I am fascinated by Leake Street, off Lower Marsh in Waterloo.  You can stroll through everyday and see some new work or someone in the process of painting over another’s.  I met a guy, in the midst of creating is art, from Australia who came over here to paint and a guy from France who came and was just finishing his.  They were both beautiful and creative.

Lately though the artists have been far and few and mostly what is displayed now is gang tagging(definitely not art!).  Makes me wonder about graffiti culture.  I asked the Australian if he minded that is labours are soon defiled and gone.  His answer was levelled and honest, simply “Nah”.

My main camera is the Hasselblad 503, a film camera, but recently I’ve become a bit tired with the format so now digital is taking pride of place in my kit.  This is an image I shot last week, with my 5D digital camera, at Abney Park in Stoke Newington.  It’s a combination of 5 exposures and the colour was done in Lightroom.    I’m going to be adding select HDR images to the London at Dawn:2012 book.  If you like this image please retweet it.  Would be great to see it get around the net.  It’s a good size to make desktop wallpaper with, so if you like pretty cemetaries this image is for you!

Anthony

A lot has changed in photographic technology since 2002 when London at Dawn was first published.  I was thinking that the new updated book should reflect those changes.  Digital photography is awesome.  I love the kit, the quickness and the low cost of shooting.  Great stuff!  I was thinking of adding images made with High Dynamic Range(HDR), like the one above, to my upcoming re-release of London at Dawn, due out in June of this year(I still shoot mostly on film).  What do you think? Should I or not?

I promise more feel good photos (even cemeteries can be feel good!) to come this year, so clear those puppy pics off your desktop and make room for great London images.  They will inspire you to have a good day when your out in the hustle and bustle!

Hi All!

Two good things to report this week.  Firstly, my next London at Dawn
workshop is June 18th and 19th. It’s going to be a small group
wandering the dawn and early morning London streets creating amazing
images. It’ll be a huge dose of information and inspiration!  (The workshops have been huge fun and the feedback from the participants is just what an ego needs…once in awhile anyway.  Moving on.)

Joining me as usual is Nick Mortimore, Black Cabbie & tour guide who will show the hidden secrets of our city. We’ll be hitting St Paul’s, Postman’s
Park, Millennium Bridge, the Gherkin and finishing up with breakfast a
Spitalfields Market and that’s just the first morning!  We’d love for you
to join us – and please tell your friends!

Last week I was in California, my home state, and had a fantastic time

going out with my nine-year old nephew and his dad for some Dawn
shooting. They were awesome, especially the kid – didn’t yawn once, dad and me… plenty. Aidan rocks!
This is the first photo from the morning near the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s an HDR(high dynamic range) image and so much fun to do.

Have a fantastic week all.

I’ve been up at 0430hrs every morning, almost, wandering and exploring the city and loving it.  The weather hasn’t been great – there have been many grey mornings, but that is no excuse not to go out and try to get a shot.  When the sky is clear you can predict exactly what the effects of the rising sun will be, but when it’s cloudy it’s a gamble, and you can never tell if something spectacular will happen, a parting in the clouds with a sudden burst of rich colour stabbing through is always worth the wait and effort and that has happened twice this week.

I’m shooting 120 film with my Hasselblad so I won’t have any posts with Paris morning shots until I do a bit with the digital.  What I will do is post some non-morning photos from afternoon wanderings.

This shot has nothing to do with the dawn project.  It is just cool…I think.  What say you?

I’ll chalk this one up to my huge Ernst Haas influence.  Look him up, awesome stuff.

I was shooting at Tower Hill yesterday at dawn, not a great morning, but lots of potential (wisewords: patience is a quality and attribute for all photographers). I stood there looking across the river at the Shard (hard to look at anything else really, it makes South London look like a toy landscape) rubbing sleep of my face when, bingo, the pre-dawn twilight illumed the southern sky with rainbow pinks and reds and blues (is pink in the rainbow, googleit!) that lasted two minutes then back to basic grey. Worth the wait.

Anyway, that’s not the photo I’m posting today.  Todays photo is of a book in my bedroom…, the light on the book reflected off a mirror from the light streaming through nebulous curtains from a setting sun…it only lasted twenty seconds.

I wonder how many of you would have seen it.

Road Out of Nowhere

Haven’t had much time to shoot any new beautiful stuff  lately (funny how being a busy photographer I don’t have time to take a photo, funny?) no, but necessary at the moment; Dawn Workshops and Paris coming up and new tenants in Lower Marsh.

Anyhoo, here’s an old one but oozing with eye candy goodness…wait wait… that IS the sun, it’s back!!!

BTW, the Create London workshop Nick and I did was FANTASTIC!!

..some one pat me on the head please, very excited.

Yeah, and this is not a road to nowhere:where ever you are is where you are meant to be.

Once more thing, a new twitter account for me @citiesatdawn

With it you can follow my travels whilst shooting Cities At Dawn starting with Paris later this month!

All the best

The launch for the festival was last night at Broadgate Tower and I got to meet more of the awesome people at Create London who put it all together(the festival not the tower).

Here’s a rundown of the route:

Saturday-Tower Bridge-St.Katharines Dock-Wapping Pier Head-Execution Dock-Limehouse-Canary Wharf

Sunday -Victoria Park-Bethnal Green-Brick Lane-Whitechapel-Spitafields-Liverpool St.

Nick is very excited about this route due to all the grimy London history in the area.  If you’ve never walked the streets of London with a Black Cabbie(why would you?) then you can’t have any idea of the knowledge and passion involved. Chuffed mate!

Here’s a phone camera image I shot from floor 17 at Broadgate Tower.

A reflection of direct sunlight on the building made this wonderful effect

Hello Folks!

Two good things to report this week.  Firstly, my next London at Dawn
workshop is June 18th and 19th. It’s going to be a small group
wandering the dawn and early morning London streets creating amazing
images. It’ll be a huge dose of information and inspiration!  (The workshops have been huge fun and the feedback from the participants is just what an ego needs…once in awhile anyway.  Moving on.)

Joining me as usual is Nick Mortimore, Black Cabbie & tour guide who will show the hidden secrets of our city. We’ll be hitting St Paul’s, Postman’s
Park, Millennium Bridge, the Gherkin and finishing up with breakfast a
Spitalfields Market and that’s just the first morning!  We’d love for you
to join us – and please tell your friends!

Last week I was in California, my home state, and had a fantastic time

going out with my nine-year old nephew and his dad for some Dawn
shooting. They were awesome, especially the kid – didn’t yawn once, dad and me… plenty. Aidan rocks!
This is the first photo from the morning near the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s an HDR(high dynamic range) image and so much fun to do.

Have a fantastic week all.