Benjamin's Photoshoot

For those who have been reading my blog for a while will know that back in November I took a few shots at Benjamins Christening. Ben is now 6 months old and I'd arranged to go and visit his mum for the day and take some pictures while I was there.

The drive up to Manchester was rather rubbish as the weather couldn't quite decide what it was doing but I soon arrived at my destination. Unfortunately Ben was teething and was a little grumpy but with the help of his play mat I managed to get some nice shots, helped by the natural daylight coming in through the window.

 

He is so active now pulling himself around and starting to learn how to move accross the floor so keeping up with him was sometimes quite difficult. He is a proper little poser though stopping every now and then and just giving the most perfect look - it was just making sure I was ready and waiting when he did and unfortunately I missed quite a few shots but this is the joy of photographing children you never know what they are going to do next.

Bens mum showed me how he loves playing in his Jumperoo, his face was a picture but it was impossible to get a shot whilst he was bouncing up and down. After a while he was a little tired out so he went off for a little afternoon nap which seemed to do the trick as he came back a lot more smiley. By this time it was dark outside and so I got to test out my new flash which I'd only recently brought, this was my first time of using a hotshoe flash and I really like the difference it made to the pictures.

I got some amazing smiles from Ben which I caught on camera and some really cheeky little faces too. I especially love the expression in this next picture.

All too soon it was time for bed and for me to head back home. The drive back was atrocious as I got caught in a blizzard and in some of the worst fog I think I've ever driven in during my seventeen years of driving so I was definitely glad to get home. I don't want to put up too many pictures as these are a bit of a taster of them for my friend and her boyfriend but I can't resist putting this last one up as I love it - I just hope they will too.

 

I'd just like to say many thanks to Colette and Dave for letting me take some photos, Ben is definitely one of my favourite subjects to work with as he is such a happy, smiley little boy. I really hope that you both like the pictures.

Next weekend we are off to a wedding and I am going to be taking my camera with me to try and get some shots so I should have some more photos to share with you all. As always many thanks for reading, your support is appreciated - please feel free to leave comments as I enjoy reading them.

A Winter Wonderland

Have had a lot of stuff going on over the past few weeks but I realised I hadn’t updated my blog for quite a while so I thought it was about time I picked up my camera and headed out to get some shots. Trying to find a subject was proving to be difficult though what with the dark nights and busy weekends but I was given the perfect reason a few weeks ago.


As we entered 2010 along with it came some of the coldest weather the UK has seen in a number of years and the first snowfall of the new decade. When I awoke and I looked out of the window I was greeted with snow covering our street, just like a lot of the country.

Luckily for me my workplace was closed and I ended up with a day off. Instead of curling back up in my nice warm bed I decided to don my polka dot willies, gloves, hat and scarf and head off in search of some photographic opportunities.

One of my favourite places in Milton Keynes is the Peace Pagoda and I have been wanting to get some pictures of it in the snow for a while now so that was where I headed. The roads had not been gritted and were pretty atrocious but I just took it nice and slowly – after all there was no rush snow like this was not going to melt in the 15 minutes it would take me to drive there.

I got there in one piece and parked up the car, as I left it parked solitary in the vast snow covered car park I hoped I would be able to get it back out but hey I’d deal with that when I left! Off I walked along the deserted pathway usually full of people walking their dogs stopping occasionally to take a picture.

The snow was light and fluffy just like icing sugar, perfect fresh snow which had been sprinkled overnight from above. There had only been a few people walking along here as their footprints stood out imprinted into the white blanket below me. You could clearly see the pathways which had been more popular with pedestrians…..

I carried on walking and carefully climbed the steps, popular with photographers but hardly recognisable covered in snow apart from the handrail running up the middle. When I reached the top I looked and the trees created a lovely frame to the footsteps running up the middle of the snow covered ground.

As I reached the usually green grassy hill the I was greeted with the crispest blanket of snow covering the whole whole area. It looked almost magical. There wasn’t a soul in sight something I have never seen before as this area is usually bustling with people – joggers having their daily run, people walking their dogs, couples out for a stroll…..never have I seen it totally empty, just me and my camera.


This is where you find the Peace Pagoda. Officially opened in September 1980 the Peace Pagoda is a central part of the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji Order in the UK. This is where Buddhist monks hold ceremonies to mark specific occasions such as memorials for the Hiroshima victims among others.

Unfortunately the sky was totally white, obviously more snow waiting to fall held within it so I didn’t get the picture I was hoping to achieve but the Pagoda looked so beautiful I couldn’t resist. Typically later on that day the skies cleared into the most beautiful blue colour which was the exact picture I wanted to get.


As much as I love snow pictures they can look a little samey so I’m not going to post a lot of shots as one looks very much like another but one thing that did strike me is how a sprinkling of snow can make something that would ordinarily look pretty boring look totally different like the branch of a fir tree.

So simple but yet for some reason I really like this picture.


Now the snow is starting to melt and it doesn’t look anywhere near as beautiful as it did a week ago. I think that most people are starting to get rather fed up with it now and will be glad to see the back of it. Unfortunately for some reason the UK really doesn’t seem to cope well with snow even though it seems to be a more regular occurrence, we could definitely do with some lessons with some of the countries who are seasoned pros at dealing with it.

Anyway after my expedition out in the snow I’ve realised how much I’ve missed picking up my camera, even though it was freezing cold it was nice to get some nice pictures before all the snow got trodden into slush. Afterwards I went home and enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee………while my husband decided to top up his tan in the back garden…….

This blog is late going up as I’ve been so busy – I promise to make sure I update my blog more regularly from now on!

With that I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read, subscribed and commented on my blog in 2009 your support is very much appreciated. I’d like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year and that I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2010.

Urban Exploration (also known as Urbex) is the hobby (some might say sport) of exploring derelict buildings, underground bunkers, disused hospitals, asylums, schools, subterranean tunnels, abandoned factories and other such forgotten structures or pieces of land.
My husband is into Urbex and has visited a few different places including an abandoned lunatic asylum called Cane Hill and a hospital called Hellingly. Ever since he told me about the places he has explored I’ve been intrigued and have been looking at pictures of other peoples Urbex visits on the internet as I find them extremely interesting.

It is a common belief by most people that those who are into Urban Exploration will break into buildings to gain entry and is it assumed that any resulting damage inside the buildings such as graffiti, mindless vandalism and even arson is caused by them. However this, in the majority of cases is not so, serious Urbex enthusiasts abide by certain rules such as no breaking and entering, no vandalism or graffiti and no stealing. A well know phrase adopted by lovers of the hobby is “Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints”.

Most mindless damage to these buildings is actually caused by drug addicts bored teenagers, yobs and trouble makers who use empty premises as a meeting place. Those into Urbex usually have just one aim, to quietly look around the inside of abandoned and derelict places to see the architecture inside and the amount of decay caused by disuse, occasionally taking photographs to document their visit.

On Sunday my husband told me we were going on a secret photography afternoon. I had no idea where we were going when we headed off in the car and once we got close my husband told me that we were going to look round an abandoned nursing home a moderately short distance away from our house. My first reaction was a mixture of fear and excitement, having only ever read other peoples reports I had no experience of my own to go on – I was entering the unknown in more ways than one.

The building we would be exploring was built in around 1934 and was originally used as convalescence home housing inured war veterans and patients from the local hospital recovering from operations – there was also an adjoining mental hospital wing. The building itself is apparently listed however permission has been granted for redevelopment in early 2013.

The first problem of the day was actually finding the place; my husband had done his research and had armed himself with some directions. We programmed in the sat nav but when it said we had arrived at our destination there was no sign of the place, Google maps kept taking us past it too. After a few drives backwards and forwards we saw a possible access point and parked up. The actual building was nestled in amongst a forest so we made our way through the trees and soon we saw the grand building and were assessing the area. Hiding in the bushes we stayed well clear until we knew there were no security guards patrolling the site then seizing our chance we legged it towards the building.

We were in, we’d got the hard part out of the way, now the exploring could begin, my heart was beating ten to the dozen, a mixture of excitement, fear and anticipation sweeping over my body. Once inside we were met with a variety of rooms with a corridor separating them down the middle. The place was a mess, stud walls smashed to pieces in places, every window was smashed, there was peeling paint, graffiti tags sprayed all over the place, certain rooms had a large amount of fire damage inside obviously by junkies or arsonists since the building closed in 2006.

It was obvious that this place had been easily accessible for quite a while due to the amount of damage. After our trip I did a bit of research on this building and found a few other reports from people who had done previous Urbex visits to the site it was amazing to see how rapidly the building had gone downhill since the last documented visit I could find which was just 8 months ago.

We explored the ground floor, treading carefully as we went because of the amount of rubble and debris over the floors. By time we got to the middle of the building my heart rate had more or less returned to normal, I was starting to get into it and was really enjoying looking round. In the middle of the building was a large staircase starting on the ground floor at what I think may possibly have been the reception area and leading up to two further floors. My husband went into a room while I was taking some shots of the staircase…..



When I looked round I spotted what looked like a figure in the distance. Unsure of my surroundings I couldn’t quite work out if it was actually my reflection in a mirror or if there was actually a person there. I stopped and looked for a possible hiding place but I was right in the open with no place to hide away. My heart jumped into my throat at this point after all I had no idea who this person was and here I am in a rather eerie deserted building. I whispered to my husband that someone was coming and he quickly appeared from behind a half demolished piece of plasterboard which at some point would’ve been a wall. It turned out that there were in fact two people, walking towards us from the other end of the building.

The two figures reached us and it turned out they were two teenagers, I don’t think they were Urbex enthusiasts as one them a girl aged around 16 /17 said she was local to the area and that the place had become a bit of a hang out for the local teenagers (culprits for the damage quite possibly) after a brief chat we said goodbye and went on our way and we didn’t see them again. I must admit for a couple of seconds I was rather scared when I realised there were other people in the building – aaah well at least it made the visit a little more exciting!

We continued to explore and found a door with a hole kicked in the middle of it. My husband havingbeing more experienced took the lead and climbed through the hole, we came to a room with a few pieces of old furniture which had Christmas decorations strewn all over the floor – obviously used to give the residents some seasonal cheer. There were a variety of old records scattered across the room, some still in their original sleeves and some vinyl’s smashed on the concrete floor – classics like Elvis Presley unplayed for years with footprints all over them.

Through another door at the end of this room and we stumbled across another room which looked as if it was once the kitchen area, maybe the old gas cooker and tiled walls gave its identity away.

It was at this point we found this amazing piece of graffiti which luckily had evaded the spray cans of the taggers across the tiled wall. Now I know that graffiti is a nuisance and costs millions of pounds to clean up each year but personally I have to admit that as much as I hate stupid tagging which has no point or skill to it I do love seeing graffiti like this. To me these kinds of pictures created with spray cans are amazing pieces of artwork using a different kind of canvas and I love looking at them, I had to take a picture of it as it would’ve been rude to the artist not to have done.

So after taking in the kitchen we carried on as there was still so much to see. There wasn’t a piece of glass in tact and the whole building was completely wrecked inside, there were doors hanging off and faded curtains half hanging, ravaged by the tests of time and the elements streaming in through the gaping crevices where once window panes had been. We walked up the stairs to the top floor; the staircase was quite well preserved apart from the lack of front to the building which had mainly been all glass windows previously. When we got to the top floor the right hand side of the building had obviously been torched and suffered a huge amount of fire damage.

However the corridor to the left had remained untorched (for now). The picture above and the picture below are actually the same corridor but separated by the landing at the top of the stairs, the fire damaged one above leading off to the right and the non fire damaged one below leading off to the left – you can see the difference in the two.

I love the picture above; I think it looks so eerie with the curtain blowing in the breeze which ran throughout the building. I certainly don’t know how people explore these buildings at night it was spooky enough during the day!

By this point I must admit I was starting to think we were pushing our luck, we had been inside the property for well over an hour and so we decided to head back to the car. Looking back now I wish we had looked round a bit more as there was still plenty left to see but I think my nerves were starting to get the better of me a little – after all this was my first time exploring in a totally derelict building.

It was a really enjoyable experience and I am definitely glad we did it, I found it really interesting if not a little nerve wracking at time and a little scary but I would definitely like to go and look round another derelict building in the future it’s just a case of finding a place to go now.
As always thanks for reading and lease leave a comment if you have enjoyed it.

Hello!

This is my first post on my blog so if you are reading then thanks for stopping by.

Last week it was my birthday and I turned thirty five. I started thinking about where I am in my life and where I want to be by time I’m forty. I realised that as much as I have a great life with a fantastic husband, a great family and amazing friends I sometimes feel that I haven’t achieved much with my life so far and that I would like to use the next five years to change this.

Since buying my first SLR camera in February of this year my interest in photography has increased. When asked if there was anything I would like for my birthday by my husband some new equipment for my camera was on the top of my list. So as part of my presents I received some great accessories for using with my Canon 40d – a new memory card, remote shutter switch, cleaning kit and a variety of different filters. I am sure these items are going to come in very handy and I’m looking forward to testing them out.

I also decided to treat myself to a new lens using money received from my parents and opted for the Canon 55 – 250mm IS which arrived this morning. At the moment I have two lenses, the 17 -85mm IS lens which came with my camera which gives good results but sometimes the lack of zoom frustrates me somewhat and the 50mm 1.8 EF lens which I find is great for doing portraits. Later on this month I’m going on a photography outing to the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Ashford to shoot big cats and I know that I really need a lens with better zoom to get the best pictures I can, this is one of my other reasons for purchasing the nifty two fifty. I’m determined to get some great shots while I’m there and hopefully having this lens will help.

My photography is definitely one of the things I would like to work on over the next few years. I have a few other things I’d like to do but at the moment they are simply ideas in my head rather than actual plans so for the time being I’m going to concentrate on my photography and see where that takes me. Tonight I’m going to start uploading a few images onto my site and working on my galleries so I should have something to show you all soon – hopefully you will be back to check them out.

That’s it for today – many thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday!