Posts Tagged ‘photography’

I went, I queued, I shopped, I chatted to a few people, I took some rather poor photographs:

Once the house move is out of the way, I need to spend a good amount of time practising photography, especially flash photography.


On Wednesday night I attended the preview of a new exhibition, Dinosaurs Unleashed, on Oxford Street. It’s a slightly surreal experience seeing life size animatronic dinosaurs backdropped by the office blocks and department stores of central London.

I’ve already written about it on the Visit London blog and you can see more photos on Flickr. And, in a isn’t the internet cool moment, this morning I was added as a Flickr contact by the workshop who produced the dinosaurs and you can see behind the scenes photos of them being made.


Robot Zoo

Plasticine Garden


Hey kids, the latest craze is to stack your (toy) animals. Well it keeps us off the streets…


Yesterday, I visited Kew Gardens [1] with a group of friends, in particular to see the new Treetop Walkway. We picked a very cold and wet day for this trip which meant that there were fewer crowds around, but also that the conditions were less than ideal for photography.

The staircase up to the walkway Even difference engines have bugs - the very steampunk design ethos of the rhizotron you pass through before climbing up to the walkway The Palm House as seen from the walkway Lettice examines something prehistoric in the Evolution House

More photos on Flickr

After the Gardens shut we attempted to dry out and warm up in Newens where we admired photographs of John Major and a pony[2] and sampled the historic delicacy that is Maids of Honour. Apparently, the location of the gents is also historic but, on a still very wet day, less of a delicacy.


[1] I believe this was the first time I’ve visted Kew – I may have been as a child but one big garden looks much like another to a small boy. This means that it joins the Globe Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall as major London attractions that I’ve visited for the first time in 2008.

[2] Separate photographs. I can’t imagine John Major and a pony in the same photograph. Anyone thinking of making an Edwina Currie joke: -10 points for obviousness.


The Campanile in the Piazza San Marco

Venice was simply amazing. Lovely weather, great food (especially the seafood), amazing sights.

We stayed at the Hotel Rivamare on the Lido, which meant we took a boat across the lagoon into Venice proper everyday. In the city itself we saw all the big names: the Palazzo Ducale or Doge’s Palace, the Basilica di San Marco, the Piazza, the Bridge of Sighs, Rialto Bridge, the Grand Canal.

Things that appealed more directly to me included the Museum of Natural History was only partially open but we did get to see the excellent Ouranosaurus and Sarchosuchus; The Museo Storico Navale or Naval History Museum which only costs €1.55 and is packed full of relics from Venice’s and Italy’s seafaring history; The Rome and the Barbarians exhibition in the Palazzo Grassi was a ten times more expensive (and I really wanted the exhibition book but at €48 it was too much) but much more extensive than I’d expect for a temporary exhibit.

We also visited some of the other lagoon islands: Murano for the glassmaking; Burano for the lace making and painted houses; and Torcello for the eleventh century cathedral.

For one day we got the train to Verona, passing castles and vineyards on the way. There we visited the Arena and the Castle and had another fantastic lunch. One day wasn’t enough and we plan to go back sometime.

Venice photos and Verona photos.


You can probably guess where we went.

Knackered now.


Lettice and I went down to Brighton yesterday to enjoy a bit of sunshine and sea air. That all went according to plan – some photos are on Flickr. Also, a fabulous lunch at AlFresco and a very good haul from the second hand bookshops and comic shops (including the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier). Can all weekends be like this, please?


I worry that I may look like this a lot of the time...

I know own three SLRs. As well as a Canon AE1 that I bought with a student loan to replace an older model that failed to survive a fall, I have a Canon EOS 100 and, as of yesterday, a Canon EOS 10D. The last two are inherited from my father who has an even more impressive collection of hardware (I suspect that being a Canon fan is an inherited trait).

The 10D is a digital camera, my first. Yes, I’ve finally joined the twenty-first century (well sort of – my MP3 player is broken, I don’t see the point of Twitter, and I still hate mobile phones and hardly ever use mine). Though, from the look of the self-portrait over there, I belong in distinctly more paleolithic times.


These are the photos I took at the Dinomites exhibition at the Horniman Museum.
StegosaurusIguanodonPolacanthusAvimimusVelociraptorPolacanthusTyrannosaurusOviraptor

The first picture here was taken last autumn at the Eagle Heights bird of prey centre. I’m not sure what type of bird this one is, but later in the day I flew a Harris Hawk, which was a fabulous experience.
Bird of preyLettice
And of course the second picture is Lettice, also fabulous.