Thursday 30 June 2011

Ed Sheeran.

Double-posting today. If you've taken a peak at my Glastonbury Facebook album, you'll have noticed that one of the people I saw was the wonderful Ed Sheeran. I didn't want to go too mainstream, and I was busy waiting for Mumford & Sons and getting something to eat so I missed him on BBC Introducing and caught him on the Croissant Neuf stage instead — who appeared to have a bigger crowd from what I can see anyway.

Anyway, due to how down-to-earth and genuine Ed seems, I'm subsequently attempting to track down whatever backcatalogue I can find. Aside from the lead singer of Dry the River, I think Ed was the best vocal I heard all weekend. He truly has an amazing voice and a great rapport with his audience considering it does seem to just be him, some cool effects and his guitar. He's a funny guy and demonstrated his cool, polished act both on Croissant Neuf and later on the BBC Introducing, although I am led to believe he played a couple more sets over the course of Glastonbury.

As per usual, headliners of the BBC Introducing stage, be it at Glastonbury or any other festival are definitely ones to watch and Ed Sheeran is no exception. His combination of soft vocals with fast, clever raps gives him a fresh edge to an arguably over-populated style. Last time I heard, Ed was charting at number three with this single, 'The A Team', a deep, meaningful song stemming from a charity gig he did at a homeless shelter in Camden. He announced during his BBC Introducing set that his next single is, 'You Need Me', my favourite that I've heard so far, simply for it's wittiness and the final line.

I would definitely recommend that you give Ed Sheeran a listen because he's going to be everywhere within the next few months. A couple of Sheeran's EP's can be purchased from the iTunes store already. I would guess that this is due to his upcoming performance at The Roundhouse as part of the iTunes Festival supporting Bruno Mars - I have entered both via the official competition and Ed's own competition in which he is giving away 35 tickets for his 8th July gig.

I'm hoping to try and kick off my writing and blogging generally again now that I have time and a few more events to talk about.

550; 35mm Photos.

So, I got my Glastonbury film processed this afternoon. I took half a roll in my SLR, not knowing what was on it already and another roll that I shot over the course of Sunday.
To my surprise there were photos from as long ago as Paris! There are also a few from mine and Moon's terrible visit to Wagamamas. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how the Glastonbury (I promise that I'll stop talking about it soon!) images came out, they definitely make me want to start using more 35mm again — although I say this nearly every time I get a roll processed and it barely ever happens, and I seem to have run out of my never-ending supply of colour film now anyway.

So, while I'm waiting for Moon to get here before we go out with some friends for a curry, I figured that I would share these with you because I quite like them.
Paris:



Wagamamas, Portsmouth:


Glastonbury 2011, Sunday:




Ok Go





Ricky Wilson, Kaiser Chiefs, The Other Stage.


Bins by stall selling Glastonbury Spring Water.

Beyoncé, Pyramid Stage

I feel that I must mention that I am slightly disgruntled over what I paid for these to be developed at Boots. Firstly, they were charging an extra £2 for a CD, which I bought because it makes things easier, and secondly, it would have £5.99 per roll for 6x4 images anyway, which seems quite steep considering they have the facilities and you can buy so much film for that amount nowadays. I might also add that Asda throw in a CD as an extra for free, which kind of adds to the sting a bit.

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Glasto2k11 Photos.

So it's taking ages to upload the photos onto Facebook but for some reason the ones I've put onto Flickr were done hours ago. So here is my mandatory 'here are my photos from Glastonbury' post.

Despite the fact that I only took my Canon 90IS AND the fact that it practically fell apart (thanks Dan for the electrical tape), the photos actually look a lot better than I thought they would, even if I do say so myself. I was feeling pretty pessimistic after a quick run-through in-camera but it just goes to show that you should always have a proper look on your computer when working with digital.

So, I think my previous post pretty much said all I had to say about how awesome Glastonbury was.
I feel like I want to add how much I hate NME after reading it this afternoon; why the hell does it have to be so angsty about everything, hardly anything was positive, I think it's time NME grew up. I'm not a big reader of NME anyway and usually only browse it if they're taking about something I've been to and this weeks issue fully confirms that they are just wrong. The photos are brilliant though. I'm just all about event photography at the moment anyway, particularly from Glastonbury - obviously because I've been there, but also because there's such an eclectic mix of styles from each of the photographers, it's really exciting for me.

My favourite images so far can be found as part of Boston.com's Big Picture feature, the captions are a bit hit-and-miss, I think it's because it's American, but the photo selection is brilliant and I love the size and layout of the page. I love that each year usually has a couple kissing as well, nice.
© Cathal McNaughton/Reuters
I saw this man, it was pretty awesome initially but from behind, the manufacturing was much less impressive

© Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

© Matt Cardy/Getty Images


Flickr Set














Here's a panorama from Sidmouth, which we visited enroute to Bodmin.

Monday 27 June 2011

Post-Glasto Laze.

We made good time today.

The 'film' has taken up most of my 8GB memory card. I'll start editing and whittling when I get back to Surrey on Wednesday I think. I also managed to shoot some film.

Glastonbury was great. I was definitely lulled into a total false sense of security last year. However, despite the incredibly strange, not to mention changeable weather, overall I saw some great music and had a nice time. I think Sunday was my favourite day because there was a lot of sitting down involved. I managed to survive the mud and didn't fall over! I did however lose my welly once, which was horrible but I got rescued by a stranger pretty quickly so it wasn't too bad.
I actually hate wellies now, I hope the next festival that I get myself to doesn't involve them (there isn't another Glastonbury until 2013, and judging by the state of the farm, it doesn't surprise me). I'm glad I snapped up my snazzy calf-length starry wellies from Office for £15 though because they were pretty comfy for what they were, and despite the fact I hate them.

My favourite acts of the festival were Mumford & Sons (of course), Paolo Nutini, Kaiser Chiefs and Beyonce. Coldplay put on an amazing show in terms of visuals though and despite not knowing many Elbow songs I think they were my overall favourite for crowd interaction. I pretty much enjoyed every band that I saw the whole festival. I also saw, The Midnight Beast, Ed Sheeran - who also had a brilliant crowd and sounded beautiful, Dry the River, The Joy Formidable, TV on the Radio, Eels, Ok Go and Those Dancing Days. I also managed to catch the end of Tinie Tempah and Bombay Bicycle Club, neither of which I'm great fans of but they both seemed to sound 'CD-quality'. I also saw Robin Ince, as per annual tradition.
I didn't manage to see U2 because I was too cold and wet by that point, but that's what iPlayer is for.

I guess it's back to reality now because once Glastonbury is over, despite the hype, it's over.
Stay tuned for some photographs and videos, it may take a while though because I'm covering Malden Fortnight again this coming weekend.

Sunday 19 June 2011

I'm leaving for Glastonbury on Tuesday..

... then I'm going to Bodmin to stay at Long's for the day then we're sleeping in the carpark on Tuesday night, unless Moon realises how stupid/pointless it is and that we can just wake up early on Wednesday after a nice sleep.

I'm so excited. I'm planning on - battery permitting - making a video diary this Glastonbury, there are loads on Youtube but most of them are rubbish. I'm going to edit the hell out of mine!

I'm so excited, I have basically packed everything apart from my washbag.

I did my nails yesterday and have coated them in anti-chip 7 day etc stuff so I'm hoping that they'll last the whole thing. I love them so I hope that I won't get bored.


Anyway, I was basically just blogging you to let you know to watch this space.
Basically straight after Glastonbury, I'm covering Malden Fortnight so I hope I can turn everything around quickly. Eeep!

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Beep.

Hello,

Just letting the two people that read this that I am still alive but I have no idea what to do with myself post-degree.
I'm getting myself in gear once I get home and putting my CVs places, I'll be in a huge rush because I'm off to Glastonbury on Tuesday, well I'm off to Cornwall on Tuesday and then heading to Glastonbury that night.

Crazy rush, I'm going to try and do a video diary, as well as hopefully take some nice photos, I'm slightly worried as I've now sold my G10 (I know I made such a fuss over it last year but I needed the money).

So I'm hoping that there will be slightly more activities going down on this blog as my summer is setting out to be pretty packed...
All I have left to do is complain about one of my final grades in my summative tutorial tomorrow and pack up 80% of what has been my life for the past year...

x

Saturday 4 June 2011

Exhibition opening: done.

Despite being useless at setting things up, everything (as far as I know) was a success.
In hindsight, my space was a bit in the way of traffic but at least people will have seen it - the whole place was basically gridlocked and you had to be extra careful due to all the people walking around with wine and other drinks...

I noticed that one of the images wasn't totally straight, which perhaps makes it look like I don't put any effort in, but I did and by the time I noticed it, it was too late.

Yesterday was generally a busy day, and a hot one. I think I need to start paying more attention to this blog again.

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