colour

i had a shoot for a rug manufacturer last week.

after the main job was over i made a little shot using some tuft samples.

here's a wide view of what i was doing

and some closer views

nice eh ?

and finally

colourful times in n7.



which leads me to...

... well, i wouldn't say i'm getting fed up blogging, but i do feel like i need a little change.

so august is going to be a different month from any other i've done so far.
i'm not sure if i should just do one post each day
or should i just post black and white photos for the whole of august ?

i think i'll try to make august a black and white month, so take a last look at
the colour of july and brace yourself for a monochrome month.

restaurant observations

the restaurant i photographed in sw3 the other day was a tricky place.

it looked good, but was quite a challenge to photograph.

when i'd finished shooting interiors on my m9, i quickly rattled off a 

few frames with my trusty gf1, and here they are.

1. the place has this one groovy light 

which casts a warm light onto the one big table... hmmm...

little jars with sprigs of lavender on each table

perfect for nans

if you know what i mean ?

say if there was a prison full of nans

then i reckon lavender would be the currency amongst the prisoners

anyway, this was a really well designed restaurant ( with good coffee )

is it just me or did i get carried away photographing the lav ?

hmmm... maybe just one more shot

for nans everywhere

ok what else did i spot ?

oh, there's my m9 on my tripod at the far end of the place,

with my orange pelikan case on the floor.

and finally...

boom !

black coffee

i won't lie, i had a bit of a hangover on wednesday morning.

black coffee was the order of the day. this was spot on.

and it looked good too. black white and yellow. it works perfectly.

self-portraits in sw3

i was working in knightsbridge again this week.

that's the 5th shoot in 3 weeks in the coffee black spot.

still, i got to photograph a nice new restaurant and not only that, but the

owner made me a flat white before i started shooting.

that's the first time i've ever been offered a flat white in a proper restaurant.

i celebrated by knocking out 2 self-portraits.

1

so far so miserable

2

 the no smiling, thumbs in pockets pose is pretty much owned by me these days.

and for those interested...

t-shirt by stüssy

jeans by marc jacobs

eddie cruz west edition nike af-1's

the rheidol rooms

i did a shoot for a friend of mine yesterday. let's call her 'g'

she wanted some photos for her website and we decided to shoot in a cafe... perfect !

here's a frame i did when i was testing the light / cameras

nice location eh ?

this is pretty much my favourite frame from the shoot

here's a shot of 'g' checking what i'd shot on the x100

i shot this with my m9 ( 50mm lens at maybe f1.4 i think )

here's 'g' when her fry-up arrived

grrr ! mushrooms and tomatoes.

and a little bit later

grrr ! mushrooms and tomatoes.

hmmm... photographing the photographer... with an iphone !

good luck with that !

final frame of the day... si claro.

thanks to 'g' for posing and laughing.

also many thanks to the rheidol rooms for putting up with us.

if you're ever in st. peter's street n1, it's well worth a visit.

flat white in sw3

this was the flat white i was given at the restaurant i photographed in sw3

last week. ok so the foam art is not up there with the best, but the coffee

itself tasted very, very nice... and that's the main thing.

you know, just looking at this makes me feel like a coffee.

flaming chorizo in sw8

on friday morning i had a shoot in battersea, which finished at 1.30pm.

la niña assisted me and when we finished, seeing as we were both hank marvin,

we headed over to sw8... to a place i think of as 'little portugal'

we ordered up two portuguese coffees, which i can neither spell nor pronounce.

( actually the word is a bit like trying to say 'glow' when you've got a whole scotch

egg in your mouth and you're trying to swallow )

er, anyway, look what i ordered up...

a flaming chorizo !

( can you see the flames ? )

it's a bit out of the way... and it's in south london ( grrr ! )

but i like 'little portugal'

obrigado

re-lacing the uslu airlines af-1's

my entourage kingpin neil is the person i trust most for sneaker advice.

i often send him sneak previews when heat arrives at whitfield towers

and listen to his comments / recommendations.

when i showed him the uslu airlines af-1's the other day

he texted me back straight away: "maybe a change of lace ?"

he was right of course, so i got rid of the pink laces with the silver tips

and brought into play the parachute cord white / pink laces.

nice one mate.

giving sneaker advice like a boss !

haunch of venison exhibition

ok, this is quite a rubbish review.

as i have mentioned in the past, i often visit the haunch of venison

on a saturday afternoon ( scowling at the queues of people outside abercrombie

and fitch as i walk by )

the haunch of v is a corking venue and over the year it has some pretty amazing shows.

i rarely pick up any info on the artists i'm afraid, which is why this is a rubbish

review... i don't know who the artists are, and i can't be bothered looking it up either.

well, i'm a photographer not a writer, right ?

so... in one of the big rooms there are these massive pieces

they look like big canvasses that are painted black and then they have been drawn 

using pencils. the details on them are very nice... though i didn't take any close-up shots.

anyway, room 1 has big black pieces with pencil scribbles ( and i kind of like them )

the next two rooms though...

i know you might think they are rubbish, but that's art isn't it ?

i guess there's nothing to it in a way, but in another way there's a lot to it.

personally i think i like the next pieces because of my love of a nice typeface

and also because i definitely like a bit of ocd 

( that sounds better than saying i suffer from ocd )

can you guess how big this is ?

here's a clue

nice big typeface. what's not to like ?

this one is the same size, taking up a whole wall

i swear if i was a walker i'd do a chart like this !

hmmm...

i'm not interested in the rocks and slates to be honest.

i guess the artist brought them back from his walks ?

personally i just love the typeface

oooh... a small print

i wonder how much it is ?

and there's the rub i suppose... is it worth say £1000 or £2000 even more ?

is it by an artist who's work is worth a load of cash ?

wouldn't it be quite easy to buy a piece of white card and some

letraset ( does that still exist ? ) and make this yourself ?

no doubt the words mean something to the artist, it's a walk he did,

but to me i just like the blue, black and red lettering... the spacing

and the typeface used.

it could say anything, it could be the menu of a cafe, the opening hours

of a shop... what i mean is... isn't there something pleasing about good lettering ?

or should i just tell you about my next pair of kicks ?

third prize

this is part of what we snagged for coming third in the pub quiz a couple 

of nights ago.

fresh from the primrose bakery

breakfast was sorted

from the top, going clockwise: carrot cake ( that's one for mrs w )

lime and coconut, coffee and walnut, lemon.

i started with a double espresso and the lemon cupcake

yep, the olympic diet is going really well.

on my coffee table this week

now don't get me wrong, i'm not recommending any of these.

i'm just showing you what's on my coffee table.

what happened was...

me and mrs w went to a pub quiz on monday night and we came third.

third prize was 4 really tasty cup cakes from primrose hill bakers and these 

three gems which the quizmeister bought earlier that day from his local charity shop.

a book, a cd and a dvd... well, that's a cheap blog post if ever there was one.

( although not one of my better ones )

dvd: capote

in fairness, i've never seen this, so it's not a bad prize.

philip seymour hoffman was in the big lebowski too so all in all

this might pass a couple of hours at the towers one night.

cd: the very best of sting and the police

yeah, i'll have a quick listen to this i suppose.

book: screen burn by charlie brooker

i hate charlie brooker. this is going straight to the post room.

ok competition time...

( yes christian, gary and anonymous, i know i haven't posted anything out to you

yet and i'm hanging my head in shame. i've been busy but not that busy eh ?

i'll get some prizes out in a few days i promise )

so here's the competition and i think it's quite a hard one this time.

take a look at the track listing on the cd.

on my iphone i have 1211 songs... one of them is on the cd.

which song is it ?

one guess each, gary you're barred !

the prize is a limited edition print of erin o'connor.

it's an enlarged digital contact sheet of the one roll of film i shot of her

a few years ago. i only had 6 of these printed up and if i say so myself

they look really nice. here's a link to an old post which kind of shows the print:

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-shortest-shoot.html

one guess each, tell me which song and i guess as a tie-break, why that song.

ok gary you can have a go if you want to.

the british museum ( fisheye view )

the british museum is great.

i can't think of much more to say... it's a great museum.

on sunday i took my gf-1 and fisheye lens over for a looky

the view as soon as you enter is pretty impressive

in an old school way








and then you go through and...

... not bad !








the courtyard bit is most impressive

money well spent








inside the museum i found a cabinet with spare toes in it

er...








oh, i liked this lad

i think he was mexican. i don't know what his story is, but i like his belt.








to be honest, the british museum on a sunday is not a great idea...
it was a bit too busy for my liking so i headed out for a coffee.

by the exit i saw the bit where you donate some cash to the museum.

hmmm... that's handy harry !

so i got mrs w to cause a distraction, quickly pulled a wire coathanger and some
blu-tack out of my bag and managed to fish out couple of £20 notes and a £2 coin !

boom !

the wall

when i'm having a pub meal with mrs w, sometimes i like to build

a wall between us, so there is a kind of barrier between my meal

and the wretched vegetables / salads that she may have ordered.

this was at the bull and last on saturday afternoon.

so far so good.

i explained to the waitress that i wanted the cheeseburger and chips,

"but with no salad... no tomato, no lettuce, no cress, no salad at all, just burger,

cheese, bap and chips"

i couldn't have made myself any clearer.

things got better when a message came from the kitchen

"because you're not having any salad, the chef wants to know if you'd like some bacon

on the burger"

i replied to her question with another question of my own

( regarding the pope, his toiletry habits and the woods )

it was all going well for me... and then...

what the what ?!

in the interests of decency, i've put a mosaic mask over the offending items

but obviously i hadn't made myself clear enough. pretty close to the burger

( but not touching ) were a couple of green things. i think they were gherkins

but i'm not sure.

i wasn't that happy to be honest, but mrs w rescued the day by removing the

wretched greenery and taking the things over to her side of the wall.

i'm a big fan of the bull and last but that was a close call.

wild and wood coffee

if i had the eyes of a fish. would my view of the wild and wood cafe

on sunday afternoon look like this ?

probably, because my fish-like eyes would have scared away all of the other customers.

er, anyway... check it out

a flat white for me, a latte for mrs w.

yeah... i like wild and wood coffee ( it has two of my favourite things in it's name )

www.wildandwoodcoffee.co.uk

oxford circus

sitting on the top deck of the c2 on saturday, the bus stopped for the red lights 

at oxford circus. 11 shots later...

textbook stuff.