How to Unwrap Christmas
The Somerset House Christmas Tree
OK so, how often have you read this blog and thought, "wow! that was really helpful!". Never right? That's because this isn't a "How To" blog. So you can relax, I'm not about to try and show you how to unwrap Christmas. Why the title you may ask? Well, I was out shooting on Thursday after seeing the Amazon exhibition at Somerset House and I came across workmen finishing off the installation of the ice-rink shacks. They were also busy putting up a grotto so they could sell you stuff you didn't know you needed. To me it just looked like they were unwrapping Christmas. I hung around for a bit because I wanted to show you the Christmas tree they'd installed. There was a security guard standing in front of it that bemused me. Maybe some of the baubles really are coated in real gold? Who knows. Perhaps they're hiding the crown jewels in that box? I was waiting for the muscle to move, and once he did, the sun came out. Very. Very. Briefly. I cannot impress this upon you more. 30 seconds and it was gone.
Dont' you just love the colours in this image? And it's all 'au naturale'. No photoshop required to get these tones. I simply swapped out the colour profile of my Leica D-Lux 4 for the Leica M9 profile in Capture One PRO and nudged one of the dark sliders in the histogram tool a few increments, and this is what you get.
Covent Garden Piazza
It presents the work of Sebastião Salgado and Per Anders Pettersson and some of it is really amazing. Black and white images taken in the Amazon. Huge arial shots of rivers weaving through the jungle beautifully composed. One of my favourites is an action shot of a native chasing a monkey through the trees and he's in mid-flight. A really incredible shot. It's not the first time I've seen an exhibition in one of the ground floor sections of Somerset House and as soon as I walked into the room my disappointment surfaced immediately. For all over every print on the wall was the reflection of the sun streaming through the windows. I've seen exhibitions at the Embankment level and it was nowhere near as bad (there are no windows, of course). You have to wonder if anyone working at Somerset House has ever viewed anything that's gone up on the walls. What a waste. It really did absolutely spoil the entire experience for me. Could you just imagine if Apple did photography exhibitions? I wish they did. They'd use their super cool glare-free screen material and we'd all get to see what we came for. Brilliant!
Vanity Glare
