One of the things I really enjoy about taking photos is the interesting locations you (sometimes) get to shoot at. I was asked to take some portraits for Merlin Entertainment on location at the London Eye, and it doesn’t get much better than that!

Each rotation takes about 25 minutes so I had to get setup, pose the group in various different configurations, and get group and individual photos all in that time. Added to that the desired background, the Houses Of Parliament would only be in shot for a fraction of that time…

From a technical perspective I knew that I would not really have time to set up a lot of lights inside the capsule, so I used on camera flash and a large foldaway silver reflector to illuminate the subjects against the background, this helped to separate them from the background.

Big thanks to Lauren for sorting this out!

Jeff Beck is one of my guitar heroes, so it was a pleasure to see him play in Oxford, he is one of those players who performs at least as well as he records and only recording what he is interested in… I would love to have seen him at a venue as small as Ronnie Scotts’s in Soho as he did so in 2008, yet it was still intimate at the New Theatre, Oxford despite the large stage size, almost adding to the feeling, no fancy stage backdrops, just two Marshall stack amps.

A combination of the endless, driving English rain and the fact I had to use up some hotel vouchers dictated that a trip abroad was needed. Barcelona seemed the obvious choice. so flights were hastily booked and Jib and I found ourselves on a flight to the bmx/skate mecca.

I had been to Barcelona only once before, back in college without my bike. So I was pretty excited to be finally taking a trip there with it. The number of spots is truly un-believable. Every street has a ledge or a bank or some other weird and wonderful feature.

This to me has to be the most iconic bmx spot in the world so I was pretty blown away to finally see it in person. The size and scale of them is mind blowing. Jib going mach 10 above.

We were staying  just round the corner from La Sagrada Famíli, pretty amazing place to wake up next to for a few days.

We visited Gaudi’s Park_Güell and the hill nearby has the most amazing view over Barcelona.

A man named Robert was playing steel slide blues on top of the hill in stark contrast to the romantic Spanish guitar music being played through-out the gardens nearby.

The Olympic park is one of the places I remember being stunned by last time I visited. This time the weather really put on a good show for us as day turned into night.

We had the place pretty much to ourselves minus a few local Spanish kids using it as a make-out spot. We had been dodging the rain all day, but this meant we got the Hollywood wet floor reflections and stormy picturesque skies for miles.

I am sure this photo has been taken 1000x times before but it really is a lovely piece of architecture.

As the sun set it was time to head back into town and find out what the night had in store.

The weekend was over and it was time to head back to reality minus my phone which had been pick pocketed. I knew it was sketchy out there, but I couldn’t believe just how bad it was…

Anyone who hasn’t been to Barcelona, whether they ride BMX or not should make the trip. Just be wary of the thieves… I knew it was bad, but believe the hype! A guy speaking in a British accent from Manchester distracted me and then some kids managed to get my phone out my pocket in a split second. Be safe!

I am  reading Live At the Brixton Academy: A riotous life in the music business, so it was well timed that I went to see French band Phoenix at the the Academy. Above Thomas Mars strays from the stage into the crowd.