Rose, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

When I got home from work tonight, there was a bunch of fresh, new roses in the kitchen from Snoo’s Mum. These, as you might expect, were duly confiscated, lit with a few spot lights and photographed. I’m really enjoying this artificial lighting lark – it’s good fun, and leaves me a lot of scope to right into a subject with my macro lens, at relatively small aperture and without sacrificing any ISO speed! Marvelous.

Also, while I’m here – I’ve using my limited CSS knowledge to tweak around with the site and make some changes. I hope they’re apparent. Their still not perfect, but hopefully if I don’t tell you what’s bugging me then you won’t notice!

Last week was a really hectic one! In between the usual three or so sessions of climbing, I attended a couple of gigs. First up was Wintersleep at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen in Shoreditch, a mere 20 minute stroll from work! It’s a cool little venue (I’d been there once before on a night out – very different out come!) with a terribly trendy bar attached to a club-come-gig venue with a nice high stage at one end. I got to the venue after work in plenty of time, grabbed a beer and chilled out whilst waiting for friends to arrive. As with most of that side of London, the place had a very Boho feel to it which was nice, although I felt like I should have been sporting a velvet jacket of some kind. Maybe next time.

I saw Paul and Loel at the bar, and went over to see them. They remembered me from last December which was nice, and we chatted for a while before they had to head off to do an interview. I also ran into Chris Bell, their really nice, friendly and helpful sound guy, who helped me suss out a decent sport to hang my mics for the show. On the way back I ran into Tim as well, who gave me a hug (he may been drinking – hark at me and all the name dropping! It doesn’t happen often!) and we had a quick catch up on how the tour was going.

Phil and Stacey arrived soon after, and we had a few drinks and a catch up. Snoo arrived soon after and we headed inside, and caught the very end of the support band (whose name escapes me – sorry!). I set up my mics by the board, and once the band came on switched into full-on-battle-photographer mode. The place was packed out! Definitely the biggest crowd I’ve seen at a Wintersleep show, and certainly a far cry from the 30 people in a warehouse in Cologne! Everyone seemed really up for it as well, and very appreciative of the band which is nice. I rattled off 200+ shots before my batteries died during the encore. The lighting was a bit hit-and-miss, but I managed to get some good shots. Tim and Jon were a but shadowed away on the edges of the stage, but I managed to cover them pretty well. Mike seemed to be getting the pick of the spot lights!

As usual, the guys played a great show! I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing ‘Miasmal Smoke…’ live. Also, the final song ‘Calibre’ was a new one to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the raw, raucous version they played! Paul ending the song using Jon’s mic as he managed to trash his own with his guitar! Great times!

I hope I can catch them again when they apparently return in May. Hopefully right at the start before I go away! Fingers crossed! Check out the full set here.

Now that I’ve given it to her, I can show the Valentines Day card that I made for Snoo this year. It’s actually a full bleed image, which folds into a square format just to the left of the text (if you see what I mean). It was one of those nice pieces which came together quite nicely – don’t you just love it when all the elements of an image just fit together nicely, and end up looking like you pictured in you mind! It makes the job so much more satisfying I find.

I think personal touches are important for Valentines Day. I have to say (and I mean this without sounding like a total kill joy) that I’m not really down with Valentines Day. I agree with the sentiments behind it, but I really don’t think that showing someone you care about them shouldn’t be limited to one which is determined by the greetings card companies. Surely doing something nice – like going out for dinner/cooking/buying a card or present – would mean a whole lot more if it happened on a random day in April for example when your other half isn’t expecting it, instead feeling obligated to do something because it’s February 14th.

Ok, I’ll get down off my soap box now. Like I said, I agree with the sentiments of the day and I hope whatever you’re dooing to today you have a lovely time. I know I will. And, to accompany your Valentine’s Saturday here’s a beautful new song, ‘Morning Moon’ from The Tragically Hip. (Sorry you have to listen to it through that dog of a website, MySpace, but it’s worth it!)

Have a great day. Love ya. x

Marble Arch, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

Here’s a photo of Marble Arch, taken on Wednesday. I’m really pleased with how this shot came out, especially the red glow in the centre of the arch. This glow, incidentally, was caused by a Police car. Allow me to explain…

I had a plan in mind, to head to Marble Arch to try and get some shots that didn’t really come out how I wanted the first time round, and then head home. Simple. A quick journey along the Central Line and I find myself procariously poised on the edge of the pavement, dangerously close to the rush hour traffic tearing along Oxford Street. A few shots later, and I move round to the other side of the arch, and set up position to capture what would later become the shot above. While my first attempt is underway, I see the arch light up from the other side as a car pulls in through the middle. This is all very odd. I assumed this was a pedestrian only area, however, not being a motorist in London, I’m no expert and think nothing of it. On closer inspection, I find the car is a police car. Again, I think nothing of it (other than “damn, that’s just ruined my shot”). It’s not until said police car pulls up, head on, mere feet away from me that I start to think something’s up. As the two officers get out I instantly start racking my brain trying to figure out what it is I could have possibly done to warrant (no pun intended) their attention. The first officer approaches me, and I hoik my earphones out.

“Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?” he says. Umm, ok. “I’m just taking some photos of the arch” I reply. “And who are you taking photos for?”. For some reason, my default guilt setting kicks in. What have I done?! There must be a reason for them stopping me. “They’re just for myself” comes my tentative reply. “So, Photography’s just a hobby then?” – he’s not letting up. “Yeah”. I feel like I’m incriminating myself with each hesitant answer. “What sort of camera is that?” Officer #2 has decided to join in.

BG: “Umm, it’s a Canon 400D”.
PC #2: “Oh right, nice. I have a 40D myself”
BG: “Ah, cool. I’d love one of those.”
PC #2: “And what lens is that?
BG: “It’s a Sigma 17-70mm”
PC #2: “Oh, a 65mm?”
BG: “Um, no. It’s a 17-70mm f2.8-4.5″
PC #1: “Do you have ID on you?”

I take out my drivers license and hand it over to the first officer. “Is this your current address?” he asks. “No, it’s my old address. I don’t have a car in London so I’ve never bothered to change it.” – Is that illegal?! I hope not. It’s gonna a 15-20 stretch the way I’m going! He has a quick scan, and hands to the other guy who goes off to the car to run a background check. So, not I’m left making small talk with the first guy. He’s still firing off questions at me – Where do you work/live? How old are you? What do you do for a living? etc etc, all of which I probably don’t answer anywhere near convincingly enough, despite the fact that I’m tell the truth. I think this is an in built ability that the police have.

The second guy returns, after what seems like an eternity and hands me back my license. “That’s all fine. Do you understand why we stopped? We saw you setting up by the side of the road, and thought we’d better check it out what with Terrorism and all…”. I mumble something about it being fine, and it not being the first time it’s happened, while inside I’m wondering why, even if I was a terrorist – which I’m not, would I be thinking that Marble Arch, at night, with no one around would be a good target?! As I said, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve had other photography based run-ins with the police before, but the last time I was taking photos by (“By” mind you, not “Of”) the MoD building. This was a perfectly innocent mistake on my part, and I can understand why you wouldn’t want people photographing the MoD, which could well be a potential terrorist target. But, Marble Arch? Seriously? It must have been a slow night.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these two gentlemen were perfectly friendly, and I understand that they’re just doing their job, but surely I don’t warrant they’re attention for what I’m doing? Is that not a slight waste of police time? How, in a city as big as London, with such a thriving tourist trade, and with thousands of photos being taken daily can a single photographer be plucked out as a potential threat from taking a photo of a famous monument?

It seems to me that the rights of photographers are still very much a grey area. The BBC ran an interesting article on this very subject a while ago, and I agree with it whole heartedly. Granted, my story is not as bad as some of those mentioned, but being approached by the police in such a way does leave you feeling like a naughty school boy. For some weird reason, it’s even worse when you’ve done nothing wrong. After this little run in, I lost the buzz for the evening, and decided to head off home, which was a shame. I don’t always have as much time to dedicate to photography as I’d like, and obviously, I won’t let the occassional one of incident stop me but it does sour the experience slightly.

To anyone reading this, I’d be interested to hear any other similar stories or oppinions on the subject. Anyway, rant over. Back to the matter in hand…

Stones, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

This evening I decided to have a bit of an experiment with some artificial lighting (i.e. a couple of angle poise lamps) and my wide angle macro lens (Sigma 17-70mm/f2.8-4.5).

Sadly, I don’t possess the rock balancing talents of Bill Dan to make a truly interesting subject matter, but I think the colours and textures on these stones are interesting enough as they are. I’m happy with the results too – it’s surprisingly easy to set yourself up a makeshift studio.

I think it’s proved to be a pretty fruitful experiment. I’m particularly fond of the natural vignetting which comes about from lighting a the subject in this way. It’s definitely something to bare in mind. I’m even tempted to venture (shock/horror!) into the world of flash photography. I’m usually a big advocate of using natural light wherever possible, but sometimes even a first ISO and a wide aperture can’t cut it (obviously, I’m talking hand held shooting here). Perhaps I just need a new camera body with wider ISO range?… Gah! I’ve started day dreaming about 40D’s now! That’s YOUR fault that is. Only kidding.

Anyway, cup of tea beckoneth (and maybe one of these to go with it…)

G’night.

Stare so deep into the laptop light…, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

I have now signed up to Twitter. It’s been on the periphery of my internet radar for a while, but just recently it’s become more and more prominent. So, being that my primary mode of transport is bandwagon, I duly signed up and entered the new and exciting world of the 140 character microblog.

It took a little getting used to, but I have found some very interesting people to “follow” on there, including some unexpected names like Stephen Fry, Barack Obama and Dave Gorman to name a few. There’s also a wealth of artists, illustrators, photographers and climbers on there, and it’s easy to keep track of them and what they’re up to with these concise to-the-point posts, often coupled with links to further information, should you wish to look further into the subject outside of the 140 character boundary. Also, many of the national and global news networks such as the BBC, The Guardian, CNN (and most importantly) The Onion have regular TweetFeeds for the casual viewer like myself to stay on top of what’s going on in the world. Marvelous.

So, if there’s anyone else out there who is tweeting away, let me know and I shall come and see what you have to say. Likewise, if you wish to follow me, you can do so here.

Tweet, tweet!

Caramel Hot Chocolate, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

Say what you like about Starbucks, and/or their business practices, but I have to say I really like their branding, the decor of the coffee shops and the “feel” of the places. I admit that they’re not the best hot beverage establishment ever but I do find myself drawn to them. Each one feels like stepping into a little piece of Seattle (I assume).

However, this is still a very witty, and accurate look at the super-chain!

I took this shot on a bit of whim, after we retreated to a Starbucks on Edgeware Road to warm up again after trekking round Hyde Park in the snow. I really like the shadows, and depth of field. Anything looks good through my prime lens!

Trees, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

If you haven’t already heard(?!) London has been plastered in the heaviest snow fall for quite some time (seven inchs!), and there there looks more to be on the way. Granted, this is a real one off, the transport network lived up to expectations by grinding to a halt. Well, most of it anyway. I guess we don’t really need to be as prepared as places like Toronto etc, but it’s frustrating none the less, and you begin to realise just how much we rely on these things. Ho hum. On the upside though, I got off work early (yay!) – every cloud, and all that…

Anyway, that aside, the snow gave me a unique opportunity to get out and shot photos, with a unique (for central London at least) twist. So, I headed up to Hyde Park (which was packed), managed to find some snow which was relatively untouched, and snapped away. The results can be seen here. Enjoy! I have my fingers crossed for more tomorrow.