I didn’t have time to finish yesterday’s story of hellish automobile disaster, so instead you get some pretty photos to look at.

This is just to prove that I am capable of portrait photography and not just pretty landscapes! (And if you haven’t bought one of my Faroese photo prints yet, why not?)

First up, one in colour:

And now a close-up of his eye, because you can see me and the reflection of his arm, which is pretty neat:

And finally, two black and whites of a kid that’s waaaay too photogenic:

Can you make out ‘Ray Ban’ on his glasses? Damn poser.

But the t-shirt makes up for it:

Still trying to catch up with, like, everything. Yesterday I emptied my inbox; today I’m going to try and make some headway on Google Reader…

I’ve been slowly trawling my way through thousands of photos from the last month. Turning up some gems!

I could tell you about the expression she had on her face, but that’d spoil the mystery. Just look at that ELBOW! I just want to squidge it. And maybe gnaw a little. (Also, check top left corner — ‘you rack’, or ‘you rock’?)

Next, a couple of live music photos, something I haven’t done in a long time (not since university really — photos here). I was actually really good by the time university ended — and I also picked up tinnitus, an affliction that still haunts me today! But years of landscape photography have filled my life since university and the live music muscles have atrophied and grown slack.

These two are pretty damn cool though:

You can click either for larger versions — the second one is very dark, you will need to make sure your screen is calibrated correctly…! You have to be able to see his facial expression to fully appreciate the photo.

And now, for your education and mine, a black and white version of the same photo:

Which version do you prefer? And for bonus points, why?

This entry was almost a deep-and-meaningful — I woke up with a start this morning with a deep, poignant phrase repeating itself over and over in my head — but after some reflection, I think I’ll wait for Monday. I need a little more time to turn it over; to taste it. Now if only I could remember the dream that obviously shook me enough to wake me up! Maybe this is what they call a ‘Eureka!’ moment…

So I’m not quite through with the photos from the G! Festival in the Faroes. Yesterday I started with a handful of great photos and today I’ll finish up with some more!

(The beautiful dawn photo is at the end.)

This is Frændur, some kind of ‘Faroese legend’ as far as music goes. They’re from the 80s and totally Faroese — don’t feel bad for never having heard of them!

Hogni again! Looks better full-size, but I think you can appreciate the feeling. I love the illuminated heads of the audience.

I think you’d have a hard time looking more iconic, more anthemic, more festival than this photo. I guess a candle is the new cigarette lighter. The armband was a beautiful bonus!

Better than my original Atlantic Dawn? I’m not sure. It’s beautiful for the rich fruitiness of the red and the highlighted clouds in the bottom left. Of course, my soft spot for pink might be skewing my opinion of it a little… but it is rather beautiful.

They’ll name a city after us & Easier than it looks

Abi: One thing that irks me about humans, is that some of us tend to think of things in terms of limitation as opposed to possibility. We think of millions of reasons why we can’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t. We devote so much time to this reasoning that we fall into a pattern and begin to apply this way of thinking to almost every element of our lives.

We limit and restrict ourselves to such a point that we forget to see, we forget how to feel and we no longer entertain the idea of letting go. We miss opportunities and let things slip through our fingers.

The second image in my 52 weeks collaboration with my dear Sebastian.

Partly inspired by his love of all things sky “They can make or break a landscape, Abi” (something I have not attempted to photograph before). And parly musing on the topic of greatness and potential.

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Seb: Obviously influenced by Abi’s 1 of  52, I’m being rather experimental here. I’m not a self-portrait master by any means — I don’t even have a remote for my camera!

So this is a 10-second dash and the hardest I’ve ever had to do. It’s REALLY hard to balance a blackberry on your nose when your camera is ticking down… Needless to say, getting the blackberry into the 1-centimetre plane of focus was also fairly difficult…

Why black and white? The colour version is actually quite nice but B/W made the blackberry pop right out. The incredibly-narrow depth of field is also a little distracting in the colour version. Incidentally, the larger version is well worth seeing, for the detail of my beard and the blackberry if nothing else!

(As a blog-only treat, here’s an outtake of the blackberry rolling off my face… I believe my mouth is starting to form the words ‘Oh shit’…)

Anyway, it’s now blustery and chilly here in the UK and I think the next few weeks will take a look at the beginnings of AUTUMN! (Fall, for you Americans.)

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Click the images to visit our Flickr streams. You can comment either here or there!

There’s a nasty problem that afflicts most artists. Some would say it isn’t a problem, some would say it’s merely ‘perfectionism’ or something, but the fact remains: artists tend to be very critical of their own work. I don’t necessarily mean that they HATE everything they produce, though some surely do. I mean that the artist judges his work very heavy-handedly. A painter might hate a portrait simply because they got an ear slightly wrong. A photographer might hate a landscape for being just slightly skewed. A singer might think their performance was awful because they hit one wrong note.

But in all actuality, to the audience — those that look at the paintings or photos, those that listen to the singer — it’s still a beautiful piece of art.

What I’m trying to say is that for every single photo you see of mine on this blog or on Flickr, there are probably 10 others that are great, but not good enough in my opinion. But the sad thing is, history has shown that more often than not, it’s those hated paintings, those paintings that ‘aren’t quite good enough’, that become famous.

Because the artist’s viewpoint is heavily biased. It’s like… you can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re so immersed in your own art that you never really get to stand back and appreciate it. You get to enjoy my art more than I do. How lame is that?!

Anyway…

So, because these photos are probably good, even though I don’t think they’re PERFECT, I thought I would share them with you. Scroll through them, there should be something for everyone! The ‘Sebby Landscapes’ are towards the end, if you don’t like PEOPLE photos.

(Click for a slightly larger version of the blonde guitarist — she’s blonde, can’t you tell?!)

(You probably recognise this kid from the ‘peace’ photo I took of him. A whole lot cuter in this one, eh?)

(Painting with light and smoke! Just an experiment… turned out better than I thought it would be!)

(Aw! There’s a better portrait of her, but it’s not public… so this one will have to do.)

(From one of our ‘invigorating’ walks in the Faroes. From the same ’session’ as my ‘meet my Faroese hosts‘ post.)

And FINALLY, an over-exposed-but-deliciously-blue-and-cerulean-and-cyan landscape from the east coast of the Faroes. You’ll recognise this landscape from this Faroes post.

The Leaf Ninja & ‘Yes, they’re real’

Seb: Oh, look, it’s a… a… er… SOMETHING! Hiding in the trees!

The original concept for this photo was to have me laying on the ground, my face covered in leaves, with just my eyes visible.

Turns out the big-leaf trees aren’t shedding yet. And covering a head the size of mine in beech leaves is pretty hard…

So I did the only thing a man can do in such a situation. I rubbed leaves into my hair and torso until I looked like a tree! I’m topless, but sadly you can’t see — you’ll have to trust me that I looked very ‘Tarzan’.

And ta’da… stealthy, leaf ninja!

The ‘look’ is meant to be kind of ‘I could kill you with just my thumbs.’

But Abi thinks it looks more ‘creepy stalker in the garden’. Hmpf.

If you’re bored with the tree theme: I have a feeling that next week will be wildly different.

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Abi: I remember seeing makeup similar to this on a fashion shoot a while ago and always think about it. This is a play on nature versus natural beauty and how we try to emulate what is natural, often by the most false and synthetic means.

Incidentally, my eyelashes are really quite freakishly long. They are the first thing people comment on when they meet me and probably the most commented upon aspect on all my flickr photos.

In the words of Sir Walter Scott: “What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.”

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Click the images to visit our Flickr streams. Feel free to comment here or there!

A collection of photos from a birthday party this weekend.

We descended upon the vaulted ceilings and croquet lawns of a large country house. We frolicked, drank tea and ate cake. And when the sun started doing down… well… that’s when things started to get crazy.

Note: you can click each photo to visit my Flickr stream. There are further details there, and some funny annotations.

More to follow… more balloons, and a cute little girl.

Wee-eee-eee… wee-um-a-way…

Imbube… imbube… imbube…

Last night, Eric, our blind cat, died. It was quick. He died at peace, asleep. Fourteen good, solid, there’s-a-good-cat, mouse-catching, rabbit-snarfling and pigeon-scaring years.

Earlier this year Mango, Eric’s sister, died. Eric himself is survived by his brother, Sammy, who is now the last surviving member of a very long line of beautiful cats that we’ve been lucky enough to rear or look after. Fourteen years is pretty good for a cat. I suppose I should tell you the story I’ve always avoided telling… because it’s sappy.

I’ve always referred to him as ‘the blind cat’ — but he hasn’t always been that way! Quite the opposite. For 13 years he enjoyed life to the max. But the funny thing is, we don’t even know what Eric did for nine of those years. He disappeared when he was just out of adolescence – we hadn’t neutered him, you see. We figured he’d run off, become one with nature, the woodlands, feral. Days, weeks, months passed — it was obvious he wasn’t coming back.

And then 3 years ago… he reappeared. First we saw fleeting glimpses of a cat that looked ‘a bit like Eric’ — but we assumed it couldn’t actually be him. He’s hardly unique in appearance. We figured it was just another cat. Then, after a few months of skulking about, he just wandered into my grandmother’s house next door… and sat. She fed him. He hung around. Eventually he came back to our house and settled back into his old home, as if he’d never left.

How crazy is that?

And crazier… someone had snipped his balls off. Eric had actually lived with another family for all those years. And then come back to us! What the hell. Maybe he was close-by all those years — or maybe he just went for a walk one day and spotted a house that looked vaguely familiar, or a rabbit hole that he used to frequent… and came to investigate. Who knows, to be honest. I’ve never really bet a ‘pet person’, but in this case… I really would like to have known Eric’s story. Maybe those that looked after him for those 9 years will find my website and get in touch.

So this page is dedicated to you, Eric. Eighth and last kitten of Madonna’s (don’t ask) mighty brood.

And of course, who can forget his most famous escapade: Eric, the blind cat, chooses a competition winner:

We have just one cat now. He’s quite young though, and very healthy (i.e. fat) — he’s also very pretty. But who wants pretty when you can have character instead? Why should I make do with fat-and-lazy when I used to have rugged-and-soulful? Bah.

RIP Eric. You were a good cat.

[As always, these photogasms contain a lot of photos. If you can't be bothered with the pesky 'reading thing', just scroll down.]

Continuing in the same vein as last week, here’s another photogasm! This week was helped along by a powercut on Sunday. For three hours. It’s amazing how little you can do when you have no electricity — but it’s also humbling to realise just how much you can do too! (How deep was that…?)

Of course I sat on my laptop for an hour, until the battery ran down. Used my mobile phone to connect to the Internet even! But when the screen finally blinked out to black, I had to do something. It is at times like these that I really love being a photographer: I just grab my camera and go outside. And below… you can find the results of the powercut photo session!

But first, yesterday’s 10 of 52, in which I balance a pumpkin on my face:

Normally I would just link you to the project’s blog but this time… well… you can probably imagine why I want to share it here on the front page of this site.

And with that out of the way — and yes, it really did hurt as much as you think it did — on with the rest of the Photogasm.

Upcoming projects: Still not much. I have some more money coming in from some clients that are finally paying (when is six months ever an OK period to settle invoices…?) — and the tech blogger writing job thingee is going to be more lucrative than I thought (I seem to be quite good at it — who woulda thunk it?) — soooo… I will have money to frame some prints! And hang them in places! And sell some more photos before Christmas! Or failing that, give everyone photos for Christmas!! My actual photographical skill (is that the right term?) is coming along at an alarming rate. It’s almost as if each photo I take is better than the last. Scary. How good will I end up…?!

Ah, yes, and one of the girls I was meant to photograph is proving elusive. More on that later.

And now… the gasm itself:

As always, each photo has some kind of note attached — hover your mouse over each one to find out more! Again, some ‘blog exclusives’. Some will turn up on Flickr, some won’t.

(I love the moss in the foreground in both of those shots)

(Which one do you prefer…?)

And to finish… because, let’s face it, I’m a big, fat narcissist… another self-portrait from my dark dining room — long exposure, but super-steady hands!

Don’t you just love the phone on the wall?

I actually have more self-portraiture to come but two is quite enough for one blog post. Keep an eye out on Flickr for the rest.

These photos will likely find their way to Flickr eventually, but I need to get them all up here now, or I’ll forget about them. It’s crazy how many photos I have taken that never quite make it to the public domain. Either I get side-tracked, or I don’t like the photo at the time — or sometimes I just have too many go through and I don’t want to swamp my various sites with page after page of photo.

So, if you don’t want random photos of me and my friends, or a pretty landscape, you can navigate away now. Otherwise, scroll on down. Notes are attached to the images as usual — hover over them to read ‘em!

I’m still feeling pretty rough. Head feels a bit groggy… a bit… tight. Going to try and write something for tomorrow now… and drink some more water.