Kings Lynn; Bored, underground and no shoes.

Some photos sit on my computer just waiting for me to share, blog, upload to Flickr etc, some wait longer than others.
I really need to get back in to blogging, ive got events from the start of the year and a wedding from September amongst others to share.

September 14th was Heritage Day and I, accompanied by my wife went to see what was around Kings Lynn.

I was mostly (you can read only) interested in the Air raid shelters that had been uncovered and made accessible for viewing to the public underneath the Tuesday Market Place.

There was a long queue that I had to wait in and a small set of very steep and narrow stairs to descend but once underground although bare it was surprising how large the tunnels were; apparently they could hold a couple of hundred people during crises.

Obviously they were very dark, so high ISO was needed; ISO 2000 to make a hand held shot.

Nice and grimy

Above ground there was a car show, I didn't take any photographs of cars but I did take 1 photograph of one Ladies experience of it.

Bored!

And finally, this also chuckled me.

Why no shoes?

Never Despair; Street Photography and Street Art, Norwich, December.

Another day, another month, another trip to Norwich, another blog post.

I continue to love street art and Norwich is full of it from Tags to stickers galore.

It was a shopping trip so there wasn't much time to go looking for it but these are some of my favourite pieces from the day just because they were simple and in good locations for including people in the shots.

 

Hello

We had time to stop for food though, never had complimentary popcorn before dinner but it was good!

 

Thanks for looking.

Wisbech; a strange place 2 - A man in the bin

Ok lets start with my greatest street photography find yet;

The man in the bin!





I really like street photography; walking around with my camera poised ready to find something quirky going on in everyday life. This was my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I couldn't believe walking past the museum in Wisbech and seeing this guy's head through the opening of the bin. It was a time where I was so excited to be out with my camera. This guy was so engrossed in his phone call and his roll ups that he didn't see me standing there taking pictures of him.

Who is this guy?
Who's he talking to?

Other street photography from the afternoon were too some good finds;

When finding a sign saying 'walk' you just have to wait for someone to walk past!

Job done.

Another man, another bin, another phone or 2.

This man has no face.

I personally like Wisbech; lots of fond memories of making music with school friends and a couple of years later drinking there with my mate Lee.

However the place does have a reputation for being rough (put politely). The textures, the grime, the rubbish bags, the bins, the weeds, the litter; all help to convey this dowdy image.

I was also hoping to carry on my theme of alleyways, I knew the Crescent in Wisbech would provide some of these.

 

I love the distortion from the fisheye lens

While walking around I found another piece of Penguin street art matching what I had found previously in another part of town, I wonder if anyone knows of anymore?

 

There was a cat stalking the penguin, it must be hungry.

 

 

Even the local council and PCSO are interested in up and coming local artists.

 

 

I walked down Norfolk Street; a tight and very busy road full of kebab shops and European stores to name a few. Safe to say there will always be something to take a photo of.

 

Shot from the hip, im sure he knew what I was up to.

Near Norfolk Street is St Peters Church; in the grounds are this bench and flower beds.





 

Contrast of alive and dead.

On the other side of the market place/town centre are numerous great little alley ways which will be worth a further visit sometime.


Im hoping in the next few weeks to visit a city, I aim for more street and building/architecture photography.

 

Thanks for looking.

Alleys and streets of Kings Lynn.

I love narrow alleyways and cobbled streets from yester year.

I really enjoy walking around towns looking for old streets, walls, patterns, interesting scenes for street photography, you name it I like taking photos of it.

Having a small camera with full manual controls that I can fit in my pocket, ok large coat pocket but a pocket none the less, really opens up opportunities for photography as I can always carry a camera with little effort.

Laura and I go to Kings Lynn most Saturdays to have a look around the shops usually followed by a burger and pint at The Globe............mmmm Beer Burger!

So usually walking from or back to the car I go on a detour looking for things to shoot.

There's some really old buildings in Kings Lynn which have some great details and textures, the weather has turned recently into Autumn/Winter mode which helps with my grimy dark style of images.

Devil's Alley has some old story about the Devils footprint being seen there back in the day, believe what you like it makes for good photography.

 

 

 

Around this part of Lynn all the houses have old wooden style doors.

 

 

On a particularly wet day I was lucky enough to see this rainbow reflected in a puddle the size of a small lake. There was a wedding party close by, if only the photographer new about the rainbow he would of got some great photos, you snooze you lose, im afraid.

 

 

 

Down a alley close to the Globe Hotel is the Ferry Port, I caught these people waiting for the ferry to arrive; it made for a great photo due to the storm clouds in the background.

 

And this is what was behind me; nice and dark.

 

 

 

Coming soon are photos taken in the old alleys behind the Crescent in Wisbech and street photography taken around Wisbech including a man in a bin!

Pigs dont fly, breakdancers do!!!

This is possibly the greatest shoot I have ever done.

That's not to say that I'm not proud of my wedding shoots, family shoots etc or even things that I like to photograph as part of this awesome hobby.

I grew up with Chris, he was my best mate for years. He attended an after school dance group and from there went off to study dance (I'm sure it had a better or more prestigious name) for further education.

After he told me via Facebook that he was back in the village for a short while I new I had to get some shots of him dancing. From the get go, I had the vision of freezing him mid air during a flip, well that's a tick on the check list.

Shots were a balance of ambient light coming from the evening and night sky and artificial light from speedlite flash guns.

Here I will admit that the shots are not perfect; unwanted shadows, composition woes, underexposure for starters. However, Im still incredibly chuffed with the shots.

Shadows are difficult to manage considering the subject is forever moving, there's nothing stopping a leg or arm from blocking the face when breaking.

Focusing and following a moving dancer in near dark is difficult, the only time I know I have a good shot is when I take the shot and the flash's light the scene.

Exposure, well it gets dark quickly, and so I was forever playing with the lights to adjust power.

I would really like to do another shoot like this, not only cause the shots are cool, id also like to do it for practice alone; so many settings to perfect. I love the technical stuff.

Kings Lynn on a windy night in October

Another shoot around Kings Lynn at night.

Kings Lynn has a lot to offer when it comes to photography, especially old buildings and narrow streets.

That's what I was going for on this night.

It was a windy and wet day though which is never good for long exposures as you watch the camera shake around on the tripod during a 20 second shot.

So each shot took a couple of takes waiting for the wind to take a break.

I used small apertures, around f/11 to f/14 to achieve starbursts from the street lights.

In hindsight I should of shaded the lens a little more with my hands to prevent lens flare, however I had my hands in my pockets as they were cold....I've got to look after number 1 after all.

Black and white, as per usual was the way to go.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome Circus

Long time no see!

Here's the final instalment of what we got up to when we had a few days off.

Laura and I have been talking about going to the Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth for years, so this time during our stay in Yarmouth we went.

The building itself was completed in 1903 and has been used as circus ever since but also at times is used as a theatre, cinema and during the war it was a shooting range (I do hope they were blind folded).

We went to the 2pm showing and it was pretty awesome with all sorts of entertainment from acrobatics, motorcycles, slapstick and swimming amongst contraptions of all varieties being used including a revolving ???thingy???.

During such performances lighting is sparse, usually the stage is dark and is lit only by spotlights. So available light for photography is poor but if your clever the spotlights can be a photographers best friend; the subject stands out from the dark background.

I used my favourite combination of equipment on this day; my 5Dmkiii and Sigma 70-200. High ISO; mostly ISO1600 and large apertures; f/2.8 and f/4 where used to gather as much light as possible. It was a real balance of settings in order to let in light but still get sharp hand held shots in the dark.

 

If your ever in their neck of the woods I thoroughly recommend catching a show. Well worth the money. http://www.hippodromecircus.co.uk/index.html

Lots of blogs coming up soon as I've been a very busy boy.

Loving photography right now.