London '19 - Highgate village

Second promised entry from last October's trip to the UK, where I visited mostly London but  also got to travel outside of it - which I hope to share as well. 

This post is about our visit to Highgate village, which I'll divide into two sections, the first for Waterlow Park, walked through on our way between transportation and the main destination : Highgate Cemetery. 

London'19 : Holland Park and Kyoto Garden

I know it's been a while and I should have posted these sooner, but better later than never, isn't it ? 

Today, I present photos from Kyoto Garden, which is inside Kensington and Chelsea's Holland Park, visited on 29/10/2019, during my second trip to London.  As the name suggests, it is a Japanese garden.  

(as always, click on photos to see them bigger) 

I am back

I recently realized that I'd been concentrating mostly on two blogs, leaving my other three unattended, including this photography one, so I thought it's high time I corrected this oversight, especially that I have had many photos waiting to be posted. 

Oxford

Our last visited location during our trip to the UK last month was Oxford. As you saw and read in previous entries, we remained in London the rest of the time, visiting Nunhead cemetery, followed by St James's park, the V&A and Trafalgar square, with its National Gallery. 

We'd learned from a friend we met with at the cemetery, that there was a Tolkien exhibit held at Oxford, and thus, after organizing, we travelled there on Friday, 12th of October, specifically to see this exhibit, but also to wander around and discover Oxford.

The National gallery

If you look at the National Gallery's map (official pdf) you'll see that it lists about 60 rooms and galleries, housing paintings from 1200-1930 or so. Wiki announces that it was founded in 1824 and houses 2,300 paintings in all that space. 

Trafalgar Square

I've been late in posting these entries, as I fell ill a few days after our return from London. I now propose photos from our Trafalgar square outing, from the 11th of October (2018). 

This was our fourth outing, after Nunhead cemetry, St James Park, the V&A. Each of these yielded some photos and a lot of memories, which aren't necessarily immortalised in files, and that's okay. 

Victoria and Albert Mueseum

Our third visited location during the London trip was the V&A, or Victoria & Albert mueseum. I love mueseums in general, and that one in particular was absolutely enjoyable to visit. Contrary to France, where I need some official documentation to visit mueseums for free, they are by definition free in London, as far as permanent collections go. 

145 galleries spread over 6 levels comprise the wonderful V&A. I loved the eclectic collections and variety in representation of art and medium.  We saw paintings, sculptures and fashion collections - but there are also ceramics, jewelery, glass and iron works, and a lot more! 

St James's park

If you've read my travel entries on my main mental health and lifestyle blog, you know that 2 dyas after our visit to Nunhead cemetery, we went to St James's park. There are all headed under the keyword UK1018 (as in, October 2018).

Today, I share our photos in this park, most of them shot at its lake and showing various sea-fearing birds. Shots are done with the point-and-shot Kodak Z915, which is a 10MP with X10 digital zoom (maybe a short review shall be published at some point). 

Nunhead cemetery

You've read my entry's title right, I went to Nunhead cemetery in London just a couple weeks ago, and so, with this blog post I'll share some photos I took there, and in my next entries shall other locations from this trip, and thus, break the radio silence on this blog.

New EU policies : privacy etc

New EU POLICIES :

To comply with the new EU privacy and cookies laws, which came to effect on 26th of May 2018, I now add to what blogger displayed, additional information and disclaimers.

Nov 3rd 2017 - Photoshoot in a cemetery (1)

Last Friday, we went back to visit the Carmes cemetery where for photo shoots, partially the cemetery, but mostly of my wife. I'm still learning certain editing skills, so for now I'll offer some of the pics that I already treated and continue the series in other posts.

Halloween TB photoshoots - Spooky Wife edition

I didn't use to celebrate Halloween (or any other cultural celebration for that matter, but that's a topic outside of this blog's goals).

What I can say, however, is that my wife brought her favorite cultural celebrations, one of them being Halloween. Some of ours years together, we dress up and play spooky, creepy roles and take photo shoots from which I displayed my own creepy self here.

Trigger warning : Cobwebs

If you suffer extreme arachnophobia, you may not wish to see cobwebs. This is probably only a mild trigger warning to most of you, but I thought it best to warn of this content.

Halloween TB photoshoots - Decorations 1

I continue this Halloween throwback series with a few decorations, and as I hope to get better and more recent ones to offer in a few days, I title the entry accordingly. 

Halloween TB photoshoot - cemetery edition

It's Halloween season, and with it, people of all ages celebrate Life by treat or treating, getting dressed-up/ disguised, and visit cemeteries where their family members have been buried. 

For me, cemeteries are places to visit for architectural beauties as well as decrepit, shabby tombs have fallen pray to the damage of time - or occasionally to vandalism. 

Halloween TB photoshoots - CreeperMe

It's still Halloween season, and for this, I'd like to continue with a series of creepy photos, taken usually in previous years' Halloweens, but not always.

Color Mood : Whites (2)

This is the second part of the color mood : whites, started a couple days ago.

You'll see statues, nature (butterfly, flowers), and snowy landscapes.

Trigger warning: spiders!!! (Part 2)

Trigger Warning :  If you suffer from a severe enough arachnophobia that you cannot look at photos, you shouldn't click on the read more button hereafter, as I separated all my phots of them so they don't appear among other photos in my various posts, and thus offer a post to showcase for those who are okay.

Color Mood : Whites (1)

My wife suggested gathering photos of objects with the predominant color white and post an entry as if it were a mood board, so here I am, with a photo album with this color as the main focus in all objects.

I took some of these shots while travelling, either for my past work or for leisure ; I also propose white flowers, landscapes with snow, architecture and statues - the latter are a bit off-white, or almost cream, hence the more generic name of "whites", including variants that are close enough to pass.

Flowers (1)

You may have noticed, I love to take nature photos! You saw butterflies, birds, and now I start a new series, dedicated to flowers! 

Even when I didn't have my macro attachement, most cameras allow macro mode to shoot these subjects. My current camera allows me to get as close as 1 CM in super-macro mode, whilst macro mode allows 10CM, which was the same for my previous camera. 

Into the world of butterflies

Probably my favorite subject in photography, are butterflies (alongside moths). They are beautiful, colorful, not too small to always need my macro attachment on the ready (though it can help a lot), butterfly seasons are my favorite. 

I say seasons, because where I live, butterflies have 2 or 3 generations : in spring, summer and autumn. In all my winters, I've seen butterflies very rarely, and only due to global warming which gave us a few very mild, and quite warm winters. 

My (poor photographer's) Editing tools

In my first years as a photographer, I didn't edit any photo. In my desire to show the real views I had through a documentary styled photography, I thought it was an unnecessary process which would alter my results and thus create a lie. 

However, my wife pointed out that all photographers do it and that my photos usually had an unsophisticated look to them, so after further research, I decided to compromise and started editing, but not too much, to preserve a documentary aspect while also rendering my photos more interesting to look at. 

Tb photoshoot : Birds 1

As promised, I want to share with you some of my good bird photos. It's not always easy to get close enough to have them in fullest possible screen, so I have to zoom and then in post-production, edit levels, contrast, saturation, brightness, and crop the image to focus as much as I can on my bird subjects. 

On my love for bird watching and photography

As an introvert child, I preferred to withdraw from games with class mates during playtime, and, without permission, would leave school premises. I discovered that I loved observing birds, so one day after winning a scratch lottery ticket, I bought binoculars so I could watch them from farther away. 

My tools & techniques for macros

My tools for macrophotography are :

• Evident, the camera, and a UV filter that I set on it permanently - it doesn't do anything about the macro, though. 
• When I can, also my Raynox DCR-150 macro attachment lens, which offers 1.5 magnification, 
• and when in shape, I also take my tripod, the Vanguard Alta Pro 263AT, to which I added the SBH100 ball-head. Read about them at the bottom quarter or so of this entry.
• If I cannot or forgot to take with me the attachement, I use either macro or super-macro modes in my camera. The first is for any object 10-300cm away, whilst the latter allows coming close as 1cm, without being as detailed as the attachement's magnification