London Photo Festival and some general updates

Over a month ago my father-in-law Carlos sent me an email about an amateur photographer exhibition in London called the London Photo Festival.  I checked it out and realized it was an event that I had looked at the year before but wasn’t able to enter because I was travelling. But this year I am around and I decided to give it a try! I went through my photos and thought about what types of images I wanted to display. I narrowed it down to about 15 pictures and then I leveraged social media – I posted those 15 photos to my Facebook account and had friends and family “vote” by using the Like function to decide which photos made the grade.

I got a lot of good feedback, and I ended up using 2 of the 3 winners in the Facebook voting session and I made an “executive decision” on the final photo.  I went with a general “water” theme and had the organizers of the event print my images. I know that printing and framing my own images would be a great way to differentiate but this is my first time through something like this so I decided to keep it simple until I can see what I’m getting myself into.

Here are the three images with a brief description on each:

This image was taken in 2011, when my wife and I travelled to Nepal to hike around the Annapurna Range in the Himalayas. Lake Pokhara has a beautiful island temple and the bright colors of the boats caught my eye.

This beautiful sunset closed out an incredible holiday in Bali at the end of 2011. The clouds were placed perfectly to highlight the rays of the setting sun.

In 2010 my wife and I spent two weeks travelling in Egypt. This photo was taken in the evening sun when a local offered us a ride down the Nile.

The exhibit is located at “The Crypt” on Borough High Street next week, October 25th – 27th; entry is free. For more details check out the link here. I’m really looking forward to the event and to see how some of my images stack up to the others.  One thing I’ll be interested in seeing is the idea of “themes” that people use.  I am already thinking I should have spent more time getting together a collection of images that either tells a story or really have something in common, but this is my first time through this so I’ll see how things go.

In addition to displaying some photos I decided to do something else as well that’s been on my mind for a while.  I created some “business cards” for my photography blog and portfolio.  I went to Moo and put together a 9 piece image (the same pictures used to make my banner, for consistency) and then on the back included my website and contact details.  I’m certainly not a graphic designer but I think it looks pretty cool.  So I’ll have a few of these hanging around my photos so people can grab one if they want, and I think I’ll start carrying a few when I’m on holiday.  Sometimes people come up to me while I’m taking pictures (especially when I have my tripod out) and now I have something to hand them so they can eventually check out my photos.

Anyway, here’s a quick iPhone snap of the business cards.

I’m really happy with the quality and I think they look great.  I’m looking forward to my first exhibition and for those of you in London I hope to see you there!

By the way my wife and I got back from the Maldives a few weeks back, I’ve got many of the photos processed and will try to get a post up shortly!  We had a great time!

Copenhagen – Tivoli Park and the Little Mermaid

Back to Copenhagen we go!  At the end of August my wife and I took a trip to the capital of Denmark for a brief weekend getaway.  I already shared my post from Nyhavn Canal, where the beautiful colors provide for some great photographic opportunities.  Later that day we proceeded to walk around the city and check out the rest that Copenhagen has to offer.

We started by walking towards the Marble Church, which you can see here in the background.  In this picture I used a very large aperture (small number) so that Adriana is in focus and the background is blurred.  This works well here, particularly because there are people meandering around in the background.

Below you can see an image of the Marble Church itself, also known as Frederik’s Church. This is a beautiful building that we passed on our way to the Little Mermaid.  In this photo I boosted the clarity in Lightroom to give it a bit of a gritty look.  I also did some editing in Focal Point.  This software is pretty cool and I’m still getting used to it.  On this photo I created a slightly blurred effect with a vignette around the edges.  The effect is fairly subtle but it draws the eye into the frame.

As we continued our walk through the city we went through the Rosenborg Palace Garden and I snapped this photo of the Rosenborg Palace.  I like the photo below because of the symmetry that is ever so slightly off due to the left tower being slightly higher than the other.

Eventually we made it to the famous (infamous?) Little Mermaid.  It was packed.  And when they say Little, they do mean little.  Personally I wasn’t all that impressed with this statue and we walked a good way to get a picture.  But I guess it’s one of those things that if you’re there you almost need to see, as it’s arguably one of the more famous sites in the city.

We left the Little Mermaid and walked through the fort/castle on the way to Tivoli Gardens.  I took this simple picture of the red building – I liked the way the white window frames and door really stood out, and the placement of the light on the left side seemed to balance the image.

Last but certainly not least, Tivoli Gardens. I absolutely loved this place.  Apparently it’s the second oldest amusement park in the world, and the atmosphere is incredible.  I can’t really describe it; the age of the place really comes across but not in an antique way. Instead I found it a romantic, nostalgic reminder of what an amusement park could be.

In the photo above I used the same effect as I did on the Marble Church; this is the entry arch when you come into the park.

In the picture above I tried to capture the movement of the hammer and the attentive focus of the young boy as he played the age old gem of a game, whack a mole!  (At least that’s what I call it!)  Of course I tried my best to win some prizes for Adriana but failed miserably :).

This photo is of the Nimb Hotel, also called the Moorish Palace.  It’s basically a series of restaurants and bars.  Unfortunately it started raining while we were walking around the park and we had already had a long day, so I wasn’t able to take as many photos as I would have liked.

I love this picture of the swings; there’s just enough motion so you can sense the movement in the image.  I really wish we’d had more time at the park.  Quite honestly it’s a photographers paradise; there’s a huge amount of nostalgic material here and I do hope I can return some time when the weather is better.

Below is a map where I show where the pictures above were taken.  This will hopefully help you plan your journey to the city.

And finally, just a few photos that I’m adding to my portfolio.  If you’re interested in purchasing any of these just click on the image.