For a while now video capture has been featured on DSLR cameras, with the most successful so far being the 5D mark 2 from Canon. In fact, it’s been so successful that a whole industry has sprung up around it: its footage has featured in everything from short films to music videos, TV to cinema. With the combination of price and great HD video capture in such a small lightweight package, it’s sold and sold and is still hard to get hold of.

Now that’s all very well and good for film-makers but as a photographer it left me a bit cold, a case of the tail wagging the dog!

So as it turns out I’ve ended up having a few brushes with the 2010 election, and built up a collection of images from different aspects of the campaign trail.

Here’s a small selection for this blog with the wider set on Flickr

Well yet again I’m iPhone app-mad and yet again wish the camera on said phone was just a bit better because the results would be excellent rather than just good.

Here’s a couple of images shot in tricky light conditions for a normal camera, let alone a phone!

The first is from the opening night at the new O2 Academy live music venue in Birmingham, with Editors giving a great show!  The shot is made up of around three images put together and then processed to give a nice B&W image.  I think the whole thing took about 5mins from snap to send via Twitter.

The sun finally came out after a few days of rain and I needed some fresh air, so I thought a walk up the Clent Hills would do the job.

Now I’ve gone off for a walk with my camera over my shoulder before but this time I opted for the iPhone as my camera with a view to shoot process in the apps and then Twitter them out to the rest of the world.

Saturday afternoon in Birmingham and having watched the excellent BBC drama “Desperate Ramantics” depicting the lives of the Pre Rapaelite brotherhood, we thought a long overdue visit to the Birmingham museum and art gallery was in order to check out the Raphs!

I think my favorite is Rossetti’s Death of Beatrice,it’s a fantastic moment in time.

Now we had left it all a bit late getting into town so just managed a quick swish around photographer Nadav Kanders “Obamas People”, a collection of portraits depicting the members of Barack Obama’s White house staff. It’s a great piece of work and well worth a look as it tours around, but I’m pleased to say that Birmingham got it first!

Just seen that Levi Roots of “Dragons Den” fame has a new TV program about to hit our screens so I thought I would post a shot I grabbed of him a couple of weeks ago while out on a job. I didnt get long with him (just a few seconds in actual fact) so just threw caution to the wind and used he Nikon D3’s ability to shoot in next to no light to get a portrait of him.

He was a really nice chap, full of energy and its was great to photograph him….thanks Levi!

Levi Roots

Well I was in Birmingham today to treat myself to a couple of CD’s and parked on the roof of the car park just next to the bull ring when the sun came out, and so I found myself lingering around on the top floor snapping on the iPhone.

I quite like the results! Although the hanging around a carpark I’m sure should be course for concern at my age? I might have to get a skate board to blend in with the youth if I shoot any more…….!

Just supplied this for The University of Birmingham’s Buzz magazine for the front cover featuring press officer Lucy Hood in her lead roll in Chess the musical, hence the 80’s hair and hopefully a visual nod towards the fantastically 80’s video of Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson singing “I know him so well”, the big number from the show.

I shot it on my Leaf Aptus 65 high end digital back so had to do a few post production to try and give the image that pre digital slightly soft and saturated feel.  I used Alien Skins exposure 2 as a starting point and adjusted things from there.

Heres the other group shot from the Destroyers shoot-very different from the Victorian gents, its a lots of people to get into one shot without it starting to look like a wedding except where the bride and groom have legged it!

I have run the rgb files from my Nikon D3 through Alien skins black & white filter system that replicates a selenium toned print, where the mid tones and blacks have a slight darkish red-brown to them, except I knocked it back a tad.

But I cant make my mind up if I like the cropped landscape image best?

Well yet again its taken me a while after the shoot to manage to post The Destroyers!

The Destroyers are a  Birmingham based Folk band of around 15 strong players, and the first time I saw them perform at this years Gigbeth festival www.gigbeth.com I was blown away by there energy and stage presence.