Owl Portrait /  by Mister Tom

This kind Gentleowl posed most gratifyingly for a portrait in Hereford high town.
I think secretly he disdained his captivity and welcomed attention of a gentler sort than another rough poking and stroking from gawping city dwellers - yet with his pride intact he retained an aloofness only penetrated when he looked at you directly, seldom indeed.
I also believe he was far less troubled by the attentions of a mesmerised three year old than of my camera, and rather felt affection for his gentle single finger, stroking so lightly his outermost feathers.


My christmas greetings, Mister Owl.



Light Field /  by Mister Tom

Bruce Munro's 'Field of Light' installation in the ground of the Holburne.
I went here with my family after a day in Bath for Lydie's birthday - despite the cold I could have stayed there all evening. I recommend anyone in the area to go - I think they are up until February. They took a team of 15 three days to set up and include 50k of fibre optic cable. The subtly changing patterns and colours winking on and off or flowing across the field is magical.


I'm Back...sort of - Architecture Life /  by Mister Tom

It has been phenomenally long since any posts.
This is upsetting.
I am currently doing 4th year in Architecture at the university of Bath, and the workload has been so intense that I've barely been able to shoot anything let alone publish online.
However some photography has taken place, and as it has been mainly in relation to my studies and course mates, this first post this christmas holiday is going to be the culmination of our efforts - the reactions of all my friends after the Final Basil Spence Crit. To be fair this was followed by another two weeks of solid work but lets forget about that.


So, I tried to capture what everyone was feeling - complete exhaustion but propped up by lots of adrenaline with no purpose but to postpone our mental collapse. Here we are:


Sorrento - Italianess /  by Mister Tom

My favourite thing about Italy is the unending little contrasts you find in it. I'm talking about the fluted column supporting a crumbling plaster wall, the quaint cobbled street 4 feet wide, choked with greenery, aside rusted wire fences and manhole covers. The way they appear to only build OLD walls and will render the outside of a house only once in 40 years, but coat the stairwell with marble. The stray dogs asleep on historical monuments.


Somehow this slightly grungy, grimy messiness has charm. It speaks volumes to focus on what is important. What is that? Olives of course! Or since we're in Sorrento, perhaps lemons.
These shots are from our little wanderings, and in some I have tried to capture the feeling above as best I can.

Sorrento - Bobby /  by Mister Tom

Jumping from Pembrokeshire to Sorrento in the south of italy, and a family holiday in the cold reaches of Wales to Bobby and my first holiday alone together, in the sun!
These are the best portraits from the holiday. I don't really tire having Bobby as a model, but i'm sure she does. Else there might be more photos.

Pembroke: Boats&Harbours /  by Mister Tom

I find images of boats and harbours really evocative, as wonderfully grungy, in some way like trains and stations. Dirty because of purpose. They speak to me of hard work and honest people. Empty spaces and old tools. Rust alongside nature. Rotting wood and songbirds. All the places these contraptions have explored. Something that feels exciting to passers by but so totally normal to the fishermen themselves. Taking a land rover on a beach would be fun right? Maybe less glamorous if you're wearing fishy wool jumpers and oily oilskins, doing it every day. 
I suppose I mean that the interest lies in the rift in experience.


Pembroke: Hilltops /  by Mister Tom

As the title suggests, this post revolves around the Pembrokeshire holiday still - all photos taken of, or from, windswept, ragged and rugged coastline hilltops. These sorts of places are among my favourite in the world. They make me feel alive, strong and very very very small. Insignificant, unimportant, and all the better for feeling such with clean cold air in my lungs.

Pembroke: Safari /  by Mister Tom

Long time no postings - holidays and moving house have been getting in the way of productivity!
I've been shooting like crazy since my holiday in Pembrokeshire, and I realised I haven't finished that set of posts. Barely started even. So here is the next set: Safari. I tend to apply the term to any happenstance photographs largely unmeditated - when you go perhaps in search of something to photograph but have no idea what or when it will show. I find this happens with people as well as animals, and sometime even landscapes can be entirely surprising - the clouds and the sun suddenly are in the right place, and so are you because you wanted that view of the sea, and you are for a moment standing in a different place entirely... Out comes the camera that you never, repeat, NEVER leave at home.


Anyhow, I have limited this 'Safari' set to animals and such like as we found in and around the pembrokeshire coast. The seals we saw all over and later on a boat trip, and also the wonderfully tame sparrows covered in ticks. Cute.

Flash Back - Welsh River Day /  by Mister Tom

Something I felt like publishing before I got on with unreeling the bundle of film from Pembrokeshire.
A memorable family walk, down the river Usk and adjoining canal - In Wales just north of the Black Mountains.




Landscapes and Old Lenses /  by Mister Tom

I was given a while back the camera collections of my dad and grandad to play with. How well they know me. Shiny things!
Anyway, except for a couple of filter steals this box of gizmos had little use, as although I would like to try out film photography at some point, I really don't have the time at the moment, and besides, digital is just so very very much easier. Better one might say. Accessible. Faster. More likely to get the shot you want when you want it due to cunning playing with white balance, or simple test shots and being able to see what it looks like NOW rather than in 2 weeks. Have I made my case? Good. 
However, what I did want to experiment with was the old lenses. Which are very pretty. And despite lacking autofocus and in camera aperture control I figured getting an adapter for the set of OM primes would be worth it - it even has an AF assist chip. Win. 


ANyyway, tried it out today with an OM 28mm and a yellow filter to take some landscape shots when on a walk with the family in the Herefordshire countryside. See for yourself. 




I'm off on holiday to Pembrokeshire tomorrow, so expect what you might expect when I go to the sea side in tumultuous weather. 
Mood photos ahoy!
PS: Some credit for the style adopted in todays post must go to Kayte Wayte's landscape photography. :)

Fun with Poppet /  by Mister Tom

This is my sister, Lydia. Or Lydie, as she likes to be called.
I call her poppet.
Similar to puppet, but she will only do the opposite to what I ask.
Finding 1/"cup of tea" was difficult.
Hah maths japery.
Anyhow she is always a joy to photograph and these are from this spring gone (you know, when it was actually sunny).
She's doing her fantastic flip off the climbing frame monkey bars my Dad made from hop poles.



Inspired Day /  by Mister Tom

Ok so I come to visit Bobby in Bath and have a lovely time. While I'm here though I start reading the photographic biography of the frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, an original master of photography - coupled with feeling great and being happy and meandering around this city I really feel I belong to, made me really inspired to take photographs. You can judge yourself if these are better than normal because of it, I don't care hugely because they were all such fun to take, each one I got excited by.
Two things are said at the start of this biography that I find so important to photography. First, a description of the way taking photographs as an art form compared to painting or drawing; the way every photo is chance. You are capturing life, and life is fast. 


Second is a quote by Henri C-B:
'I am a visual man.
I watch, watch, watch.
I understand things through my eyes.'


Go Karting /  by Mister Tom


Second post today. I'm playing catch-up. I said before how we went go karting on my birthday, well I took some shots of other groups belting around the track before us. Here they are.


Blustery Summer Beach /  by Mister Tom

Well it feels like an age that I made a post! I have had by 21st birthday this week! Lots has happened - after poker on Saturday Louise, Alex, Tom, Mike and I went kayaking on Sunday. Alex being the only sensible one had a wetsuit on, and although I thought he would look hilarious he looked the part better than everyone else! There were capsizes, rapids and an ill advised rope swing that got the better of Tom. I wish I had photos for this but cameras and water tend to make ill acquaintances. 
On the day of my birthday I was told we were going for a hike up a hill for a picnic. Perfect, I love doing that, just me and my family and Bobby came down for the day. Quite how we ended up go karting, roaring round a tight little track with my elder sister there and my grandparents watching (and probably organising a betting ring), I really don't know. Suffice to say tremendous fun was had. I felt surprised from the moment I woke up, with unexpected presents and arrangements from Bobby and all my family.
The next day I wasn't so surprising. Still lovely, as I got the wind in my hair that I'd missed on tuesday. We went to Southerndown beach in Wales, and the photos today are from that blustery excursion. I hope the first photo sums up that feeling of expansiveness when the ocean is laid out before you, and nature is coming crashing towards you.

Summer Skies /  by Mister Tom

Of late I have been struck again and again by quite how much I love clouds and skies - the way a simple haze or some grey fluffy numbers can give everything else a unique atmosphere. Unfortunately I haven't been in a position to pursue much photographing at the right time and place, I need to be someplace considerably wilder to make proper use of my favourite dramatic cloud formations. 
Anyhow this evenings display was of particular beauty, looking like an ambiguous painting unfolding towards you, so I took a few.
I always like cloud photos too much, so please tell me which is the most striking and/or of interest to you.
Update: 
More photos on this post - 'Mackrel Skies'. My Mum and her Dad always call these dappled cloud formations mackrel sky. My Granddad would get in his boat and go fishing. I like how they appear and dissolve in such short time.




Also a shout out to everyone who knows the cloud watchers society.

Interlude with Bugs /  by Mister Tom

A short interlude in my backlog of events shoots and general camera busyness taking up all my time outside work at the moment - a most unfortunate chafer beetle having a terribly unpleasant time with biting mites or ticks (if you know the little critters please tell as I would be interested).


Taken at twilight at my house using Sig 70-300 APO on macro with Canon 430exii flashgun.


As my Dad, who identified the beetle, said: "Oh how horrid".


Enjoy.
Well,
Don't actually.




Also I am going to start adding some links to random photos I have stumbled across that interest me. 
In this one I enjoy the hint of a larger, powerful landscape glimpsed beyond the subject of interest. The angle seems to make it a cursory glance of a passer by bending low to inspect it - but makes me excited at the prospect of standing on the mountain beyond.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/luismontemayor/497471630/in/photostream/

Wiltshire Downs (Old) /  by Mister Tom

I really really like these - definitely some of the best photos I've ever taken. So I'm gonna put them up here again, because although I've got the dance show shoot ready they need to be checked over before they go online as there are kids in some of them.
Anyhow here we go. Incredible weather over the Wiltshire downs.

New Shetlands /  by Mister Tom

Some time ago it was to my great surprise that my little sister as permitted the gift of a pony. A very small pony, a feisty minature shetland, but a pony never the less. Now he is trained and lovely and still bites me on occasion out of friendliness I am sure, and she has Another one. A 'filly' as I am informed, and the foal who is staying for the summer.
They are settled and getting used to each other. Charlie (the original) has just about got used to being bossed around by the mother, but when they were introduced they behaved very interestingly, both coming unexpectedly close and trusting, then kicking off and coming to blows.
These are the photos of the new comers and their introduction.