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360 Degree Panorama of Cambridge in the snow

Well, it took 2 weeks to get round to finishing off the photo-stitch – it was a tough one, took several attempts, lots of manual tweaking, and it’s still not quite perfect, but good enough! There were 36 photos, and the final cropped panorama weighs in at 56 megapixels.

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 in the Snow: Panoramic view from Castle Mound. Visible in the panorama are the University Library, King’s Chapel, St. John’s Chapel Tower, and lots of snow!

Cambridge Snow Panorama
Click to view panorama

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Photoshoot with Steph, Ben & Lizzie

I often marvel at the stunning photos of models and celebrities in glossy magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. For a long time, I’ve wanted to expand my photography repertoire and portfolio, and do more portrait work. I’ve already taken a few portraits for friends, but have always been on the lookout for more people to photograph, to work on my rapport with the model, giving direction for styles and poses, and to build a portfolio of portrait and fashion photographs to start getting some paid commissions.

I noticed a photo of Steph, a friend of a friend, on Facebook, and thought she’d make a good model; she was keen to have some photos taken, and came along with two friends. We spent an hour wandering around my old college, St. John’s, on a partly-cloudy Sunday afternoon. They enjoyed the fun of the photoshoot, and liked plenty of photos that I selected. I retouched a few of the photos (I fix cropping, brightness and colour on every photo I take anyway), to give them the magazine-model look. Here are a few of my favourites:

Steph on the Bridge of Sighs

Steph & Ben on the Bridge of Sighs

Steph

Lizzie, Ben & Steph: looking moody

Ben

Ben & Steph

Steph

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1 hour in the snow

It snowed in Cambridge again today (the heaviest UK snowfall in the last 11 years), not quite as much as in Oxford or London, but enough to make every other person wander around town with their camera :)

Taking advantage of the glorious and beautiful snow, I left home early and wandered around the pretty parts of Cambridge taking photos before work. The last time it snowed, I headed straight for the St. John’s Backs (snow photos from January 24th, 2007), so this time I took a friend’s advice, and wandered around Jesus College, with a few stops along the way. My favourite photo of the morning (after some minor artistic retouching) is of a girl playing with her dog on Jesus Green. The colours were pretty much as shown, and are very reminiscent of the famous scene in Schindler’s List, with only the girl’s red coat standing out in an otherwise black-and-white scene.

One photograph (well, 36) that I haven’t got round to processing yet is a 360 degree panorama of Cambridge, taken from Castle Mound. I have a similar panorama taken at sunset, so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

Snow-covered Castle Mound

Quayside Punts in the snow

Girl and Dog on Jesus Green

Snow-covered railings

Jesus College

More snow photos are publicly available on Facebook.

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Prometheus Fire Troupe

I found out from a couple of friends that the Prometheus Fire Troupe, local to Cambridge, would be meeting on Midsummer Common on Sunday evening, to spin their poi, firesticks, and diabolos. Having often wanted to photograph LED/fire poi at night, and presented with the perfect trio of opportunity (some free time that evening, a very skilled troupe, and my SLR/tripod), I went along to watch. My protegée, Zoe, came along and snapped away too. She has a wonderful eye, and will have a fantastic and extensive portfolio before long. I’m sure I’ll mention Zoe again in the future…watch this space.

Prometheus Fire Troupe

Prometheus Fire Troupe

Prometheus Fire Troupe

Prometheus Fire Troupe

Prometheus Fire Troupe

More photos are available on CantabPhotos.com

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Nerina Pallot

Both Nerina Pallot’s and Imogen Heap’s concerts were due to take place last October, but were both postponed until this week; this made for a busy week of photography, but great for my listening entertainment!

Nerina is starting her latest tour, promoting her recent album “Fires”, which contains the excellent singles “Everybody’s Gone to War” and “Sophia”, and my other favourite track “All Good People”. While she may still be unsure about how to entertain the crowd between songs, her piano- and guitar-playing, and singing, were spot on, and definitely pleased. Memorable moments from the evening include the moving finale, “Sophia”, and Nerina’s take on Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”.

Nerina Pallot

Nerina Pallot

Nerina Pallot

Nerina Pallot

More photos are available on CantabPhotos.com

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"Elemental" – CUCDW Dance Show @ ADC Theatre

As I wasn’t able to get photographs of the whole show last Monday evening (see previous post), I went to the last performance of the week, and took photographs from the lighting box, accompanied by the show’s very talented lighting designer, Eddy Langley. Having spent well over an hour just downloading the photos, rotating them, sorting them into each of the 25 dances, and discarding any unusable photos, I finally got a chance to look at the photos. As usual, the choreography and lighting produced some wonderful imagery, but one of the photos took my breath away (well, I actually said “wow”). In the piece “Fire from Water”, the dancers wore loose strips of orange and yellow ribbon “bringing to life the beauty of flames dancing playfully in the breeze” (seen clearly in the photo I took on Monday). This time, I took some long-exposure photos, and the one shown below looks like real fire. I wonder if the choreographer, Vaughan-Alicia Watts, had this image in her mind. Simply stunning.

UPDATED 31/01/2007: Photos of all dances are now on CantabPhotos.

Prelude
“Prelude”

Fire from Water
“Fire from Water”

Samsui Water Women
“Samsui Water Women”

Homelands
“Homelands”

Bittersweet
“Bittersweet”

Bittersweet
“Bittersweet”

Monkey
“Monkey”

Just Happen
“Just Happen”

Five Breaths
“Five Breaths”

Swan Song
“Swan Song”

Sandstorm
“Sandstorm”

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Cambridge in the snow

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!

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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:

Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap

Updated 23/01/2007 – the rest of the photos are now on CantabPhotos at http://www.cantabphotos.com/view.php?album=claude/070123193949

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"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…

Fire

Elemental

Elemental

I hope to be able to photograph some more of the dances later this week.

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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.

Coloured Discs