My Day With Menna

Yesterday I spent my day looking after my nearly three year old cousin. We had a very busy day together, spending time drawing, singing and doing role plays...

Menna	You be rapunzel and I’ll be Prince Charming.. Who is your Prince Charming?
Victoria	I don’t know, he hasn’t arrived yet.
Menna	I’ll be your Prince Charming
Victoria	Oh thank you, are you rescuing me?
Menna	Yeah.
Menna	*10 minutes later* I’m not your Prince Charming anymore, I’ve retired.

We also played with dogs, visited the chickens, fed the rabbit, watched some cbeebies, made crayon coffees, read a story, played with dollies - feeding them and putting them to bed. But we also did my coursework, where Menna found out how much fun a ruler can be and loved drawing lines on her piece of paper. The rubber also provided some fun, rubbing out my pencil lines. And we did some gluing. She was ever so helpful.

But the most fun came when I took some pictures of Menna. I have borrowed a Hassleblad for Easter and wanted to try and get some shots of Menna playing. This worked for a while. But then Menna wanted to take some shots of me. So we struck up a deal that Menna could take 5 pictures of me and this is what we got.

At the top is an image I took of Menna while I checked the light meter reading. Below is one of Mennas photographs of me.

I had a wonderful day, and I cannot wait to see what images I got using the Hasselblad. That will be a few weeks wait though while I finish shooting.

I Protested Outside the Tory Party Conference

Sunday was an interesting day, a protest in Birmingham. The TUC organised for a protest to happen outside the Tory party conference to show them how angry numerous people from all sorts of backgrounds are about the cuts they are making to the public sector. I'm pretty sure to them it won't make a blind bit of difference but we gave it our best shot and it was great to see so many people coming together in unity for one thing.
Here are some snaps from the event.

I love this photo just for how clearly the woman stands out against all the other dark colours. 

These were some very angry musicians, especially the banjo player (as you can see above). They were singing on their way round the protest.

Onlookers watching from the balconies.

Another musician - Brum surprised me with how musical they are. This young lad was more than happy to pose for a photo.

And the age of the musicians varied all the way round, as did their instruments. 

Fire Bragade Union were out in force at this protest, shouting to everyone just how the cuts are affecting the vital services. 

Some more musicians on the march in the city, these two images I think show how far and wide these cuts reach.

Old and young coming together.

Onlookers again, stood in Victoria Sq. watching the march come to an end. Some of the people had been with us for the duration.

This image is just fabulous in my opinion for no reason other than the banners. Grannies against the cuts - I often forget how it must affect them as well.

All of these images to me show how the actions the Tories are taking, along with the Lib dems in this coalition is causing everybody anger and frustration. It also shows how little the Tories are doing to change this, instead only making it worse. But it also shows how people of all ages and backgrounds can come together in force when there is a point to be made. 

Movement

I thought I'd try something new today and use slow-ish shutter speeds in daylight. I've not done it before. I set my ISO to 100 and my shutter speeds varied between 10/1 and 6/1 with an average aperture of 9.

A very busy shot, this was one of the first I took. I don't like the angle, looking across however I do like how many people there are and the variety as some people move and others don't.

This image is much quieter than the previous, and most of the activity takes place on the right hand frame. I should have cropped this image a bit further to remove the exits of the shops in the background, even though you can only see the floor of them.

This image I think is much less obvious that the blurs are people as they just look like splodges of colour. I'm fond of the the change of texture throughout the floor - I think it keeps the shot interesting.

A busier shot with people flying in at a few directions, even if you can only see a small part of the foot on the right hand side of the shot. 

Out of the four images I prefer the latter two, because of the angle, looking down.

To all of the images I have reduced the saturation before uploading them and increasing the lightness a tiny bit, I do like the effect it has given them, it makes the frames look much colder, silvery almost. 

Tomorrow I'm off photographing a protest in Birmingham - so excited!