Yes, yes, I’m still alive and back from the dead… :p
It’s that time of year when the 4Togs (well, the 3 least-hairy 4Togs, anyway) like to pack up their bags and head for pastures new.
So, whilst Mark is chained to his desk (which he quite enjoys, apparently), the rest of us are upping sticks and heading to Newquay for some sun, sea, surf and shandies. You can expect a variety of daftness over the course of the next week as we share our adventures with you all.
We welcome audience participation, as always, so if you have any suggestions on where to go, what (or who) to see, or adventures to have – please let us have them. So far, all I’ve managed to come up with is a day out as the Pyrites of Penzance 
Watch this space… The frolics start Sunday!
One of the compromises you have to make on beery holidays is the time you can spend with the camera – you can’t hold up your mates indefinitely whilst you wait for the right light, so you have to be pretty instinctive and reactive with your photography.
I had such a weekend in Jersey where I shot about 400 shots of random stuff in 4 days, mainly in boozers or walking between them. Getting anything that’s meaningful from that is more of a challenge than any dedicated weekend in the lakes with your kit bag and 20 hours a day. All I had was a 5D, 24-105, 3stop ND Grad and a lensbaby with the pinhole adaptor fitted (by accident, thought it had the normal optic in – arse!).
I think you need to try to tell a story where possible, avoid posing everone, look for moments to arise naturally rather than force them into action and gradually people will just accept that you’re taking shots and act naturally. Avoid flashes too, just attracts attention and blinds people, may even set off a fit if you’re not careful.
So I got the shots back and just cropped and used some actions that I happened up on once – one grainy mono, one Grunge Rock – no more, not much point in doing too much processing as I was story telling, not trying to get an award in some photo magazine or anything…
Here’s a few I quite like anyway
A busy weekend ahead for the 4 Togs… Leeds Beer Festival this evening, followed tomorrow by a 4 Togs recreation of Oz & James’ Beer Train Adventure. Cameras will be very much in evidence, but we can give no assurances on quality!
In addition to that, we have an article on Boudoir photography from Newcastle-based Mandy Charlton, the second in a series of articles from David A. Williams and news of a very interesting photography project that is going to be open to absolutely everyone.
Please keep checking back for more information, or follow us on Twitter: @4togsblog
After a lovely curry and the best part of 2 bottles of red, we retired to the alley at the rear of Steve’s house in St. Helens for a little off camera flash work.
Most of these were taken with 2 550EX flashes on stands being mastered by a 580 EX on a longish remote cable – also on a stand, which kept wanting to fall over all the time!
I was after shadows and dodgy-geezerness, which I think we got in some of these.
Just converted these from RAW to TIFF in Capture One V3, then resized in IRFANVIEW – no photoshop as I aint had time yet.
Hope street in Liverpool as a cathedral at either end… this may not be coincidental methinks…
Anyway, to take lots of shots of them would be a cliche, so I decided that the road signs were looking neglected and used the lensbaby and flash to make some odd and non-cliche images of those instead… there may be a silhouette of the anglican cathedral behind one… not sure.
There will be others from the shoot, just not done owt with them yet
Well I find myself in St Helens today, about to embark on a trip over to Liverpool to get some shots aroud Sefton Park and Hope Street.
Just come up with a theme for the day – and called it “Cliche Avoidance”. Best way to do this is to do a search on the location you’re going to, then take note of the most popular locations and shots, then making every effort to avoid do in those shots.
Hopefully the Lensbaby will help on this quest.
Got brekky to eat first though 
Police have reported that in areas with cliffs and “edges”, such as the south coast near Beachy Head, Durdle Door and in the peak district, have had a rash of early morning suicide attempts recently.
“People have been seen parking their cars before dawn, then walking to the edges like lemmings”, according to farmer Jim Bowen from Curbar. “They seem to sit there on the edge for a while as though thinking over their last moments, often with a cup of coffee – I sees steam from the flask.”
A typical "edge"
However, what has been happening through out the country is that these depressed souls seem to want to take a photograph of their last moments, before plunging to their demise. Jim expanded, “Many of them seems to have brought tripods so they can record the moment they leap to oblivion”.
“Then theys seems to get caught up admiring the sunrise somehow, they pause and look at it and changes their minds, pack up and bugger off home.”
Police forces across the country have been taken off “suicide watch” and have benefited hugely from these thwarted suicide attempts. Sergeant Beavers of Beachy head police remarked “We went to one suicide attempt on the cliffs only to apprehend a depressed looking chap with a huge camera. He denied he was about to meet his maker, gave us his card and later that day we took delivery of a lovely shot of the sunrise over the edge of the cliff”. He added a cautionary note, “I dread to think what will happen should these fellas get up early to do themselves in, and there’s no sunrise and they end up jumping”.
Psychologists have explained that many people who have invested huge amounts in camera equipment and are still rubbish at photography often feel the need to take their lives early in the morning so as not to alert their partners. “However, when they see a ‘cracking sunrise’ they take one last shot, just to see if they are still rubbish. Anyone knows a chimpanzee on Ketamine can get a fantastic shot at Dawn, so they take solace and go home”.
