Posts Tagged ‘southampton’

Last Wednesday I had a fitness photoshoot with Henrik scheduled.  The day before I checked the weather forecast, it looked bad.  I gave him the chance to re-schedule, but he’d been dieting and training hard for Wednesday, and was travelling at the weekend so re-scheduling wasn’t an option.

The day came, and the weather was indeed awful.  Cold, wet, and windy.  It’s at times like this I wish I had a studio.

So to plan b it was.  We started the shoot in the Bargate Centre multi-storey carpark in the centre of Southampton.  This time instead of holding a reflector, my assistant was holding an umbrella over the camera.  A couple of outfit changes later and we were ready for a hot cup of tea.

Next location was under the car park at the East Street centre.  It was a little odd for me because my Gran used to live right opposite, and I can imagine her looking out of her kitchen window and enjoying the sight of Henrik!

The last location, and the coldest, wettest and windiest of all was near the Itchen Bridge.

Shoot over, we battled through the worst than normal traffic to the DeVere Grand Harbour Hotel where all three of us enjoyed a big fat burger!

It was easily the worst weather I’ve ever had to shoot in, but strangely I still enjoyed the challenge, and I really rather like some of the moody photos.

I’ve been meaning to go for years, but never quite got around to paying the Netley Marsh Steam Show a visit until today.

Arriving a little later in the afternoon had two benefits., most people were leaving, and unexpectedly there was no one on the gate to collect money so we were able to walk on in for free.  Bonus!

It’s never going to win any awards for beauty, but you still have to be impressed by the sheer size and general ugliness of the Celebrity Eclipse.  Pictured here as it was leaving Southampton a week or so ago.

I was concentrating more on filming the events on Saturday evening than taking photos, but here’s a few anyway for your viewing pleasure.

These were all taken during the celebrations in Southampton’s Mayflower Park on Saturday evening to coincidence with the naming of the new P&O boat the Azura.

So, my first ever properly put together movie.

It’s the first time I’ve gone out with my Canon 5D Mark II with the sole purpose of putting together a short film from the footage.  My subject was the celebrations in the Mayflower Park, Southampton for the naming of the P&O boat Azura.  As I couldn’t get near the boat I was concentrating on the goings on at the park and the firework finale.

I shot everything except the fireworks hand held and I know I’d have been better off using a tripod.  I’m quite pleased with the results, and very pleased with the amazing quality from the 5D.  The quality of this little camera is so good even the professionals are starting to use it.  The season finale to House has apparently been filmed exclusively with the 5D.  Interesting times indeed.

If there are any proper film makers reading this, I’d quite like to pick your brains.  I feel my editing is kinda “meh”…  “so so…” at best.  I’d like to improve it, but I really don’t know how.

Update:  Yes I’m aware the music is kinda awful.  It’s all I have.  If anyone would like to donate me 3 minutes of music that would work for this film it would be muchly appreciated.

Okay so it wasn’t exactly much of a walk, from one end of the Town Quay to the other and back again, but I managed to sneak a few photos in, and even got some that I rather like.

I’ve played around with some HDR on some of them, and the lead photo with the Red Funnel ferry in is one I particularly like.

I don’t think its ever going to win any beauty contests, but it is rather impressive.  The P&O Azura arrived in Southampton on Wednesday and its going to be officially named on Saturday evening.

So having been offered a couple of tickets I pick the Saints vs Pompey FA Cup game in 2010 as my first ever football match. Many said I was crazy, and yes I admit I did first check to make sure the seats were as far away from the Pompey fans as possible.

Okay so Southampton FC got their arses well and truly kicked with the 4-1 result, I ended up with very cold feet, but it was kind of fun.  Not exactly sure I’d be in a hurry to go to another game, if I ever did I’d want to be sitting on the touchline with a big lens and able to take more than a few snapshots.  However it’s something to check off the list.

No photoshop was used during the processing of these photos.

I was out taking some photos around my home city of Southampton last night and as I took the first of the photos in this series I was inspired by the classic Andy Warhol visual of old.  So I decided to leave the tripod in exactly the same place and take some more shots as the colours in the wall display changed.

Before last night I’ve never gone out in Southampton at night with the sole purpose of taking photographs, and I have to say I was quite disappointed with the efforts the local authorities have gone to to light up the old walls the city has.  Other than this wall (next to the roundabout near the DeVere Hotel if you’re interested) there was nothing.  The streets and shops were all lit up just lovely, but not even the Bargate was lit properly.

Very disappointing Southampton.

I know it’s another expense, and budgets are tight, but surely if the city invested more in this area, then the city would attract more tourists and more money.  The wonderfully lit arches here prove it can be done.

So come on you Southampton council folk, get off your arses and lets display our cities heritage off in a better way.

I had a few spare minutes this morning on my way to a client meeting at the local Krispy Kreme outlet (gotta love clients who suggest meeting at a doughnut vendor!).

It was a damp, cold, ever so slightly depressing morning, and I wanted my photos to reflect the day.

I had parked on the top floor of the Bargate Shopping Centre carpark, and walked up East Street, along to the Bargate, and then in the back door by the book shop in West Quay.

I’m planning to photograph my home town more often this year.  I realised recently after living here my whole life I have no proper photographs of it.   Southampton really isn’t as bad as this set of images make out.  It’s not the prettiest city in the world, but it does have some nice bits.  I want to show it warts and all.