Princess
It's the weekend which means I get some time to go back through some old photos and try out some new processing on them. I'm also going to submit this for #SaturdayStyle / #SAS curated by +lynn langmade and +lane langmade even though it doesn't technically fall within the scope of "fashion, design/décor, architecture, or art/photography" of the theme for three reasons: 1) I'm a rebel who doesn't abide by the rules (in my mind),2) Lynn and Lane are forgiving sorts (also, possibly, in my mind),3) It does represent style to me (now that one's true). This is the way to holiday (or vacation if you're American (but I'm not so it's still holiday)) in style: cruising. Every other day a new sight in some distant land interspersed with luxurious and relaxing days on the sea; swimming pools; live entertainment every evening; restaurant dining; formal nights; dancing (okay: not dancing) in clubs with ocean views; maids who tidy up your room ten times a day (yeah, what's that about?) and leave chocolates! This shot is from our honeymoon in 2008 aboard the Diamond Princess, cruising around the South China Sea and stopping at China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand. It was such a fantastic experience that, given a choice, we will always pick a cruise again for a holiday over anything else. In fact, since next year will be our fifth wedding anniversary we've already got funds set aside for our next big, stylish break, this time – hopefully – cruising around South America. Processing-wise, I've extended the tonal range of this shot, oomphed (note: may not be an actual verb) up the vibrancy a bit, and then hard-light blended an urban acid-treated copy over the top to accentuate the blues. Google+: View post on...
The Temple Of Heaven
For #SacredSunday curated by +Bill Wood, +Manfred Berndtgen, and +Charles Lupica. Yet another revisit and reprocessing of a photo taken in 2008, this one being from Beijing's incredible Temple of Heaven, one of the most incredible places I've ever visited thanks to all the people taking part in all their fantastic activities: line dancing, chess, ballroom dancing, tai chi, water painting, etc. Just looking at the photos from there this morning I can see dozens of pictures I never processed at the time (well, I did take a lot, it turns out) and dozens of others – like this one – that I absolutely have to go back and reprocess at some time to bring out something new. Google+: View post on...
Street Corner, Beijing, 2008
Another shot that I never processed or uploaded anywhere, taken in Beijing, November 2008 on the old Canon EOS 350D. I do wonder why I never bothered to do anything with this before since I look at it now and think: yes, that's my sort of shot; it's got people doing peopley things and there's plenty of interest (well, to me at least) everywhere; crossed arms man, handbag-holding man, mobile phone guys, seated girls, Nike shoes, Adidas tops and sweatbands… I've only completed looking through one day of the honeymoon photos so far; can't wait to see what else I overlooked. Google+: View post on...
Woman, Shadows, Beijing, 2008
Just having a nose through some old folders this morning – specifically those around our honeymoon in November of 2008 in Asia – and I discovered that there are dozens and dozens of photos that I took but never decided to process or upload, this being one of them. Of course, I was younger and more inexperienced around photography then and probably thought that this photo of an old Chinese woman sitting on a stone plinth was no good as you couldn't see her face thanks to the shadows; now, this photo appeals to me so much more. Weird how attitudes to aesthetics changes over time. What I would have given to not have that car in the background but c'est la vie and there's no use moaning about it now. Submitted for #ShadowsOnSunday curated by +André Roßbach and +Daniel Graupner. Google+: View post on...
America – Part 2 – Massachusetts
When we originally made plans to visit America it has to be admitted that no part of the Massachusetts area was on our radar at any point but then something rather nice happened. We discovered that my sister-in-law’s fiancé supported the New England Patriots and he discovered that I too supported that particular American Football team. It gets better. He – perhaps wanting to make a good impression on future family members, perhaps looking for a good excuse to go himself – tracked down tickets to a Monday night football game. He also arranged for internal flights, hotel, and car hire. This saved us having to do any of this ourselves. And so it was that I, my wife, and my wife’s future brother-in-law (my wife’s sister had to work so couldn’t come along) flew from Baltimore to Boston just two days after arriving in America. Baltimore To Boston I’ve already talked about travelling in America in the first part of this series of posts but just to give you a quick feel for this flight: awful internal security measures as per every American airport and then a quick flight with a cabin crew from Atlanta, Georgia whose intercom skill level rated at a Grade S (for screech!); I’m not exaggerating when I say that everyone jumped every time there was an announcement of some description. Anyway, it was mercifully short. Some Booking Mishaps Now, I’d like to make it very clear here that we – that’s my wife and I – did not arrange anything. I’d like to point out that all minor disasters were not of our doing. I’d like to add that we blame nobody and had a great time anyway. From Boston airport we hopped on a shuttle bus (with a driver who overheard our accents and insisted we come sit up front with him) to the Budget car rental lot where our hire car was waiting. Our hire car was not waiting for us. Computer checks were made, names were spelt out, checks were made again, names were double-checked, and then – finally – the printout of the car hire confirmation was retrieved from a bag to show that, yes, we were in the wrong car hire place entirely. We hopped on another shuttle bus to take us back to the airport in order that we could then hop on a third shuttle bus to take us to the correct car rental location but the first driver heard our sorry story and let us off near where we needed to go (so big thumbs up to the car rental people at Budget in Boston)...
America – Part 1 – Travel
This is the first part in a series of posts regarding my recent trip to America. It’s been a long, long time since I really sat down and wrote anything for this site – you might possibly have noticed that there’s a lot of automated posting from Google+ and some filler video articles – and I felt that the time was right to address that in the form of something that will hopefully be a bit of a mix of travelogue, anecdotes, and trying to fool search engines into thinking this site is active and not some dumping ground for trash. Besides: it’ll be nice to have a diary of sorts of the trip – which was my first visit to the States – and it might even be of use to anybody thinking about travelling to the USA in the future. Unlikely, of course. I didn’t get hit on the head while overseas and suddenly develop the ability to be useful just like that. Travelling To And In America I’m going to start this series of American posts with one about travelling since it’s something that’s got to be done in order to get to America and once you’re there it’s something you’ll need to do too otherwise people start looking at you funny by the third day in the airport lounge. You’d have run out of money by the end of the second day. You’d be resorting to dancing for dimes. Dimes. That’s American money. Picked up the lingo! Now, during our short holiday – vacation if you prefer (I don’t) – in those there United States of America we managed to take part in three froms of travel: flying (both to and inside America), driving by car (both as a passenger and as a driver), and being transported by bus (only as a passenger as they’re quite snippy when you try to slide into the driver’s seat on those things). Flying To America The holiday started with a flight from London’s Heathrow to Washington’s Dulles airport. It concluded with another flight featuring those same two airports but in a slightly different order. We flew with Virgin Atlantic as their website seemed the easiest one in which to find important information such as: do you get fed on the plane? (YES) what are your luggage allowances? (PLENTY EVEN IN SCUM CLASS) is there a Scum Class of travel? (YES, BUT THEY DON’T CALL IT THAT) can you book in online? (YES) We flew Scum Class because we’re not made of money. In terms of price the flight was comparable to everyone else we looked at. Before flying...
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