I woke up this morning to find snow lining the tree outside my window. With great glee, I grabbed my camera and headed in to work, taking a long scenic detour through St. John’s college backs. The last time I remember snow settling in Cambridge, and when I got photos, was in March 2005 (see the album on Cantabphotos). I tend to gravitate towards St. John’s, my alma mater, whenever there are interesting lighting/meteorological conditions, though I’m quickly running out of novel photos to take there!
Imogen Heap @ Cambridge Junction
The second of my photoshoots this evening was Imogen Heap’s concert at the Cambridge Junction. Postponed since October 2006, this was the last date of her UK tour, and her last tour performance until she completes a new album, sometime in 2008. Hounded with technical problems (misbehaving Mac and repeaters (her ‘Parrot’)), she nevertheless wowed the crowd with her voice and creativity, making all the music herself. In addition to popular favourites “Hide and Seek”, and Frou Frou’s “Let Go” (here performed bare, with just her vocals and piano), the highlight of the evening was definitely “Just For Now”, which would have relied heavily on the Parrot for backing vocals (similar to KT Tunstall’s ‘Wee Bastard’ pedal). Instead, the crowd (full of her loyal fans) offered to sing along for her, and she orchestrated a 3-part harmony, with the whole room filled with powerful harmonies – most (including Immi herself) would say that this version sounded better than ever!
I shall sort through my photos when I find time later this week, and post them all on CantabPhotos but for now (and just for now ;) here are a pair that caught my eye:
Updated 23/01/2007 – the rest of the photos are now on CantabPhotos at http://www.cantabphotos.com/view.php?album=claude/070123193949
"Elemental" – CUCDW Dance Show @ ADC Theatre
I’d been looking forward to this year’s CUCDW Dance Show (Cambridge University Contemporary Dance Workshop), as I used to dance with people who performed in previous shows, and have always enjoyed the performances, lighting and music. Last year, I managed to get some wonderful photos of the show, called “Touch”. This year, I was asked back to photograph the show, except unfortunately I was double-booked for the evening of the tech/dress rehearsal. I managed to photograph the first four pieces before having to rush off to another photography assignment (Imogen Heap at the Cambridge Junction). Here are some of my favourite first pics from the dances that I saw.
The first photograph below makes me think of Fire…
I hope to be able to photograph some more of the dances later this week.
Coloured Discs
Haven’t had much time recently to sort through my latest photos, but as I’d like to update this photoblog regularly, I’ll add some older photos that haven’t had public airing yet.
Here’s one I took at Strawberry Fair in June 2006.
Landscape fading into the sunset
Another clear and mild day in Cambridge, so I took my camera out to capture some of magic hour. This time, I wandered around the St. John’s backs briefly, before heading up to my favourite haunt, Castle Mound, to watch the sun set.
These next two photos were taken 4 minutes apart, and are quite similar to a stunning mountainscape I took in Edinburgh. I love photos where the landscape gradually fades to grey in the distance. I can’t decide which I prefer, so here are both of them!
Cambridge Sunset Panorama
I took a panoramic view of a stunning sunset back in November 2005, viewed from Castle Mound in Cambridge. Lord knows why I waited a year to stitch together the photos. I only stiched about 340 degrees of the view, so don’t have a full wrap-around, but there were 40 photos, resulting in an output file weighing in at a hefty 108 megapixels. I’ve cropped it down to 70 megapixels, as much of the dark ground isn’t interesting. What prompted me to take the full wrap-around is that the pink clouds are visible across the whole sky, not just over the setting sun. Friends have asked how I get such colours – I just capture what nature does best – amaze us with its wondrous beauty.
You can scroll around the panorama in the Java Applet linked below. You can drag the view around with your mouse, or use your keyboard’s arrow keys. Pressing – or + lets you zoom out or in, although the images are displayed at 1:1 resolution already.
Cambridge Sunset: Panoramic view from Castle Mound. Visible in the panorama are the University Library, King’s Chapel, St. John’s Chapel Tower, and the moon.
I also took a second set of photos of the same sunset. Much of the sky on the left was too dark to keep in the panorama, so I cropped this one down to 31 megapixels:
