This was long overdue.

Having been the driving force behind last years Kevtoberfest, my good friend Robert deserved repayment in kind.  A Facebook group was set up in mid-May which kicked off the planning for Roberts underwater themed, 2 months premature surprise birthday party of 2011!

With the guile of a half crazed fox, I managed to lure him from the comforts of his Covent Garden flat to attend Hyper Japan with me while Elaine, Elizabeth, Victoria, Brian and Tim transformed  the flat into a living aquarium.

Not everything went smoothly on the day of distraction however.  The queue for the event seemed so impossibly long that I was quickly wracking my brain for ways to carry on my ruse for another 4 hours until it was safe to return to central London.  We killed an hour at a nearby Pizza Express by which point the line for entry seemed more manageable and we were inside after another hour.

I had already formulated a plan which would have me returning on the Tube with him to Covent Garden at the end of the day.  Danni and I were meeting some friends for dinner at one of the near by restaurants and I would just accompany him to he station at which point we’d head our separate ways.  I needed one final distraction so I could beat him back to his place which was only a few minutes walk from the station.

I’d asked Victoria to text him requesting something from the shop on his way home which would buy me the time I needed to get ahead of him.  She sent the message as we left the event and I watched him like a hawk to make sure that he’d gotten the text, but he didn’t bother to check his phone once on the 15 minute walk to Earls Court.  Sitting on the train, deep underground with no reception I had to think fast.  I began to complain about how my phone is bad at organizing apps and asked if his was any better.  Never one to pass up the opportunity to show off the powers of one of his many apple products, he demonstrated the features of his phone and I noticed as he was about to put the phone away he got the day-saving message.  As he stopped into the shop to pick up the desperately required bananas for Vic, I sprinted ahead and beat him home with plenty of time to spare.

So much effort went into planning and executing this party, so thanks everyone who helped out.  Elaine for the brilliant fish decorations and our inflatable shark friend, Alex for somehow managing to get 50 fully inflated helium balloons into a taxi and across London, Elizabeth for the hours of underwater themed music, Tim for our fishy themed snacks (who knew fish fingers were so well loved?) and of course Brian for making sure the bar was appropriately stocked.  And thanks to everyone who showed up early to help decorate, the place couldn’t have looked any better!

There are a few more images from the evening in the gallery, and here’s a link to the image I created for the shirts & magazine cover created for the night.

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.