This is a great community who are active in many different parts of Birmingham life. It is about celebrating inspired people and the success of different communities in the Birmingham area. One are of celebration is in photography. The good people of Birmingham have featured 10 of my best photographs as portrayed on their web site
It is interesting to me what other people like with my photographs. All the pictures taken were featured on Twitter @birminghamweare and received numerous likes.
Taking concert pictures is not easy for me as I am not as young as I used to be and do not like being squashed at the front of the concert. The chance to take some close up pictures came when I went to see Steve Gunn, a guitarist and songwriter, who is prolific songwriter. Steve’s style is influenced by blues, folk and rock and he is a pretty good guitarist as well.
The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham is an intimate venue and there is the ability to move through the audience and get very close to the artist. I had my Sony RX100v5 camera on manual settings with a shutter speed of 1/200, aperture f/2.8 and ISO 2000. Getting close and taking the pictures meant that the lighting was a little easier to control. I expect I could have changed the settings a bit more but I am generally pleased with the results. Also we got a selfie with the man himself after the concert.
The concert had some great music. He was good to listen to and he is an excellent guitarist. The small venue meant that the sound was good and the different parts of the band came together well\\. The guys sorting out the sound were not so happy but it was a good night all round.
It is busy at work and so much of my photography is confined to the walks in town between the train and bus connections early in the morning. Some are in the afternoon depending on the timing. I will usually vary my bus stops so that I can take in different walks. This leads to a variety of photographs. One building that has taken up a prominent feature of the cityscape is the new Primark building. The architecture is a touch brutal and is not an easy place to photograph. Street art is always changing and the David Bowie mural on Dudley St by Annatomix is very distinctive. Her work is always good and there are several murals strategically placed around the city.
“Birmingham we are” is full of passion and I have been posting pictures on their Twitter account for over 3 years. It is run by Jonathan Bostock and Daniel Sturley with help from Debbie. They have successfully published the Birmingham Gem’s Calendar for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. Their web site is popular and has many followers throughout the West Midlands and beyond. Jonathan organised a visit to St Phillips Cathedral for a group of enthusiastic photographers who contribute to the @birminghamweare twitter account . The meeting was also an opportunity to meet @wasps (we all shoot photographs) collective of photographers. We met up at the St Philips Cathedral on a Saturday morning and were greeted by one of the volunteers, Andrew, who showed as around. We initially went outside and then undertook a detailed visit of the inside of the Cathedral. There were many highlights and the stained glass windows in particular were interesting both to photograph and to listen about the story about their creation.
There were so many other pictures taken and here is a gallery of them and if you want to see how others interpreted the Cathedral then please visit the fantastic post from Birminghamweare.
A few pictures of Trees and some Birmingham locations this Christmas
Following on from the recent blog post Go West. I decided to feature the canals network on Eastside where there is a great deal of regeneration occurring mainly fuelled by the location of the HS2 at Curzon street station. Millennium point was the start of the development and with Birmingham City University building in the area, it has led to further developments. These include student accommodation and other small business enterprises. This is taking place in an area that was left derelict and the canal system still retains the grandeur of former days. I wandered around here with my Canon 6D and a 40 mm lens plus my Sony Camera. The 40 mm lens does make you think about your picture taking and you do have to move to get a good picture. The graffiti adds colour and may not to be everyone’s taste but I do like some of the local artists that paint in the area. There is still more development happening which is exciting to see although some of the old history may get eradicated in the process.
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It is always good when my diary has the free space for an Igersbirmingham instameet and I was lucky as this one coincided with Birmingham Heritage week. The venue was Aston Hall a place that I had not visited since my daughters were young. I expected changes to the layout of the Hall rooms but also, I was excited to visit the Long Gallery which is one of the major attractions of this grand house that is steeped in history. I will not elaborate much further on the history of the Hall as it can all be found on the Birmingham Museums web site
http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/aston
This visit was organised by Igersbirmingham who once again excelled at ensuring we had a worthwhile time with our cameras. We arrived an hour before the official opening and this allowed us the time to browse around the rooms and take photographs of the interesting places. I brought along my fisheye lens as I was hoping that this would provide a different view of the Long Gallery. I also worked with my Canon 5D and the 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses. I do get very excited about taking part in photographic events such as this one and it takes a while for me to settle down and concentrate on achieving good pictures. There are many different views and the Long Gallery view with the fisheye came out how I imagined it which was fortunate. However, I am always surprised on how others view my pictures and the Igersbirmingham team selected the picture of the chimneys on the roof for their blog on the meeting
http://www.igersbirmingham.co.uk/aston-hall-instameet
Many thanks to the Igers team of Beth, Fraser and Martin for their work and enthusiasm in running these Instameets
At last I get to update my blog and these are a few pictures taken on a walk from the Mailbox along the canal to the University train station. It was a warm morning but I took along my Canon 5D mk4 and my EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. I usually do little to the pictures other than keeping an eye on the exposure and using an unsnarling mask to finish the picture. On this walk I did play with some of the pictures in Google Nik. I also used black and white. I just have a sense when a picture suits black and white treatment. My favourite picture of the day was the cyclist and the train although it was fun taking pictures in the canal bridge just before the University Residence Park.
The Birmingham International Dance Festival comes to the City every two years. There is an extensive programme of dance related events. It is the sixth festival but it was my first experience. The meeting was organised by Igersbirmingham and when the announcement popped up on my Instagram account, I immediately signed up for it. I was also unsure who would be there but the chatter on instagram told me that there would be a few seasoned photographers going to the event. On a Saturday lunchtime in June, I met the other Instagrammers outside St Philip’s cathedral. We got our wrist bands plus a voucher for a free coffee and cake and made our way to Victoria Square. The stage was set outside the Council House and we stood around waiting for the first dance act. After a few minutes, I became aware of four men in what I can only describe as balloon suits, starting to make their presence felt in the square. They started pushing against people and then slowly they began to dance. They were hilarious and with a mixture of humour and surreal movements began to do various routines. Their body suits were filled with air and made them look ridiculous but this was part of the fun. They interacted, danced and had fun. They moved on to New street, bouncing and dancing with the shoppers. I did not know whether to follow but looking at other photos from the event, I wish I did. The name of the dance troupe – Didier Théron
However, back at the stage there was another act starting about a boy and the moon. The moon was on a trapeze circle and the boy was below. The story told how he wished to get up to the moon and he also had a fight with a chimney sweep and a dragon!!! Whatever the result it was a great spectacle and was very clever in its delivery. The name of the this dance troupe – 2FacedDance
The next dance was by two women who were sat on their own bench. They were Can Do Dance and it was a thoughtful and reflective piece of dancing that caught my imagination and I hope that I have caught the intense feelings and emotions that were shown by the dance moves.
It was not possible to stay around for the whole day and there were many more acts to follow. I caught three of the acts and I enjoyed the quality and standard on display. I will be on the front row when the festival comes around in two years time.
BIDF is produced by DanceXchange.
