Harmony on Heels from Josh Blacker on Vimeo.

I promised video, and here it is – pretty much straight from the 5D mkII. No fancy camerawork, shot at 70mm, and two clips slapped together. Easy.

Given recent developments following the election, I figured it was about time I posted this image that I took on Sunday 2nd May, less than a week before Britain went to the polls. I’d been invited down to take some shots for Chuka Umunna, Labour’s (eventually successful) PPC for Streatham, for what was a bit of a surprise visit – I had my suspicions, but they weren’t confirmed until I arrived at the New Testament Church of God in Brixton  and saw all the live transmission vans outside.

While I don’t want this blog to be about anything more than my photography (I have other places to discuss my opinions on other matters), I will say this: the Prime Minister, as he was then, gave a thoroughly impassioned speech about his core values. Referencing the parable of the Good Samaritan and other biblical stories, he made the case for not passing by on the other side when we should be doing all we can to help others less fortunate than ourselves in this world. The next day he gave his speech to Citizens UK, and it was that Gordon Brown that I saw in Brixton.

Plus, it was quite fun to be in there with the couple of press photographers, being ushered to the front by aides and being let into the inner circle of what’s going on. That, and hearing people afterwards making sure they’d got the radio mic off him as he left for the car…

(On a technical note, I shot this event at ISO 3200, and the shots look like they’re at about 200. I haven’t even applied noise reduction in Lightroom. The 5D mkII still amazes me, even after a two months now.)

After a long week spent in Scotland with (mostly) glorious weather – more on which in a blog post soon – I came back to the downpour in London with over 1,000 frames to sort through and edit. What more could I want than to take even more photos of yet another event?

Thank goodness this one had my girlfriend in it…

Harmony on Heels are an all-female choir based in North London who sing quite fantastically; next time you get a chance, go and see them! I’ve got a little bit of video from the 5D mark II as well, which I’ll post soon.

Having two PPCs in one room isn’t particularly remarkable, especially as we draw ever closer to the much-expected May 6th general election date, but when one of them is the drummer from Blur, and the other has been described as ‘Britain’s Obama’, it becomes something a little more interesting.

This wasn’t the first time I’d come across Chuka Umunna, the Labour PPC for Streatham, and I doubt it’ll be the last, as he’s asked me several times recently to do some photography for him, but this time he had Dave Rowntree with him – who’s the Labour PPC in Westminster.

Both seem equally passionate about Labour, but Chuka comes across as – not unsurprisingly – more of a politician. Rowntree struck me as much more subdued (perhaps because he knows how hard it would be to win in his chosen constituency!), taking some time to become animated and engage with the audience as naturally as Chuka seems to.

The talk itself was interesting – taking place over lunchtime it was short, but the small lecture theatre made it something of an intimate setting. Both talked about their view of politics briefly, before spending the rest of the hour taking questions. Entertaining, informative and a britpop star. What more could you want from a Wednesday lunchtime?

Anyway, you can find more photos from the event in this Flickr set.

(The title of the post comes from the awful pun Chuka made in reply to one of Rowntree’s comments…)

Even though the UCLU Modo fashion society faced quite a few setbacks this year – their traditional venue within UCL was unavailable except at reading week, when no one would be around, and alternative venues were both ridiculously expensive and available for just one night, rather than their usual two, they pulled ‘The Green Fashion Show’ off spectacularly.

The Russell Hotel was a quite brilliant venue, and (from my point of view) the lighting was much better this year. Well, I say much better – I really mean there was some improvement. There was still a massive dark spot halfway down the runway, which happened to coincide with exactly where the models had been instructed to stop and pose… Luckily, the end of the runway was pretty well lit, and my new Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 wasn’t exactly unhelpful.

Unfortunately the for-one-night-only show this year meant I couldn’t cover both backstage and the runway, although I managed a few shots of models dressing and being made-up before the show started. Nor this year – it being a Sunday, when I was editing a whole bunch of shots from Celebrating Streatham – could I get a timelapse done of the set-up: being in an external venue for just one day meant a 6am start for the crew, and probably a similar finish the next morning!

I’ll get a gallery up when I’m not quite so busy – for now, this shot should suffice to illustrate what in the end was the best Modo show I’ve seen over the past four years.

Last night I went up to Alexandra Palace in north London for one of the city’s best displays. Because the Palace is on top of such a big hill, you get fantastic views across the city, and every now and then there’s a little burst of fireworks in the panorama in front of you, even before the main display starts. We managed to watch most of a display in Greenwich while walking back down, which puts the view into perspective.

It was a bit crowded – something like 50,000 people – and there was a bit of a mad rush after getting food and so on to get to a half decent spot, on a fairly steep slope. Luckily, with my brand spanking new Velbon Sherpa 250 tripod, this wasn’t much of an issue. I took plenty of photos during displays last year, so I wasn’t paying much attention to the camera this year, except to have a little experiment with zooming in and out during a shot at one point – you can see the half-decent result here.

Taking photos of fireworks is pretty simple, really – so long as you do have a tripod. The basics are:

• Manual settings!
• Low ISO for best colour reproduction and least noise
• Quite narrow aperture for depth of field – I was using f/11 most of the night – so it doesn’t really matter if your focusing is off.
• Long exposures. A lot of my shots were on 2.5″, although at times I went up to 15″. Try out various combinations for different effects, and find your own personal style.

I’m off to the Lord Mayor’s Fireworks on the Thames again next weekend, so expect more soon!

Things move a whole lot faster these days. The death of Michael Jackson was announced last night, and this evening saw a tribute flash mob at Liverpool Street station, inspired no doubt by previous mobs held there. Organised by Milo Yiannopoulos via twitter, his blog, facebook and various other places, the mob was too big for the station itself and the police directed us outside onto Liverpool Street itself.

After something of a shaky start – standing near the press photographers, it was clear they had no idea what was going on, and nor did a fair chunk of the crowd – speakers were set up and tunes played.

There was certainly disappointment when the police shut the mob down after only four songs – and there was little or no actual moonwalking to be had; in the cramped confines of Liverpool Street, amid (let’s say) 400 people, there wasn’t enough room, so most settled for singing along, moshing and hand-waving.

Big props to the hundreds of people who came out – except those that, at times when the crowd was getting excited, wondered if it was Michael Jackson arriving to reveal the whole thing had been a sick publicity stunt. Semi-funny, but ultimately in bad taste.

There’s a whole set on Flickr here, while you can listen to some of the singing and music on AudioBoo (having some trouble embedding the new player, so click through for now).

Last weekend I headed into UCL for the annual UCLU Drama Society Quad Play. It’s my third in three years (and, interestingly enough, I’ve gone with a different girl each year. Says something, right?), and the third Shakespeare play I’ve seen them perform there.

This year’s Twelfth Night (printed Twelth Night on the ticket, unfortunately) was a bit more ambitious than last year’s, which erected a stage in front of the Portico along with bringing out rather uncomfortable chairs to watch from. Instead, we were treated to cushions and rugs on the grass, with three performance areas around us. Although the rain appeared at various points, the free ponchos managed to keep at least some people dry.

Pictured is Malvolio, played fantastically. There are a couple more images in this flickr set.

After three years living in London, I finally got the chance (and by chance, I mean gentle nudge up the backside) to visit London Zoo. I’m not a big fan of zoos, I must admit – but it seems like one of those things you have to do, like going on the Eye, and other touristy things that Londoners would probably rather not admit to doing themselves. So this Flickr meetup seemed a good idea. Unfortunately, it was a bright, sunny day – conditions I still can’t seem to work properly in, and cages and glass panels tried their best to ruin what would otherwise be the perfect shot of each animal. So, here’s a couple of zoo tips:

• When it comes to cages, try and photograph animals furthest from the edge of the cage to you. This means you can ‘zoom through’ the wire, which will become so blurred as to be invisible. (Of course, this then can cause problems with autofocus, so you may wish to switch your lens to manual if it’s not got a USM focus, for instance.)
• Glass is a pain in the arse. What I found to work better was to get on tip-toes (above the reflections of toddlers and crouching parents) and shoot at quite an oblique angle (45º and above). Still, didn’t really get any decent shots through glass at all, so prepare to fail on this one.
• Take a bottle of water. London Zoo may not be that big, but all the walking around adds up, especially on a hot day – even more so if you head into the humid butterfly tent and rainforest biome.
• A telephoto over any other lens. I was using my rubbish (and to-be-replaced-when-I-have-the-money) Tamron 70-300mm, but it was the only usable thing to get shots of the animals. For the butterflies, I had to take a step or two back, but that’s the only situation where it was a slight inconvenience.

Last weekend saw the annual Mandy Walker Games at UCLU, a chance for alumni to come back and challenge current students in a variety of sports across our facilities (our own sports ground at Shenley, Bloomsbury Fitness and a couple of others).

I popped in to the fencing at Bloomsbury Fitness and later the men’s basketball at Somers Town Community Sports Centre – you can see a full range of photos from these events in this gallery. While lighting in the sports hall was pretty atrocious, the good news of the day is that the Union beat the alumni!