Posts Tagged ‘Photography’
13/05/2013
After a few years combined experience of graphic design, signage & animation my friend and I have just set up our first company. Specialising in commercial vehicle signage, we will also be taking on all sorts of design work including; company branding, logo design, signage for windows including frosting and design for printed items such as business cards and leaflets.
If you would like us to design something for you whether it be a logo, the branding for your new company, leaflets or business cards we will be happy to help. We can offer our design services to anyone across a global scale through the wonders of the internet, file transfer and email.
If you live within the UK we can offer you supply of vinyl designs for your vehicles, offices, shops or homes. Or if you wanted some stickers to promote a project you are working on we can help.
If you are based around East London or Essex we can provide a design, production & install service for all vehicle graphics, window decoration/manifestation (including window frosting).
We have already had some satisfied customers, check out the cheeky bunch coming and going below:
On a more serious note, some vinyl we applied to some window panels for a local glass & joinery company:
If you are interested in keeping up to date with what we have to offer please follow our blog: www.distilledblog.co.uk
Follow our Twitter @DistilledD
Thanks for stopping by, and as always:
Tom out!
Tags:Animation, company branding, design, distilled designs, essex, graphic, graphic design, livery, Photography, upminster, vehicle graphics, vehicle graphics essex, vehicle graphics havering, vehicle graphics upminster
Posted in Distilled Designs, Full Feed | Leave a Comment »
06/02/2013
Hey everyone, recently a lot of my photography has been Central London based, so I wanted to explore local for a day. Armed with just my Nikon 50mm 1.8G lens myself & Reiss went on a cold, windy & muddy walk cross country. Below is a map of the route we took, the colours match up to the title of the post section & relevant photographs.
First Shots
The first location on the map where I felt inspired enough to take my first picture was alongside the M25 motorway, an unlikely spot I know. I saw the structure above the motorway and climbed the earth bank to get my shots. There was probably some more angles available to me for another few shots, but I was very aware that being so close to the motorway edge attracts unwanted police attention.
Along the river(sewer) side
As we walked further along through the fields we crossed over a small stream, which I believe serves as a make shift sewer system. Wandering along this stream we had a field of green crops meeting the sky to our left. It was a perfect opportunity for a photograph as the clouds had parted just enough to let some of the blue sky through and the sun was beaming from behind me. This photo is again in keeping with my minimal style, although unusually it consists of natural, not man made, objects.
Trains
All along these fields there is a train track which runs the C2C commuter route from London Fenchurch Street to Southend. There are various bridges of all different shapes & sizes along the route, I’ve always wanted to attempt a shot of a train just as it comes through the bridge and this was my chance. After a steady wait for the train due to off-peak timetable services one finally came, I only had a split second to capture the train as it went under the bridge and although I could hear it approaching it was more guess work as to when it would expose itself. So crouched uncomfortably in some brambles on the side of the tracks I snapped away nervously and this is what I achieved.
It isn’t the best of photographs, and I would certainly like to attempt it again, maybe next time I will avoid sitting on thorns and getting tangled up in the brambles, much to Reiss’ amusement.
Gravestones
After the train, we had a long climb up a steady hill. The mud kept attaching itself to the bottom of my boots and made my feet feel twice as heavy, after much banter from Reiss about how I had an entire field of mud attached to my clumsy self we reached Church Lane. At the end of Church Lane there is a small fence that you can hop over into a tiny woodland area. Inside here you will find various graves all stacked up against a brick wall. All of them that can be found today are from the 19th Century, the earliest I believe was 1819. The actual church doesn’t exist any more as it was demolished in the 1920′s and as far as we could tell the only remains are the graves themselves. To find out some more information on the Old Great Warley Church you can visit this website, it is certainly an interesting read and has quite a bit of history dating back to the 13th Century.
Machinery
After exiting the woodland there are various farm buildings which have a variety of interesting photo opportunities surrounding them. This photo of some old machinery was my favourite.
New Church
The last photos of the day were taken at the church built to replace the old one down Church Lane. Follow the same link as before to find out more information on this Church.
After taking pictures of this church we continued down the road walking past various fields, farming & industrial areas. We were stopped by a rather angry man in a Range Rover who asked if he could help us quite aggressively, we just said we were walking down the road and he said “it’s a bit strange to be walking about with cameras isn’t it?” neither of us really knew how to answer this question which was sort of spoken rhetorically, Reiss said “it’s what we do” and I backed it up with “photography”. He claimed he saw us in the CCTV cameras further down the road, which would have been true, but then asked if we had come across the field next to us. If he had seen us in his cameras we could not possibly have walked across the field which was another 100 metres down the road, so I’m not really sure what his problems with us was as it is a public road. He eventually drove off, although not after another guy had shown his presence by getting out of the car. This is probably what ended the day, we were quite confused by the situation and didn’t want to get into further issues that we just stuck to the main roads and headed back home.
Thanks for reading the post, please leave a comment below stating your favourite photo and if you have come across people in situations like ours.
Thanks,
Tom out!
Tags:A127, adventure, blue skies, bridges, church, church lane, essex, exploration, farm, fields, graves, gravestone, great warley, great warley church, landscape, local, M25, machinery, minimal, old church, Photography, photos, trains, upminster, warley
Posted in History, Photography, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
02/02/2013
Hey everyone, on my last post I uploaded a slightly more abstracted picture of Blue Bridge on Manchester Road, Isle of Dogs, London. I have since done a little more web crawling and research because I found it quite an interesting piece of engineering. I was actually standing on the bridge with Reiss when it started to make an alarm sound, at first I thought it was coming from the bus that just passed us. Reiss suggested we get off and then when I saw the barrier it occurred to me that the bridge was going to raise. I found it quite a special experience to see the bridge raising up totally vertical (see picture below) and then slowly lowering back to its original state, so here is a little bit of history:
The bridge that currently stands today was built in 1969, although there have been several bridges erected on the site previously, the original dates back to 1804. The current bridge is a Bascule (movable bridge) type steel bridge which is powered by electrics and hydraulics. Today it is looked after by British Waterways who spent £435,000 upgrading the bridge and giving it a full repaint in time for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Being the main bridge that allows access to the lock entrance to Canary Wharf, it gets a lot of shipping traffic entering and is thus designed to move up and down fairly quickly, the current bridge can achieve full opening in less than 1 minute.
The original bridge that was situated in 1804 was built of timber that was driven manually, this survived until 1842 when a cast iron replacement was made by the Butterley Company in Glasgow. This bridge was transported down from Glasgow to London to have final construction and fitting on site. The dock area was later widened and resulted in another bridge needing to be built in 1866. The 1929 bridge was the first to be made out of steel and electronically powered and was 46 foot longer than the current bridge that stands today due to positioning differences. This was finally written off when a boat collided with it forcing either costly repairs or a modernisation and in 1969 the current bridge was opened. At the time of being opened the 1969 Blue Bridge was the largest single-leaf Bascule bridge that existed in Britain and was built for only £274,500.
After a walk around the Isle of Dogs we returned to cross the bridge back the way we had come, across the other side the wind had blown the railing making it look like it was coming down. I panicked because I thought the bridge was going to raise with us in the middle so for a second I made myself look like a fool before announcing to Reiss (who wasn’t worried) that everything was ok, it was just the wind making the barrier move. Still, it pays to be aware!
Thank you for stopping,
Tom out!
Tags:adventure, bascule, bascule bridge, blue bridge, british waterways, canary wharf, docklands, double-leaf, education, History, information, isle of dogs, london, movable bridge, Photography, thames, tom barden, transportation, visually interesting
Posted in General Interest, History, Photography | 1 Comment »
01/02/2013
It is a well known fact that to get blue skies in England is almost impossible during the winter and would usually be due to some witchcraft! This photography trip certainly looked as though it may continue the grey skies & rain routine in the morning after leaving the train. Thankfully, however the clouds cleared, the sun beamed and the photo opportunities were ripe for the picking! Here are some photos I took below:
This fan was next to a building complex that used to be owned by the London Hydraulic Power Company. This company was set up by Parliament in 1883 to provide a network of high-pressure cast iron water mains. These were cleaner than the usual steam driven equivalent and much more efficient. The water was pumped direct from the Thames & during the winter was heated to prevent it freezing. At its height the system was used to power various machinery, lifts & workshops as well as being the back up power source for the mechanism used to open Tower Bridge.
When I was looking at this building at Canary Wharf it really looked to me like I was seeing through holes in the building to the sky on the other side. I’m pleased that it still has the same effect on the photograph.
Thanks for stopping by,
Tom out!
Tags:architecture, blog, blue sky, building, docklands, london, minimal, minimalism, minimalistic, photo, Photography, vi, vi-blog, visually interesting
Posted in Full Feed, Photography | 4 Comments »
06/01/2013
… the lights come out!
It has been a couple of weeks since my previous photography trip and I was itching to get out into the open world again! For my latest trip I decided to go out during the darker hours to try and get some interesting shots of lit architecture & structures. I began my journey from Fenchurch Street Station walking past the Tower of London & across Tower Bridge (something I usually make a habit of when I am in London). The bridge itself is exquisite at night, the lighting is very soft and allows the shadows to really bring it to life, I always have a sense of wonderment while gazing up at the bridge and across the water towards City Hall with The Shard in the background. Unfortunately I didn’t get too many shots of the bridge from where I wanted, the amount of people walking past makes it impossible to effectively place a tripod, so I took just this one from the Southbank.
There was a blanket layer of brown clouds in the sky tonight so I didn’t take too many pictures of buildings which involved including the sky. On the brief occasion when the clouds parted, providing enough time to set up the tripod and explore possible angles, I managed to get a couple of shots, although not as many as I would have liked. Most of my photography was therefore focused within the boarders of the structures themselves, which I found to be quite a challenge. This shot was one which I managed to get during a cloudless minute or two.
I have realised, during my attempts at minimal photography, that the sky is a very useful asset, possibly a way of cheating. It provides me with what I consider to be a blank canvas on one side which helps towards the “minimal” theme. Due to this, I have been questioning whether my photos of buildings are indeed minimal, or if they are more “geometric”, possibly a mixture of the two.
London Bridge, below, is always colourful at night time.
I wanted to experiment with the way the light hits extruded parts of buildings and thus throws shadows, sometimes as a gradient, other times in total darkness, over the rest. While taking pictures in these situations I wondered whether I considered the lit area of my frame the most important aspect, or whether the shadows played the most important and dominating role. Certainly the shadows gave significant definition and a harsh contrast to the lit areas of the building, or was I just using it to try and create a fake sky, another blank canvas to make my images seem more minimal? I think I will leave that for the individual to decide.
The photos below are good examples of the use of shadow as the blank canvas.
Geometry within architecture has been a very influential part of my recent photography. This next photograph has so many shapes happening I don’t think it can be considered minimal, however, the use of the same material, rivets & colour throughout provide the image with some redeeming minimal features. As I was taking the photos of Southwark Bridge I was very aware of a person watching me, and finally a man and woman approached, they asked me a few questions about my photography and if I would mind if they “stole” my shot of the bridge by taking some of their own, of course I didn’t object and thus we formed a small photography hotspot along the Thames. Many of the passers by must have thought we were mad (or just British) to be taking pictures of the underneath of a bridge.
This second bridge photo is actually my favourite of the night. It certainly isn’t the strongest, but there is something about it which I think for me sums up the trip.
Overall the trip was good fun, I think I got some nice photographs and although they are not the strongest I have taken I feel they have turned out really well. I am looking forward to trying out some future night time shots and explore the use of shadows further. I will also make sure there is no brown cloud cover on my next night time trip so I can get some ground level cityscapes.
Thanks for stopping by. Check out my updated website at www.visuallyinteresting.co.uk and have a photographically good New Year!
Tom out!
Tags:adventure, architecture, blog, blogging, buildings, colour, interesting, lit, london, london bridge, london photography, minimal, minimal photography, night, night photography, night time, photo journalism, Photography, southwark bridge, tom barden, tower bridge, vi-blog, visually, visually interesting, walking
Posted in Full Feed, General Interest, Photography, Written Word | 4 Comments »
26/12/2012
Today I went with some of my family to the traditional Boxing Day hunt send off at Matching Green near Harlow, Essex. Every year they bring out the Hounds, jump on their horses and hunt down a guy who has run on ahead with a scent. This was the first year I had actually seen the hunt go off, the first year I went it had to be called off due to dangerous conditions for the horses and near impossible conditions for the runner. Last year I didn’t attend, so it was nice this year to bring the camera along and try to get some shots. It was quite difficult to get some really nice shots of the horses and near impossible for the dogs due to the vast amount of people who turned up to send them off.
Since 2005, when the government banned the hunting of foxes using dogs, they have continued the tradition, keeping dogs trained and spirits alive for when they may reintroduce such laws. It does not seem likely this will happen for some time however, as the current government is the most likely candidate to do so, but doesn’t seem close to making such changes.
All that aside, it was a really nice chance to step out into the country side, breath in some fresh air and take some snaps of a very old British tradition.
Wearing traditional Scarlet coats.
The pub at which everybody congregated and that the hunt starts off from.
This was my favourite shot of the day, however the van and two cars behind the lady & horse really spoil what could have been a really nice shot.
A couple of very old 4 wheel drive vehicles. Very useful at driving around the terrain after the constant rain battering England in recent weeks.
Above a few attempts at minimal photography.
A beautifully crafted horse carriage, this one turns up every year. There was another much simpler one next to it.
Thanks for taking a look.
Tom out!
Tags:barden, boxing day, boxing day fox hunt, boxing day hunt, british tradition, carriage, essex, fox, fox hounds, fox hunting, horse, hounds, hunting, matching green, minimal, photographs, Photography, rural, tom, tom barden, visually interesting
Posted in Photography | Leave a Comment »
22/12/2012
So because England is a wash out these days it is very hard to get motivated to walk outside and do some photography. So to make sure I continued taking pictures I decided to take a look around my house and see if I could spot anything of interest. Here are some of the pictures that I took:
Thanks,
Tom out!
Tags:berries, Chinese lantern, england rain, fan, gold, home, minimal, minimal photography, minimalism, minimalist photography, orange, photo, photograph, photographer, Photography, red, tom barden, vi-blog, visually interesting
Posted in Full Feed, Photography | Leave a Comment »
19/12/2012
The second post of my ‘Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer’ series. To check out Number 1 click HERE
Photo a day regimes
When I say one photo a day regime I’m sure that most of you will know what I refer to. It is where you take and post one photo a day for an entire year or longer.
The issue I have with these, is the lack of creativity involved in most of the photos people take. It is possibly the single biggest killer of the term “photographer”. However, I understand how hard it is to produce one very nice photo every day when you have a full time job and maybe a family to look after and focus on. It is indeed very hard to do this even when you have the whole day free.
Those points aside, I think very few people come out of their 365 days a better photographer than when they went in, they possibly came out worse, or have totally removed their interest in photography. These types of tasks are very repetitive experiences, and they are impossible to achieve on a day to day basis if you do not go further afield and explore brand new areas.
Maybe the point of them is to get people out into the open world, to spend more time each day outside and looking at things in a different light. So what I propose is instead of filling up the internet with one bad shot every day (which you possibly rushed in at the end when you realised you were running out of time) take one day at the weekend, travel somewhere slightly further afield than your usual route to work or school and make a day of it, go alone or with one other companion, have a nice long walk through an area you have never visited before and take photos. Take the time to produce a few well considered photographs that you can touch up a little on the computer when you get home. By doing this, not only have you had a great day out, the chances are you have learnt a lot more about photography and your camera, knowledge that you can make use of on your next trip in one or two weeks to a new location.
By doing this you are building up your own knowledge of the areas around you & your camera, increasing your photographic skill & your eye for photos. Plus, as a bonus, you are helping to reduce the flood of bad to average photography that is sweeping the internet.
Tom Barden
Tags:365 photos, barden, blog, blogging, blogging culture, blogging essay, comments, culture, discussion, essay, Frustrations, Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer, increase knowledge, intellectual, one photo, opinion, photo a day, photo a day regime, Photography, photography essay, rant, tom barden, unimaginative, vi-blog, visually interesting
Posted in Full Feed, General Interest, Photography | Leave a Comment »
17/12/2012
I would like to start by saying, I don’t consider myself a great photographer, maybe the term photographer shouldn’t even be used to describe me, even if describing myself as bad. What I am, is a person who owns a camera, who finds enjoyment going out at the weekend to random locations, walking around and taking photos of what I love about this world.
In the last year I have become a big fan of minimal photography. Minimal photography is about expressing the beauty I find in the details that surround me, and I try as hard as I can to get the best possible results. I don’t post to my blog any photos that I consider not worthy or a waste of my readers time. I am my biggest critic and am yet to be fully satisfied with the photos I am taking. I feel I am on some sort of quest to capture the right photograph that expresses my true feelings and understanding about photography and the environments that surround me.
It is for these reasons that I feel the need to mention in a series of posts some of the things that frustrate me within our blogging culture today.
1. The “like” button
The “like” button as a concept is fairly sound. It provides readers with a simple means to tell the blogger that they appreciate their post and to keep up the good work. At least, this is what I thought when it first came out. What I have since discovered is the use of the “like” button to grab large volumes of hits on ones own blog with very little effort and without posting anything of any worth.
For example, on the last two posts which I have submitted, within 20 seconds of me clicking the publish button I have had 3 or 4 people hit the “like” button on them. Not only that, but it is more often than not the same people. The same people who “like” the majority of posts down the same stream that mine appeared in, in my case usually photography. What this tells me is that people wait for the stream to update new posts and instantly click the top right “like” button. By doing this they haven’t looked properly at my photographs, they haven’t read anything I may have said and are just hoping I will feel warm enough inside that I will click their blog, thus giving them a hit. These same people also never leave a comment on my blog.
I find this rather damaging on a few levels. Firstly it damages the legitimacy of WordPress as the blogging site. Secondly, the blogger themselves, they made a new post which they may have been proud of, and although it may make them happy to receive a “like” they do not provide any means of reflection or criticism. Thirdly, I think it damages humans as a collective, it damages our intellect and ability to, as mentioned, reflect, critique and discuss on a variety of issues that people write about or visualise in their blogs.
Of course, I am aware there is a vast majority of WordPress users and general bloggers who enjoy commenting and discussing on others posts, after all, isn’t that what blogging is all about? Writing about the things that interest you, in the hope that you will meet people who share that interest and want to discuss and provide their own ideas. And there are indeed people who genuinely do like someone’s work, and have taken a closer look when they click the “like” button. What I am finding though is an increase in the amount of people who fake the “likes” purely for their own selfish reasons.
Giving a comment can be a lot more than just a means of discussion. It is a way of helping others improve and providing them encouragement by detailing sections of their post you genuinely like and dislike and give critical reasons as to why, so that they can improve upon where they went wrong. I for one would really enjoy some critical and encouraging comments from other photographers on my blog so I can try to take on what they say and improve.
If I receive “likes” on my post now I just ignore them, I find them very disheartening and in my opinion they go against everything that blogging is.
Tom Barden.
Tags:barden, blog, blogging, blogging culture, blogging essay, comments, culture, discussion, essay, Frustrations, Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer, human, human culture, human race, intellectual, likes, opinion, Photography, photography essay, rant, society, tom barden, vi-blog, visually interesting, wordpress lkes
Posted in Full Feed, General Interest, Photography, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
15/12/2012
A trip around Shadwell, an area of London I had never explored before, produced some interesting photographic opportunities. I walked mainly around the back streets, avoiding main roads as much as possible. The photographs are in keeping with my minimal theme, some of them providing quite strong colour variations.
Thanks for viewing,
Tom out!
Tags:abandoned, architecture, colour, derelict, london, minimal, minimal photography, minimalism, minimalist, neglected, Photography, shadwell, striking colour, tom barden, visually interesting
Posted in Photography | 3 Comments »
Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer 2 – One Photo a day regimes
19/12/2012The second post of my ‘Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer’ series. To check out Number 1 click HERE
Photo a day regimes
When I say one photo a day regime I’m sure that most of you will know what I refer to. It is where you take and post one photo a day for an entire year or longer.
The issue I have with these, is the lack of creativity involved in most of the photos people take. It is possibly the single biggest killer of the term “photographer”. However, I understand how hard it is to produce one very nice photo every day when you have a full time job and maybe a family to look after and focus on. It is indeed very hard to do this even when you have the whole day free.
Those points aside, I think very few people come out of their 365 days a better photographer than when they went in, they possibly came out worse, or have totally removed their interest in photography. These types of tasks are very repetitive experiences, and they are impossible to achieve on a day to day basis if you do not go further afield and explore brand new areas.
Maybe the point of them is to get people out into the open world, to spend more time each day outside and looking at things in a different light. So what I propose is instead of filling up the internet with one bad shot every day (which you possibly rushed in at the end when you realised you were running out of time) take one day at the weekend, travel somewhere slightly further afield than your usual route to work or school and make a day of it, go alone or with one other companion, have a nice long walk through an area you have never visited before and take photos. Take the time to produce a few well considered photographs that you can touch up a little on the computer when you get home. By doing this, not only have you had a great day out, the chances are you have learnt a lot more about photography and your camera, knowledge that you can make use of on your next trip in one or two weeks to a new location.
By doing this you are building up your own knowledge of the areas around you & your camera, increasing your photographic skill & your eye for photos. Plus, as a bonus, you are helping to reduce the flood of bad to average photography that is sweeping the internet.
Tom Barden
Tags:365 photos, barden, blog, blogging, blogging culture, blogging essay, comments, culture, discussion, essay, Frustrations, Frustrations of the Blogger Photographer, increase knowledge, intellectual, one photo, opinion, photo a day, photo a day regime, Photography, photography essay, rant, tom barden, unimaginative, vi-blog, visually interesting
Posted in Full Feed, General Interest, Photography | Leave a Comment »