Dance Show Montage

Over the course of the dress rehearsal and one of the mid-week performances, I’d taken a few thousand photographs of the CUCDW Dance Show. As I knew several dancers in the show and wanted to show my appreciation, I put together a montage of all the pieces, and gave them prints at the aftershow party. Fortunately the 24 pieces fit perfectly into the design that I use for my “Colour & Form” collection, but it was still a rush to choose the best photos and put it all together before the print-shop closed on Sunday afternoon…

Such Stuff As Dreams

Such Stuff As Dreams

A dancer friend’s birthday was soon after the dance show, and she’d indicated that she was rather fond of some of the photos I took of one of the pieces. I put together these two montages as a gift.

Such Stuff As Dreams

Such Stuff As Dreams

CUCDW Dance Show Publicity

Having photographed the annual CUCDW Dance Show at the ADC for the last few years, this year’s show director asked if I’d take photos for the show’s publicity. An accomplished dancer herself, we had a photoshoot in St. John’s College to get various poses and action shots in late November. Over the holidays, I offered to work on the publicity design as well, and in mid-January, these posters and flyers went up all over Cambridge.

Perspectives - ADC CUCDW Dance Show Poster
Poster

Perspectives - ADC CUCDW Dance Show Flyer Front
Flyer Front

Perspectives - ADC CUCDW Dance Show Flyer Back
Flyer Back

Cadenza Photoshoot

I was asked by a friend who sings in Cadenza, Cambridge’s premier a cappella sensation, to take their publicity photographs for this year. They had a weekend-long rehearsal session in Newnham College, and after a bit of exploring with one of the group’s Newnhamites, found a few suitable locations for their group photos. I was privileged to hear several of their songs while they were waiting for a few extra members to turn up. Not only are their performances wonderful, they’re also all lovely people.

Cadenza singers, sepia pose

Cadenza singers

Essex Marshes on New Year's Day

I went to spend New Year’s Eve with a group of friends, one of whom lived in Maldon, Essex. The morning (afternoon) after, as we weren’t far from the coast, some of us decided to visit the Essex Marshes. While it was quite overcast and grey, it still made a pleasant location for a walk along the coast, even with the low tide exposing the vast mud flats and beached boats.

Defender
Not going to be defending much during low tide

Grasses growing on wrecked boats
The decaying hulls of discarded boats provide the shelter and nutrients for grasses to grow (and for dogs to explore)

Grass-boat
A boat-shaped patch of grass and a mast are all that remain of a small fishing boat left to the elements

Red boat with perfect reflection

Boat named Great Escape

An Insight Into Photostitching


The first step in creating a photostitch is to take the photographs. For this photostitch (The River Cam in the Mist at Magic Hour), I wanted to create as large an image as possible, so set my camera to maximum zoom – this would lead to more photographs being required to cover the subject matter. I then fixed the camera’s shutter speed, aperture, focus, and white balance, to ensure that all photos in the series look as similar as possible in colour and exposure. A row of photos was taken along the top of a mental grid, and then the next row down etc. until the whole scene had been covered. Photostitching requires overlap between each column and row of photos, so that the images can be lined up accurately.

Insight into the photostitch

The next step uses software to calculate how the images overlap, and to find control points that appear in more than one photograph. Depending on the output options, the resulting image(s) may still have very visible seams where the source photos overlap – this is most often due to vignetting, where the corners of a photograph are dimmer than the centre. While it is sometimes possible to get a near-perfect image straight from the software, I tend to choose to output a multi-layered Photoshop file, and then carefully blend between the layers so that no seams are visible; this is what can take many hours, even after creating control points and working in the photostitch software.

Insight into the photostitch

I think you’ll find that the results are well worth it though. 23 photos and 5+ hours later, here’s the 81 megapixel image.

Clare Bridge in the mist at Magic Hour
Move your mouse over the image to see a crop of the full-resolution image.

Misty Magic Hour

Seeing that it was still foggy at midday when I headed out for some Christmas Shopping, I took my camera with the intention of getting some photos of Cambridge in the mist. Sure enough, as I reached the peak of Garret Hostel Lane bridge, the following pictoresque sight awaited me; along with several other people taking photos.

This first photo is my favourite – it’s a composite of 23 photos, seamlessly stitched together (taking over 5 hours) to create an 81 megapixel image.

Clare Bridge in the mist at Magic Hour
The River Cam in the mist at Magic Hour

Punting under Clare Bridge in the mist
Punting under Clare Bridge in the mist

Clare Bridge at dusk
Clare Bridge at dusk

Looking towards St. John's from Garret Hostel Lane
Looking towards St. John’s from Garret Hostel Lane

Psychosemitic, featuring DJ Filastine and Y-Love

Another of Psychosemitic’s fine events, this time in the great venue 93 Feet East, on Brick Lane. Starting the evening was DJ Filastine, who mixed live sampled-drumming with standard DJing. Impressive skills. Next up were Y-Love, a hiphop threesome of Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, whose infectious choons feature English, Hebrew and Aramaic lyrics. Check out MySpace.com/ylove and you’ll be hooked. Before the crowd got to carry on showing off their moves on the dancefloor, a belly dancer showed how Middle-Eastern dancing should be done.

DJ Filastine
DJ Filastine

Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love
Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love

Belly dancing
Belly dancing

Belly dancing
More photographs from Psychosemitic’s event are available on CantabPhotos

Bright Frosty Morning

On a bright and frosty December morning on my way to work, I was able to enjoy some prime time taking photos in the wintry wonderland of St. John’s College Backs. I’ve taken many photos of the St. John’s Backs in the snow, but this is the first time I was able to catch a slightly wintry view in bright sunshine, rather than overcast snow-clouds.

Frosty Leaves
Frosty leaves

Ripples formed by droplets from melting frost
Ripples formed in the Cam as melting frost dripped from branches overhead

Frosty grass on the banks of the River Cam
Frosty grass on the banks of the River Cam

Frost
Close-up of frost on a stone bridge

St. John's New Court refracted in droplets
As the sun melted the frost on tree branches, water droplets formed pretty refractions of St. John’s New Court

Panorama of St. John's Backs
A 71 megapixel panorama of St. John’s Backs on this bright frosty morning

More photographs from this wintry set are available on CantabPhotos