Photosocialise » Meetup Report

Bayswater Rd market Photowalk

Ghene Snowdon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Here are some of the images I took from the photowalk. It was a while ago but hey, I was so busy – it had to wait.

Anyway, it was such a lovely day and an enjoyable walk, we we through the artists’ displays and manage to talk to some of them then we headed off to the restaurant for a meaty Eat All You Can. Lunch at Rodizio Rico was really good and I know I should not say this but we stuffed ourselves full we had difficulty walking afterwards (sort of). We went to Kensington Gardens afterwards and met up a couple more people who went to the London Open House places.

Photos from other photographers who joined us.

My images are below, thank you for looking.

Photography Holiday Weekend: French Riviera

Ghene Snowdon — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:10:26 +0000

Last month, we had the photography weekend in France. It turned out to be a very interesting photography holiday. Admittedly, there were only the two of us but we had the opportunity to do many things like ; night street shots at the market and the port of Antibes, then touristy shots and sports photography in Monaco, a stroll in Cannes old town doing outdoor portraits – an impromptu engagement session, a stroll on the Croisette and some architecture photography of the big hotels, beach side walk in Juan les Pins and Cap d’Antibes. Oh, and since the weather is very good and the temperatures only mild, we took sunrise photographs as well.

For experience, it was a first time for me to use the bus from the airport to Antibes where the hotel is. We also walked a lot.

And yay! I forgot how charming some old French ladies (on the bus) are and I am glad I do have a rejoinder to tell them when they get a tad nasty. Apart from that, everyone were very nice.

Below are some of my images from the trip…

Whenever the weather is clear I do try to get take a couple of photographs from the airplane window. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Lucky on this trip, I got excellent shots from the window.

Lac de Ste Croix

We got to the hotel late, checked in and went to have a stroll and take low light photos. Using 50mm f1.4 lenses, we managed without tripod.

: Hand held Olympus E-3 + Sigma 50mm f1.4 : ISO200, 1/60sec, f1.4

The Antibes Rallye was still going and we got to to shoot the racing cars parked for the night.

We got up really early to capture the lovely sunrise and I got to take long exposure shots with the see and the old town of Antibes.

The port of Antibes is lined with private yachts of all sizes!

We arrived in Monaco and we immediately took pictures! With all the wonderfully arranged lights, I played with the manual focus of the Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens and mostly took “bokeh” shots

The Monaco Kart Cup was on as well so half the time in Monaco went to shooting the race.

We did go to the Monaco Oceanographic Museum which is located at the seafront on which is known as Le Rocher or the Rock where the Palais is located.

The aquariums are excellent, clear and full of active fish. It was well lit so we did not encounter any problem while photographing them.

We went to Cannes and got some curious looks from the people around us since we were mostly taking photographs of the scene. However, I whipped out my Olympus 35-100mm f2.0 telephoto lens which looked really intimidating. With that I receive a couple of scowls.

And up to the time we were waiting to board out plane back to London, we still took photographs (in the airport).

Conclusion:
Overall it was an excellent trip and yes, I will do it again. And it will be around the same time of the year when the hotel cost is more affordable. There were a lot of photo opportunities and without being hassled by the authorities. Also, I must say that the food was great.

If you are thinking of joining us next year, keep an eye on the blog for updates. One thing for sure we will have is a car to drive around. A vehicle will enable us to visit St Paul de Vence, Eze Village and Nice.

Paris All Night Shoot 2009

Ghene Snowdon — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:03:04 +0000

Sometime lastyear I started organising the Paris All Night Shoot. This is the second year and even with all its flaws I have enjoyed my self and I do hope the others did so too.

We took advantage of the Eurostar clubbing tickets which is affordable and which I hope will not increase next year If I am to organise a Paris All Night Shoot 3. With this assumption, I have decided to make next year’s event contained in a smaller area so we have lots of more shooting and less walking.

Back to this weekend’s walk, it was attended by 46 people from London Flickr Meetup Group and DSLR User forum group, 4 from Olympus UK Safari Group and 2 from Flickr@Paris Group who helped herd us to different areas.

I am still too sore from such a demanding walk to finish my editing. Below are some for my favourites.

Sunset & La Defense

Sunset in Paris

Paris Pink Horizon

To view the group’s efforts, please visit Flickr.com

Thanks to all who participated and I do hope you manage to capture something in Paris that you’re proud of. I hope to see you next year (if).

If you’re an Olympus user and would like to hang out with other Olympus users, please join us at the Olympus Safari Group.

Kew Gardens Tropical Extravaganza

Ghene Snowdon — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:20:31 +0000

I organised a small photography meetup and invited London DSLR User readers as well as LFPM group. There were 9 of us. We met outside the cafe beside the Victoria entrance and went straight to the waterliy house followed by the Princess of Wales green house. This years display was a combination of Phalaenopsis orchids, Lady’s slippers, dancing ladies and vanda orchids of many different colours! There were some new ones as well like the Odontiodas. There were no Masdevilla this year thou.

Afterwards we went to find the snowdrops and something to eat.

Below are my photos from the day.

Check out the other photos from the the event here.

Hyde Park Walk

Ghene Snowdon — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:55:03 +0000

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate today. It rained hard specially by the time we are ready to go shoot some fireworks. So we stayed a bit longer and did not continue the walk. The rain stopped at 8PM just in time for the fireworks and well it stayed clear soon after.

All rights reserved © 2008 Ghene Snowdon – www.gsnowdon.com
Please respect my copyright and do not use the photos without my permission

Islington & Chapel Market Meet

Ghene Snowdon — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:24:36 +0000

The Islington and Chapel market photowalk last weekend , the 12th of October was a success. It was attended by some 20 photographers. The place was interesting, the weather excellent and the company is great! If you want to re-create the walk, you can find the pdf file on the member’s page (requires registration). It has a map and some information of the places we went to.

Thank you all for attending and if you are available on the 26th, we have Mayfair-St James photowalk.
See you there!

To view more photos from this photowalk, please click here.

All rights reserved © 2008 Ghene Snowdon – www.gsnowdon.com
Please respect my copyright and do not use the photos without my permission

Notting Hill & Holland park Photowalk

Ghene Snowdon — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:55:00 +0000

The Notting Hill – Holland Park Photowalk (on the 27th of September) was attended by some 18 photographer mostly from London. We walked from our starting point which was All Bar One on Notting Hill Gate towards Ladbroke Estate which is a nice and quiet area. We then headed off to Holland Park but along the way, we stopped at Windsor Castle pub for some refreshments which were photographed before being consumed.

The day went well and the weather is excellent.

Thank you all for joining the walk and the fun. I hope to see you again soon!

View photographs from participants here

All rights reserved © 2008 Ghene Snowdon – www.gsnowdon.com
Please respect my copyright and do not use the photos without my permission

Belgium All Night Shoot

Ghene Snowdon — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:40:15 +0000

I organised a photography meetup to Brussels (August 16-17). This is an All Night photography walk in the city with photographers from London. Unfortunately it is during my trip to Dover. So I took the train from Dover to London and meet up with the other photographers at the station. In all, there were 21 of us and I believe we all had fun except when we were waiting for our food at the Tapas Bar for more than an hour and when we cannot find Adrian. The second food stop made up for the first one and Adrian eventually found his way to us.

Flower Carpet on the Grand Place… the place was packed full!

Waiting for our food….

The Tapas Bar in the city took more than an hour to serve us our food. It is dark, loud and we are hungry. To occupy ourselves, of course we took photos with and without flash. You can’t really tell 20 people with huge cameras who are hungry and must feed to sustain an all night walk. It was a lot more civilised when the food arrived. If you are in a hurry, I cannot recommend this restaurant.

Next we went to take photos of the Atomium. It is 28 minutes tram from the centre of town but it was worth it. It is here we accidentally left Adrian.

This is a very flashy building standing beside the Sheraton. Photo was taken handheld.

Mystical: very nicely decorated restaurant and we were the only ones this night! I highly recommend it, just do not order pasta coz they are a bit too salty.

We stopped by the little peeing boy and even posed for a group photo!

Thanks to all who participated and also for the yummy chocolates

View photographs from the other photographers.

London July All Nighter

Ghene Snowdon — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:36:25 +0000

JULY 19-20 2008 : DSLR USER LONDON ALL NIGHT MEET

I organised this photography meetup for both DSLR User magazine readers in London and invited others from Flickr as well. To make sure that we did not have any problems with over zealous security guards, I requested permission from the authorities who manage properties on the planned itinerary.

We originally planned to get a group booking for out own capsule on the London Eye but we did not get enough people to reach the final booking amount. Nevertheless, some of us bought fast track tickets in order to capture one of London’s beautiful sunsets from the high vantage point the London Eye can offer.

The rest of the group spent the time getting to know each other. At around 9.30PM we started walking on the Southbank towards Blackfriars Bridge. It may seem a short walk but with everyone taking photographs, we arrived on time for our 10.30PM pub stop. In all there were 26 photographers with different levels of experience. Over some drinks, we exchanged tips and took photos. We then went towards the Millenium Bridge, some of us went through the barriers to the riverbed (it was low tide). We went across the bridge towards St Pauls and Paternoster Square. I had not asked permission from the managers of Paternoster Square since I thought we would just pass through quickly. Unfortunately some 12 photographers took so long in the square that the security guards had enough and went to confront the group. So while walking with half of the group towards Bank,I was called to come back because they are stuck with the security. Fortunately that was sorted on the phone, I learnt my lesson and I hope the 12 photographers have as well. We had our food stop unfortunately for some outside because the bar is too small and already full. Around 20 photographers rested on the steps of the building beside Liverpool Street Station, they were not bothered by the security when they were eating but they were told to go afterwards when they started fiddling with their cameras and tripods. The walk towards the Gherkin and Lloyds building was uneventful and we were undisturbed while we took photographs.

The final stop was Tower Bridge which was clear of pedestrians. Most of the group got there and took photos of the sunrise (4AM). Then, we continued on to the town hall area which is managed by More London. I applied and was granted permission to photograph in the area. We were left alone to do our photography as long as we did not endanger the public. Sunrise was great from our location and some of us who stayed longer, we had a lovely surprise – the opening of the bridge to let a cruise liner in.

For a successful event, it is best to ask permissions from the different estate managers and authorities specially when there is a big number of participants involved. For this All Night Shoot, I contacted a couple of boroughs (Southwark Film office and Lambeth), the City of London Film office and More London. Since the photographs were not for commercial use, we were waived the license fee.

To view everyone’s photographs on Flickr

View some photos I took from the event

London June All Night Shoot

Ghene Snowdon — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:54:15 +0000

The London all night shoot was held on the night of the 21st of June. It was a success with about 16 people who stayed up until the very early hours of the morning (the 22nd of June). The only time we were confronted by security personnel was when we arrived at Trafalgar Square and later on the southbank close to ITV and OXO tower. Same old tune, we cannot take photographs from their property specially commercial one even if we are not taking photographs of the building.

View photographs from other members