orange. blob. blog.

Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall

Tim — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:15:10 +0000

One from the archives to tide me over the vast swathes of tumbleweed that have been rolling through the blog recently… I’m sorting and indexing all the photos from my last trip to Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and Laos, and came across some of these oldies that have never seen the light of day!…

These are taken back in 2008, and the whole art project was part of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘New York City Waterfalls’ art installation. There were 4 of these waterfalls built, and immediately everyone was reminded of the orange ‘Gates’ project in Central Park. The waterfalls were all built with scaffolding and looked pretty utilitarian in the daylight – I dare say that was part of the point – but I have to admit I preferred the slower shutter speeds that blurred the water to cover most of the scaffolding.

The picture above was taken from across the river on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, just as it was beginning to get dark. A very small aperture brings out the ‘star like’ lights on the bridge. The one below was taken before the one above, from the same spot with a slightly wider angle, pointed up so that the large pink sky gets most of the attention.

Top: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
30 secs at f/22
ISO 100
38mm (using the 24-70mm lens)

Lower: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
3.2 secs at f/22
ISO 100
25mm (using the 24-70mm lens)

Photography Masters Cup – 2011

Tim — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:08:29 +0000

A little late posting this one… only one year out. Towards the end of last year, I got a nod from the Photography Masters Cup awards for my abstract picture of Greenery…

The official title is the 5th Annual Photography Masters Cup awards – either way, they liked my photo of the cold looking stone, contrasted with the deep green of the bush. The photo was taken in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Thanks again to the judges for picking my photograph out!

New York Halloween Parade – Mr Men and Little Miss costumes

Tim — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:53:40 +0000

It’s that time of year again… the air turns cool, the leaves start to drop, and the apartment smells of hot glue. Wait… what?

Yep, it’s Halloween again! We managed to recruit even more people this year, so that our ‘crew’ was a total of 6.5. The half was ‘Mr Small’ who was awesomely tiny – at only 1 year old – it was his first Halloween parade too. No doubt first of many!

So after our first year in 2007 as the Lego Couple, then Pacman and the Ghosts, Where the Wild Things Are, and Sock Monkey and Muno… we decided to go for ‘Mr Men’ and ‘Little Miss’ costumes this year. Check out the Mr Men website if you have no idea what I’m talking about!

As usual, the ‘let’s start them really early this year’ turned into being a few weeks before the big day. The full impact of making the costumes only dawned on us when we went out to buy the raw materials. 45 yards of 2 inch thick foam, and 40 yards of various colours of spandex. From Spandex House no less. The apartment became impossible at that point. Ferrying different body parts around the place depending on what needed to be worked on. If you need to draw out the material then it has to be the kitchen for the largest area of open floor space. If you need to hand-sew the body joints, then you need the table in the living room. If one of the bodies wasn’t being worked on, then it would land up on the bed to get it out of the way!

We had a few friends join us this year, so everyone chose what they wanted to be, and we decided on a few that had to be in, because they just look too cool. That brought us to the Mr Men choices – Mr Tickle, Mr Nonsense, Mr Small and Mr Sneeze – and then the Little Miss choices – Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Giggles and Little Miss Sunshine.

It also led to some ridiculous conversations. Where’s Giggles? In the kitchen. I think Tickle’s in the bedroom. Ok, there’s a pile of Nonsense in the corridor. Can someone pass me sunshine?

Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Giggles, Mr Sneeze and Mr Nonsense. Mr Tickle and Mr Small had already left by that point but they were walking in the parade too!

We all spent quite a few evenings and weekends working on the costumes. On Halloween we also decided to dig out Muno and the Sock Monkey from last year’s Halloween parade, and head down to the ‘Regis and Kelly’ show. The costumes were fine when we were outside last year on a cold October night. Under the hot studio lights indoors, it was a different matter! Anyway, we got onto the show as one of the audience costumes – was good fun!

The living room was so full of foam and material that now that it’s empty, we can actually tell the difference because the room echoes a lot more!

Here’s a clip from a local news channel in New York – Pix 11 – you can see all the Mr Men and Little Miss behind the presenters, and then later on in the clip too, dancing down 6th Avenue in New York…

10th Anniversary of 9/11 in New York

Tim — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:56:42 +0000

Took another trip up to the Top of the Rock earlier this evening, on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. At dusk they switched on the ‘Tribute in Light’ – two massive beams of light in remembrance of September 11. It’s actually an art installation of 88 huge searchlights. Originally placed in the footprints of the two towers, they have now been moved to a rooftop close to the original site…

The installation has been repeated every year since, and the huge beams of light are visibile for up to 60 miles around. In the picture above, the Empire State Building is also visible – lit with red, white and blue.

The photo above was taken earlier on in the evening immediately after the tribute was switched on. At that point, the Empire State Building hadn’t yet switched on its lights. Both images were taken with a Tilt Shift lens – which is how the focus is kept on the Tribute and the Empire State Building, while blurring the surroundings.

I think that the building under construction to the right of the beams of light is the new WTC 1 building, and the smaller new construction visible to the left is WTC 4, from what I can tell.

On the way home, we walked past Bryant Park, which had its own memorial. 2,753 empty chairs sitting on the lawn. One for every victim of the September 11th attacks. There were quite a few people even at 10pm sitting and standing around the edge of the lawn – seeing the sheer quantity of chairs, and the amount of space that they took up really brought home the scale of loss.

It was actually this Bryant Park Memorial that moved me the most – it didn’t cost anything – only the time that it took to make sure that there were 2,753 chairs, and that each one was carefully placed – facing south, to the site of the fallen towers.

Black and White Spider Awards 2011

Tim — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:26:54 +0000

A good email to wake up to this morning – my photo of Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse won a ‘nominee’ placing in 2011′s Black and White Spider Awards. This is a black and white conversion of the photo taken in the Beagle channel at the ‘end of the world’ at the southernmost tip of South America…

It’s supposed to be the most photographed lighthouse in South America, but it took us a couple of attempts to get out there – the first couple of days the boat trip was cancelled due to the awful weather. Check out the original post on Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse for more background to the image, and the lighthouse.

Wall Street

Tim — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:41:36 +0000

One from the archives – taken a couple of years ago, this one is a photo that was part of the “Manhattan – A Closer Look” series of images…

The image didn’t make it into the final cut of images for the series – all of the images were going to be black and white, and the one above didn’t really jump out as much in black and white as it does in colour. With all the talk of Wall Street… money… ratings… and the economy, I thought it was a suitable subject for a blog post!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/800 sec at f/2.8
ISO 200
45mm (Tilt shift)

Popular Photography Magazine Runner Up

Tim — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 00:12:54 +0000

First up – Happy New Year!

Had some good news the other day – a couple of photographs that I took were recognised as runner ups in the Popular Photography 17th Annual Readers’ Photo Contest…

You can view all of the winners and runners up over at the Popular Photography Photo Contest page. There are some great images in the gallery!

The two photographs are Park Avenue in the Rain (taken in New York City, with a tilt shift lens) and the Guggenheim Museum in New York (also taken with a tilt shift lens). Park Avenue was a runner up in the Travel/Places category, and the Guggenheim was a runner up in the Architecture category.

Both photos were originally part of a series of photographs of New York that I took, called ‘Manhattan – A Closer Look‘. The series looked at famous buildings and views in Manhattan, and were all taken with a tilt shift lens. You can take a look through the related blog posts to see more info about each of the photos, including the other photos in the series.

International Aperture Awards 2010

Tim — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:13:28 +0000

I had submitted a couple of photos to the International Aperture Awards 2010 – this one was selected for a Bronze Award…

It’s a photo of what seems like it should be a seat, in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The striking green of the neat hedge contrasted well with the surrounding marble, and added a patch of welcome colour in between the mausoleums.

The original photograph is below… and there is an older blog post about La Recoleta Cemetery too.

NYC Halloween Parade 2010 – Sock Monkey, Muno and Mr X

Tim — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:59:58 +0000

How d’ya like me now!!!??

And so… that time of year when the house turns into some kind of weird factory littered with spandex, foam and knitting paraphernalia, as we jump into making Halloween Costumes! If you’re not into Halloween, or you’re only here for the Travel Photography, then feel free to tune out for this yearly nothing-to-do-with-photography post…

This year we decided to do the characters from the Kia Commercial. We couldn’t convince enough gullible victims to do the entire gang of characters – so we settled on Sock Monkey, Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba) and Mr X.

My better half also took care of most of the creating for this year, as resident designer, sewer, knitter and all-around fabric-extraordinaire!

I think this year was a pretty good contender for our most-fun year, vying for first place from the Lego Couple Halloween Costumes that we did in 2007. I think it definitely ranks up there as the most comfortable costume so far – comfortable as in “possible to see and walk, both at the same time”. I did however nearly lose an eye (just one of course), on some low branches and scaffolding…

First up, Jeni’s Sock Monkey!

Sock Monkey

Jeni taught herself how to knit socks last year… so it was an obvious progression to make an entire life-size sock monkey costume. Naturally.

She knitted the costume mostly from remote locations… on the subway… sitting in coffee shops… winning at poker… I even caught her in the movie theater, furiously knitting during an action scene. Hence why there’s not a lot of action shots of the knitting. Plus, it’s really really boring.

The body was made from 1 inch foam, sewn together at the joints. Then the leg components / body component / arm components of the knitted covering was put on around it.

The head was also foam-based, shaped into the head with the eyes cut out. Again, master knit-modeler Jeni knitted the entire head part to put over the foam like a simple cover!

The head was then buttoned down to the material at the back, and there were some hand-holes so that she could put her hands out from the ‘monkey-hands’. Side note: Conveniently machine-washable. No tumble dry.

Mr X

This one turned out to be one of our favourites! Started with an exercise ball to model the whole thing on, gradually building out a number of interconnected rows of wire. The idea was that the whole costume would ‘hang’ on our friend Lori’s head.

Once the wire-frame was completed, (multiple flesh-wounds later…) a load of brown paper bags were cut into shreds, leaving one end intact. The intact end could then be folded over each row of wire to build up the hairy skirt thing! Only flaw in the plan was potential rain issues… luckily that didn’t happen!

Jeni speed-knitted a quick jumper and arms for Mr X with black and white stripes, and then fitted that to the middle of the costume. More paper bags for the arms as well.

Some foam and black material (and trusty glue gun) topped out the costume, and some last minute eye-holes.

Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba)

The largest, but possibly the easiest was my ‘Muno’ costume. Same 1-inch foam idea… but with the front and back cut out of a single piece. The head was then put on later. Jeni stitched the two together, and added full length zips – one going up the middle of the back, and one going down the full length of the right leg (think kid’s footie pajamas). Getting in and out was tight!

The head was a big dome (topping out the costume at around 8 feet tall), then we used white material with a pie pan and some more foam (shaped into an eye-ish shape!) for the all-important eye. Swathes of red spandexy material covered the entire costume. And then the dots were cut out of the top of plastic water bottles.

I don’t think I’ve known a person drink so much fizzy water, but needs must, so Jeni dutifully drank 32 bottles in just over a week. Each top was cut off and then covered in more of the red spandex and held with rubber bands on the back. These were hot-glued into place on the morning of the parade… actually took longer than I anticipated because with the lump of material on the back of each bump, it was like gluing a jack-in-the-box down.

Added the teeth and the mesh for the mouth (where I would eventually see out of) and we were ready.

In a last minute test, I found that we’d probably need a way to hold the head up straight, so I modified a t-shirt to support a broomstick on my back, which then went up into the head to support it. Not exactly comfortable, but it did the trick… nothing that duct tape and ingenuity can’t fix.

Family photo relaxing after the parade. Jeni’s already taking orders for next year. No really!

Update… this one made us laugh – link to About.com’s Halloween 2010 pictures. Check out the caption on it:
“This Sock Monkey was the cutest Halloween creature of the evening. His pal Muno of Yo Gabba Gabba! fame was also pretty darn cute. Their other friend appeared to be dressed as an adorable hay bale”.

Also, check out Jeni’s website that has the knitting patterns for the sock monkey and a whole load of other knit-tastic stuff for sale!

International Photography Awards 2010

Tim — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 03:26:56 +0000

I arrived home the other night to a flat-pack envelope…. interesting… unless con-ed have upgraded their billing notifications, I thought it was probably something worth opening!

I was pretty chuffed to find out that my series of Patagonia images (of the Perito Moreno Glacier) in Argentina was awarded 2nd place in the ‘Travel and Tourism’ category of the IPA 2010. I entered the International Photography Awards the year before also, and managed to get an honorable mention for my photo of the County Hall in London. The series of images selected are shown below:

The Perito Moreno series was a selection of photos that I took at the end of last year while traveling around Patagonia in Argentina. Truly incredible place, and I still find myself looking at the images and reminiscing! All the images were made with a tilt-shift 45mm lens which I took on the trip along with a Canon 24-70mm lens.

The Winners Gallery for 2010 is definitely worth a look through – some more great images in there. To find the Patagonia series, head down the very bottom of the page, under the Travel and Tourism category. Or you can shortcut directly to the Perito Moreno Series page.

I hunted around in the envelope for an Oscar-like statuette too, but sadly it looks like the 2nd placers don’t get one. Maybe next year…

For a detailed look at all the images in the series, check out my blog post on the Patagonia Gallery of Images, which has links to posts about the background to each photo, and some random facts about blue ice!

I also managed to pick up a few Honorable mentions this year – with Park Avenue Rain, Perito Moreno Glacier Trek, and La Recoleta Cemetery.

A big THANKS! to the judges for picking out my images for a placement this year in the Travel and Tourism awards!