Convention season is upon us once again and Robert and I were off to the London Film & Comic Convention once again.  No William Shatner this year however, and really nobody I was willing to pay and queue to see, so it was just a lot of browsing, shopping and generally geeking out.

There were quite a lot of CosPlay costumes in addition to all of the neat stuff on offer.  This was definitely one of the cooler costumes I saw during the day, I give you a warhammer warrior priest!

I can’t imagine the amount of time something like this could take to construct, but it was very cool.  There were of course the cutie costumes as well, like these two girls working one of the counters selling sweets.

I managed to walk out of there with only a small purchase this year, which showed incredible restraint on my behalf.  My new Totoro joined Robert and I for a post-con viewing of The Green Lantern in 3D and I think he enjoyed it.

Once again, there are some more images in the gallery.

So, this year was my second attempt (first attempt here) at an all night photo shoot throughout the streets of London.  The plan was to all meet up on one of the shortest nights of the year, stay up all night and end up at Westminster bridge to try and recreate a few of the iconic images seen in the opening sequences of the film 28 Days Later.

We all met up around 7:30 (baring a few stragglers) on the south side of Tower Bridge for a few sunset photo opportunities.  As I have about 200 images of Tower Bridge already, I took a couple of snaps and then spent most of my time chatting with the other folks.

After everyone arrived, I set up a couple of lights and made everyone pose for a big group photo before we started our slow trek to Westminster.

The POTN Gang
L to R: Matt, Steve, Brett, Paul, Neal, Angus, Bonnie, Scott, Me

Our walk took us from Tower Bridge to Westminster Bridge via the Gherkin, Bank, St. Pauls, Smithfields and Holburn before finally catching a bus from the Strand for our final leg of the journey.  We were running short on time to catch sunrise at Westminster, so we’ll plan a bit better next year I think.

While the sunrise we had wasn’t brilliant, it did provide some terrific light at Westminster which enabled me to get the photo I’d had in my head for a few days prior to the outing.

We were expecting the area to be completely quiet, but London being the city is it there was still a fair amount of traffic and quite a few people heading home from a long night out at 4:30 in the morning.  Still, there were few enough people that we got the shots we wanted without having to photoshop anyone out of the scene.

Definitely a great night out and worth the red bull shakes I had the following day.

As always, there are a few more shots in the gallery.

At the beginning of the year I spent quite a lot of time flat hunting for a place that was not only big enough for two people, but also close to Danni for the interim while we weren’t living together.  Because Danni was still in China for a lot of this process, all I could really do was to take photos of the flats and send her the agency listings to get her opinion.

I viewed a lot of overpriced dives (as well as a few really overpriced nice places) before we finally settled on my current flat in Brompton Park Crescent.

This photo shoot was inspired by one of my 365 project photos.  I went there a few weeks earlier to get this shot, something I’d been thinking about since moving and finally got around to doing.  I was impressed by the cemetery as a whole and decided I needed to come back and shoot a few more spots that weren’t specific to my project.

These were all shot in the middle of the day, but I played with the settings to keep things dark and added a flash to a few of the shots where needed.

More photos of my new neighbour can be found here.

With whole weekends off lately, Danni and I have been venturing out (weather permitting) to explore bits of London near my new flat.  This weekend we hoped on a bus to Kew Gardens to stretch our legs and get a psudo-countryside experience in the heart of London.

Obviously the camera came along for our trip out, but I tried not to take too many typical flower shots as my photo a day project seems to be filling up with them.

The weather wasn’t ideal and it started to rain by the end of the day, but we managed to see a large portion of the gardens.  I can’t go there without visiting the Japanese corner with their traditional gardening style and the massive pagoda.

Summer is fast approaching, but there were still an awful lot of ‘spring chicks’ around.  I got to hang out with a few of my fellow Canadians who were also enjoying the park.

The day ended with a healthy meal and a pint of delicious Kew Gold at a local pub while we waited out the rain, which never did end.

There are a couple more photos in the gallery as is the tradition around here.

My new friend and fellow photo enthusiast Ted Chan invited me along to a party he was shooting as part of his bid to take over the world efforts to expand his photographic knowledge.  As I hadn’t known Ted for very long and as we’d only ever spoken about shooting when we did see each other, I made the rather embarrassing mistake of assuming Ted was inviting me along to help him shoot the event.

This was not the case.

Fortunately, he was a really good sport about it all and cleared things with the promoter so that I was allowed to help cover the event (given that I’d brought along the heavy camera gear anyway, I was thankful).

The event itself was put on by a promotions company, who from what I gather have done quite a few of these events in the past and they’ve always been very successful.  This one was sold out when I checked the website almost a month before it was to be put on.

Obviously, I’ve gone with a very different processing style for these images.  I processed them all normally, but I just didn’t think it really fit.  Something a bit more vintage was in order.  It may be a little over done on the grain, but I was happy with the results overall.

The costumes there were amazing and everyone was really keen to get their photos done.  I even had quite a few people grab me as I walked past asking to have their photos done.  Which was ideal given my usual crippling shyness in asking people if it’s ok for me to take their photos…

There are a few more vintage images in the gallery here, and the images are duplicated here without the extreme processing.