roryosullivan.co.uk

I’ve been looking over the sites that I have found most useful, entertaining or inspirational in 2009 and thought i’d share these. Some are just plain simple, some are services, others are, well, probably old hat to some people but have made an impression in 2009. So in no particular order are:

http://www.twitter.com

Twitter has enabled me to keep better contact with lots of people, and take some conversations out of their normal environments and into a public area where others can get involved.

http://www.facebook.com

Another obvious one but it has enabled me to get back in contact with people, even in short spurts, that I haven’t spoken to in a long time.

http://www.lamebook.com/

Lamebook follows on from Facebook nicely, it’s amazing what people will admit and not realise what their privacy setting are like!

http://xkcd.com/

One of the funniest online comics there is

http://30-f-london.blogspot.com/

An interesting and well written woman’s take on love, life and sex in London (probably NSFW for some people due to language)

http://www.holymoly.com

Always funny, sometimes harsh but the best UK gossip site there is. I especially like the Rules and Corner sections

http://www.gizmodo.com

I’m a geek, I’m not ashamed to admit it, whilst I can’t afford a lot of tech I can drool over the gadgets and potential technology that Gizmodo

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

The Big Pictire is the Boston Globes photogrpahy blog of amazing photographs from all over the world. Some stunning photography

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

Passive Agressive notes is simply a great peice of entertainment

last but definitely not least

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Post Secret can be an awe inspiring source of inspiration and what people are willing to admit is amazing, one day I’ll get the courage to send something of my own one day

In my attempts to pull back some creativity in my photography I’m setting myself a monthly photography project. The idea is simple. The lucky dip. What does this involve you may well ask. Well it involves the list below. Each item is printed onto a bit of paper and folded up. They are all stuck in a hat and on the first of each month 2 bits of paper are pulled out, these two words form the basis of the project, at the end of each month I inted to post up on here a link to the flickr gallery for each project aiming for 10 shots for each project.

Below are my initial bits and pieces, the idea is there will be more than 24 items so that some will be missed and it gives a greater chance of a random project being created. Please feel free to add some suggestions in the comments or If you fancy joining in then let me know.

Adventure/Action
Animal
Architecture
Artistic
Black & White
Camera Phone
Commercial
Documentary
Event
Macro
Nature
Night
Panoramic
People
Pinhole
Scenic
Sports
Travel
Time-lapse
Red
Green
Blue
Yellow

Open House London is something I’ve been meaning to do over the last couple of years and this year I wasn’t working so took the opportunity to look at a local building that I’ve always wanted to nose around. The Gaumant State  opened in 1937 on KIlburn High Road and was a very popular theatre, show venue, cinema and eventually a Mecca Bingo Hall before it finally closed. The Grade II listed building was acquired by a church group who are renovating the building and bringing it back to it’s former glory

Gaumant State - Kilburn

When Mecca too over the building they added false floors to cover the sloping seating and false ceilings to cover the pulleys and mechanisms for the curtain and stage. The Church will be removing these and adding in original seating. The only way you can tell you are standing where the stage was is because of the curtain still hanging above you, the flat false floor covered in bright blue and red carpet hiding what lays below.

Original Seating

The booth style  tables around the upper circle will also be removed and replaced with original style seating

Bingo Seating

The church believes they can get the 4,000 seater main hall back to it’s glory in the next 1.8 months. As part of the deal with the council the Church must make the Grade II listed building available to the public. The UKs largest working Wurlitzer still sits in pride of place next to where the stage should be and original light switches, electrics, signs and still stand proud.

Original light switches

One of the most standout things is the art deco style foyer that greets when you step inside off the grubby Kilburn High Road. Most impressive is the chandelier, a replica of one in Buckingham Palace I believe, that greets you. I hope to get back next year to see more of the building and see it, hopefully looking more like it was when it opened in 1937

Chandelier

I paid a visit with some friends to the Imperial War Museum this weekend. I’ve not been since a child, it’s one of the many places in London that whilst its so close to home that I forget it’s there. Luckily for me a friend needed to visit for a University project so a few of us got together and went along. As with most of my trips these days I took my camera and my camera bag.

After taking a couple of shots of the big guns outside we made our way into the building. As with a lot of museums there are bag checks. As I already had my camera out I placed my bag and the camera on the table and opened the top zip pocket to reveal my personal bits and pieces, keys and the like, and then the camera section which had my additional lens and other related items in it.

Imperial War Museum - Guests

On spotting my camera the security guard, without hesitation, piped up saying that photography was fine in the museum. Having been to museums and galleries before that haven’t allowed photography it was really nice that they made it clear that it was ok. Whilst I wasn’t trying to push my luck or anything and because I wanted clarification I said to the guard that I presumed that it didn’t include flash photography which I thought would have been fair, but no he said it was OK around most of the museum. Whilst I didn’t see any “no flash photography” signs in the areas I saw, the fact that a lot of the exhibits were in glass cabinets in dark areas which would have been difficult to shoot without a flash because of low light and with a flash because of reflections made me think this is what he was referring to. The same guard also mentioned that photography was fine to a friend in the group when his bag was checked as well.

It’s nice to see a museum being photographer friendly and their staff clued up on it all.

There is something magical about Kew Gardens for me, everytime I’ve been over the last couple of years I’ve visited with different people and at different times of the year so have had lots of different experiences there. Everything changes each time you visit, some work is always being done to improve the views, the plants, the information everything.

On this visit the new thing for me was the tree-top walkway After a first failed attempt to take a 3 year old round, he wanted to go up but didn’t like it when we got up there, I went back up and wandered around. The view was good but not amazing, mainly due to the cloudy weather. It was nice to get up close to the trees and see things from their point of view. I reccomened a trip to Kew for anyone living in or visiting London and you should make a point of getting up the tree-top walkway if you don’t mind heights, just don’t forget the green houses, other buldings in the grounds and the large pond.

Silhouette view from the Tree-Top walkway

Flickr Set – Photos from February trip to Kew Gardens

I grew up out in the suburbs but London was always about, when my Dad started working in town the appeal of the big city grew on me more and the small trips on the trains and tubes to the tourist spots with my parents excited me. One thing that was always a constant, especially when I began to work in town and live closer towards the centre of town, was that everything I saw of London was from ground level.

The Offices I’ve worked in and flats lived in have all been no more then two or three floors up and whilst some had nice views of the river others had just other buildings and dirty high streets. I’ve been up the London Eye once and took in the view of the main tourist sites you can see from there. The weather wasn’t especially great but you could see quite a few things.

This weekend the impact of London on me changed, I knew London was big, I’ve travelled through most stops on the tubes to nearly all the ends of the lines, and headed further out on the mainline trains but nothing prepared me for the view I got Saturday afternoon.

I’d spent the early afternoon walking through town, I strolled from Bond Street, across Oxford Street and down to Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue to look for Christmas presents for friends and family. Whilst the shopping trip wasn’t fruitful for presents it was for me (DMZ vol 1, 100 Bullets Vol 3 and Firefly – Better Days). After leaving the shop I placed a quick call to a friend to see if the arrangements they had said they would be able to sort were still on and they were, and with that I made my way to the junction of Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.

This is where the fun began. I made my way into Centrepoint and met my friend who spoke to th receptionist who let us through. Standing waiting for the lift nervous excitement was beginning to bubble up and once in the lift a small smile took over my face. We zoomed up missing floor after floro before quickly reaching our destination. I walked out and stepped into Paramount’s bar and dining area taking in the beautiful brass bar and the swish seating, but this wasn’t why I was here. we walked back out and up a short set of stairs. I was here, the viewing gallery. The view took my breath away and the small smile was now a massive grin.

Sunset Over London

The viewing gallery goes round 360 degrees with various armchairs and seating all the way around the middle and it was on one of these chairs I placed my bag and took in the view across West London. The sun was starting to fade and the sky was clear, I’d luckily got good weather and thats whwen I began to get to work. I ended up spending an hour going in circles around the gallery with the light quickly fading to being really quite dark and the city lighting up. Using my tripod and remote I managed to grab plenty of long exposures over the course of the hour trying to fit in the main landmarks and roads.

New Oxford Street

It was great to experience London from a view I had never seen before and my luck with the weather and light made it so much more amazing. To see the rest of the photos from the top of Centrepoint take a look at View From Paramount / Centrepoint – A Flickr Set

Last week I had the lucky pleasure of being able to work on a music video. I got a call from a friend who would be directing the video and asked if I could come along and shoot stills, this was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to work on anything like this and I jumped at the chance.

Exit Calm video shoot

After meeting the other people on the shoot en-route to the location we arrived and began setting up. I duly helped out where I could, moving furniture and holding things whilst the Director and irector of Photography sorted out finer details and the lighting. Part of the setup including mounting a dvd player, projector and speakers onto the camera rig, after a bit of tooing and froing we were ready to go.

Camera rig at the Exit Calm video shoot

The band arrived and we made our introductions before lunch arrived and we all took a break. Once the food was wolfed down Annette got to grips with the make-up for the band. I would like to point out for fear of a beating from the band that they didn’t have much make-up.

And so the real work began, working to a recording of the upcoming single and pre recorded visuals we began the shoot, projecting film across the band and capturing their performance. Things went pretty smootly and the takes went quickly, I snuck round the camera and crawled across the floor, i knelt, I ducked, I got pulled out of the way and by the end of the shoot my legs were aching. I had taken over a thousand photos in that time.

For the few hours we worked together I felt drawn to the band, they had a brotherly spirit between them, they were a family. During the post shoot drinks this tie between them was evident in the recalling of stories from the road and how they met. When I met up with them at their gig at the Barfly in Camden this weekend I saw this bond on stage.

I’ve managed to get the number of shots down to around 300 however I’ve uploaded a few already as a sneak peak for any Exit Calm fans that might stumble across this blog

Exit Calm - Video shoot for next single

The rest of the photos can be found here:

Exit Calm – We’re On Our Own – Behind the scenes on the video shoot

I’ll be updating the set with more photos as I process them.

My new iPhone arrived at 3:30 this afternoon by courier and my excitement is ridiculous, however I have to wait a bit longer, as well as aparant problems with the iTunes activation server I’m at work and my macbook is at home, also coupled by the fact I’m off to a party to say goodbye to a friend who is leaving London I’m just going to have to wait a bit longer to get my grubby mitts all on it.