Now for something a bit different..
Billy Talent – O2 Brixton Academy, London
November 1, 2009
I was lucky enough to obtain a photo pass for Billy Talent’s London show last night. A photo pass basically allows you to take pictures from the photo pit (bit in between crowd and stage where security stands) – exciting stuff!
The supporting act (Cancer Bats) had just come off, and preparations were being made for the main band:
In the photo pit..
.. and the band are on!
I discovered the power of RAW mode. In all the time I have used an SLR camera, I have never once shot RAW. Most of the situations I shoot in (outside in natural light) don’t really need it, but with funky lighting, it’s *really* useful. I’m still learning how to edit properly, so some of these pictures aren’t all that great in terms of their colour.
Black and white..?
Or colour?
This is what I mean by funky lighting – ouch:
Slightly better lighting:
Frontman Benjamin Kowalewicz is a really dynamic performer and even with a fast lens, it was hard to get great action shots with this kind of lighting. Flash isn’t allowed, so you have to really know what you’re doing with the camera, and try to read the angle of the light hitting the subject. It’s not so easy!
(If you screw up, you can always convert to black and white.)
At one point he sang straight into my lens, but I was using Auto Focus and the light was too dim so it didn’t focus in time – boo.
Loving the eye:
Before I knew it, 3 songs were over, and we were promptly ushered out of the photo pit. The staff at Brixton Academy were great and said I could stay for the rest of the gig, but just couldn’t take any pictures. I suppose you could technically sneak in a few, but with a 24-70mm, that’s a little hard! Maybe next time I’ll take the Nikon F3 and shoot some film from the back so I get the crowd in.
There were obviously opportunities to shoot the crowd from the front but I spent all my time focused on the band itself. Something to remember for next time.
As for the music itself – absolutely fab. \m/ (<– haven’t used that emote since I was around 16).
Another mish mash of a blog with pics from various places, starting with the Peaks. My mate Min is living in Nottingham right now, so I went up to visit her and we also decided to hike in the nearby Peak District.
She cooked an amazing meal on the night we arrived – spinach and ricotta cannelloni. Pre-oven:
Topped with mozzarella and parmesan:
40 minutes later..
Voila!
Dessert – Bakewell tart, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cream. Seriously yummy. Min is definitely one of the best cooks I know :D
The next morning we headed out to the Peaks to Tideswell where we started the trek. These were all taken with the 10-22mm, or the widey as I like to call it!
Min watching out for the stinging nettles, which are quite a pain. They can easily sting through layers and it happened a few times to me. It itches like crazy as well.
In true English style, it poured down in the morning and of course I didn’t take any waterproofs, since BBC Weather said it was going to be sunny. When will I learn not to trust BBC Weather?!
Luckily, Eleni had this nice pink brolly to keep me dry for a bit:
I looked like such an amateur hiker..
Some of the smaller paths were really slippery and rocky, and I could barely walk up them, let alone take pictures :|
Cow-spotting:
The sun came out later in the afternoon – finally!
After I took the above picture, I looked behind and there was another cow trotting towards me. I’ve never seen a cow trot or run before – I was actually scared! By coincidence, I just saw a report on the BBC about how cows have been attacking people in the countryside, so I guess I had a reason to be scared!
We decided to hike the old-fashioned way, with a proper OS map and compass, except we used the map for about 5 minutes, and didn’t bother with the compass in the end. Oh well, we tried! With the advent of GPS on phones, I wonder how many people actually bother with maps anymore. I just watched a show about Augmented Reality which can be used on mobile devices when out and about, and which means you never really have to ever look at a map or do research again. Madness.
I don’t tend to take landscape pictures so I was trying to find the best setting for dramatic clouds. I got the dramatic clouds but not much else.
A deserted railway station (Monsal Dale Station). You can see the disused platform below.
Cotton Mill:
We passed a few little villages with cute houses.
Big, blurry slug
Min stuck on the other side of some VERY slippery rocks. There was a swamp on the right so it wasn’t really ideal to fall here.
The hiking was great fun and the Peak District is beautiful, with its swirling hills and neverending stoned walls. It’s definitely a nice break from the noise and bustle of the city.
We headed to the Bear Inn straight after work which Min and many others had strongly recommended. I have to say, I was not disappointed.
The food was absolutely amazing. I had chicken in a white wine and thyme sauce:
Major droolage.
Creme brullée and apple/blackberry pie with custard. I’d strongly recommend this pub to anyone going to this area.
Full-view:
The next day we just walked around Nottingham which is basically a smaller version of London I guess. Min hates having her picture taken:
She reluctantly let me have a picture :D
Most of my mates in fact hate having their picture taken, even though they’re so used to me having my camera around.
On the train back home..
Back in London, BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall:
This was Proms 32 – Britten Sinfonia. Lovely music, and a great atmosphere.
A few weeks ago I went to the Croydon Mela – http://www.croydonsummerfestival.org/mela.php. It’s basically a local South London festival with an Asian/Indian twist.
Swami were playing. It’s the first time I’ve heard them and they were pretty good – Punjabi and Western beats mixed together.
Some kids got into a fight, which is typical..it always happens at such events in Croydon.
I thought they were just dancing bhangra but then it turned into some kind of fight between Afghans and Pakistanis. Some guys were waving flags around and it started from that I think.
Security quickly stepped in – you wouldn’t want to mess with this guy, eh:
Not sure how I managed to screw up the focus.
Channi Singh was on next – he’s a famous singer in India apparently and I was surprised to recognise a lot of his songs!
Malkit Singh was on last and he was brilliant – another famous Indian singer who also has an MBE. I also recognised many of his songs.
Me and Amar 
Sticking with Croydon, I got held up behind a car ‘crash’ and got stuck for 2 hrs while firemen cut the car apart to get the driver out. It was kind of weird because the car only had a little scratch on it and everyone around me was gossiping about how he just wanted to claim insurance.
I had my camera on me and took some pictures of the car being taken apart, which I’d never seen before. Then again, it’s not something you’d tend to see every day.
Once the roof was off, the firemen were joking about how the car was now a convertible, and as this guy drove the car away from the road, he joked about being a go-kart. 
A fireman took a picture of the scratch on the back of the car – you can see the blue paint if you full-view it:
So yeah, it was hardly a crash, but still resulted in being stuck for 2 hrs! The local paper used a couple of my pictures:
On the same topic, the World Today also published a shot of mine in their August/September edition:
My former boss (I still work for the same company but in a different department) wanted some head shots for the company magazine so I used a colleague’s massive 70-200mm f2.8 lens:
The light wasn’t the best (the colours seem a bit bland – this is with minimal post processing), but I thought they came out OK.
Testing it out with some colleagues
Great lens, but VERY heavy.
I’ll finish with some pictures from Carnaval Del Pueblo 2008 that I never got round to blogging for some reason. I actually found a draft blog on this (from exactly a year ago – Aug 26 2008!) – I guess I forgot to hit ‘publish’. :/
This Latino carnival is the largest of its kind in Europe, and one of the better ones in London I think.
(Mostly taken with the 50mm f1.8)
I remember this woman on the right telling me her mother travelled from Bolivia to take part in the carnival, and if I can send her a picture:
I told her to go to my site as I’d post the picture there.. oops.
I only stayed for maybe an hour or so. As I left on the train, this guy wanted me to take a picture of him:
I remember having a funny conversation with him but can’t remember exactly what it was about.
Well, that’s exactly 100 pictures
Thanks for looking : )
