They Might Be Giants, Electric Ballroom, Camden, London - February 2016

A fantastic gig, marred only by a lack of camera battery which meant that after three reasonable shots  (these) I was on the much inferior camera phone.  

Fourth time I have seen them, and quite possibly the best.  You guys don't know what you're missing.  

Snap! (almost)

This caused me to do a quick double take this evening and then, on reflection, to be encouraged.  One is a shot from yesterday's Western Morning News Sport section.  The other is one of mine from Saturday's game.  It would appear I'm getting something right.  Or getting lucky...  

Baseball at the Angel Stadium

Time for finally getting some summer holiday pictures together.  One of the highlights of my holiday was watching my first game of baseball.  Not entirely sure of everything that was going on but absolutely loved it.  Thought I might be going to see LA Dodgers but the local knowledge was for LA Angels and so we rocked up there instead.  The whole family enjoyed it and with some of the games we saw on TV as well, we were hooked.  Was pleased to see '42', a film about racism and baseball, on the plane home and with the headlines that a British politician made about 'Bongo Bongo Land', it should be a must see film for one and all.  

Further joy was had on returning to find Major League Baseball on BT Sport.  Despite (or because of) the Ashes series, and seeing a lot of Exeter City this year, this was my favourite sports event of the year.  

Further thoughts here: Like the Ashes with hot dogs.  This is, after all, supposed to be about the pictures.  

Burnham Carnival

Every year I am in the happy position of the one of the countries biggest and best illuminated carnivals parading down the end of my road.  If like me, carnival growing up was a few lorries in the daylight banish all thoughts.  This is loud and flashy - pretty much how we do things a round here.  

It's difficult to photograph, all the carts are lit differently, but great fun to try.  These are some of my better efforts from this week.

Portsmouth 3 Exeter City 2

The famous frontage - the only mock Tudor fronted football ground?

Great opportunity to photograph in a great stadium on Saturday.  Portsmouth have had a few bad seasons of late and their fair share of troubles, underlined by the hoardings proclaiming their 2008 FA Cup Final win just five years ago.   Their support has held up well though, over 16,000 fans showed up for this one.

Pompey fans - apparently not too keen on Southampton

Horribly windy day and Portsmouth took a three goal lead before City redoubled their efforts and clawed a couple back.  At the end there were six minutes added time but it wasn't quite enough, great game though. Even so, possible highlight for being surreal was the speech from the pitch that we were treated to about Charles Dickens at half-time.  That was a first!  

From the away end the photography is from a pit that you stand in - different

A lot of rain

Anyone still out there?  The blog has been sadly neglected for three months.  Okay, nearly four.  Will catch up and post some short, regular things to catch up a bit.

Had a great time at the rather marvellous Kassam Stadium in Oxford last night.  Having got my Football League media accreditation for the season I made the most of it by sitting in the rain and photographing a goalless draw.   Yes, that's rain rather than a grainy effect on the camera.  Both teams played reasonable football without ever threatening much in the way of a goal but a good evening none the less.

Exeter City v QPR ~ pre-season friendly

And so, back to photographing football.  Bizarrely, on a day for cricket, and having watched and listened to the second day of the first Ashes Test before driving down - before schools even break up for summer - we are already in pre-season. The visitors this evening were Queens Park Rangers, who would have attracted more to St James Park if we hadn't drawn them at home in the Capitol Cup in a couple of weeks time as well.  


As is the way of these things, it was a fairly gentle run out for all concerned.  Two different elevens for each half, which had the advantage of meaning people got to see all the QPR stars on display.  Two Korean internationals in the side meant that the game was (slightly surreal this) being shown live in South Korea.  

The game was goal less and it lacked a competitive edge but it was good to see some of Exeter's longer term injured players of last year on the park again.  Another highlight was Paul Tisdale's attire, the Football League's second longest serving manager seemed to have borrowed a jacket from the circus.  

Photographing Tennis

Been a great few days of it in terms of being able to take some sports pictures.  On Saturday I popped to the local cricket ground in order to try out a 50-500mm lens a friend lent me and then yesterday to Wimbledon for the first time, with the trusty Canon 70-200mm f2.8.  Wimbledon has a relaxed attitude to photography so long as you don't use them commercially so there was no problem taking pictures.



Some months back my son excitedly told me he had won tickets for Centre Court.  What he had actually won was the chance to buy them but it was great all the same.  His friend and his Dad had similar tickets for Court 1, so we were able to swap around and see both courts.

Centre Court was amazing and the first match terrific.  Lisicki pulled off the defeat of Serena Williams bringing to an end her 34 match unbeaten run.  She was just fantastic and, who knows, might just go all the way.  Loved her fearless brand of tennis, a real star.

Followed this with the first set of Murray's match before changing with the boys and looking in on an outside court where we were very close to the action for a bit of a mixed doubles game.

Finally to Court 1, where Berdych and Tomic really went at it with Berdych just having too much for him in the end.  A really good day out, I'd definitely do it again.