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I have recently decided to move to the other side of the world. Being this side of the Great (Fire)Wall of China has the odd complication or two in terms of keeping this updated regularly. But I will endeavour to nonetheless. Besides, China has much more interesting things to take photos of anyhow.

Yada Yada Yada...

... I meant to get round to this two weeks ago. But you know how it is (I couldn't be arsed).

So... Carnival. That's what I was getting to.

These are all in black and white. Next post will be in colour. I swear.

Obviously there is a sizeable police presence at carnival. This lot in the left seemed to be having a bit of a break. Caught in the act.

This is pretty much on every other corner. These big huge half drums are pretty much everywhere. And there is shed loads of chicken and corn on the cob.

Since it's a parade through Notting Hill and the surrounding areas, obviously people live right on the route. I love the fact that this group of guys just rocked up with some deck chairs. True Caribbean style.

Yeah, I know it's out of focus. Still, not too shabby though.

A bit more fisheye. The kid at the bottom makes it.

Something I have touched on before

These are a couple of random images that I have picked up on my various travels. They don't really fit in any particular subject. I suppose after my recent photos of bits of graffiti, they would sort of fit in that, but these are a little more special. And they weren't taken in Bristol either; it didn't feel right to put them in with the others.

This was actually taken at Notting Hill Carnival. But this guy was just off a side street pretty much playing to no one. I quite like how he sat down in front of a boarded up window that was scrawled over. I appreciated the fact that he was in his own little world I guess.

This is a wall. A dirty wall. With a electrical box of some kind. I just like the colours. I'm a little simple like that. It's also straight, which is quite rare for me.

People of Paradise Presents:

It was Notting Hill Carnival recently, I went for the day with my brother and a mate. The weather was decent, the food was good, and there was plenty of spectacle. I took about three rolls of film the whole day (being somewhat conservative due to the ridiculous costs of film developing these days - £19.60 for one roll of b&w film!). I took two in colour and one in black and white. The b&w came out better as usual. I am pretty unimpressed with my colour shots, but will be putting a few up over the next few days. But here is a small selection. The photo above sums up for me the feeling of Carnival. My mum's family are from the West Indies, having moved to the UK in the late '50s; I think there is something comforting about the ability to have something like the second biggest carnival after Rio's on a tiny rain swept isle in northern Europe. Aside from the occasional flair-ups of trouble it's a good day out. I will be putting these up gradually, but it's late, I'm tired, and my internet connection is so painfully slow it's hard enough uploading these at the best of times.

Seriously. Painfully slow...

One of the best things about Carnival is the colour. It adds to an already incredible atmosphere.

With all the dancing, there is plenty of flag waving. The pride in one's origins at Carnival is pretty special. The flags above from right to left are Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda (you can't really see it), Dominica (above), St. Lucia (below and last on the left). The perception of West Indies most people have is of Jamaicans, but all the islands are so unique.

The costumes are fantastic. The black and white photos don't really do any justice.

Case in point...

Colour. Lots and lots of colour (well, lots of pink in this case).

More to follow. Good night.

Before I forget

I meant to put this in one of the previous posts. I figure you can't take pictures of graffiti in Bristol without at least one Banksy piece.
It's not my favourite of his that I have seen, but it does make me laugh.

It says all it needs to on it's own.

Technical difficulties

Some recent photos are apparently not loading properly. But if you click on them, they open up, and you can see the whole thing. Not sure why. These things happen sometimes.

Here's a bicycle for your troubles.

Urban regeneration; what?

So, Bristol: Part two. Most of these need little explanation. Just photos of things I thought were interesting.

So this an owl. I think. I found it interesting because it's not graffiti in the conventional sense. Well it sort of is, but not entirely. It's a friendly looking owl though.

Here's another underpass shot. This tag has little relevance to anything, unlike the previous one. But it looks kind of neat.

So this a pub called The Golden Lion. The art work on the outside is so impressive. It covers the whole side wall of this pub. The shot below gives you a better idea, but this part is the most impressive bit.

How cool is that?

The above an below shots are of the same building. It gives the skyline a bit of an interesting touch...

You can see what I mean from this angle. The two eyes on the face are always following you...

...so is the state.

There is something about the above and below shots that I really like. I actually only saw it by chance; it's across from the platform at the train station.

I'm not sure which I like better. The first one is cool as you can immediately see the face. But the one right above, it takes a moment to notice the face, as it's just in the bottom corner (if you didn't notice). But it stands out well enough, particularly since it's a derelict building.

Image: Derelict building.

Strange image. No explanation available.

Uhm. I'm not sure whether this should be filed under urban decay or regeneration. I have never seen one of these before. It's quite a clever little idea. Certainly makes more sense taking a proactive approach to 'societal ills', than ignoring them. Pseudo-social theorist rant over.

A touch of urban decay

I went to Bristol the other day. I'd never been before. A friend of mine took me up Gloucester Road, and said there were some good places to take photos of. In a departure from taking pictures of buildings, plants and terrible pictures of people, it was nice to do something a little different. Also trying to figure out the best way to take a picture of a flat surface and make it interesting was a little new for me. Also just spotting small things that could turn out well was a new challenge. So I begin with my favourite of the day:

Probably because I agree with the sentiment, but also its a pretty damn cool stencil.

My friend saw this in the first underpass we went under. While it looks like a pretty random tag, and I must confess I thought it was when I saw it, I like the little message.

Graffiti gets a bad rap. Some of it justified, some, not so much. The building this was on was abandoned, and it's pretty simple and plain. But it stands out well. What always gets me is the testicular fortitude to actually get up to places and start painting. For all the (supposed) ills of graffiti, you have to admire the audacity.

I have no real explanation for the above image. I just kind of like it. It's a guy in a gas mask riding a giant mosquito (that is also wearing a gas mask). Ho hum.

This has been edited slightly. It wasn't straight so I turned the image a little, and cropped it. I was going to put it up as it was, but it really bothered me. I still can't take straight photos. Anyway.

Yeah, so you can kind of tell I went a bit wild with the fish-eye.

More soon...

A little experiment

I recently acquired temporary use of a fish eye lens. I wasn't entirely sure how I would go about getting the images that I wanted. Obviously I had a thought in my head, but having never actually used one before it was always going to bit hit or miss. This is just one from a few that I got. More to follow. The pub I was in was a little too dark to try anything else.

The actual photo needed cropping, but the results are pretty good.

When Saturday Comes

Occasionally I get out of the po-dunk town that I currently reside. Occasionally.

But now that it's August, good times are afoot. There is weekly football. I went to catch a pre-season friendly (as they are slightly more affordable) and thought I would try catch a bit of the atmosphere of a football game. It kind of worked; it also kind of didn't. I was using a new lense that is rather long, and trying to take quick shots (something I haven't really tried to do) proved a little testing at times.

Anyway. As they sing on the terraces:

Oh When the Spurs...

I'm glad I got this shot. I love it. There were loads of flags in the stands, but getting this one was quite special. It's not completely clear, but give me a break it was blowing in the wind.

Lots of flags. The above photo has actually been flipped using The GIMP (PhotoShop software on Linux). Being behind the flags, and the way the wind was blowing meant that I couldn't get the logo the right way round all the time. You can see the Puma logos are backwards. I suppose I should cut them out. But I thought I'd be honest.

Like I said: lots of flags.

Still going with the singularity theme. I probably will forever.

I'm annoyed I cut the end of the sign off. But such is life.

People make football games interesting. I'm still shit at taking photos of them.

Obviously there is a sizeable police presence at football games. Friendlies are pretty timid affairs in all honesty.

Ok. Maybe this is a little better.

All quiet.

I've been a little busy. Slightly preoccupied. Back shortly.

Compare and contrast

Right. So I went to some castle ruins in Baconsthorpe. It's a nice little quiet village on the way to Cromer. Down a (long) quiet little (very narrow) road, are some ruins of an old fortified manor house. It's erroneously called Baconsthorpe Castle. But I guess that has a ring to it.

Anyhow.

There isn't really much to see there, but it's a pretty nice place to sit down and pontificate to the nothingness.

I'm not so confident with colour photos, so I was trying some things with depth. The one above, I crawled half way down into the moat and shot upwards to get the grass in the foreground. The one below is kind of interesting with the varying degrees of light.

I'm glad I went out the day I did. The clear sky made the colour shots come out pretty nicely. I only took about 8 in colour though.

Using the film that I am, I was told I would get a quite a stark difference between the lights and darks. Even on a clear day the black and white pictures came out rather well.

Similar to the photo above. This one below is much better I think.

Obviously I can't hold a camera straight...

I really like the following ones.

I wasn't entirely sure how these would come out. I emphasise a substantial amount of trial and errors made, ended with these photos.

This one's nice. Shame about the fence though.