A Car That Sped

This was my entry for this month's camera club competition, on the theme, 'Night'.  I really like it but it seems I am one of a small minority, coming 19th out of 21.  Never mind, next time!

They Might Be Giants, Shepherds Bush, November 19th 2013

Off to the big city to see Brooklyn's finest this week.  A long way to go to see them but, to be fair, they came a lot further, following an extensive US tour.

Shepherds Bush was, disappointingly, not sold out - though this might in part be due to them playing places other than London in the UK this time round.  Their alleged obscurity meant that I couldn't even give my ticket away and so, ever intrepid, I ventured on alone.  It was a really fun night, as you'd expect from TMBG.

On the day before I tried to borrow my daughter's slim line camera (knowing I wouldn't be welcome with a DSLR, only to find that it was playing up.  On the train up I discovered that my camera phone had packed in as well.  My attempts to remain upbeat were squashed a bit by being able to stand four people back from the front barriers - a blessing to have such a good spot but frustrating that I could have got some great shots from there.

When, after the opener You're On Fire, the band invited the photographers in the pit up on stage for some crowd shots, I was - I confess - a little envious.  Big kudos to Helen Parish, one of the lucky four, for uploading her's onto the interweb.  All the pictures you see here are her's.

There is a real party atmosphere at TMBG gigs.  The sock puppets (yes, really) and daft songs are part of it, as is the feeling (knowledge) that you are in on a good secret as to how darned good this band is.  Quirky and clever yes, but also the pruveyors of extremely fine songs in a variety of styles.  There's something for everyone and if you don't like this one, there will be another along in two to three minutes.    

Plenty of banter with the audience including the self-deprecating line, "We ruin you for other bands".  

I think that this is the setlist, though I am slightly hazy on the order of a couple of them.  How many bands play their biggest hit third song in?

1    You're On Fire

2    Damn Good Times

3    Birdhouse In Your Soul

4    The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)

5    Don't Let's Start

6    Tesla

7    Icky

8    Battle For The Planet Of The Apes

9    Black Ops

10  Nanobots

11  Fingertips

12  Can't Keep Johnny Down

13  Boss Of Me / Circular Karate Chop

14  32 Footsteps

15  Memo To Human Resources

16  Dead

17  Call You Mom

18  Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

19  Ana Ng

20  New York City

21  Rhythm Section Want Ad

Encore

22  He's Loco

23  When Will You Die?

24  The Mesopotamians

Encore 2

25  Number Three

26  Doctor Worm

As always with your favourite band there were some things in there you'd like to have seen more than others but a fine set all the same.  One of my personal highlights was "When Will You Die?" (which is very funny as well as being a great song) followed by The Mesopotamians in the first encore.

Here is the first of those, accompanied by an interesting film....

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.

What it's all about

Sunday was the best - a baptism service for two people in the congregation.  We had a packed church and a great service.  Quite apart from the boost that baptism gives to the people going under the water, the church gets a lift from it.  Because this is what it's all about for Christians (Baptists in particular?).  Seeing grown ups deciding that they want to take the plunge - as it were.  

You see, we don't christen or baptise babies or children, though we are happy to give thanks for them and pray for them.  We figure that it's something that kids need to make their own minds up about, and in due course, when they are old enough, we baptise them.  We use a lot of water too.  Maybe it says something of the extravagance of  grace.  

Came across a great passage from a children's book just last week about baptism and how wrong people can get it.  This is from the point of view of a child:

"I'd heard about Baptists from Jacob Henry's mother.  According to her, Baptists were a strange lot.  they put you in water to see how holy you were.  Then they ducked you under the water three times.  Didn't matter a whit you could swim or no.  If you didn't come up, you got dead and your mortal soul went to Hell.  But if you did come up, it was even worse.  You had to be a Baptist."  

Robert Newton Peck, "A Day No Pigs Would Die"

It's true we're a strange lot.  But surviving baptism doesn't make you a Baptist.  It's a public declaration that you have become a follower of Jesus - other denominations are available. Though, obviously, they aren't so good...  

A great day.  For all the things that we are involved in as a church - this is what it's all about.

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

It's like the Ashes with hot dogs...

The Angels Stadium - one of my favourite pictures from holiday

The Red Sox did it.  Or rather, David Ortiz did.  A convincing 4-2 win over St Louis and I confess that I watched pretty much all of it.  Great stuff.


We're talking baseball, in case you're wondering.  I don't fully understand how it works but having seen a game in the summer, I was immediately hooked.  A friend took us to see the LA Angels.  We chose Mike Trout as our favourite player before we saw him play because how can you not root for a guy with a name like that?  Turns out he's their star player but we didn't know that - honest.   "We" beat the Toronto Blue Jays.  A brilliant evening that the whole family enjoyed.  Normally that would be the end of it but on returning home I found that, due to a BT broadband line, I was able to watch baseball here too.  Hence being able to watch the World Series.  Had we made the trip to watch the Dodgers instead we'd have had a longer season as they were contenders at one point.  But you know how it is, support your local team.      

I see that there is a South West League over here.  It comprises four teams, Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter and (oddly) Torbay.  If I was ten (or twenty) years younger...  As it is maybe I'll take a camera along sometime.  

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.