Trafalgar Square in London used to be famous for it’s many tens of thousands of feral pigeons but due to the costs associated with cleaning up after them and concerns about hygiene and potential damage to local monuments the Greater London Authority turned to using trained falcons as a form of pest control. Hardly any pigeons remain in Trafalgar square but you can often see handlers with the falcons, which are perhaps even more photogenic than the pigeons.
In the shot above the photographer is doing his very best to capture a photograph of a falcon perched on a lamppost ten or so feet away just off camera to the right of the frame. The photographer spent such a long time with his eye pressed against the viewfinder in an attempt the get the best possible shot than he failed to spot the falcon that had landed just a few feet away from him in a prime spot waiting to be photographed.
I took this shot because it was an amusing spectacle but it got me thinking about what we could be missing when we focus all of our attention intently on a subject. I guess it’s worth looking up from the camera every once in a while to see what’s unfolding around us as we could be missing a great opportunity! There may not always be a large bird of prey sitting just a few feet away posing for a photo but there may be something unexpected and equally as exciting just waiting to be discovered.
I don’t know how this ended up but I really hope the unidentified photographer managed to get the shot he wanted.
Here are a couple of shots I was able to take:
Happy shooting.
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I came across a blog belonging to Ryan Bradford who currently works as a mailman in San Diego. He currently has a wonderful (not to mention rather amusing, from the viewer’s perspective at least) post on his blog entitled All the Dogs Want to Kill Me and as the title suggests it consists of a series of pictures of his various canine adversaries while doing his rounds.
The pictures were all shot using a disposable 400 ISO, 35mm film camera.
All images © Ryan Bradford
You can see all of these photos and more in full size photos over on Ryan’s blog post here.
Happy shooting!
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© The Camera Store
I saw this superb viral video earlier today and simply had to share it.
According to an article on the Huffington Post:
Battle at F-Stop Ridge, a promotional video for The Camera Store, a 32-employee photography shop in Calgary, features eight employees in a field battling it out with tripods, cameras, lenses and a hand grenade (or, in this case, a flash).
Jordan Drake, who runs The Camera Store’s video department, told The Huffington Post that the video took two days to produce and only one day to shoot. He spent about seven hours editing it.
You can read the article in full on the Huffington Post web site.
The video is certainly over the top but as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing!
Enjoy.
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So Chris Marquardt went all out and presented a particularly elaborate (and pretty convincing) April Fool this year. It was based around a breakthrough in camera technology which he had dubbed the Invisible Camera and well, you can see it for yourself by checking out the video below:
Chris posted a follow up video exposing the Invisible Camera as an April Fool prank a few days later. You can see that video below:
I think this was a really great April Fool prank and I don’t mind admitting that for a few days I was really excited about the prospect of a new breakthrough in photography.
Did you spot any noteworthy April Fool pranks? If so why not let me know.
Happy shooting!
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Just a very quick post to share a photo I took while driving home this afternoon.
I spotted these seagulls resting on the heads of some floating swan rides and immediately had to stop the car to get the shot. A random passer by looked at me with my camera and then looked out to where my lens was pointing and remarked “That’s really funny, I just wish I’d brought my camera out today”.
So it just goes to show that it’s always worth having a camera handy if possible to capture those quirky unexpected moments.
Have a great weekend!
