Big Tree

Another image from the beaches of Thailand, this time from Ko Bu Bu (a beautiful island off the coast of Ko Lanta) This giant twisted tree seemed like an interesting subject but even with a 16-35mm I couldn't fit the whole thing in the frame while sitting down - so I made a photostitch in photoshop from a sequence of 7 images.

I pulled up the detail in the shadows in the RAW first before polarizing the sky and dropping the whole lot into Photoshop to stitch it together.

Island Wildlife

I didnt really get much in the way of wildlife (apart from the mosquitoes that mercilessly bit my legs and arms! I seem to be particularly susceptible, But there were a few creatures to be captured on the beaches..

White Sands

Thailand felt like a tricky place to photograph from a landscape point of view, everything looks too small.. I spent most of my time on beaches, some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in fact but they are hard to capture unless you are about 3 meters out to sea or in a helicopter hovering above them. Nonetheless I have taken some pictures which appear below, my consultancy work has been pretty intense these last few weeks and as such I have been a bit lax in getting this stuff online (I still have a bucket of 5D Mk2 video to edit!)

Rural Thailand

I have been away again! this time to Thailand.The first images are going to be from the southern peninsular in Ko Lanta. While the west of Ko Lanta is a tourist location (popular with the Swedes for some reason...) the east of the island is inhabited by native Thai's and is very much a rural community, there is a small town and a Sea Gypsy village but little else aside from houses and huts on the roadside and in the jungle. I will be publishing a variety of images from Thailand - these first are a sort of brief Travel essay on the rural community and have been stylised with a rough bleach bypass to reflect the blinding brightness of the coast.

Last Pictures from Berlin

I'll finish off my wintery time in Berlin with two famous landmarks of the city:
















I have a real soft spot for Chalottenburg Palace - its a really beautiful building and I once spent a summers evening listening to the most incredible classical music concert in the upper hall. The only minor disappointment about this time (my third visit to the palace) was the usually stunning rear gardens were a bland sea of white owing to the snow fall.














Everyone loves Brandenburg Gate, it starts a great trail of architecture that I didn't have time to see this time that stretches across a mile or so of parks, something better saved for the summer when the winds not so bitter.

Holocaust Memorial

A beautifully modern monument to the victims of the Holocaust lies in the centre of Berlin to the south of the tourist trap of Brandenburg Gate, its tomb-like concrete chunks consuming a whole city-block.






















Each of exactly the same dimensions, but of varying heights, the 2,711 slabs invite the viewer into a maze that culminates in an underground museum dedicated to the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Russian Pancake Festival

As a break from the Berlin stuff I am posting some pictures from the Russian Culture Festival in London. The main event was held in Potter Fields next to London Bridge with some theatre for children a little further west on the river, the main stage was host to a variety of Russian musical acts from Pop to Folk and there were a few vans serving pancakes and churros.

































I'm a bit sketchy on the names but apparently these two are pretty popular in Russia, the guy is big in Moscow and it was his first trip to London - I must admit he was a good singer but incredibly cheesy... There was entertainment for the children which went on all day, here is a bizarre play about an old lady teaching where milk and eggs come from:













It was very well attended with an almost entirely Russian crowd, cheering and singing along to the songs - I only stayed a short while as it was pretty cold on the riverside but it was great to see a slice of another culture for the afternoon.