Saturday, 31 January 2009

Poppy


Poppy, originally uploaded by Ben Goode.

I had two photoshoots today. The first was with 6 week old Poppy Fifield. She was adorable. This is one of my favourites from the shoot. The photos will be available to view in the client area shortly.

London Camera Exchange did a great job cleaning the sensor :)

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Sensor!


Sensor!, originally uploaded by Ben Goode.

I wrote a few posts back saying how bad my camera sensor was getting. I took a few shots on the ferry crossing over to Belfast; it had got even worse. View this shot large to see how bad it is!

I dropped it into London Camera Exchange in Southampton today, it's not really usable in it's current state. Pick it up on Friday, just in time for a shoot on Saturday evening.

The shot was taken about half an hour into our journey from Birkenhead. There were hundreds of wind turbines standing in the sea, they're alien shapes made great silhouettes amongst the organic landscape.

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Mission Accomplished

Tuesday morning my Dad and I left Southampton at half 5 in the morning to head up to Birkenhead, Liverpool, and yes I was driving the same Luton van as before on the first trip over. We were due to leave Birkenhead docks at half 10 to get the ferry over to Belfast, NI. We took the M6 Toll to void the rush hour traffic, for some unknown reason my TomTom took us right into the city of Liverpool, North of the Mersey. We needed to be South in Birkenhead! We took the tunnel under and got across the other side. A few minutes later we got a call from NorfolkLine (the ferry company), as we were now late for check-in we were told there was no guarantee we would be boarded, great! When we got there we checked in no problem.

Despite being a day crossing we got a cabin. So as to keep the cost of the trip down I had only booked two day crossings, which meant we would have to spend a night in Belfast. The 'plan' (and I use the word very loosely) was to sleep in the NorfolkLine departure lounge. We knew we wouldn't get much sleep, so we thought we should get as much as we could on the crossing.

When we got into Belfast I knew roughly which way to go, plus we had a TomTom, and I had only been here just over a month ago, what could go wrong? I didn't know why, but I knew that we would be directed up the mountain, and to get back down and to where we needed to go I had to look for a sign on the mountain for Poleglass. After about 20 minutes driving on the mountain road I noticed there were no longer lights at it's base, the roads and houses were long gone. We had gone too far. We turned around, but still could not find the sign. After another 20 minutes which involved getting stuck in gravel in a side road, and walking into a very Celtic bar asking for directions in a very English accent (clever!) we found the sign and headed down the right road.

It was on the mountain that my Dad got a call from his Brother, my Uncle Matt. He had called to say he had booked us a room for the night in a Hotel in Belfast. What a hero! There would be no cold and sleepless night, we even had a cooked breakfast in the morning. Thanks so much Matt!

The rest of the trip went really smoothly. We loaded the van, had a good nights sleep, a nice breakfast in the morning, and at about 8 we headed for the ferry terminal. It was delayed by 45 minutes. There were some interesting characters on the return crossing. I'm sure there was a Russian cross dressing club on board, there was a guy with an awesome comb over (I would have loved to have seen him step out onto one of the outside decks!) and a girl from the NorfolkLine staff with a hairstyle straight from the 1600's, nice!

The return drive from Liverpool to Southampton was challenging to say the least. We were now really weighed down, it was poring with rain and blowing a gale. It was like it the entire journey!

Today I unpacked the van, everything is now safe in storage until we find a new place of our own. Mission accomplished! Thanks to Rob and Matt at Just Clear, my Dad and Uncles Matt and Will who all made the trip possible.

Monday, 5 January 2009

Published


Published, originally uploaded by Ben Goode.

My shots from the Just Clear IT Solutions shoot have now been incorporated into the development stages of the website build. I am really happy with the results. I am told the site should be live shortly. Check the website soon to see the final results.