Rachel said). Anyway, we did have a nice walk, and lovely cream tea and cakes at Betty Tea room so, all in all a pretty good day.