Brian Jones

What a great time was had at the Larmer Tree Festival last weekend – the festival staff pulled out all the stops and put on a great party this year.

My favourite images from the festival  are here on Flickr.

All my final images are here.

Last week London was abuzz with activity surrounding the World Barista Championships. The national champions of 54 countries came to London to compete for the title of World Barista Champion. Each competitor had 15 minutes to prepare four espressos, four cappucinos, and four espresso-based signature drinks of their own design. And they must do this all whilst talking passionately about the coffee they’re using. This year’s World Champion is Mike Phillips from the USA. Mike works for Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago and he is the first World Champion to come from the United States.

For all my WBC photographs click through here.

This year I volunteered to be a ‘barista buddy’. My role was to help a competitor find equipment, ingredients and to provide local knowledge. I was the buddy to Honduran Champion Anna Lucia Hawitt and Argentina’s Gustavo Castro. Ana Lucia, in the big image above, placed in the top 12 during the preliminary rounds and made it through to the semi-finals. You can watch her semi-final presentation here.

http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=worldbaristachampionship2010&clip=pla_299ee272-217d-47c6-b32c-1270917dbcc5&autoPlay=false

For the last three summers I have been photographing at the  Larmer Tree Festival in Dorset, England. Last August, shortly after the festival finished, I approached the organisers of the festival and the Salisbury Arts Centre with the idea that we have an exhibition of my images from the festival. They agreed and on 17th March the private view/opening will take place at the Salisbury Arts Centre. The show, which includes my images and those of three other photographers, will be up from 18 March until 10 April.

Here is a selection of my images from the festival

I love being part of the festival community and seeing the same people every year, most of whom I see only at the festival. I enjoy going back each year as a photographer to capture the characters I meet there. I like to photograph the festival so I can remember it, but also so that others can experience the festival through my eyes and the pictures I take. These day it’s very rare that in normal life you can go out with a camera and photograph the people you see. But the festival has created an environment where you can do that. At the Larmer Tree Festival people let their guard down, which is rare in British society. My photographs feed off that and represent it too.

Copenhagen is awesome. The world would be a better place if every human were required to spend a month there and see how a proper society orders itself. Rachel and I spent my birthday weekend there and I want to go back and stay forever! Yep – it was that great!

Here are some more images from our weekend in København.

Last night the coffee community of London gathered at the Square Mile Roastery in Bethnal Green to taste four espressos from Canada. The conviviality and caffeine combined to push the colours up a notch as we downed espresso after espresso after espresso. Many thanks to James, Annette and everyone else who made Taste of Canada possible.
All the images can be found via this link.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5108579&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

lost in londinium from iambrianjones on Vimeo.

This little video is the result of a class I took recently. We were asked to use video to illustrate a quote relating to London. I chose the following quote by author V. S. Naipaul.

“I came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.”

Gwilym Davies – the current UK Barista Champion – is now the World Barista Champion. A few months ago Gwilym travelled to Atlanta, Georgia to compete with approximately 50 baristas from around the world for the title. Congratulations, Gwilym!
(I am just posting this now because I have been too busy drinking great coffee from this company🙂

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4378520&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Gwilym Davies, United Kingdom – 2009 WBC Finals

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4263639&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Gwillym Davies, WBC champion talks a little about his drink preparation

Just throwin’ up some recent macro work I shot during a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Hyde Hall in Essex. I didn’t take any notes, so your guess is as good as mine as to what the plants are.

Follow this link for the full Flickr stream of all the images.