Martin Gommel is inspiring the crap out of me at the moment. Such amazing photographs.

With that in mind, I always feel like people are very aware of my presence, even more so when I have a camera out. This is probably equal parts reality and self-obsession, but the fact that I perceive it makes it true for me! I’ve been trying to shoot from the hip more recently to make myself look less obvious, and today is the first time I’ve actually got a keeper out of it. It also happens to be my favourite photo from the ones below. In fact, I love all of these.

If, indeed, you can call it that. Seems a little half-assed if you ask me, but then I wouldn’t even get out of bed for something football-related.

This band is so cool. They play in Southampton every now and again and we always stay and watch. That is a beast of a beard on the banjo player!

Check them out. More photos on my flickr.

I’d forgotten how impossible it is to get into Salisbury. Took this whilst I was waiting outside Starbucks to meet Katie about some freelance. I also got another photograph of a girl in the window of Starbucks, but I think she was aware and creeped out. Shame.

Lovely weather we’re having.

Going back to work sucks.

Normally when you see road works, it’s all boring pneumatic drills and tarmac laying. Not this bad-boy; this is a beast of a drill. Nothing particularly special, but I like the framing, the colours and the overall industrial feel – even considering it was taken right outside a hairdresser!

I absolutely need some new lenses. A Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR and a Sigma 10-20mm f4.5-5.6 would be lovely. Thanks!

I don’t use my camera nearly enough. I spent loads on it last year, then just didn’t use it, then I was alerted to a deviantart user named yellowpumpkin, who’s taken a photo every day for the last year, and some of them are totally amazing. I haven’t had chance to go through all of them, but he really inspired me to get out with my camera. This afternoon, not content with settling for bunny/girlfriend-related photos on the first day, I went for a wander up the Avenue in Southampton. Every day I drive down there, I see a little corner of amazing-looking graffiti that I always mean to check out, so today seemed like the perfect opportunity!

When I got down there, it was a graffiti-spotter’s paradise. An underpass just covered from end to end in amazing colour, interspersed with tags and some really impressive illustration. I wandered from end to end looking for my favourite view from there and it came down to a portrait or landscape aspect of the same subject. The lighting was low and accentuated by the verging-on-pointless streetlights, it just worked so well.

At the other end, there is a small URL, beyondgraffiti.com sprayed near the top of one of the walls – it turns out that this whole thing was an urban pride project and an effort to clean up a popular illegal graffiti hotspot. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the original artwork has been covered, but in such an impressive way that it’s not too detrimental.