1920's photo shoot

Had a wonderful photo shoot today with Laura Genevieve. Laura is a trained dancer and performer and it was an absolute joy to take portraits of her. Here are some...

Last few... when I went through the photos to give Laura, I couldn't help but edit a few more...

Actually, looking at these last photos it looks like we were being very serious, but the truth is that I just didn't post all the photos where Laura was laughing as we were joking about some thing or another during the shoot. I gave her all those photos privately, but these here are the 'official' ones. ;-)

The Sock Monster

I heard some suspicious noises this evening followed by Zebedee skulking up the stairs to Miles's office. We followed him, and just like I had guessed, he had raided the laundry basket and then hid behind Miles' chair under his desk.

Zebedee is known to steal the odd sock here and there, whenever someone has made the mistake of leaving one (pair) unguarded on a chair or a sofa. But this time, Miles had left a whole PILE of them within his reach. Zebedee must have thought all his birthdays had come at once - a PILE of them! Whoo-hoo!

I thought he looked so ridiculous with his mouth full of socks that he reminded me of...

...a puffin.

(not my photo... no credit was given on the above linked page so I don't know whose photo this is)

He wasn't too happy when we confiscated his loot.

Skiing trip Day 3

After carrying my fully loaded camera bag with me on the mountain on the first day, I decided not to do such a silly thing again. After all, I took three photos with my SLR that day. For those three crappy photos I carried a 6 kg camera bag on my back while skiing, slinging it out in front of me for the ski lift journey, strapping it back at the top of the lift, skiing down with the heavy bag weighing on me, un-strapping it and moving it to the front for the ski lift, repeat until dead... So yesterday I left the camera back at the hotel and used my mobile phone only. Today I didn't take even mobile phone photos... I only took a couple of shots of the nearby mountain in morning sun, having stepped out on our balcony and seen how beautiful they are:

Marvellous!

I managed to get some proper skiing done today, which was a relief! Not only pain anymore, but pleasure, too. Hope tomorrow will be better again. One last shot from our room after sunset, snow-capped mountains shining in the moonlight.

Skiing trip Day 2

Now, I have never been to Brand before so I have nothing to compare to, but all the others here have, and they are terribly terribly disappointed by how little snow there is this year! There's no snow what-so-ever in the village, whereas usually there's lots, and everything is covered in that wonderful white stuff, apparently.

Well, to me, it sure looks pretty nevertheless.

...although I have to admit the cable car ride to the first chair lift doesn't look promising.

There's mostly grass even when you get close to the top of the condola... and you can't help but wonder whether there will be enough snow to ski on!

...but if course - as you saw from my last photo yesterday, the higher slopes are nicely covered with snow. Beautiful.

My skiing companions - waiting for me to catch up with them. Usually I'm quite a fast skier, but I am so dreadfully unfit at the moment that my legs were just killing me, and I had to ski very very slowly today, and take a lot of breaks in between short stints of skiing.

I did a very short day of skiing today as I had to go back to bed in the morning and catch a few hours' sleep after a badly slept night. This is the view from our hotel room right after we got back from the slopes in the afternoon. I have a blister and my thighs hurt.

All of today's photos were taken with my mobile phone, the marvellous Nokia N8. Well, it's not that marvellous as a smart phone, but it's not bad as a handy little camera that also makes calls.

Skiing trip Day 1

OK, I think this is the earliest I have got out of bed in years. 3:30 am wake-up in a hotel at Gatwick airport, 6:00 am flight to Zurich! Going skiing, for the first time in three years. Yay!

From Zurich we took a train to Austria - first following the long and narrow Zurichsee lake...

...and not long and we started seeing some snow-capped mountains.

..fields...

...and the motorway between us and the mountains.

Typical Swizz houses...

...a castle on a hill...

...all that just whizzing past our train window, and we were watching it with great anticipation. A couple hours later we arrived in Bludenz in Austria, took a taxi to Brand, hired our skis, bought our ski passes and hit the slopes! Whoo-hoo!

New Year's Eve at the Brighton Ballroom

A friend sent a message on Facebook yesterday saying that Brighton Ballroom are offering free entry and drinks for professional photographers for their sold-out new year's eve show. I jumped, as I wanted to go to the event anyway, but sadly had heard about it only after it had been already sold out. Long story short, I contacted them and they arranged a press pass for me, and in I went.

I got there at 8 PM as agreed, and the first act was on: Christopher James.

The place was full of dining people - some in themed (Top Hats And Tassles) costume, some in ordinary dinnerwear. I didn't have a seat, so just hung around and took photos.

Before I knew it, the second show was on: Coco Deville.

Rather fabulous-looking act!

It was a burlesque act and she kept taking more and more clothes off, but I won't show further than this here. ;-)

Next act was a singer, Veronica Blacklace.

I was asked to take some photos of the venue and the crowd...

After a break, back to Christopher James.

...after which another fabulous act by Billie Rae.

She didn't only perform a luscious fan dance, but she also fire-ate!

Pretty amazing, huh?

Next, back to Veronica's act.

And then, a great band!

I don't think this band's name is mentioned on the Brighton Ballroom web site... they were good, though, so I hope I can find out who they are.

Enter Boogaloo Stu, the DJ.

...who was a lot of fun. :)

A bit of a show-off, really - which was a complete shock... I never would have guessed from his looks that he'd be such a show-off! ;-)

The place was so full by this time that I had no chance of moving anywhere from where I was, and it was getting near to 12 midnight.... all I could do, really, was to get on the stage and get a shot of New Year celebration from there.

...after which the band came back on, and I took my last shots before going home to celebrate the new year with Miles.