Such an awesome place. I’m going to miss not living so close to it – it’s been really nice just riding around it these past few mornings. Decided to take my camera today – nothing special, but still something.

Arbitrarily walking around Southampton, I saw this bit that looks totally uncharacteristic of it. All the nice buildings made out of bricks, with a stark, concrete, Sothampton-esque reminder off in the distance!

In work way too early so I could leave early and book our wedding stuff. I accidentally forgot to take my passport. It was Charlotte’s fault really.

Annoyingly, I’m really disappointed with this. It was such a beautiful morning, and there were loads of ops on the way in this morning, most on the motorway so I couldn’t really stop (I will one day!), this one was just before I got to work. The annoying thing about this photo is that the light forced me to use a wide aperture, which has forced the background out of focus.

Charlotte still loved it, so I decided to post it anyway, but I’m definitely not as happy with it as I thought I would be.

We went for an inspiring walk around the lake today. The building looks so good from across the water. It’s such an incredible place to work, so rural yet it’s right on the motorway!

This is an utterly poor effort. Therefore, it’s symbolic of the fact that I’m never quite in the right place at the right time for the awesome misty mornings we get down here.

I bought an ND8 Graduated and it’s awesome. There were kids swimming here, they were a bit special.

Went down to the courts to play some ball today and there was a huge cruise liner there, but obviously I didn’t have my camera on me. By the time I got back to take a photo, it’d gone. This made me sad.

I realised today that it’s like 6 days til my birthday. When I was 10, I’d never have imagined being this blasé about my birthday! I’ve already had my presents, though; 160GB iPod, shorts, a tshirt and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I’ve been wanting to read that book for absolutely ages!

So, it turns out that an ND2 Grad and an ND2 isn’t enough for the sort of shot I’m going for. This is at 6ish seconds and f/32; the sky’s too bright and the sea isn’t blurred enough so I guess I’ll have to get some more filters. Great.

It also transpires that if you stay in at the harbour front after dusk, they lock the gates. If you’re on foot, this isn’t a problem but if you’re in a car it’s a pain! Luckily, I was reminded that there is another exit that could be open and it was!

I’m not particularly happy with this shot, but it’s all I’ve got to go on today!

This is slightly late (though it was taken on Friday!). I had to be in Salisbury today for a mate’s birthday party, so I thought I’d kill some time with my camera before we all had to meet up. I remembered that I’d never actually spent any time in the grounds of the Cathedral; it’s an incredibly beautiful building so I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult. I spent about an hour wandering round the building, getting frustrated that I couldn’t get the perspective right and it was too late in the day so the side I wanted to shoot was in front of the sun. It was a disaster. Most of the shots I ended up with put the tower in totally the wrong perspective and made it look tiny, so about 75% of them were binned straight away!

It really came down to 2. The one I ended up posting (the favourite for everyone but me!) and my favourite. The black and white conversion of the tower posted below. I love the textures and I’m really proud of the conversion on this, but my wonderful girlfriend and a couple of others I showed them both to preferred the favourite so I had to post it. However, because I love it so much, I’m posting my favourite too. I make the rules! Ha!

This whole thing is beginning to become quite stressful. I can tell that I’m going to find it difficult to find inspiration every day. I guess that’s why they’re called challenges!