It was my friend (Aunty) Adam's birthday last week so we went to the RA Summer Exhibition. It was my first time so I absolutely loved it. My favourite piece was called 'Across the Wadi' by a Guyanan artist called Frank Bowling OBE RA - you sort of already know that those 3 letters after his name will treble or quadruple the number of zero's on his prices...! Needless to say I won't be buying this particular piece at £84,000 but I'm sure it is worth every penny.
Here is a picture of said painting I took from the RA book. It ticks all the boxes for me in terms of colour and texture:
After the RA we wandered down to the Southbank to have some lunch at Giraffe, very kindly paid for by Mr Swaine himself - well, it was his birthday after all...! We both took our cameras along and managed to get some interesting shots. Here are a couple of my favourites taken along the Southbank near the Royal Festival Hall:
These 2 images were part of the 'Love Festival' structure:
Found this Graffiti under the bridge near the London Eye:
I can see my polarising filter is in the wrong position here as the right hand side is slightly darker then the left but hey ho...Love is all you need (apparently...!)...
OK, I know, it's been far too long since I updated my blog. I used to be like this with diaries & journals; get all enthusiastic at the beginning of the year then lose interest. I guess life just takes over! My photography has also taken a bit of a back seat this year for some reason, which is slightly frustrating as it is my favourite thing in the whole world.
I took a couple of shots of "Rachael over the road's" flowers, which have turned out nice.
Astrantia Buckland
Clematis
With all the excitement of the Olympics, it's been a few days since I've updated my blog. I thought the opening ceremony was incredible; it made me laugh and cry at the same time. Seeing Muhammed Ali really upset me and then Rowan Atkinson made me cry with laughter. I feel extremely proud of what Danny Boyle & co have achieved and hope to see Danny Boyle on the Queen's Honours list at some point. Very proud also of Bradley Wiggins and Team GB in La Tour de France. With so much going on at the moment, it's hard to keep up. I tried to get a day pass for the Olympic Stadium but they are completely sold out, more's the pity.
Today's uploaded image was a complete fluke. I popped down to the local corner shop to buy some cat litter and there, nestled at the back of one of the shelves were these brightly coloured straws. They have little shaped spoons at one end to act as a stirrer. I immediately saw the (photographic) potential and bought them for £2.99. I took loads of shots from different angles using my Macro lens then opted for this multi-coloured version and uploaded it to Flickr. Within a few hours it was in Explore then Front Page of the Flickr web site so I was really chuffed. Getty Images have now licensed it so fingers crossed it makes me lots of money!
The sun is finally shining here in London after a very miserable start to the day so long my it last (she shouts at the top of her lungs). I'm really not liking this weather and hope that it "bucks" its ideas up very soon, especially for my trips to Leicester, York and St Ives in the next few weeks. That said, it was a great time to grab the camera and do some flower shots in Peckham Rye Park. With the cloud acting as a natural diffuser, the light was perfect. Plus I got the added bonus of raindrops on petals this morning.
I went on the new Emirates Air Line cable car on Saturday afternoon. It was a spur of the moment decision as some friends had been on it that same morning. Armed with my camera and a couple of lenses, it took me about an hour and a half to get there as I kept getting lost! The queue was unbelievably long but it didn't take too long to board and then we were off. The journey was short but enjoyable (like some of my ex-boyfriends) and before I knew it, I was standing in yet another long queue to come back. An official looking man told me that if I had purchased a return ticket, instead of using my Oyster card, I could have stayed in the same car for the whole trip - now he tells me! My friend Jo asked me if it was worth it and I would say, yes. Look, it's not the London Eye but you do get some nice views across City Airport, Canary Wharf and The Dome.
