Day 228 - People

Today, I got the chance to meet Daniel and go with him to one of the slums in Yangon to see the work he is doing there.

But before I continue let me first say thanks to Daniel, for his help and support of the people you see in this post (and more), and the friends at My Place, who made this possible by introducing me to Daniel.

Day 128 - People from the Villages

After breakfast I headed out of Hanoi with a friend to visit some of the many craft villages around Hanoi.
Each of these villages specialises in one trade like embroidery, shoe making, metal works and so on.

It is quite interesting to see all these village and the people living and working there, you could spend a day in each.

The nice thing about driving around on a motorbike is that you can stop at anytime and also come across an unexpected village celebration while merely passing through.

As the only tourist you are quickly the center of attention but people are always nice and friendly and very curious as everywhere in Vietnam.

The day was grey and quite dark and it was quite cold but the trip was great fun although almost a bit too short to fit everything in before it got dark. Next time I need to get up earlier to have more time in the day.

Yvonne at the Rattlesnake

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/133, ISO 200, RAW, 53mm (Voigtlander Nokton f1.2 35mm)

I like going to places where they have live music playing, especially if I know one of the artists or bands playing.
It's nice to hear live music but more so it's nice to meet people who are passionate about what they are doing, this is quite a nice change if you work in an area where people are stressed and don't really like what they are doing.

I also enjoy taking pictures at concerts, so today's picture is of Yvonne Mathieu playing at the Rattlesnake in Angel.

More from the GDIF 2012

Back to the Greenwich Festival for some more pictures with the R-D1 but Ricoh GR lens today.

The pink people are part of The Invasion and very entertaining, especially for the kids who are having a great time when they guys are on the lose. I ran again into them when they were driving to their hotel and had an 'argument' with the parking barrier.

People at the Greenwich Festival 2012

Since the GDIF 2012 or the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival was on today, I decided to go out and have a look around. For pictures I dusted off my Epson R-D1, put the Nokton lens on and took some spare batteries with me.

Going back to a Rangefinder after using the GXR A12-M is like trying to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together after using a lighter for the past months. In other words, it's a lot of hassle an the result are unpredictable but it's also rewarding if you manage it. The biggest problems are the lack of live view, having to always lift the camera to your eye is simply not fluid enough nor is it actually possible to accurately frame before getting used to the frame lines.
Still, I enjoyed using the R-D1 again and will have to give it more of a workout over the coming days.

This is a small series from the pictures I took today.

The Long Table

The Long Table and a long series from there. The Long Table is a food night market in Hackney and a good place to try some street food and some more exotic drinks. It is also a good place for photography but you will need a fast lens and even then might struggle at times.

I had the GXR with the 35mm f1.2 Nokton lens but despite this it was not always easy to get the shot. This is a series of the pictures I like best. For more pictures you can have a look at my Flickr set here.

Photo Shoot

Today, I met with friends to do a small photo shoot. I am not big into portraits and posed pictures but thought it would be fun to do this and experiment with something different. We had a great time and got a lot of pictures out of it. I wanted to travel light so only took the GXR with both A12 modules with me but ended up using only the A12 50mm module, the EVF was great to have along and the ability to tilt it 90 degrees really helped so I was happy not to have an OVF instead.

These are a few pictures from the shoot I quite like.

LPMG Shoot The Band 06/2011

Tonight, I went along with the LPMG to shoot some concert footage of bands in Notting Hill. The bands playing were ANDY MITCHELL, ED LAURIE, BEATIE WOLFE, POSTMAN OPERA, FEEN, CUTHBERT 80 and burlesque from VERONICA VENUS.
It was a great opportunity to use the Nokton but I also took the Canon FD 50mm f1.8 along. It was not always easy to manually focus while keeping an eye on the shutter speed and follow the action to capture the right moment.
This series contains my best picture of each performance I have stayed for and is a mix between the Nokton and the Canon FD with ISO ranging from 400 to 3200 for the last picture.

Here's looking at me

Yesterday, I got the S10 module from Ricoh and took it for a walk today. The weather was great and I took hundreds of pictures.
I am not sure if it was the weather, the new module for the GXR or anything else but I was very inspired and could not stop taking pictures. I filled 8GB worth of SD cards and even had to charge the GXR battery during the day.

Since I took so many pictures, I decided to post a series here and upload quite a lot more to my gallery. Head over there if you want to see all my favorite pictures from today.

Cleaner Break

GXR, f5, 1/570, ISO 400, JPG, 50mm

Today, I have used the GXR for some proper street photography in London. While the AF is pretty much useless for this, using MF works quite well.