Travel

Talia in Tokyo

During my time in Tokyo with Talia, I wanted to try to capture a series of a few portraits with different atmospheres. I aimed to capture images with the strong urban feel, along with the more relaxed and peaceful vibe of the shrines and temples we visited.

A few times while hanging out with my friends in Japan, they asked me ‘is she a model?’ but Talia actually has never modelled, apart from for her selfies. Effectively these are just fancy tourist photos, but it was interesting to work with the different styles.

The vast majority of these images were shot on the wonderful vintage lens, the Helios 44-2, a cheap russian lens I got from a charity shop that produces this wonderful bokeh. You can particularly see the effect in corners of the final images of this series.

Tokyo Three

In June, I went for my third trip to Tokyo in the last three years. It seems to be that I have been making visits to Japan an annual thing recently, and I can definitely see myself going again next year if I can!

Once again, I found myself enamoured with Tokyo and having recently put some time into studying more Japanese, was able to integrate with the culture in a way I hadn’t before.

I was joined by my girlfriend, Talia, who features in some of these images and will also appear in a seperate post, Talia in Tokyo, which is a series of portraits I shot of her during our trip.

These images are mostly shot with my Canon G7X, however a few are on Sony A7S2 and my iPhone! Enjoy.

Lisbon

In January, Talia and I took a short city break to Lisbon. I’d heard that it was a rather hilly city, but I was not ready for the level of hill that we experienced. In Lisbon, every day is leg day!

We explored the winding cobbled streets, up and down stairs and slopes. Our main tourist stops were the castles and cathedrals, the castle especially which offered fantastic views of the city.

Even though it was January, the weather was a wonderful 19C and sunny. Here are a set of some ‘tourist’ photos I shot on my Canon G7X, check them out!

Liverpool in the Fog

I visited the foggy city of Liverpool to join some urban exploration missions that my friends Danny and Stevy had been on recently.

While growing up, I spent many months visiting Liverpool and in some ways I grew up there as a result. Along with Cambridge and London, Liverpool would be my next most well known part of the UK. It’s also got some pretty interesting architecture, especially its two famous cathedrals.

What follow are a collection of images from the few days I spent up north, all shot with just my point and shoot wonder, the Canon G7x.

California Dreaming

I took a spontaneous trip to Los Angeles for a few weeks this summer to visit some of my friends there. Its always nice to enjoy the California Sun, and it was surprising to see so many of my fellow brits out there at one time. Unlike most of my trips, this one was more of a social visit than my usual tourist endeavours.

We spent a good amount of time at Malibu beach, chasing sunsets. It was really sunny and hot in LA, so it was nice to be by the water mostly. Here is a collection of some of my favourite images from my time in the USA, shot on my 5d3.

I’ve been trying to improve the way I edit my images in terms of colour, because thats something I think really helps refine an image to how I want it. I also did a shoot with a ballerina at Sepulveda dam, so those images will be up shortly too!

Beaches & Bali

After my time in Japan, I decided to pop over to Indonesia to visit my buddy Alex, who happened to be there. I’ve been to Bali once already last year, but I figured as I was already in Asia, it would be fun to go and hang out for a couple of weeks.

The one thing I forget about Bali is how much less developed it is. For example, I was staying in a guesthouse near a big rice field. One lunch in the attached Warung (kind of like a canteen) I realised that the rice in my fried rice, was grown in that rice field next to my bedroom. How rare is it to eat food that is grown metres away from where you are staying!

Another example, my local Indonesian friends tell me the default approach to the police stopping you is ‘don’t stop’. The police are generally trying to shake town tourists apparently, so the locals told me ‘just drive past them’. Its fascinating how the whole country operates slightly differently to what I’m used to in the western world.

The freedom you can experience there, is both liberating and intrinsically dangerous. Luckily for me, I mostly wanted a chilled beach holiday, so I took my Canon G7X and shot some tourist photos for fun. Here is what I captured…

Tokyo Nights

My second collection of images from my spring’16 month in Tokyo. I explored so many amazing places, scaled some rooftops and shot plenty of rainy streets. Tokyo is so wonderful to shoot at night because there is so much ambient light. Signs and lamps are absolutely everywhere so its really easy to shoot handheld (I know a tripod is better but this is just tourist stuff for me!).

Without a doubt its my favourite when it rains though, not only do the streets look so shiny and reflective, but the silhouette of a person with an umbrella is so timeless for me.

Images shot mostly with my Canon G7X, a few from my 5Dmk3! Enjoy!

Tokyo Days

I took a trip back to Tokyo for the month of April to fulfil my lifelong wish to see the cherry blossoms. Having already spent a month there last September, I knew my way around and had a good grasp on how to get around. I spent some time learning to read Japanese in Hiragana and Katakana, which proved so useful in being able to understand the language better and do things on my own more than the last time.

Unlike my previous trip, this one was focused less on taking photographs and doing tourist things, and more on shooting Parkour (or as they call it, パルクール – Parukuuru) and connecting with the local community. I spent the ‘We Jump the World Day’ with the locals, shot two new videos, spent some time training and feel like I got a better idea on what life in Tokyo is really like.

Here are some of my images from my second month in Tokyo, these posts focus on the daytime, the next will focus on the nights!

New Japan

While I was in Japan, I did so much exploring and soaked in as much culture as possible. It was a life changing experience for me to finally visit Japan, and I honestly cannot recommend the country enough. The culture is so different in an amazing way!

People are unfalteringly polite and thoughtful, the food is amazing, the transport system is excellent and if you are a little geeky, you will be able to lose yourself for days.

I think it’s actually one of my favourite cities to photograph, just because the Japanese sense of design, even the lived in nature of it, is quite appealing to me.

Here are my final images from Japan!

Old Japan

I’m rounding out my final two posts from my Japan trip earlier this year. These will be all the images I shot on my 5D Mk3, as previously all my Japan posts have been taken with my Canon G7X. This post features a collection of stills from what I would call the ‘Old Japan’: Temples, nature, shrines and gardens. I had a wonderful time walking around all these stunning places, I really cannot recommend visiting Japan enough in that respect. Most of these were shot with my new 85mm 1.8 lens, which I got just before the trip. Most of my photography revolves around action, and I realised that because of that I rarely get to shoot images with nice blurry bokeh. Therefore I especially enjoyed shooting with it here!

Singapore

After my time in Bali, I returned to Singapore for a final few days before flying home to the UK. Singapore was so hot and humid, and also quite hazy during my time there. It was one of the easiest places to be in during my asia trip, because everyone speaks english, signs are in english, even the plug sockets are UK ones! The city itself has a pretty interesting hyper-modern feel, it’s pretty clean and the architecture is all very new feeling.

I was lucky to be able to visit my friends Kim, Verena and Aaron, spend some time connecting with the local community, explore a few cool places around the city and finally spending some time to shoot some Parkour. My images follow…

Bali

After my time in Japan, I decided to fly to Singapore for a couple of days before my final journey back to the UK. Then I realised how close to Bali I was…

I have a number of friends who had already visited the Indonesian island, all of which raved about its beauty and the fact that living as a tourist there is exceptionally cheap due to the currency difference. I also knew that an old friend friend of mine, Tariq Amawi, who I had not seen since 2007, was now living and running his own parkour gym on the island. So I shot him a message, the stars lined up and the next day I was on a plane. Even more ironic, I planned to stay for a weekend, and I ended up staying nearly three weeks.