Don’t Walk & Timberland

Abi: I have been listening to PJ Harveys album Stories from the City, Stories from the sea a lot lately. She is one of my favourite artists of all time and the reason I mention her here is because this image puts me in mind of the cover image of this album.

I have been thinking for a while that I would like to try to recreate this photo and part of the reason I was out and about at 10pm was to find a suitable spot to shoot it. I am not very good at night-time photography.

It is more due to the fact that I have had little experience and rarely seem to find the time to actually go out at night to take pictures. Knowing I would be returning home after dark this evening, I deliberately took my camera along with me.

I would like to say that this is NOT the image I had in mind. I wanted something involving Bristol Cathedral, or College Green. I even wandered along to the Planetarium and messed about with some light reflection on the water. Nothing worked.

There are loads and loads of great photo opportunities that the night time affords us but for some reason they were all proving elusive. Then PJ came on my ipod and I knew what i was after. The whole waterfront area in Bristol is a riot of coloured lights and reflections at night time and I like how it is a place of beauty in the middle of a city.

Seb and I don’t discuss our ideas for individual photos, unless we are collaborating on a portrait idea so I like the tenuous shoe/walk/don’t walk reference here.

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Seb: My trusty boots!

When I was at school, back when all the cool kids were wearing Quiksilver and Billabong apparel, I longed for something equally cool and fashionable (and expensive). You see, I flirted with Quiksilver but despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t fit in with a bunch of 5-foot-nothing skater friends. I was 6′5″ (196cm). They were stocky and thuggish. I was tall and… well, not very cool-looking.

So I decided I would have Timberland boots. Because they were mega cool! And expensive! Too expensive, as it happened — my mother refused to buy them for me.

I had to wait YEARS until I finally got a pair — and I had to buy them with my own money (seriously, £180 is too much for a pair of boots — but they don’t make many pairs that fit my feet) — BUT… (Jesus, this is a ramble), I’m still wearing them! I don’t know how old they are, but they at least 5 years old… I think nearer 8…

Proof that they were worth the investment, or that I just don’t leave the house enough… I’m not sure.
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Long-haired lover

As always, I’ve been lumped with writing the description. I think she’s too busy combing her long hair, hugging trees and popping tabs of LSD — all at the same time.

This is obviously a homage to a very famous photo of a very famous couple. We’d like to state authoritatively that this is not a ‘moments after the arranged marriage went horribly wrong’ photo, despite what it may look like. Also, due to time constraints, I was unable to cultivate a beard as long or as messianic as John’s.

Abi, in a rare moment of lucidity, would like to add that the naked-Lennon-in-the-fetal-position photo was her preferred homage, but that Seb was ultimately a ‘boring old fart’ — so we had to settle for looking disillusioned under a duvet.

Still, it came out rather well, no?

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If you want some juicy Flickr comments, hit Abi’s or Seb’s stream.

You call that a knife? & The One with the Birthday

Seb: Despite its appearance, this is not in actual fact a homage to Crocodile Dundee. Well, OK, it is — I frickin’ love Dundee! — but that’s not the back-story for this photo! This one’s all about exploration.

Most people call it travelling — I call it exploring. Travelling describes the movements between places, not the actual adventure that occurs once you get there — that’s exploration. Discovering new ideas and new cultures — boiling those down into new ways of thinking. I love it. Can’t get enough of it.

This year I’m planning to go to either east Asia or Africa — and probably before the end of 52 Weeks! — so if you’re lucky, you might get a series of photos in the coming weeks:  ’Seb goes to get waterproof underwear’, ‘Seb goes to get his malaria and yellow fever vaccinations’, ‘Seb reads up on genocidal maniacs of Sub-Saharan Africa…’

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Abi: It was my Birthday this week, which means this picture is fairly self explanatory. I didn’t really have a big celebration or anything but I did get to eat several cakes and see a few friends, which is always nice.

Incidentally this cupcake is from the stall that is to be found on a Wednesday at St Nicholas Market on Corn Street (Bristol). The lady also has a stall every fortnight at the Tobacco Factory Market in Bedminster, if you should care to pop along. Tell her Abi sent you.

I know that this is the second cake photo I have posted in this project and the last of a series on my Flickrstream. What can I say? I’m a fat kid.

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Seat of Global Domination & Mission Control (much larger version)

Abi: Don’t you think it is weird when you finally see the place where someone you only know online spends most of their time talking to you from? I do. For a social interaction it is incredibly solitary, we can spend hours of our time in someone’s company yet never see into their world. So when you do it can be a very strange experience indeed.

I’ve just moved house so my “Seat of Global Domination” is in fact my bed. This explains the lack of “keepsakes” and clutter on show here. I do have a lot of interesting stuff that usually surrounds my desk area but that is all still in boxes as my possessions gradually find their homes. It’s all about the essentials, baby.

P.S. That old Swiss phone dates back to wartime and is fully functional and my favourite household item ever. I basically stole it from the house I shared with an ex boyfriend and I am so glad I did.

The yellow hat was knitted for me by a friend.

The t shirt was stolen from a boy, then shrunk to fit me. I have about 20 striped t shirts of various descriptions and this is by far my favourite.

I wear kneesocks almost everyday. You just can’t always see them.

I cannot function without the Internet.

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Seb: Welcome to my office! When we moved in 12 years ago, I was already too tall to fit under normal desks. So my dad nailed this piece of wood between my two cupboards and voilá! A desk!

The angle of the photo makes everything look so small! The desk is actually about 2 meters long. At one stage I had a fourth monitor, but it really was too tight a fit — there was no space for all the useless shit (or ‘clutter’ as Abi calls it, pfft!) that surrounds me.

I could talk for ever about the significance of everything in this photo — I only keep significant keepsakes! — but I’d probably bore you. Feel free to ask if something in particular piques your interest though!

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Ta’da & Snow Drama

Seb: Believe it or not, it’s 4:15am in this photo. That’s not dawn either — that’s light from a city about 10 miles away. The colour itself is light pollution I think (though remember, this is long-exposure, so it wasn’t THAT orange, but definitely a bit orange). Look how still I held my arms for 30 seconds! (I’ve had a lot of practice over the years…)

I’ve been waiting all week for the perfect conditions for this photo. I bet you’ve never seen a landscape like this before… and neither have I!

The snow continued after this photo, and we’re currently under about a foot (30cm) of snow. There’s been snow on the ground for two weeks now — the coldest and snowiest winter in history I think, or certainly since I was born. And get this, our heating is broken because oil doesn’t flow well when it’s cold. Wonderful.

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Abi: Whenever I look at this I am forcibly reminded of one of those Greenpeace ads involving a clubbed baby seal. Maybe it is the Panda hat, it gets a fair bit of attention and not in a good way.

Anyway, as you may have gathered, the UK is experiencing conditions which we as a nation are simply not equipped to deal with. Our transatlantic chums must bear in mind that when it snows, or excessively rains, or gets a bit warmer than we were expecting, our entire country grinds to a halt.

We simply don’t get much practice in dealing with any extreme weather and so, when it does happen, we either pretend it is not happening or battle on with the kind of camaraderie last seen during the war years. That’s what we Brits do, we queue and PANIC BUY.

The original concept for this shot did not involve me at all. Put simply, my friend flatly refused to lie in the snow for any length of time which is why I ended up doing it. This project may just kill me yet.

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For smaller versions, but with the addition of usually-hilarious comments on Flickr, click the photos.

Out with the Old & Puddle of ink

Abi: I have to admit, the days immediately following New Year always make me laugh to myself. It never ceases to amuse me how suddenly, we are all expected to snap back into shape, like whippets after the festive season and then spend the rest of January feeling bad about it.

The New Year is also an opportunity to clear out, replace and take stock of the things that perhaps no longer feel right to us. Like Children, we outgrow our toys as our lives become busier and our worlds expand.

I saw this heap of bin bags outside the charity shop on my way into the city. By the looks of things, someone had had a damn good rummage through as they were all open like this when I found them. It made me a little sad to see that someone had so obviously outgrown the things that perhaps a year before had given them such joy only to be replaced by something better, newer, more expensive.

And if that is not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.

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Seb: You have to try and guess what it is!

So, a few days ago, on New Year’s Eve, it was a full moon. It was actually a blue moon — the second moon in a calendar month — AND… get this… there was also a partial lunar eclipse. If you’re a landscape photographer and itching to do more night-time photography, such conditions are more than enough to a photographer like me, er, aroused

… (if I didn’t think my sister could see this, I’d insert a whole paragraph about the physical excitement photography elicits in me) ..

But get this, the moon was TOO HIGH IN THE SKY. So it was basically impossible to do anything with. Bah.

This photo was taken about 3 minutes before Big Ben tolled in the new year. It’s more of a proof of concept than anything else. I took photos like this back at college, when I was 16. I want to do some more!

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Clicking either image will send you to Flickr, where comments, notes and tags abound.

The Lunatics of London & The greatest thing

Seb: We actually sent this out as a Christmas card this year.

We were kind of fed up with those happy-all-smiles Christmas cards that some families send out.

We like to keep it real, yo. We’re a true, tight-knit family, full of love and affection for each other.

(Thought I’d show you my pointy teeth that I’ve alluded to a few times, too… I told you they were scary.)

I’ll spend this week ‘reviewing’ the year of 2009, on my personal blog — and next week, week 19, will chime in 2010! Fireworks are called for…

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Abi: One thing I have learnt about Seb is that he hates lack of context. He demands context to what I say like a big, hairy demandy thing and gets rather upset if it is not supplied. If I am honest, half the time I simply am not capable of finding words to describe everything that is going on with me.

But I am learning, It’s not like one day I am going to turn around and announce “Seb, I bestow you the gift of CONTEXT” because you can’t change the way you are just like that.

I love being able to start again.
I love that we had snow this year.
I love my friends.
I love 2010 already, and I’m not even there yet.

I hope you had a good Christmas.

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Click either image for an extra dose of Christmas, festive cheer. Just kidding — it’ll just take you to our Flickr streams.

The Thing & Footsteps will guide you home

Seb: If you didn’t know already: it snowed in England this week! Not just a couple of centimetres either — PROPER snow. Like as much as TEN centimetres in some parts!

We only got about 5cm here, but in other parts of the country (Abi’s?) I think they had a lot more. Either way, more than 1cm of snow in England always immediately triggers two things a) the shutting down of all offices, schools and amenities — the entire country shuts down, basically — and b) it’s time to PLAY!

We Brits don’t play as much as other people. I don’t know why. I guess we’re a bit boring… But snow is one of the few universal times when almost everyone (other than the oldies) goes out to play.

Of course, me being me, I grabbed my camera and avoided the kiddies that might damage my lens.

What you see here is part of our garden, at around 1am. It’s pretty damn creepy. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow on my blog — it’s straight out of the camera, believe it or not.

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Abi: We never used to get snow at this time of year at all. I remember wishing for it year after year as a child but growing up by the sea, hard frost was as wintry as it got. I took this a day or two before I left my friend’s house, on the same day I took most of the other snow shots in my stream and found that this rather quiet image was by far my favourite. Snowfall exposes the paths we tread and I love seeing vast carpets of virgin snow over the fields. Even though it reminds me of that tragic scene at the end of The Snowman.

Incidentally Seb’s view on this one involved something poetic about my new start. He feels ‘the hopefulness of the footprints in week 17, representative of Neil Armstrong’s footsteps… represent the turning point…’ — he actually said that, I lifted it right out of the MSN chat window. I suppose when you look at it like that it’s kind of fitting.

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Roses & Satsuma; The Crystal Meth of Christmas

Seb: And so we’re into the festive season! But I seem to have missed the holly berries… or they’re still to come — I don’t know. Either way, this lone soldier of a rose hip was all I could find that reminded me of holly berries and cranberries and red currants — all that kind of… reddy festive stuff.

The background… well… let’s just say I’ve been working on my bokeh technique. It was very tempting to closely crop it somewhere on the left, because the right side is a little distracting, but I’ve left it as-is, straight out of the camera.

I’ve finally worked up the courage to do some people photography (or photography-of-people, I have no idea). I guess you could call it portraiture, but that’s not really my thing. Sounds too formal. Hopefully I’ll have some results to show you next week… unless I bottle it at the last moment, which is possible…

Abi: Argh, I LOVE Satsumas. If I had my way I would spend the whole month of December buried under an avalanche of orange peel. I don’t know what it is about these little guys, what it is about them that makes me want to eat ten in one sitting then look forlornly at the fruit bowl as if to say “why did I not buy another net?”.

I know they won’t be available for very long, and so I must eat my annual quota in one go, lest I risk vitamin C deficiency for the remaining months of the year. Scurvy is no laughing matter Kids!

Blue Skirts & Doggie Style

Seb: Finally, a return to stage photography! Unless you’ve looked through the archives, you probably haven’t seen any of my theatre photography — maybe a little live music stuff from the Faroe Islands, but I think that’s it.

I should probably just tell you now… stage photography really is my favourite kind of photography. The lights, the acting, the actors — they all combine into such a dynamic, aesthetic canvas. I long to take more photos like these; I think I’m good at it… so now if only someone would hire me…!

This photo itself isn’t perfect — the composition is way off. But I chose it for this week’s photo because it tells a fun story. And because of the hair — look at the HAIR! The colour is delicious, as are the facial expressions. Look at those two perfectly bent arms in the top right corner!

Anyway! That’s enough gushing for now. There will be more photos tomorrow from the same show.

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Abi: I did have another shot planned for this week, I’ve been in London and all the Christmas lights are up and its all pretty but kind of melancholy, as it can so often be in cities at Christmas. However, all plans went out of the window when I met this little guy sitting outside Chelsea Town Hall waiting patiently for his master to come back.

If I were in the practice of canine theft he would have come home with me, but as it is I just had to settle for a photo. My friend Chris will testify that he was doing the best loyal, beseeching look which I think I managed to capture quite well. And now I really want a dog.

Woah, week 15. Every week we go through the same dance, I appear on Sunday evening only for Seb to pop up and harass me for not writing my weekly blurb. Sometimes he makes me want to kick something, he really does.
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