Grey cat

I used to live on a terrace that was frequently visited by a grey cat. We didn't think it belonged to anyone, as it was oddly skinny and hung around even in the rain.

As it turned out, the cat belonged to someone a couple of streets away, who put up a message on our terrace's community noticeboard asking people to stop feeding him so he would come home. This resulted in a snarky response from one of the residents who was close to calling the RSPCA about the cat, as it didn't seem to have an owner.

I don't know whether my neighbour continued feeding grey cat, but he visited lots more and seemed to enjoy posing for me.

Grey cat rolling around

See more photos of cats (and things that aren't cats) at my Flickr page.

Dublin

Hello!

I went to Dublin a couple of years ago to visit my cousin, who was studying for a PhD there.




Trinity College Library



Lion door

See the full Dublin album on Flickr.

356 photo project

Hello!

After imploring my poor bashed-up phone to work properly for a few weeks, I finally gave in and bought a new one. I've moved away from Windows now and got an Android phone (partly because of Pokémon Go, partly because there are apps that I want to use that aren't available for Windows).

Now that I've got my new phone, I can post to Instagram again. My last phone would just crash when I hit the button to throw my image at the internet, which scuppered my plan to start a 365 on my birthday last month.

My definition of a 365 is taking a photo every day for the next year. The photo will document something from that day. I'll then post it on Instagram with a bit about what happened that day.

You can check out my 365 project at my Instagram page.

Here's a photo of a sleepy cat that didn't make it to Instagram (thanks old phone):

Film photos

Hello!

I have an old film camera that belonged to my dad. It's a Yashica that was purchased some time in the late 1980s. I've dabbled in film over the years, but ultimately always gone back to my SLR.

I finally got a roll of film developed and couldn't remember what was on it. It turned out that the photos were from 2013 and 2014. Quite a lot of them were of the Gromit sculptures that were in Bristol in 2013.





Golden Gromit by Julie Vernon

I particularly liked this one because it was shiny and I'm secretly a magpie!

Look at the full set of film photos on Flickr.

More recently we had sculptures of Shaun the Sheep around the city. The sculptures weren't just for fun though; they were auctioned off for the Wallace & Gromit's Children's Charity that raises money for sick children in the UK.

Back to film: at the moment I've got a roll of black and white film in my camera, but I prefer using black and white in the winter when there are fewer pretty colours around. I might try taking some photos of the balloon fiesta with the film camera this year, as I now have piles of them in colour from my SLR. The perks of living high up with a great view of the skyline!

Small rabbits

Hello!

It's time for a story.

A friend of mine (who designs the odd t-shirt or so, take a look at Lilsquiggle Tees on Facebook if you like t-shirts) owned two boy rabbits. The rabbits were called Twiglet and Oreo and they got on very well. VERY well.

It then transpired that Twiglet was a lady rabbit, and possibly had the beginnings of smaller rabbits ensconced inside her. Soon enough, Twiglet and Oreo became the proud parents of many tiny rabbits.

Naturally, we decided to take lots of photos of the kittens (yup, that is what baby rabbits are called). Here's a few from the set:






See the full set of kitten bunnies on Flickr.

Digimakers

Hello,

I've just uploaded another batch of Digimakers photos to Flickr. Digimakers is a series of workshops in Bristol to teach young people about cool things they can make and do with technology.

I took these photos for my master's project about outreach in Computer Science. You can read a bit more about Digimakers in my previous blog post about it.

Here's a couple of photo highlights:


Etch-a-sketch


Raspberry Pi programming with Sonic Pi

Take a look at the full set of Digimakers photos on Flickr.

Clifton Residents' Parking

Hello!

I'm catching up with my backlog again. Last year there were a number of protests around the Residents' Parking Scheme proposed for Clifton Village in Bristol. I went along to one and covered it for my Multimedia Journalism coursework.


 

Local business owners and residents believed that the changes would be the death of Clifton Village's character and vibrancy as people would no longer be able to get to the area easily without being able to park.



As part of the assignment I also made a video package:



I've just spent the day on a stall for the University of Bristol's open day so my brain is a bit melty and not wanting to write words, so I've uploaded the full article I wrote about the parking protests back in 2014 instead. Enjoy!

Bristol Zoo in the winter

Hello everyone!

I've been going through my (very large) photo backlog and I've nearly finished 2013...yes, I've got a ways to go.

When I was doing my master's I did a piece on ways people improve their mental wellbeing. As part of that, I interviewed the lovely Sara, who volunteers at Bristol Zoo Gardens. Volunteering is a great way to get back into doing work when you may have had a bit of a break, and if you help out at the zoo you can get in for free, which is quite handy, especially in the summer!

We decided to do the interview at the zoo - managed to find a place with ducks for some nice atmospheric noise - and then wandered around looking at the animals.

It was pretty close to Christmas so they had some reindeer visiting, which was pretty exciting! There were lots of small children getting very excited so it was a bit tricky to get a good shot so I thought I'd frame the picture with the kids.



Sara volunteers in the lemur walkthrough so we spent a bit of time watching them. This little guy was chowing down on a sweet potato, while his buddies had cucumbers and bananas and all sorts of other goodies.



I seem to have quite a few photos of capybaras from this visit to the zoo, so here is one just chilling out.



And finally, we found this rather happy frog. So pleased! It can be quite tricky to get shots of animals in enclosures as there's stuff like glass or netting in the way, so I'm happy with how this turned out.



Check out the rest of the zoo collection or have a look at my Flickr photostream for more pictures.

Ragfest 2011

On 26th March, Bristol LiveSoc and Bristol RAG co-hosted the second annual Ragfest, a night of live music in aid of charity. I was there with UBU Photosoc Events Team getting the whole thing captured on camera. There were two stages across the main Anson Room and Ar2 in the University of Bristol Students' Union, so I was flitting back and forth trying to make sure I got enough pictures of each act. Rather than rambling on, I'll cut straight to the pictures! Many more here.


LAD NTL


The End Effect


Pieman


Max Parker


Kill Cassidy


Jim Horne, Publicity Stunt


Greg Walton, Publicity Stunt


Calm Down Caesar


The Goodness


The Lasting Days


The Phoenix and the Turtle


Mary Spender


Indigo Lights

Publicity Stunt

It's been a while since my last photo post, mostly because I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr for some time. So here, have a massive update!

Some friends of mine are in a ska band, Publicity Stunt. They played their first couple of shows at The Hill recently and I was there taking photos.













I took more on both nights. Publicity Stunt will be playing more gigs in the near future, so I'll keep you updated on that.

Coming up in the next week or so, photos from Ragfest!

Studio Time

Alex gave a group of us a tutorial on studio lighting last week.


Jamie with an umbrella. Since some of the studio kit is a bit dodgy, we didn't have a stand for this umbrella and used it as a prop instead.


Tom poses with his beloved headphones.


Photosoc's Film Guru Ben loads some film.


Tom lit from the side. I'd quite like to have a play with different lighting setups minus a studio backdrop, more similar to this shot.


Ben checks some negatives after returning from a darkroom session. Unfortunately we only had one working trigger, so with four of us trying to take photos against the backdrop I decided to take some from other angles.


With about ten minutes to go before the end of the room booking, Mikey appeared with some props for band photos. I took a few of him and Jamie for their electronic project, Lad Neutral. This one is for Mikey's solo act, asinglebiteofcherry.

There are many more (including some with a ladder that had been abandoned in the room we were using) here.

Roma, January 2011: Part 2

I've uploaded all my photos from Rome now!

Here are a few pictures:


Light trails!


A rather grand building which we stumbled across.



A wall in the Roman Forum.



A flock of starlings.

Roma, January 2011: Part 1

Bonsoir, all! I recently visited Rome with UOB Photosoc, where we spent four glorious days in the sunnier climes of Italy, traipsing around the capital with too many cameras about our personage (there is a curious law which states that only a maximum of two cameras can be brought into the country, yet this was flouted by various members of our group to no ill outcome).

With a wonderful 3am start - yes, I do mean that in the most sarcastic manner possible - we left a rather chilly Bristol and arrived in Rome in great need of sleep. Unfortunately we were instead treated to an hour's wait as poor Ceilidh's luggage managed to get trapped in the depths of the conveyor belt system. The remainder of the first day was spent sourcing lunch, coffee and dinner, leaving very little time for photo opportunities.

On the second day, we went on a walk around areas including Piazza di Spagna, led by the only non-Photosoc member on the trip, the brilliant Keith - without him, we would doubtless have been utterly lost and you'd only be looking at photographs of the inside of a hostel.


View from the Spanish Steps.


Building patterns.

More here. I will be updating the set over the next couple of weeks, so do check back.

Musical Instruments

Took some photos of our piano and my sister's flute:







More on Flickr.

Despite Christmas barely being out of sight, I have actually spent a lot of time attempting to get on with some coursework, since I'm 'losing' a few days next week by spending them in Rome taking more photos with Photosoc. I say 'attempting' as I spent the majority of today fiddling about with that piano in the photos above, arranging a couple of songs by Fightstar and Alexisonfire. Perhaps you may hear something new from me on piano soon...

Westonbirt Arboretum

Back in October, I went on a trip to Westonbirt with UBU Photosoc. Autumn is pretty much the perfect time to visit somewhere that's full of trees! Despite it being a gloomy day, we all managed to capture some great photos. As is typical, the sun decided to appear just before we left, sparking a last minute rush to get some shots of rays of light poking through the maples. As well as wandering around taking photos of leaves, Alex and I ran a couple of SLR basics workshops for members. Here are some photos:









Click here for more!