London never ceases to amaze me – Richmond may not exactly be central London, but it’s part of Greater London, sits within the M25, is connected by both London Underground and Overground trains, and is part of the same bus network that serves Trafalgar Square and the London Eye. It’s only a five mile cycle ride from where I live – closer than the office!

And yet, there’s a great big whopping park, filled with woods, grasslands, ferns and plenty of wildlife – from flocks of bright green parakeets (not so native) to herds of red and fallow deer. Under the guide of Darren Hector, we took a route down from Pembroke Lodge to the ponds, back up round Sidmouth Wood to our starting point.

We didn’t see much rutting – I only witnessed one fight from afar – but there were deer aplenty, and lovely autumn colours as a backdrop.

This is my favourite shot of the day, a beautiful red deer taking a wander in the dying ferns before lying down for a nap – which you can see here on Flickr.

I have singularly failed actively to pursue this project. I may as well have set myself a 27-photo challenge, one for each EU member state. (Are we at 27? I think we are. Maybe 17, for the Eurozone – but better hurry…) Or 192, for each UN member. I digress.

Doing something new was what I wanted to achieve, but it was the challenge of actually getting out and travelling round that led me, I think, to failure. I had no purpose other than to go and take photos of something, and that purpose didn’t really make me jump out of my chair.

When I was home for Christmas in 2009, I did manage an early morning start to catch the sunrise at Britain’s most easterly point; I tied in an existing trip with a photographic goal. I tied a visit to the Isle of Wight with the goal of taking some great photos of splendid wooden boats at sea; I went on holiday and photographed common, garden birds feeding.

Sometimes we just need that extra little helping hand to meet our photographic challenges; setting goals that tie in with other activities is one of them.

The great series of photowalks run by PhotowalkLondon (of which I count myself part) takes us all over the city; maybe, if I can make sure I’m there on the last Saturday of every month, I’ll get my 32 boroughs after all.

This was the first PhotowalkLondon after the Summer recess, and although it wasn’t the best attended we’ve ever organised, I think in many ways it was pretty good. We set a list of 25 clues – some like ‘Wheel’ were there for creative interpretation, some like ‘All the world’s a stage’ were pointing to specific things – and off trundled the competitors. We’d had a good afternoon a few weeks ago coming up with the clues, and I think those who took part enjoyed solving and finding them.

The best image of the day was a joint award, but Darren and I both liked James’s entry for ‘Lunch’, with the reflected cobbles aligning perfectly with the stainless steel shelves.

The next walk is in Richmond Park on 29th October, and following walks will all take place on the last Saturday of each month. There’s a great programme ready up until April, and I’ll be leading a walk early next year, so keep an eye out for details. All walks are free to join, and come with a friendly bunch of photographers to show you around.

We’ve been on holiday in the North, and inbetween some lovely little canal walks and long cycle rides, I’ve been watching the wildlife in the garden. There’s a couple of feeders by the kitchen window, and while here we’ve seen:

• Jays
• Greenfinches
• Sparrows
• Pheasants
• Collared doves
• Blue tits
• Great tits
• Blackbirds
• A woodpecker…

I know, I’m not a student any more, so it was a bit cheeky of me to get asked to shoot the annual MODO show again. Still, I couldn’t exactly say no – and there were still a couple of people I know in it!

With the most outrageous designer from the past few years not showing anything, there was never going to be the same wow factor I used to expect, but there were still some amazing designs. As my girlfriend pointed out to me, many of the clothes this year were even sporting such features as linings – so the production values were certainly up from when she used to be in the show.

After a hiatus at the Russell Hotel last year, the show was back in the UCL cloisters, and, much to my relief, finally lit decently. In previous years I’ve had to time shots to when models moved into lit areas of the catwalk, and multi-model shots were hit and miss as to whether they were all lit or half dark.

This shot is part of ‘The Kate Middleton Collection’, which was also featured on BBC London news.

What makes this show unique is that UCL doesn’t do fashion degrees – all the designers and models are studying for academic qualifications. The show programme highlighted studies as diverse as PhD Greek, PhD Neuropsychology, Modern Languages and Archaeology.

As usual, you can see a greater selection on Flickr, and those of you lucky enough to know me on facebook can see every single outfit in a rather large album over there.

This is mainly a test post to check whether some changes I’ve made to the RSS feed have worked, but while you’re at it you can see some of the ingredients for a rather large meal I cooked to celebrate (belatedly) Valentine’s Day and me getting a job.

The five courses were:

• Grilled portabello mushrooms with stilton
• Moules marinieres
• Blood orange and vodka sorbet
• Cirtus braised lamb shank
• Individual treacle tarts

You can see them all in glorious technicolour on Flickr.

I may have mentioned PhotowalkLondon once or twice before…but this time we ventured slightly outside of the city, to the calm and peaceful Virginia Water.

This is ‘The Cascade’, an artificial waterfall at the corner of the rather large artificial lake built for the pleasure of the royals, some time ago. It’s not as peaceful as once it was, as there’s now a rather busy main road running near to it, but it’s still a little calmer than central London.

You can see more of my shots from the walk in this set on Flickr, and from others around the place – a search for #PhotowalkLondon on twitter might throw up a few images.

In other news, the task of organising the next event has fallen to me (I drew the short straw in the pub after!) – you can RSVP here for a boatride down the Thames. We’ll be hopping on and off the boat at each pier to see what we can see, ending up at the O2 for a quick drink…

It’s been a while since I posted – it’s been a while since I’ve really been out with the camera. The recent snowfall in London gave me a good excuse today, so here’s my favourite from those I took today.

I’ve taken plenty of snowy shots before, so took this little blue man with me to have some fun. He ended up doing all sorts of silly things, but making a snow angel was the best.

Enjoy – and merry Christmas to you all.

I’ve written here about fireworks before, and how easy it actually is to take photos of them, so I won’t repeat myself. (Although I must admit, standing on Blackfriars Bridge, I had to check my own site on my phone to remind myself – a little bit rusty after nearly a year since Ally Pally!)

The display was fantastic. No matter how many times I go to a display on the Thames (and in my 5th year of living in London now, I’ve been to a few), I always love how the noise of the explosions bounce off the buildings either side of the river, resulting in a quite heart-pounding experience.

I particularly like the reflections in this shot, not only the reds beneath the fireworks, but the other ones: a subtle purple streak from the National Theatre, and another smudge of red from the Oxo tower. Also, unlike later shots, there’s not too much smoke. Unfortunately for us on Blackfriars Bridge, the wind was somewhat towards us, meaning later shots aren’t quite as tidy.

I’ve just about recovered from my first all-night photowalk, organised by the lovely people at London Flickr Meetups. We started off just before sunset on Saturday night, going all the way through to sunrise the next morning. It’s an annual event to coincide roughly with the shortest night, the summer solstice on 21 June.

There were about 15 of us who started off near Tower Bridge to catch the sun going down around quarter to nine, and after that we headed through London – up over London Bridge to Monument, St Paul’s, along Fleet Street and up to Covent Garden, Leicester Square (where we stopped in the early hours for some Chinese!), on through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, catching sunrise behind the London Eye from Westminster Bridge. By that time – sunrise was scheduled for 4.42am – our group had come down to 12, but another (rival!) group joined us on the bridge instead of their original location once they realised they wouldn’t have time to get there.

Conditions weren’t perfect for either sunset or sunrise, with clouds just in the way, but I think we managed to get some decent shots regardless. (If in doubt, expose for 30 seconds and it’ll look great, was the lesson I learned on the walk!) You play the hand you’re dealt, I guess, even if it involves an ugly platform stationed in the middle of the Thames that wasn’t there when the walk organiser did his recce!

My thanks go to Adrian for organising the walk brilliantly – he’s got some brilliant shots from the night, and you can see everyone’s here. I’m already looking forward to next year!