Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival

More photos from the Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival - the Paul Harris Trio (5th) and Diz Watson (7th).

First of the Artemis Transat images

Here are the first photos (taken yesterday, 7th May) out of the DDR of some of the yachts taking part in the Artemis Transat yacht race. There had to be one mono!

Not so strange after all...

I've been working on some more images from the Jazz & Blues fest but ran out of time. Maybe I'll get them through the ddr tomorrow

After a call with Masa, [Update: Masa has now gone out of business] I understand now what seemed to be a strange decision a few days ago. In a nutshell, their production process does produce great images - that's why I chose them as my one-stop shop - and their charges are higher than the high volume places (you get what you pay for).

From their perspective, they are concerned that a photographer will get canvases produced at Masa but any sales made at exhibitions outside Masa's control won't come back to them for production; in a sense a superior product will be used to sell inferior reproductions.

And I guess that's understandable.

But I've cleared it with them and they've confirmed that they're still happy to act as my one stop shop; that is, they trust my professional integrity. Which is always nice :)

Yesterday's photojournalism shots

Here are the first shots out the ddr from the opening day of the Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival. First up we have Louise Parker, followed by a brass band.

Funny old day, Saturday

A strange day it's been. It started with a meeting with Mike H down at Masa gallery. It seems there's been a sea change in the gallery's approach.

Starting with the move to the new premises, they're going to focus on exhibitions featuring a particular photographer at a time; maybe over a two week period. And they'll now only produce photographic work (and fine art reproductions) if they are exhibiting the work. This last part puzzles me, but there must be a reason...

Then it was the start of both the Artemis Transat (solo transatlantic yacht race) and the inaugural Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival. I've been invited to take photos at the various Jazz and Blues events and was duly issued with an official press pass.

I took some shots of Louise Parker, Plymouth's First Lady of Jazz, that turned out ok and some of the Dixie Blue Band of St Malo, France... again a couple were ok.

I'll post some as they come out of the ddr and as the week progresses.

Four more from the DDR

Managed to push another four images through the digital darkroom. I used HDR on two and treated the others normally.

It's difficult to choose a favourite, so I'll put up two. Stella Maris is beside the RNLI shop on the Barbican and Great Cabin Architecture is the front of the Tourist Information Centre, a couple of doors down.

It's not often you'll see me do colour shots in this phase of my photography, but Stella Maris was so close to mono and I liked the effect of the blues and the flowers.

Last job for today...

I've just uploaded the recent images out of the digital darkroom so they're now available in the monochrome gallery I just have to redo my google sitemap and that's it all done.

Flickr has been absorbing more time but I'm beginning to get the hang of it. Two or three have now started to receive decent awards - I'll provide a listing in a future posting.