I’ve always liked the unpredictable and abstract when it comes to pictures and photos so I made a pinhole lens cap for my Canon EOS 350D and the results are great. You have to use a long shutter speed of course usually between (2s and 10s depending on available light). The images have a eerie dreamlike quality to them and you can never really tell how they will turn out.
Go Ape!
Olly, Anna and myself went to Sherwood Pines today and had great fun!
And finally some film footage!
Ouch.
It took 3 hours to get round all of the course….so I feel I might be sore tomorrow!
“Remember Shakti” 29th March 2006 at The Sage, Newcastle
This was the second time I got to see one of my all time favourite musicians and influences and was even more amazed by the concert this time. The concert I saw before in 2004 was a lot more contemplative and mantra like whereas in this one they seemed to come out fighting from the off! Zakir Hussain gets a special note as the most extraordinary percussionist of any instrument or genre, he was stunning.
If you want to hear him play there is footage of him on You Tube (Not from the concert I went to)
About 5 mins in there's some great interplay between both percussionists then John takes a great solo.
It was like a comedy sketch for myself and friend Dan Martin who had to get from Derby up to Newcastle after finishing work at 5 o'clock, we made it with 20 mins spare! It made for a long night after getting back in the early hours but there was no way I was missing out on this special and probably last time I'll see John McLaughlin.
Mount Etna in Sicily 2005
The nearest thing to being on an alien planet! Truely remarkable, no birds no insects and no life at the top-just sulphurous steam coming through the rocks under your feet.
At over 3000m tall it takes car then cable car and then an off roader to get you to the top.
In my opinion it's perhaps one of the best things to see on Sicily which on the whole is an island that is showing signs of years of bad mafia control and a bad export trade situation due to increasingly cheap oranges and olives from northern Africa.
My only regret is that I didn't have a very big capacity card for my camera (Sony Cybershot) at the time so they were taken at a low resolution.
Enjoy.
Last gig with “Minted Lamb” AKA “Peppered Steak”
A gig we did last year which was the last time I played with Dave O'Higgins, what an honour to do so. Hopefully I'll get the chance again one day.
Is anyone any good at photoshop-ing chins out?
My guitars
A selection of photos taken a while ago which I am quite pleased with. They are closeups of my beautiful 1976 Ibanez Johnny Smith copy and my 80's Yamaha SA800.
These were taken with my tiny Sony DSC-L1 Cybershot.
