Canary Wharf and O2 Arena Panorama, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

I went out with Phil again on Wednesday. This time we headed out to Canary Wharf. Theres a path along the river from North Greenwich tube station which has a spectaular view of Canary Wharf. I’ve been to that spot a few times, but this week we ventured further down the path to get a slightly different angle. Whilst exploring, we found this jetty which went out into the river, with two concrete struts at the end. The gate wasn’t locked in any serious way (or at all) so we ventured along the wooden slats, dodging holes and generally having our hearts in our mouths, with the waves lapping away below us until we got to the end. It was definitely worth the trip out – from here it meant we could get this great panorama from out over the river, taking in Canary Wharf and the O2 arena. It took a bit of battling with Photoshop to get this to stitch together, but I’m definitely glad I stuck with it! Click here to see a larger version.

As always, I’m looking forward to the next trip out…

I’ve just gotten back to London from Leicester where I spent the weekend. Last week my (little) sisters turned 21, and I, along with a load of others trekked up to Leicester (where my sister Hannah is at DMU) for some belated celebrations. I thought such an occasion warranted special cards. I wanted to make different cards for each of them (obviously) but I wanted them to sit as part of a pair. I spent a while failing to think of imagery which would be suitable for a 21st birthday cards until Snoo made a great suggestion! As part of their celebrations they are taking a trip to New York. New York has lots of beautiful imagery and symbols so I decided to go with that – the fact that I have a total love affair with NYC and could look at photos of it all day also helped sway my decision. I also added in some champagne as the celebration element and there you have it! Job’s a goodun. The font used is trusty ol’ Sidewalk. I’m pleased with the way they turned out, and they seemed to go down well with the birthday girls!

St. Pauls, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

I went out shooting with Phil again the other night. It was a nice, clear but cold evening on Wednesday so the conditions were good again. Phil came up to Smithfield, and from there we did one of my favourite walks down to St. Pauls and then over the Millennium Bridge. It’s not a long walk, but when you’re constantly stopping to shoot photos the time starts slipping away. By the time we got to the Tate, it was about time for a pint. Or possible two. You know how it is…

For the past three years now Shane Kroeker over on Hipbase has been running the (now traditional) Hip 64 tournament. A random selection of Tragically Hip songs are paired off and the forum members get to vote for their favourite of each pairing until a winner for the year is decided via this knockout format! It’s good fun, and something which keeps the forum busy during the bands’ down time. I’ve done my bit for the tournament (other than just the voting side of things) by supplying the graphics and tournament chart to keep track of which songs have been squaring off, and how they’re progressing. This year’s chart looks like this. It’s been interesting looking back over the charts from the last few years, and seeing how my work has progressed within this very niece field. Also, the efficiency with which I’ve kept the chart up to date has improved a lot too. The first year the entire thing, including all text, was done in Photoshop which made for a very large and confusing file. I’ve now streamlined the operation by creating the background image in PS and using InDesign for the actual round updates. Much better! I’m looking forward to see how this years tournament turns out (this is the year for Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin’ Man for sure!)

While we’re on the on the subject of music, I’ve started using the great new tool for sourcing new music: Spotify. This handy little program, which looks similar to iTunes, plays really high quality streams of various music from a pretty extensive library of tracks. It’s fully searchable, or you can have various ‘radio stations’ of different genres. We’ve been using it to try and source some potential new music for future videos. I’m still learning, so I’m not sure if it already has a feature built in to search similar artists, but currently I’m doing reseach through lastFM and then searching the artists through Spotify. So far it’s worked pretty well! If you’re ever stuck for something to listen to you should check it out! So far tonight I’ve been exploring the work of The American Anolog Set and Four Tet. Granted, not all my choices are good ones, but it feels nice to be broadening my musical horizons.

As promised, here’s some more new(ish) work. I don’t really know where this image came from really. I was just messing around with the photo and came up with the bulk of it, then drew and added the sketch, dropped on some text and there it was. Pretty simple, but I was quite happy with it. It certainly got me into the flow of producing work again, and that’s something that hopefully I’ll be able to keep on top of! I definitely feel really inspired at the moment, and there’s always plenty to do.

Along with the more personal work, I’ve been doing artwork for various recordings (mainly Wintersleep). A while back I mentioned that I saw them live again at the Bar & Kitchen in Hoxton Square. I taped the show, and I’ve finally finished editing it and creating the artwork to go with it – Here’s the fold out front cover:

I’ve gotthe backlog of other shows from December to work through now as well. It’ll be cool listening to those again and reliving that excellent tour! I’ll be sure tp pot up artwork and things as they come together.

As a little treat, here’s one from the tracks from the Hoxton Square show: Astronaut – Enjoy!

I’ve pretty busy again recently! Work’s been really frantic, oddly, with a few late nights being needed – not fun. I’ve been keeping my personal work wagon rolling recently as well, with a fairly extensive list of things that “need” doing. Ben and I have got a new website project in the pipeline, so I’ve been designing layouts and things for that. Covers for Wintersleep (and other) recordings need to be created, as well as banners for other websites and other secret projects are on the go which I can’t really mention at the moment (you never know who’s reading!) all this in between climbing three times a week and heading out taking photos as well! Phew! When I write it all down like that, it is a lot!

Anyway, aside from all that I’ve managed to crave out a bit of time to create a new self portrait image. As many people will be aware, my presence on the interweb is fairly well spread across Facebook, Twitter and various forums (to name a few). With all these things comes profile pictures and avatars. I felt that as my work seems to be going through something of a change, so should my appreance om these sites. So, enter new self portrait image which has been cropped, tweaked and resized to fit a variety of dimensions and size limits. I’m pleased with the finished result, and thought I’d show it here (although I’m aware that self portraits are a bit self endulgent but, well… Whatcha gonna do!). There is also a alternate version, based on this image now on the ‘About’ page here, too.

Right, I’d best crack on. Any feedback, as always, is welcome. More updates soon, I promise!

Thames Panorama, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

A friend of mine, Phil, has just bought himself a new DSLR. We got chatting about it a while back, and on last Thursday we finally managed to get our acts together and meet up for a little wander round the city so he could get a feel for his new camera and the wonderful world of night photography. We met at Embankment, as I thought the South Bank would be a prime place to start – plus I hadn’t been there for a while and there’s usually something new to see.

It was a really lovely, clear night and I got a pretty successful set. Granted, it was mainly of stuff which I’ve photographed before, but I tried to get some new takes on the old favourites. Also, the County Hall was really vividly lit up – I have no idea why, but it looked great!

Unilever Building: Revisited, originally uploaded by Ben Grubb.

Also, on the way down to Embankment, I stopped by an old spot which I’d photographed way back when I was starting to get into Photography again. There was a really l beautiful blue sky over London as the sun went down, and I managed to get a nice, shiny new shot of the Unilever Building in Blackfriars.

There’s a few more shots on Flickr.