A South African friend (not sure what relevance the South African bit has) has put together this little product photography group on Google+ and we’d like as many of you as possible, from all levels and abilities to come and join us.
We’re all in it to learn as well as teach so drop by and say hello, all are welcome
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
I’m not even going to bother trying to apologise for my levels of crapness this week I’m just going to throw this one out there, but I can assure you that you can be safe in the knowledge that this weeks theme Autumn could not be more appropriate, I thought summer this year was generally pretty awful but goodness gracious me do I always forget how much I hate the cold grey misery of Autumn, funnily enough by the time winter proper comes around I generally have re-acclimatised and cope fine, but these last few weeks as the nights draw in are sheer hell for me.
throw in kids who are teething, kids with inexplicable temperatures, me and Mrs BC with constant coughs and sniffles, a silly work load and I’m frankly amazed at how little I’ve been ranting in these pages, maybe it’s just exhaustion that has made me too lazy to bother.
Still the local council suck for giving me a parking ticket whilst I waited to collect a sniffly miserable Mrs BC from the station, they didn’t even have the guts to give it to me there and then rather they just chucked it in the post to allow me to rant no doubt fruitlessly at their on-line appeals process. I might win, they say I was parked on the walkway, I say I was parked in a driveway, time will tell if they’re going to get their sixty pieces of silver.
I guess this photo kinda show’s where I would rather be on a cold miserable Autumn evening
steamy warm pub
Until the next time, which hopefully will be soon.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
I love the architecture of churches and old gravestones so I thought I’d share this series of pictures with you.
I’m very happy with how they’ve come out, If you want to see the album full size click here.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
when I first started this blog I’d never even read another blog or even given much thought over to blogging as a means of communication.
My early posts were mostly long rambling complaints about terrible customer service I’d received from a succession of terrible companies and restaurants and I was seething and boiling over to the point of driving my nearest and dearest to distraction so rather than continuing to vent my frustrations on those nearest me, I started ranting, initially on blogger and then shortly after emigrating wholesale to WordPress. Rather than finding a niche early on as my anger faded I began doing a few reviews and even wrote what remains my biggest hit as far as search engine traffic my glowing review of the service provided by the Courtney Boot Company. As a side note, nearly a year on from getting my boots back I’m still wearing them daily.
I also began writing a few posts about becoming a father for the second time and my thoughts and feelings surrounding that as almost everything I read or heard would discuss the mothers thoughts, fears and perspectives, that’s not to put those down it’s simply a comment about the lack or support I could find for us blokes who’re too tough and macho to talk about our feelings with real people, and where there is plenty of support out there for mums there’s not a lot out there for dads.
In the run up to the new year I gained a little fervour for food blogging and launched www.mrbunnychowcooks.com which initially gained great traction but fell largely by the wayside when I managed to stab myself and began my Ouch series, I also began my project 52 at the start of the year, rekindling my long-held passion for photography and bringing another change of focus to these pages.
Anyway what I’ve been meaning to get around to with all of this rambling is what initially brought you to www.mrbunnychow.com do you visit regularly, do you know me personally, do you like reading about me blowing a gasket, do you like looking at pretty pictures, do you subscribe or just pop in occasionally having seen a link or comment on another site.
Blogging success has never been and never will be my aim I’m just a curious geek wondering who my readers are and why you are.
Please do comment below and let me know as much or as little about yourself as you are comfortable with.
alternatively you can always send me a private message via rantingmrbunnychow@gmail.com
I hope you’re all well out there
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
outside of my project 52 and collaboration projects with Nick and Shannon I’ve been quietly working on a little personal project which although it may seem a little sad and depressing, has actually helped me avoid feeling that way as I wade my way through the misery of a dank and wet British summer, relied on the NHS to hack me open and fix my hand and generally try not to feel too sorry for myself I thought that I’d try to capture some gritty dark and depressing style photo’s.
I’ve shared a few of these style pictures with you throughout the year and whilst I’m not entirely sure what draws me to them as they are undoubtedly pretty dank they are the style of photo I most enjoy capturing and getting just as dark, grainy and depressing as I can in post editing. I think what I’m trying to say is that dark and depressing photo’s make me happy.
I hope that by sharing these I make one or two of you smile too even if it’s just with my stupid captions.
Journey through the light
Hold my hand as the light at the end of the tunnel shines bright.
this is summer 2012
Global warming my arse, it was pouring with rain and freezing cold when I captured this shot last week.
just another teen romantic
What did your teen bedroom look like?
Get out-of-the-way old man
Can’t you see I’m far more important than you and am rushing to very important places.
she knows how to use them!!!
This just reminded me of the ZZ Top classic Legs.
Love Fades
I love the way this chalk etching is slowly fading away within its brick frame.
do you have the key?
I’ve got a real thing for old locks, I think it’s the mechanical beauty and precision in their manufacture that draws me to them time and again.
past glory slowly fading
I love this old Merc and can’t help but wonder about who purchased it new as an aspirational tour de force with its rock solid build quality and how even after all these years it’s still going, is it still owned by the same person or has it been passed from owner to owner and loved a little bit less with each successive tenure.
whats the bet the wheels will be gone come morning?
I’m positive this car doesn’t belong to a drug dealer
the lonely vigil
Is he longing for escape, is he waiting for his owner to come home or is he simply surveying his kingdom?
Once again I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into the type of pictures I find myself seeking out when not shooting with a particular idea or theme in mind.
What type of art inspires you and makes you happy?
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
tut tut tut I have been naughty, I apologise for my laziness when it comes to my original photography project, I have been shooting through out my times of absence and although I was distracted by the scavenger hunt from Nick and Shannon and then my ouch series but I think it’s high time for a bit of a catch up, the pictures were all taken in the correct weeks I’ve just not had the time or perhaps just not made the time to edit and post them here.
Week 25 the theme was love and as I’m in a rush and still feeling anti computer and lazy I’m just going to go with a cliché night shot of some roses.
Love
Week 26 the theme was water and again I’m going to stick with roses
Water
Week 27 the theme was red white and blue.
some people take patriotism a touch too far
Week 28 the theme was my home town which as I don’t live in what I consider to be my home town wasn’t easy so I’ve used my adopted home town of Croydon instead. As Croydon is a pretty grimy, dingy and depressing place I’ve tried to reflect that in my chosen editing style for this shot of Croydon’s iconic 50p building. It has been identified before as one of Britain’s biggest eye sores although I quite like it.
Croydon
Week 29 the theme was Summer/Winter and as it has been such a crap summer so far I’m again going to share a picture of a dripping wet rose with a grey miserable sky as I’ve yet to get a pretty summers day captured on sensor.
global warming my arse, this is summer?
Thankfully the weather this week is a vast improvement but seeing as I’m still pretty down I’ve stuck with gritty black and white for week 30’s theme of The S-Curve
I promise I’ll do my best to get things back on track and my posts up to date moving forward.
Both this months project from Nick and Shannon and Week 31’s suggested post are “silhouette” so hopefully I’ll be able to combine them and bring you something new and exciting next week.
As I’m sure you can tell from the above pictures themselves I’ve been pretty disheartened and feeling sorry for myself over the last couple of weeks but the sun is shining today and my hand is feeling better every day so whilst I have a few more dark and dreary things that I want to share with you in the pipeline fingers crossed that this dreariness is all in the past now.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
Another lazy/busy week from me means that I’ve once again neglected you my loyal readers and have little to share aside from my Project 52 shot and a couple of others that I liked from the week. Thankfully I can’t even use illness as an excuse anymore as touch wood I seem to be through my illnesses with just a minor sniffle remaining.
As a bonus I’ve even managed to lose 15kg’s over the last couple of months.
Anyway moving on the theme this week was flowers and I decided that I’d play around with some macro shots and see how I got along.
summer colours
This is the picture I ultimately chose, more for its aesthetic qualities and bright summery colours than any sort of technical brilliance as ultimately I’ve not had time to break out my tripod or even wait for the wind to stop blowing so it’s not perfectly focused and the 7mm spacer I was using also creates incredibly shallow depth of field which also push perhaps more of the photo out of focus than I would have liked. Still I really like the picture so I used it anyway.
I’ve also been thinking about my long exposure collaboration project with Nick over at Nick Exposed and Shannon at Seeing Spots Photo and for pretty much the same reasons I’ve not broken out my tripod but have been thinking and playing a little and thought you might like this shot.
ooh look shiny spinning lights
Sadly the sky is massively overexposed and I was unable to pull it back using my I’m lazy 30 seconds max rule for post production but I think the shot ultimately still works well.
the next group of photo’s are just a few more that I liked from the last week and hope that you will enjoy gawping at. Please let me know what you thing about posting them as a gallery as opposed to inline as I have in the past. (clicking on them should make them bigger)
Next week’s challenge is self-portrait so I may have to subject you to seeing my ugly mug unless I can come up with some sort of thinly disguised artistic excuse to avoid taking my own picture.
Hope you’re all keeping well
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
with a little less preamble here is part two of my share for my quotography project with Nick Exposed and Seeing Spots.
If you missed part one you can find it here.
My second quote was “every artist was first an amateur” which was initially said by Ralph Waldo Emerson an American Essayist who I know next to nothing about. I didn’t even bother doing any research as you will see from my below photo it wasn’t necessary, as my son The Monkey Boy comes home from nursery looking much like this every other day.
who needs paper when you can draw on your face
I hope that my thought processes are making sense to you.
Part three will follow shortly.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
For those of you out of the loop Grandma Bunny Chow normally resides in my home country of Zimbabwe and had travelled to the UK as the Zimbabwean representative of Alzheimer’s Disease International at their annual conference. I don’t profess to be an expert on the disease or it’s challenges but I do know that ADI do excellent work in overcoming prejudices and providing support to those suffering from dementia so please do show them support if you ever come into contact with them.
On Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to spend an afternoon following my mother and a group of representatives from Alzheimer’s Disease International as they embarked on a walking tour around The City of London.
it was the vibrant colour of these tights that made me decide that I couldn't stick to just black and white
Strictly speaking I wasn’t supposed to be there as I wasn’t part of the party so to speak but they allowed me to follow them around without complaint whist I took pictures of the group, as well as passers-by and The City.
this guy had such knowledge etched into his face
Street photography is a style I greatly admire and one day hope to become proficient in but for this walk it was really just me playing with my camera settings and seeing what worked best. The pictures I have chosen to share in this post are some of the ones I thought worked out best although they vary hugely in style.
just look at that hair
I definitely appreciate any creative input or idea’s from my readers as to what you like and also what you think of when you think street photography, are you all about the gritty black and white or do you prefer to capture the vibrancy and colours of springtime in the metropolis? I know it’s something I’m torn about which is why many of these photo’s work individually but I’m not so sure how well they work as a collective.
I have no idea what she was up to either, she just stopped did this funny move and then carried on without a by your leave or care in the world
anyway I’ve only been waffling on this long so that I can break up the pictures a bit and keep you reading, but I’ll just let the captions do the talking from here on in.
I don't know if this guy had Tourette's syndrome or was just a nutter but he kept marching up and down swearing to himself and muttering threats of intended violence.
Self importance is always an interesting subject
am I casting the next Doctor Who or just being a RayBan fanboy?
no story here I just like this picture
why so serious?
Looking back I'm beginning to think that my walk might have taken place further back in the past than Saturday.
Bob Geldof doing the funky chicken?
Happy Birthday Conita wherever you may be
completely out of context and definitely not street photography but I like the shot and couldn't think of anywhere else to use it.
She's listening intently
I told you Granny Bunny Chow was here, she's also listening intently unlike the bloke in the background who just looks bored.
deep in thought
and back to colour, this guy was just too cool for school
so cool that he deserved two shots
another completely out of context random architecture shot but I liked it so it's here.
so the kids do still skate, last time I got on a skateboard I ended up in a cast (15+ years ago) so have stayed away ever since despite thinking that they always looked cool.
somehow this lady transmagorfed herself from a Parisian cafe in order for me to take her picture.
an attempt at artistic blur
something to smile about
I wonder if they'd noticed that they were sitting in bright sunshine on a beautiful spring day or were just on their way back from Siberia.
such attitude, makes you wonder if he/she was actually throwing a hissy fit or I was just lucky
well that’s it from me for now, as always I love to hear from you and know what your thoughts are, should I stick to one style or keep flitting between or just give up on the street thing altogether?
Many thanks for looking and TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
As I’m sure many of you are picking up by now I have fallen back in love with photography and spending as much of my limited free time as possible with a camera in hand experimenting and trying to learn more about this fascinating craft.
One of the things that I’m finding toughest though is that I’m too much of a wimp to approach strangers on the street and ask to take their portraits, nor am I brave enough to just take their pictures guerrilla style and not ask at all/ask later. I know that this is what many of the photographers I admire most do but I’m not there yet.
I know you’ve by now seen plenty of my abstracts and nocturnal wanderings but I’ve only had minimal exposure to portraiture away from my own kids and would love to learn more. So with that in mind I’m going to throw my cards on the table and offer myself out to you the public.
I can’t promise you amazing results but if you’d spare me yourselves I’m interested in taking portraits of you, your kids, your pets etc. etc.
For now at least I won’t charge for my time or digital copies of any pictures that you like so if you’re willing to come to me (Croydon, South London) it will be free, gratis, nada.
If you want me to travel or are looking for studio shots or prints then I’ll look to recoup my expenses and nothing more.
Give it some thought people, are your kids at that age where you want to remember them, are your parents getting wrinkly and interesting, do you have a wedding coming up and want some alternative candid shots (please still hire a pro it’s your special day after all) do you just fancy an afternoon having a giggle while I phaff about trying to look moody and cool.
My main passion is for Black and White but will experiment with whatever your needs may be.
Please pass the word out to your friends and family and get in touch via rantingmrbunnychow@gmail.com and we’ll make a plan.
I look forward to the rush.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
The life and photography of Mr Bunny Chow 