Holiday in France - October 2011

30/10/2011 by Anna.

This is the season for taking pictures at schools, pre-schools and toddler groups, which is something I love doing and is very rewarding. However, as I don’t have permission from parents I do not post any of the images on my blog - such a shame! So today I’m going to share some pictures with you that I took earlier this month when we went to stay with friends who have very recently moved from our village in Wiltshire to France.

As we didn’t check in any baggage I only had my little compact camera with me - easy to carry around, but not quite what I’m used to!

Our host, Bob and his dog - the day before he turned 60… shhh don’t tell him I told you!

The nearby town of Pons has a very dramatic donjon visible for miles around.

Down the hill in Pons is a river with some lovely riverside walks - this picture has had a little work done on it in Lightroom. Do you think it looks a bit like an impressionist painting?

Hmmm… trying to be creative here.

Here are Bob and Magali outside their home that Bob has been renovating for several years.

During one of our dog walks Bob led us to this old wreck in the woods and I had some fun photographing it.

This old tractor was also on the route.

A trip to the seaside - the Atlantic coast

And of course no French holiday would be complete without a visit to a vineyard and a chateau - this was the chateau.

The day we left was the rugby world cup semi finals with France v Wales and guess what… Magali is French and Bob is Welsh. He was not a happy man at the end of the match and so we left and came home!

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Holiday snaps from Mallorca

12/07/2011 by Anna.

We recently came back from a week’s holiday in Mallorca with my mother, sisters and brother - a real family holiday!

This is my brother’s terrace overlooking the Mediterranean by Porto Portals - it was hot in July!

My siblings sitting by the sea in the port feeding the fish one evening - the light was so beautiful I got alongside them and Simon took another picture.

It’s not often I get into the frame! A bit of a funny treatment to the image here.

My poor brother finds it hard to get girlfriends so he tried his luck on an easy target.

I love taking pictures just before the light has gone.

By chance, we were down in the port as it was celebrating its 25th birthday and on this night we had front row seats for an outside Flamenco show.

Another night we went to a hillside restaurant in Genoa with the most amazing views over the Palma bay.

This was the view of Palma cathedral at night.

And a daytime shot in Palma next to the cathedral.

It was a lovely holiday but I do enjoy coming home to some cooler temperatures and the green of our countryside.

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Low key photography with Tom

24/02/2011 by Anna.

After receiving a big box of accessories for controlling the quality of light from Speedlite flashguns I persuaded Tom to model for me to try out some of them. I wanted to create low key strong images of a young man.

I only used one light in all of these images but I used a reflector to add some light to Tom’s face.

This was created by bouncing the light off the ceiling. And this effect sort of cried out for this image…

This is a “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment!

Side lighting really shows up muscle definition.

Thanks, Tom, for being so patient - hope you didn’t get too cold!

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A family trip to Monkey World

13/05/2010 by Anna.

For my mother’s 88th birthday present my 2 sisters and I gave her a trip to Monkey World in Dorset followed by a night at a local B&B. Here are some of the highlights of the day.

We started off as we usually do… with lunch. A little robin jumped onto the table as soon as we sat down, waiting for us to open our sandwiches. This was almost the best part of the day!

This father and son pair of gibbons had a wonderful space with plenty of trees and they were very vocal, singing a duet for us.

This was taken through glass but I managed to avoid too much reflection in this picture.

This is the first of a sequence of shots where this very lively young orangutan plastered something on the glass and then proceeded to play with it and finally managed to lick it all off.

I wasn’t the only one photographing his antics!

The lemurs are in an enclosure where we can walk around and it’s lovely to see them so close up.

Almost all the animals are rescued from somewhere in the world and given a chance to socialise and live in large enclosures with lots of things to do. Many of them are still very traumatised from years of previous cruel treatment, which is very sad to see, but most of them adapt to their new lives and are obviously healthy and happy.

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Contemporary dance in Hullavington

13/04/2010 by Anna.

Last Saturday we had the Cscape Dance Company performing for us in the village hall as part of the Rural Arts Wiltshire touring scheme.

We have had some excellent performances in the last few years ranging from comedy to music, drama and puppetry and now dance. It’s a very different experience watching performers who are a few feet in front of you rather than needing binoculars to see any expressions on faces as is often the case when watching events in the Theatre Royal in Bath!

The pictures I am showing were all taken in the 2nd half of the show - it was a very dynamic performance and quite hilarious, as you can probably tell!

Cscape were portraying the excesses of 3 second home owners.

I am always amazed at how all the equipment that performers bring can fit into their vans! Cscape had 2 different sets and brought their own lighting, sound and staging for the audience.

All three died a grizzly death which had the audience in stitches!

Thank you, Cscape Dance Company, for entertaining us so well. http://cscape.org.uk/

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Street photography in Bath

14/03/2010 by Anna.

I went into Bath today with some of my family to potter around, have lunch and celebrate Mother’s Day. What a glorious day it was! It was so welcome to have some lovely sunshine and Bath was bustling with street performers and visitors enjoying strolling around in the sun. I took my camera along to have some fun…

There were lots of opportunities today.

I think there is quite a lot of confusion about photographing people in public places but under English law “There are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors.”

Also:

“There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as other citizens and should observe them”

That’s Bath Abbey in the background. If you’ve never been to Bath then come and stay for a weekend - it’s a beautiful city and it is so close to lovely countryside.

There are so many talented street performers! I would just be happy to play an instrument like he did!

Somebody was handing out free balloons which this girl was very happy with!

Now, this one was a mistake! I didn’t want people to get self conscious on seeing my camera so I was experimenting with shooting from the waist, which is not easy! But I like this shot and thought I would include it, together with this next one.

For this picture and the next few ones I set the camera on a tripod and took the slowest picture I could - about 1/4 second. My mother and Mrs. Williams from Ashford in Kent were instructed to keep still, as was Jez Broun, from Bath, who joined them on the bench while having a rest from busking! I took several shots and then mixed them up in Photoshop to get as many blurred passers by as possible.

Jez took a picture of me in his place!

Outside the Abbey again, and a lovely hoola hoop performance with music from a young couple.

I wish I had found out who they were as they might have liked some copies of these pictures.

I think his wife was a mother who had just got a gift!

Playing with fire!

and watching!

Apparently the instrument is a Kora, a stringed musical intrument from West Africa. This little boy was absolutey transfixed by it.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing a little of Bath and its visitors and performers on a sunny Sunday in March.

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Exhibition

23/02/2010 by Anna.

Well, our exhibition is now up and running! Jean and Bill DuPre and I spent several hours in Malmesbury Town Hall setting up yesterday, running in and out of the sleet to empty our cars. It’s a great space, the exhibition room in the Town Hall, with the tourist information and museum one side of the entrance and Jackdaws, the coffee shop, the other side. I took a few pictures to post:

This is one of my areas. I have a selection of pictures of local tourist towns and villages taken using infrared film; most are in frames, but I have had a few made into acrylics, metal pictures and a canvas.

The acrylic on the right in this picture is my favourite. The diffused effect of using infrared film is enhanced by the see-through acrylic.

I also have a few very striking pictures of poppies and some fun wall hangings that I’ve put together.

Jean DuPre has a wide selection of prints of animals, birds, landscapes and celebrities, although the best of hers have to be some of the big cats - they are fabulous!

We are having an open evening on Friday 26th February from 7 - 8.30pm and would love to see you there! Come and have a glass of wine and a chat.

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Yet more snow!

03/02/2010 by Anna.

Photography work is slow at this time of the year without having a studio and it’s a great time to plan for the future, do some more training and experiment with new ideas. SO… to keep regularly posting I’m going to include some ski pictures from a holiday we had last month in Les Arcs. It’s such a great family holiday!

We went during the first week in January, when you also had great snow here in the UK! We had about 10 inches dumped on us during the Monday so, together with very cold temperatures, it meant that we had some really lovely skiing conditions, especially when the sun shone!

This is Arc 1950, which is easily the most attractive village of all the Les Arcs, especially as you can ski around it. It was the easiest place to buy baguette for lunch before skiing back to ‘home’ in Les Arcs 1800.

A black run - it was amusing to watch exhausted skiers and snowboarders struggling down it while we rested on the lift!

On this one day the cloud cover sat over the valley all day, very beautiful from up high.

Our snow boarding sons waiting for us!

Charlotte and I took a break one cloudy day to visit the ice grotto - quite impressive!

Ohhh, I want to go again! Should anyone be interested I have put my first video on YouTube… a rap! Simon was the beepbox, Tom the recorder and the rest of us… well, you’ll just have to have a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIENZ6Xszxw

That’s all for now. Bye.

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Danish family gathering

10/09/2009 by Anna.

We have just come back from a lovely week in Denmark. We went over for a cousins’ party, which is held every 2 years, in the old family summer house by the sea. I am one of 15 cousins; many of us have children and quite a few of those children have children, so the family is now pretty big! I took far too many pictures but have chosen just a few to show you to give a flavour of the day:

The summer house was a fisherman’s cottage and has loads of character

Tove - a very popular great grandmother

This was just before the torrential downpour!

The youngest of the babies this year at 3 months old.

Mmmm… it was delicious!

Half Chinese Caia is a real Dane - they love their flag!

You can understand why I can’t stop taking pictures, can’t you?!

A short walk to the beach for a spot of power-kiting…

This was first time for Mette - it was a gallant effort, but the wind got the better of her!

The wind (and rain) made us suffer too!

Having a photographer record the people and events at a gathering or birthday party is a lovely way to preserve some of the memories of the day.

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Fire poi and wedding celebrations!

18/08/2009 by Anna.

My son, Tom, had his 20th birthday this week and we celebrated by having a quiet teriyake steak barbeque in the garden. Then after it got dark I filled a bucket with water (just in case!) and Tom donned his protective hat before dipping his fire poi in meths and setting light to them. Have you ever seen fire poi? There are some great videos on Google! I didn’t take a video but I did stick my camera on a tripod and take some long exposures of him. I put the camera on auto exposure and got some very different results!

Last Friday I photographed a wedding in Wellington Barn, just outside Calne. The venue is very rural with rolling hills to one side; very peaceful and beautiful, especially in good weather! The couple were great fun to be with and here are a few of the pictures from the day:

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