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!

Last week I went to another event organised by UCL Labour – this time a talk by Chuka Umunna, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham.

Chuka is a fantastic speaker, and talked on a wide range of issues. I won’t pretend to remember everything he said (it was a few days ago now, and I didn’t take notes) – but he gave good answers to questions on MPs’ expenses (it had to come up!), and the challenges the Labour Party currently faces. He’s certainly one to watch when in the run up to the election.

He’s also incredibly expressive when talking – you can see a few more of his hand movements in this Flickr set. It makes for a difficult job in choosing just a few photos out of the ones I took to illustrate the talk, but I think I managed to pick four good ones – what do you think?

It started off pretty miserable this morning, and I wasn’t convinced anyone else was going to bother turning up to the Monument meetup – which would have been disappointing, as it was my first official one (I’m not sure PhotowalkLondon counts?). Standing just inside Monument station waiting for anyone to turn up, I actually bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for a long time, which I suppose gave a hint that the day wasn’t going to go so badly after all!

Other photographers arrived (including a couple I knew from PhotowalkLondon last week), and we made it up the Monument itself – a snap at £3 (if you’ll forgive the horrendous pun). It’s 311 steps, and they give you a rather less-impressive-than-it-sounds certificate. If you’re ever in London and haven’t made the climb, do – the only disappointing thing about it is the cage at the top, which makes certain shots over the City rather more difficult. The best bet is either to use a telephoto to zoom ‘through’ the wire, or press your lens right against it and try not to get it in shot. Read the rest of this entry »

I took time out this evening from revision to pop along to Talking Politics with Eddie Izzard, where the infamous comedian talked for a short while about his own interest in politics – culminating in restating his intention to run for some political office, at least, in the next 10-15 years. Needless to say, the audience was behind him on this.

But the evening wasn’t about Eddie Izzard, for he was there to ask a few gentle questions of MPs Tessa Jowell and Ed Balls, both well-known Labour ministers. There was some talk about whether holding a costly Olympic Games amidst the recession is a good thing – resoundingly yes, Jowell said, when the Olympic site will have employed some 11,000 workers, and created hundreds of new apprenticeships – and also, at the very end, talk about twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Far fewer photos this time – no pressure to capture every single outfit – but some stunning images nonetheless from backstage at Modo‘s Elements fashion show. These were taken on the first night, 27th Feb, when by all accounts the stage lighting was slightly amiss. Luckily words were had and the Saturday night was much better lit for my photos of the catwalk itself.

The image above is of model Grace Barnett being fitted into one of Modo President Katie Jackson’s outfits in the second half of the show and is one of my favourite images from the two days.

Check the gallery below for more fantastic images of the backstage process, from hair and make-up to models coming fresh off the catwalk. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again, when the UCL Fashion Society, or Modo as it’s more commonly known, holds its annual fashion show. They’re they only student fashion society in the country (apart from Central St Martin’s, which has a fashion course – UCL doesn’t!) that holds a show entirely composed of students. All the designers are students. All the models are students. The stage is built and lit by students. It is also, of course, photographed by students. (Albeit one of whom could afford to have two D40s around his neck!)

The theme of this year’s show was ‘Elements’, although some designers took this more seriously than others. One designer even had one of the models sewing his collection together on the first night – but that’s not to say that the whole show didn’t look pretty awesome for a bunch of lazy students being in charge. It was quite telling that the timelapse I shot of the stage being constructed involved a lot of inaction… Read the rest of this entry »

Another Portland Rise post, I know – but we have a great relationship that I’m sure is going to live on for some time yet, so don’t be surprised if there are yet more to come over the years!

The band played a really great set at 229 the other day, a video of which is floating around somewhere on Facebook only at the moment – when they get it up onto their MySpace I’ll let you know.

Anyway, here’s a quick selection of shots from the gig – enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be honest – I’ve known Portland Rise (warning: MySpace link) for a few years, back when they used to have another member and a different name, a different sound. However, I do like their stuff on a non-friend level too, with several of their tracks on my iPod.

It just so happens that they played a small gig the other day at a Battle of the Bands at UCL Union, and of course I popped along (still sans flash – need to pick up a new one very soon!) to take a few photos. They’re mostly of frontman George, with one shot that I liked of another band’s frontman too (apologies to him for knowing neither his name nor his band’s name!), but the larger pic above is of the entire threesome. Read the rest of this entry »