Christmas and New Years always seems to take up so much time! I will do a proper update with some new work later this week. For now here’s a picture of the recent snow fall in the Oxfordshire Downs, near Blewbury.

This is just a quick post to say I am back from the French Alps after a weeks snowboarding in mostly white-out conditions! Not the beautiful blue skies I enjoyed this time last year… I did improve my boarding a lot, but I think skiing is still the best way to keep your equipment out of harms way on the slopes! No damage done though, the weather sealing on the Canon 580EX MKII flash seemed to keep the snow out! Above is a quick shot of one the the lifts (70-200mm) at the top in a rare glimse of blue sky! I will post up some more of the shots from the week once I have finished editing them.

Yesterday I went on a trip up to London to see some galleries and a day out with the family. Didn’t take many photos, but here are a couple I did take. This second-hand book shop was under one of the bridges on the river Thames.

The main thing I went to see in London was the Annie Leibowitz exhibition at the National Portrait gallery. I had slightly mixed feelings about the show, on the one hand there were some amazing photographs, my personal favourite being the White Stripes. There were also a lot of personal photograph randomly mixed in too, I know it was supposed to show her life as a photographer but I felt it detracted from the really stunning photographs in there. I am not claiming to be an art critic, but thats just what stuck in my mind about the show.

I also went to the Tate Modern, and my personal favourite gallery space in London, The National Theatre. There is always something good on display in the foyer, and it is free to view.

I usually don’t take shots when I go to the usual sites around London, always feels like it has been done before. But I figured I would just snap away like a tourist anyway! I just rested the camera on a wall on the riverbank and did some long exposures.

I really loved the lighting this bridge had, and how it showed up on the pebbles. I would like to go back there and shoot some people/portraits there in the future.

If you look carefully on the left of this shot you can see one of the most important and influential features of London; the Southbank skate spot. I have never actually ridden it, but I have walked past it many times and wished I had my bike with me. The security guard on this side was paying no attention to the skaters, not quite sure what he was protecting, but it made for an interesting shot.

I heard there were plans to build yet more coffee shops over Southbank, but luckily someone had some sense and realised that a legendary skate spot, which has formed one of the most influenical cultures was more important than yet another big corparate coffee house…

After finishing a job last week I noticed how big and bright the moon was, so got out the 70-200mm and put a 1.4x tele-extender on it and this was the result. I had never really looked at the moon in much detail before that, but it is pretty fascinating.

For anyone who is interested in how the shot was taken, this was shot hand held at ISO 100, F/11 and 1/100 of a second exposure at 280mm on a Canon 40D. If you put the camera on burst mode and have a steady hand it is pretty easy to get a blur free exposure. Always interesting to shoot something a little different!