go ahead, snoop around…

So, after too much time on GT5, we trekked into town. Just as we hit the cross-road by KFC, the army arrives in town. Perhaps they went for some shopping, we don’t know, but we do know that they brought a marching band with them. Which was nice. I love Southampton for random stuff like this. There’s pretty much always something cool going on in the centre on a Saturday.

I love about this shot that the Colonel seems to be presiding over the whole thing. That juxtaposition was entirely intentional. Promise.

Went to meet Charlotte from work and there’s this cool-looking door set back from the road.

On a different note, I need to get Wordpress to stop desaturating my images when I upload them, it’s bloody annoying!

I’ve never done any HDR before, but this kinda called for it - dull grey sky almost impossible to expose correctly and keep the foregound nice and light. I think it’s come out really well, and it’s an impressive building with lots of photographic opportunity. I’m sure it’ll be revisited on quiet days!

Can’t spend all day taking photos, Metal Gear Solid 4 is calling me.

One of the great things about Southampton, if you like that sort of thing, is that it’s home to an incredible amount of very simplistic architecture. I have no idea how old this building is, but there are loads of buildings like this - massive patterns, lots of symmetry just cutting into the sky and it gives great scope for some abstract shots of bold shapes and colours.

Since we got to Southampton, this has been my favourite building here. I don’t think I’ve really done it justice as far as the overall impressiveness of the structure goes, but I love this view of the building. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more of this type of photo to be had around here.

Charlotte saved the day today. Normally if I went out and didn’t get a single thing I wouldn’t really care, but we were out for hours today and the centre of Southampton had nothing to offer. I thought I was going to be posting pictures of the roses in the garden (now people will know when I’ve not had a good day!). She spotted this on her driving lesson!

Today, I invested in an ND2 and an ND2-Grad filter and Cokin holder. The grad was used on this as the sun was pretty damn bright. I like them a lot. I wanted to get an IR filter but apparently the D200 doesn’t like IR. I’m looking forward to getting my filter on. Or something.

Tomorrow, hopefully something from the New Forest

(centre!)

So, Charlotte had her theory test today and passed. Not that I ever doubted her, but an individual’s own self doubt is enough to throw yours into question from time to time. I wandered all around the dock gate 20 end of Southampton this morning, but the horrible weather wasn’t really that inspiring. I had a good stab at South Western House, too but I think that would greatly benefit from a nice sky so I posted this one instead.

I absolutely love this kind of architecture and Southampton has it in droves. Huge blocks of concrete with amazing adornments and unlikely symmetry that were probably put up in the 60s - I’m likely to post a lot of that sort of thing. I love the external staircase on this building, it looks like it has a corresponding half that someone moved.

I don’t use my camera nearly enough. I spent loads on it last year, then just didn’t use it, then I was alerted to a deviantart user named yellowpumpkin, who’s taken a photo every day for the last year, and some of them are totally amazing. I haven’t had chance to go through all of them, but he really inspired me to get out with my camera. This afternoon, not content with settling for bunny/girlfriend-related photos on the first day, I went for a wander up the Avenue in Southampton. Every day I drive down there, I see a little corner of amazing-looking graffiti that I always mean to check out, so today seemed like the perfect opportunity! …