I’m now in Colombia, and for the last two weeks in Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. This is South America’s second oldest colonial city (the slightly older one is Santa Marta, a two-to-three hour drive up the coast) and its best preserved. One of my walks is around the old city on top of the old walls, and I can do most of it without a break.
It’s also a great city for shooting, with a very noisy and vibrant street life. Apart from being hot, which propels most life out onto the streets, it has a very distinctive Afro-Latin character. So much goes on in the narrow streets, and no-one simply walks in a dry northern-European way. The way people move and gesture is a constant delight. Right now I’m shooting a video for teaching photography (the video sequences surround the still shots), and I’ll see if it’s possible to post a video-clip or two to show you what I mean. Meanwhile, here are some still images from the city, all low light ……
The centre of the old city at dusk. A 5-frame burst spaced 2 ƒstops apart, then exposure-blended.
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Chess in the Parque Bolivar at night. 15mm focal length, 1/40 second and ƒ5, these settings possible at ISO 25,600.
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Another high-SO shot in available light: dancing at the Café Havana, also with a 14-24mm zoom.
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.... and backstage at a fashion show in the Centro de Convenciones.
Posted 5 hours ago at 12:39 pm. Add a comment
Oh… I only just realised that I’ve ignored this part of the site for a long time. Maybe this is why I find Twitter impossible (quite apart from never being able to say anything in just a couple of lines)
It’s not as if I didn’t have anything to write about, either. On Saturday I returned from a six-week trip that went Thailand-upper Burma-Yunnan-Assam-Chennai-Gujarat. Part of it was admittedly holiday, but more of it was adding to the Tea-Horse Road book - the little-known southern route, snaking down from Kunming into Shan State, then across upper Burma to Imphal, Continue Reading…
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago at 3:12 pm. Add a comment
This trip now drawing to a close, as well it should after seven weeks on the road. Today I just returned from a twelve-day drive through Tibet east of Lhasa, ending at Qamdo, which brings the total mileage for the month up to a little short of 4,000 kilometres, all in 4WDs, a little of it on surprisingly good roads but much of it on predictably bad ones. Continue Reading…
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 4:21 pm. Add a comment
After Yunnan, on to western Sichuan and its high grasslands, Tibetan culture. A 12-day drive along various parts of the tea road towards Tibet. For Tibet proper (meaning the T.A.R.), we need four permits to drive around, and that takes time, so I’m first doing the Sichuan side and then, after a couple of days in the capital, Chengdu, flying to Lhasa to pick up another 4WD vehicle. In fact, flying tomorrow, as the first of our permits has just arrived by courier at the hotel (can’t fly without). Continue Reading…
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago at 3:33 pm. Add a comment
Back in Yunnan, following the tea road. After a couple of days in the capital, Kunming, I drive to Dali, which is well-established on the tourist map. So much so that, despite having been an important stop on the Tea-Horse Road from the tea mountains in the south of Yunnan up towards Tibet, it’s not at all an easy place to photograph. Continue Reading…
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago at 3:17 pm. 1 comment
This several-week trip began in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. A week there photographing contemporary interiors for a new book, and attending Hong Kong’s first tea fair, as part of my current book project on tea. Then to near the city of Chongqing in central China, with my Chinese clients who are two years into building a new luxury hot spring resort - the Brilliant at BeiBei. Continue Reading…
Posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago at 2:41 pm. 1 comment
After last month’s filming in Singapore for Sony, I just returned from Rome, where I joined the Magidson Films crew at the Vatican.
Nostalgia for the old days of film? Try this — A/C Alex Falk loading 70mm film. And lifting one of the two O’Connor cameras would definitely make you think twice before complaining about the weight of a DSLR.
Posted 7 months ago at 11:12 am. Add a comment
I’ve been doing very little shooting in this last month for the entirely necessary reason of developing this website - as well as making the picture selection for a new book, to be called The Art of Photography, and as well as working on the sequel to The Photographer’s Eye. In fact, the only serious assignment I’ve had time to do was a two-day shoot in Singapore for Sony. And when I say shoot, I mean that I spent most of the time on the other side of the camera, as we were filming a promotional video for the new Sony A900 (well, newish). Continue Reading…
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:15 am. Add a comment
One of the things I love about photography is the sheer variety, and the freedom to explore all kinds of ways, and reasons, for shooting. I’m constantly surprised, and delighted, at fresh ways of seeing, and fresh definitions of what is worth seeing. There was a time when photography was more-or-less neatly compartmentalised into different fields, such as fashion, still-life, reportage, wildlife, news, and so on. Even then it was fascinating to see how other people put the same camera that I was holding to completely different uses. Continue Reading…
Posted 9 months ago at 10:25 am. 3 comments
I’m now in Colombia, and for the last two weeks in Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. (...)