Open House London: City Hall

October 1, 2013 by Suzy Walker-Toye

The weekend before last, much of London opened its doors to the public for the yearly open house. We only got around to seeing City Hall – but what a place!

After going through airport style scanners (no penknives etc) you are herded to the lifts up to see the amazing views of London from the viewing balcony which spans the whole way around the top floor.

On the way back down you can take the spiral (helical) staircase around & around all the way down to the great auditorium area. I very much enjoyed taking photos on the way down (don’t forget to look up). You need a super-wide-angle lens for this though! Here are some of my photos from the day.

We were even on London Bridge when it opened for a passing tall ship, which I’ve never seen despite living in London all my life.

I put all my random London photos here in my London Gallery. I hope to get around a bit more at next years open house london but I hope you enjoyed my take on City Hall 🙂

A human video game: Siro-A

September 25, 2013 by Suzy Walker-Toye

Last night I went to see these guys, Siro-A in the leicester sq theatre.

It was a really enjoyable evening out. Last week I went to see the David Bailey & Bruce Webber Nokia private view and on the weekend I went to an Olympus photo event in Brick lane. Both of which I blogged about on my OCA degree blog. Yet to be shown are my Open House photos of City Hall from the weekend. There is so much great stuff on in London I’m finding it hard to keep track! Tonight I’m thinking about whether to go to the science museums late night event on photography. What have you been to see recently? Please let me know in the comments 🙂

PhotoFriday – ‘Metropolis’

May 17, 2013 by Suzy Walker-Toye

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Metropolis’

For this weeks theme I was in half a mind to use a photo of a busy reef scene, however when I looked up on wikipedia, the definition of a metropolis is most certainly only cites for people…. boo! Not to be disheartened, I get to show you three photos from metropolis around the world that I have loved. Firstly, above, Singapore, photographed at night from Marina Bay. Next up is New York and last but certainly not least is my fair city, London.

You can see more non-underwater travel photo galleries here.

If you want to see my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery. Or my best from 2012 here.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Metropolis’ here.

PS: I’m currently selling my 60mm/D300 underwater macro set-up. Click here for more details & the full list of equipment for sale or email me at scubasuzy-sellingnikongear@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks for supporting my work!

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2009 – Free exhibition

December 9, 2009 by Suzy Walker-Toye

Oh this exhibition looks so cool! It starts today and its FREE! 🙂 The Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition (organised by Future Publishing) group is hosted in the Mall galleries in London (off Trafalgar Sq so you can go and visit the queen just up the road while you are there). It’s a pity it’s not on longer (since I wont be able to get there and see them in person before the 13^th when it ends).

The competition features creativity from photographers of all levels from amateur to professional, from a variety of categories:

• “This is Britain” sponsored by: SkyArts
• “World in Motion” sponsored by: Telegraph.co.uk
• “Man-made”
• “Planet Earth” sponsored by Photoradar.com
• “Destination Everywhere”
• “Fashion”
• “Landscapes” sponsored by: Epson
• “People and Portraits”
• “Black and White”
• “Digital Vision”

With Jessops as the official partner and in association with the Royal Photographic Society, the competition, now in its sixth year has once again attracted entrants from across the globe. Obviously its the “Planet Earth” category that I’m the most interested in… Here are some of my favourites

Overall Winner and Planet Earth Winner: Partners – Bragi J. Ingibergsson, Iceland

Planet Earth 3rd Place: My Journey – Bayu Husodo, Indonesia

Landscape Winner: Abraham Lake Ice – Chip Phillips, United States

Peoples Portraits 3rd Place: Fearless – Janet Shui Kee Yim, Hong Kong

Peoples Portraits Winner: Dikke Dennis – Thomas van Beek, The Netherlands

World in motion Winner: The Pacu Jawi (cow’s race) – Muhammad Fadli, Indonesia

Digital Vision Winner: How Mountains Are Made – Sabina Dimitriu, Romania

Official info…

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2009 – Free exhibition
Wednesday 9th December to Sunday 13th December
Mall Galleries, The Mall (near Trafalgar Sq)
For directions: http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk
£FREE 10am-5pm
For more information visit: www.photoradar.com

The lovely folks at Future Publishing allowed me to publish these images here, please respect the copyright of the photographers mentioned and don’t use their work for anything other than promoting this exhibition.

1st IR photos – what a disaster!

June 13, 2009 by Suzy Walker-Toye

Thought I’d try my hand at IR today (hoya 72 filter). It didn’t go so well. I got some good tips and comments from my friends on twitter though so its all a learning curve!

Place Regents Canal, Angel, London
Nikon D300, nikkor 18-200mm VR (at 18mm), Tripod

Heres my 1st stab at editing:

After speaking with some people (@ Scott_Wood, @ gallarotti, @IlanBr) on twitter I followed this tutorial

Heres the re-edited version:

RAw Processing in adobe raw convertor
Channel mixer (swapped red and blue)
Tinkered with colour balance
Amended curves slightly.

The trees arnt white (as you see in many IR photos) because I didnt know I had to manual white balance on grass first! I shall try that next time. Also someone in a comment on the original pbase gallery suggested the following settings:

Do this for the D300 IR setting. This is assuming we have a bright sunny day.
-WB2500K
-ISO200
-f8
-25 seconds

As you see its very mark looking. To see what a lovely sunny day it was (and the sorts of colours I should have been shooting with HDR instead of IR) check out Mikes photos from the same walk!