Inspired by Ansel

We were really fortunate to have an Ansel Adams exhibition showing at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. We had been meaning to go for a while before finally getting around to making the trek…and gee whiz we’re glad that we did.

It was such an inspiring exhibition. Adams’ obvious passion for his subject, incredibly skillful composition, and brilliant work in the dark room combined to produce a body of work that quite literally took our breath away.

Aside from enjoying soaking in such stunning images, it was such a lesson and reminder about the genuine skill needed to take great photos, and how artistic and soulful a photo can really be. It was quite amazing to think that Adams didn’t have the luxury of taking a dozen shots in RAW to make sure he got his exposure and composition right.  He nailed it in one go every time through years of hard work, dedication and passion.

We were certainly inspired.

As a small tribute, we sifted through our back catalogue of snaps from our Europe trip to find a picture that we could edit into an Ansel Adams-esque landscape. This shot was taken up at the Isle of Skye in Scotland.  

Morocco in Lomo

Taking photos on film is a little bit like Christmas.

The shots here were from Morocco back in October but we only got them processed a couple of weeks ago. We had completely forgotten what was on there, so getting the prints back was genuinely like the excitement of opening a present on Christmas morning.

As always with Lomo, there were some really rewarding shots, a few tough lessons, and heaps of character. 

An unexpected stop off in Brunei

On our flight back to London we had a three hour stop-over in Brunei. As with most stop-overs, we were planning to sit in the lounge in a haze of tiredness, staring blankly into space, hoping that time would somehow disappear into a vacuum as we waited for our connecting flight.

It turns out Brunei had a very special treat in store for us to help pass the time.

We were very pleasantly surprised to find that Royal Air Brunei were running a stop-over shuttle bus tour through the main city. While we were initially a tad apprehensive about the whole thing on account of the dodgy looking signage, having no idea what the conversion rate to the Brunei Dollar was and therefore fearing that we were about to get ripped off, the general sense of complete disorganization on behalf of the people organizing the tour, and the obvious risk that if anything went wrong we were going to be stranded somewhere in the middle of Asia (come on…as if anyone actually knows where Brunei is!). Despite all this, we thought we would go for it. We felt it would be quite against everything that we stand for to pass up the opportunity of chalking off another country.

It turned out to be a great move. Aside from making the time pass a whole lot quicker, we both got to experience our first taste of Asia. We got to see a water village, some big and impressive looking mosques, and finish the tour by strolling through a night market.

While it really was the most fleeting of visits, it was great to get an insight into a new culture and way of life, which was again quite unique to anywhere we had visited before.

Despite our slight trepidation, everything went smoothly (we were assured that there is no traffic in Brunei in which to get stuck). We returned to the airport safe, sound, and most importantly on time.