iOmega – sad customer to happy customer

I know I usually post photos on here but it is intended to be ‘photography-related’ so I wanted to flag up iOmega, from whom I had purchased a 1TB hard drive for my growing collection of photos. I got the portable hard drive but since I bought it it stopped working, or at least my computer stopped recognising it. Reciept and guarantee in hand, we emailed the company and they sent through a new power supply. That still not working, they have agreed to replace it within a week. I think this is excellent customer service – with the exception, of course, of my photos being AWOL. I have most of the important ones backed up (naturally) but fingers crossed they will be able to get the data off it.  They have been very good so far, otherwise I won’t be able to regale you with more pictures of bunny rabbits.

Lop

Lop

A couple of months ago, we decided to get some rabbits. Well, we decided to get one but then I couldn’t wait for it to be ready to leave it’s mother, so we got another one in the meantime. In any case, we now have Indy, and we have Lop. Indy is lovely, a little bumbly and often seems a bit unsure of himself. Lop is firey, agressive and usually full of rage. You’d never know it from this though.

Mr & Mrs A

This is a photo I took of my parents with the 50mm lens – which I find really hard to focus properly. But I love this one, they both just look so happy and I think the lighting is also perfect. Even though my Dad is out of focus, I think it really works in this photo.  Perhaps being out of London accounted for 90% of the success of this picture.

My Parents

Party

I haven’t posted anything for a while but here is one of my favourite portraits of the summer (although slightly out of focus) I took it with the 50mm lens which I find very hard to get good photos from. It’s my soon-to-be sister in law at my mother in law’s 60th birthday party.

Jane

Strawberries and cream

On one of the first sunny afternoons of the year, it only seemed right to mark the occasion with scones, clotted cream and lovely fresh strawberries with good friends.

Cream Tea

le printemps

The cherry blossom was out last weekend and it was so so beautiful. It did really make London feel a little brighter  and the bone shattering chill of winter was finally over. I was convinced the blossom stuck around for a month or so, while the husband said it would only be there for a week. Alas there was little left this weekend so – for the first time in living memory – he may have been correct.

I took a series of three and want to display them as a series when I have enough wall space, but this is by far my favourite – experimenting with a shallow depth of field.

Cherry Blossom

The Natural History Museum

I’ve decided to spend the summer exploring London and doing all those things that Londoners can ignore because, well, we can see them anytime. Last weekend I dragged my faithful photographic pal Hildi Rowland along to the NHM with promises of dinosaurs and giant whales.

Hildi and the Whale

Kudos to her for coming with me on a sunny afternoon that could have been spent outside in a park.

The Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London

There were lots of different types of light inside the museum so there was a bit of experimenting with white balance, and then the sheer number of people and colours amongst some really cool treasures just begged for slow shutter speeds to be used.

The Dinosaur

The Giant Sequoia

The giant sequoia is pretty cool if you get a chance to see it, all the writing on the trunk mark its size when world events happened. This tree was 1300 years old – it’s seen some pretty phenomenal stuff. Obviously the white balance was totally off here, but I love the colours it produced.

Great day all round. Hildi has a D30 which produced some pretty phenomenal shots. She seemed to have  much easier time with the white balance than I did.

Hildi and her D30

Tim and Katie

26 March marked the wedding of my sister in law. Of course a couple of official photographers were on board but that didn’t stop me wielding the camera like a crazy person.

By far my favourite picture of the day is this portrait of the Bride, caught unaware.

The Bride

I usually love the D300 for the colours it captures but most of my favourite pictures from the wedding I have desaturated, I think in this case it adds to the drama. Otherwise aren’t they just another set of wedding photos?

Tim and Katie

The Cake

The flowers

The bouquet

The flowers in colour, I love because the picture itself originally was very stark but in iPhoto 9 which I have just installed, you can alter the shadows to bring out some of the detail, with the result that the flowers are against a background that is no longer pitch black.

Charlie Brown

I have this cousin who is so chic it hurts. She is maybe 15 years old, amazingly beautiful and she has a phenomenally quirky sense of style. Just the way she holds herself is so elegant.

And her hair! Charlotte was probably one of those kids who had to battle through all kinds of hell to keep her hair under control but now she has the most amazing, mesmerising hair that makes you stare at it, the same way you kind of stare in wonderment at a flames in the darkness.

Charlotte

A twist in the Tail

My photographic friend Nick and I were dismayed to learn that a pretty f*ckin’ awesome photo of a wolf that won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award has been disqualified on the grounds that it is a fake.

Storybook Wolf

I just typed this:

Apparently, Jose Luis Rodriguez used a model wolf which, according to organisers, is just not OK. I was wondering why the wolf’s eyes didn’t clock the camera when the flash went off but if it is a model (“No Way!” says Jose) it’s pretty life like really. Enough to trick the organisers for quite some time, some might say.

WOAH! I so missed the point! They think it was an animal model. I guess like a wolf version of a supermodel as opposed to a lifeless doll. Can you see why I got confused?

If I flashed a bright light in a wolf’s eyes as it was jumping a fence, I’d be sure to have my running shoes on, I’ll tell you that for nothing.

Anyhoo. This is some pretty bad PR for Mr Rodriguez. Sorry dude, Fail.