With our nerd badges affixed firmly to our lapels, Robert and I were off to this years Film and Comic Con for a day of childlike indulgance and perhaps a brush with fame or two.

These are mostly just snaps as I was far to excited about all of the toys on offer and costumes on display to worry too much about shooting.  (this should be read as an excuse for the poor quality of the shots)

We circled the showroom floor more than a dozen times as there was always some new gadget out that we had to have or some new cosplayer on display that we had to see.  Also, we spent a fair bit of time just waiting around for our photo op with Captain Kirk.

All in all, a great day out and definitely something we’ll do again!

There are a few more shots from the day in the gallery.

Our first official holiday together and we choose (at length) the tiny, volcanic island of Santorini.  It seemed warm enough for an early May holiday, romantic enough for couples and most importantly, there were direct flights from London.

We had an amazing 5 days, zipping around the island in our cabrio Smart car visiting the various historic sites and shopping centers.  I think this was the first place I’ve been to where the souvenir stalls were almost all unique, so I actually enjoyed browsing the shops for once.  Usually tourist destinations have hundreds of copies of two distinct shops: t-shirts in one & location specific memorabilia in the other.  Think fridge magnets and shot glasses.  Though I shouldn’t complain about shot glasses, as I try to pick one up from every place I go to.  Santorini had them as well, but I managed to get a unique, hand painted one here.

Our hotel was brilliant!  The owner was more than helpful and you could really feel his love for his island in all of the small details of our 5 day home.  The pool was constructed to resemble the shape of the island (complete with raised bits to stub your toe on), he’s created copies of the famous churches (pictured below) and windmills, and even went so far as to create a three dimensional scale replica of the island itself.  All of the towns were labeled and the roads depicted with great care.  We’ll definitely be staying there again when we return.

Anyway, I took a LOT of photos during our trip.  So much so that my battery died on the second to last night (halfway through a 2 hour star trail exposure).  Of course I didn’t have a backup battery or a charger, so we made ample use of Danni’s little point & shoot camera for our final day of excursions.  I’ll know better for next time…all of the time spent reviewing images sure puts a drain on ones battery.

Here are a couple of my favourite shots from the short week.

There are a lot more photos in the gallery here.

In the ongoing effort to introduce new slices of culture into my life, Danni picked up a pair of tickets to see the ballet performance of Cinderella.  Having done years of ballet she’s an obvious fan and has talked about taking me for some time now.  I think choosing a familiar storyline was a good idea as I’m not artistically minded enough to extrapolate any meaning from interpretative dance (or any other subtle forms of expression for that matter).

As we were getting all done up for the evening, I thought I’d take a couple of quick photos of us looking shiny.

If you’re wondering whether or not I enjoyed myself, I did.  I would go again, but mostly due to knowing how much joy Danni gets from attending than for me.  Give me a hockey game any day!

As part of the website creation process for my fencing clubs new site I’ve taken several head shots of the coaches.  It’s the first time I’ve used a 3 light setup (having just picked up another 580 EX II while back home), and it wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting.  I think the trick is just to add one light at a time until everything looks the way you’d imagined.  The setup shot is here, where the tripod in the middle is where I had the subject stand.

In this case I wanted to use the colour of the walls in our gym to add a warm, orange-ish background and use a fairly fast shutter speed to kill any ambiant light and make the rest of the image darker.  In this way I could get an orange/black look that would match the colour scheme of the website and I’m quite happy with the results.

A couple of examples are here, and the rest are in the gallery.

I’ve mentioned it to a few people, but for the most part I haven’t really talked much about my new regieme.  For the past couple of months, I’ve basically cut out all of the booze I drink plus any food that I didn’t prepare myself (apart from the occassional night out with friends on both counts), in addition to going to the gym.  There were a few reasons for the switch, but for the most part I was just trying to keep my mind occupied and stay busy and this managed that all quite nicely.

I had a lot of help from a personal trainer as I’m not really a gym guy, and recently I’ve been working with a nutritionist as I’m well aware I need to put on some weight (10kg according to my nutritionist!).  It seems like a lot of weight and I’ve been struggling to eat as much as I’m supposed to each day, but I’m trying!

Anyways, I did a couple of self portraits that are a bit racy!  A lot of the look is done with the lights so I’m not quite as these seem (yet!) but I’m getting there.  No real photoshoppery apart from the black & white conversions.