Last Mouth Olympus user magazine got legendary rock photographer Jill Furmanovsky and me to compare and contrast the new Olympus Pen E-P1 with a 40 year old Olympus Pen EE 2. We where let loose in London’s Borough Market to shot for an hour or so and then we compared notes. If you ever in the London Bridge area you must check out Borough Market I can’t recommend it enough as a grate place to shot in. I am defiantly going back there at some point with my lomo.
Jill’s conclusion was that the old pen was little limiting. One of the limiting factors is that you can’t focus because the focusing is fixed, you have to shot everything from a distance of 1.5 meters or more. It also had only one shutter speed and it was not obvious what it was but from the sound of the shutter Jill reckoned it was 1/60th. What most impressed me was that the aperture was automatic even though there is no batteries! Jill was shooting with a lot of limitations on the flip side of the coin I wish I had just stuck to one mode when shooting so that my shots had more constancy. I am used to the limiting factors of the Lomo LCA so using the Olymous Pen EP-1 is a bit like being like a kid in a candy shop! You can read my full review of the Olympus Pen EP-1 here.
There is a video of Jill and me in action on the olympus user web site. Olympus user magazine is subscription only magazine so unfortunately it will be a bit tricky to hold of a copy of the magazine with the article in it as it was out at the beginning of the mouth.
Posted: October 27th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Photo by Ryan Cunningham
About to leave the US currently waiting for my flight home. Had a blast at Phoot camp. I had grate fun running my Hot Shots photography courses in San Fransisco. Thanks to everyone who turned up to my book signings / talks. Until next time keep it real.
Posted: October 19th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Above photo by sgoralnick
Phoot Camp went really well, I met loads of really super talented photographers. Once I have a complete list of all their names and Urls, I will post them here. Still feel really jaded after only having 1 hour sleep before I left the UK and then having a 27 hour journey from my door to the camp site! The journey when tits up from the point I got to Heathrow. My plane’s takeoff was delayed by one and a half hours and then because of head winds and bad weather it got to Houston three and half hours late. I missed my connecting flight and then the flight after that because I was given someone else’s boarding pass. My original flight out of Houston was meant to leave at 2pm and I ended up getting out on the 7pm. I have managed to soldier though with four hours sleep a night, last night I got about five. This is why I look a little jaded in the above portrait.
Above photo by mona, eh
For some reason four of the Phoot campers including me thought it would be a good idea to stay one more night at the camp. This turned out not to be such a great idea as our camp was attacked by raccoons in the night, so not much sleep once again. I got back to San Fransisco at midday with only a few hours to get ready for my talk at the Booksmith. It went well apart from the when people asked complicated questions in the Q&A and I replied “I don’t know I’m tired”. Thanks to all who turned up and a big thanks to the Booksmith, Heather Champ and Derick Powsak for helping to organize the event.
If you missed the Booksmith signing and talk there is also going to be a 2nd book signing at Chronicle Books on Thursday the 15th of October at 6–8pm. There will be wine and nibbles too. It will be more of a meet the author low key type of affair.
Chronicle Books is at:
680 Second Street
San Fransisco
CA 94107
I am also running my photography course twice while I’m in town, once on Thursday 15th to Friday 16th of October and then Saturday 17th to Sunday 18th of October. The cost is $295 for 2 days. There is one place left on both, for more info on the course check the Hot Shots course page. If you think you might be interested email me info@lomokev.com or call me on my US cell phone: 832-818-6959
Posted: October 13th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I have been invited to phoot camp. Our 1st assignment for phoot camp was to shot a self portrait with this card and guess whose chin it is. I think mine is Amit Gupta. I have been rushed off my feet so I took this snap while i was getting my hair cut!
I am up to lots while in San Fransisco. I will be signing books teaching and talking to check out the details click here.
Posted: October 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
I leave for San Fransisco on Friday morning at stupid O’clock. First stop on my vist will be to Phoot Camp for the weekend. Phoot Camp is a gathering of 50 photographers from all over where we get together and get creative. Results of Phoot Camp will appear on the Phoot Camp website once its over.
On Monday the 12th at 7:30pm I will be given a short talk and signing copys of Hot Shots at the Book Smith. The talk is called “From casual snapper to published author, a tale of flickr, shoes and serendipity”. If you are worried that I am going to bore the paints off you Flickr has kindly offered to provide wine and nibbles for everyone, this should help ease yourself into my talk.
I have set up a Facebook event page and Upcoming page for the Book Smith event.
The Booksmith is at:
1644 Haight St
San Francisco
California 94117
There is also going to be a 2nd book signing at Chronicle Books on Thursday the 15th of October at 6–8pm. There will be wine and nibbles too, this time supplied by Chronicle books. It will be more of a meet the author low key type of affair.
Chronicle Books is at:
680 Second Street
San Fransisco
CA 94107
I am also running my photography course twice while am in town, once on Thursday 15th to Friday 16th of October and then Saturday 17th to Sunday 18th of October. The cost is $295 for 2 days. There are still a couple of places left on both, for more info on the course check the Hot Shots course page. Mag Cloud have kindly offered 25% off to all attendees on their first magazine purchase. Mag Cloud allows any one to design and publish their own magazine, to find out more about it read my latest blog post about the recent publication “Strange Light” on my here.
If you are going to miss these dates or are nowhere near San Francisco I have some new dates for hot shots courses in the UK:
21st and 28th of November 2009 in Hastings
10th and 11th of April 2010 in Brighton
3rd and 10th of July 2010 in Brighton
18th and 19th of September 2010 in Brighton
To make an inquiry about the Brighton courses contact Garage Studios: http://garage-studios.co.uk/contact for the Hastings course just email me on info@lomokev.com
Whilst I’m San Francisco I am sure my wife will get loads of work done because I won’t be at home distracting her so check out her jewellery at rockcakes.com for all the new things that I am sure will appear quite soon!
Hope to see you in San Fransisco!
Posted: October 5th, 2009 | 9 Comments »
This fantastic 40 page magazine landed on my door mat today, well that is a lie I was handed it on my way out by the DHL man. Strange Light was curated in 48 hours buy one Derek Powazek after he found him self amazed buy all the incredible images coming out of Sydney’s recent dust storm. The magazine is published by Mag Cloud and is printed on demand, get yours here. Anyone can publish a magazine with the help of Mag Cloud. The service allows you to design then up load you own magazine and offer it for sail, very clever stuff. And guess what as well as being a grate curator Derek also helped HP set up the Mag Cloud in the 1st place, what a clever chap! You can read about how he went about putting it together in 48 hours on his blog here.
Derek Powazek is a friend and I look forward to seeing him in San Francisco in a few days! Derick and his good wife Heather Champ also wrote the forward to my book Hot Shots. I will be having a signing for Hot Shots and giving a talk in San Francisco on Monday the 12th of October. I am up to quite a bit while I am in San Francisco including running my photo workshops on Thursday 15th to Friday 16th and Saturday 17th to Sunday 18th of October Click here for more info.
The images in the above magazine spread are:
Left: Dusty Dawn buy Mathew Sacco
Top right: Untitled by: Mark Pinto
Bottom right: The Haven, Terrigal by Mike Hartz
Posted: October 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »