Monday Mornings

Don't you just hate them.

Sunday Mornings

Don't you just love them.

Mama's got a brand new toy.....

Image ©Olivia Grabowski-West (Canon G9) Mr Cad, Croydon, London.

After a week in the doldrums (nothing spectacular happened to me in any way shape or form worth sharing) I headed to what is probably my favourite shop ever this morning to collect my fully serviced Olympus OM-1 (a camera I love with all my heart). The shop in question is Mr Cad and it is like an Aladdin's Cave of photography bits and pieces which needs to be seen to be believed. If you are a photographer in London and you haven't visited it yet you are missing out on a true Gem. Stepping inside the whole place looks like a junk shop but peer behind that floor to ceiling glass cabinets and you are confronted with every kind of camera you have ever dreamed of from Leicas to Rollei's, every Canon and Nikon ever produced, Soviet cameras, Camera's shaped like penguins, and the list goes on. Mr Cad himself (real name Alex as he told me today) is extremely eccentric but knows everything about everything and his love of photography and the equipment used is inspiring (to me at least). When I walked in today he was perusing a set of glass plate negatives he had picked up while at the same time discussing with a customer how he and his co-operative had bought up Polaroid (yes, he has lots in stock much cheaper than on ebay at the moment and is promising it will come back to us).
Anyway, he is great for a bit of banter and I said off the cuff that I had been interested in getting a 110mm Film camera (popular in the 80's they produce a tiny negative and used to be given away as promotional items for everything from Coca Cola to James Bond. So, off he scurried and then re-appeared with the most fantastic looking 80's camera I have ever seen (really looks like Roger Moore would have used in 80's James Bond films). The camera - The Minolta Weathermatic A.

It looks like my first Sony Sports Walkman and feels gorgeous and tactile in the hand. Anyway, I asked how much he wanted for it and was shocked when he said £8! Well how could I resist. Ok, so it's a bit of a hassle getting film for it as it seems that everyone apart from Kodak has stopped producing 110 film and even the Kodak stuff is tricky to get hold of, but trusty old ebay (USA) has turned up some at a reasonable price. On the plus side, it is fully weather proof and also able to go underwater to 5m. Ever since my trip to the Dubai Waterworld where I was devastated I was unable to buy a waterproof camera have I wanted one, so this was like a little dream come true. But when will I be in the water in freezing Blighty I hear you ask, well I am off to Malaysia and Borneo in March to shoot a wedding and am hoping to do a project on the Sea Gypsies of Sabah, so it should come in handy - plus my 3 year old son is always demanding we go to The Pyramids (a fading swimming pool/waterpark in portsmouth) so I am looking forward to trying to get some shots as we go down the flume.

I have searched the internet for about 3 hours trying to find some sample images and the only ones I could find were shot in Sunny (cough cough) Cornwall, however, I think they look great and am so excited at getting a chance to play with mine!

All images © John Victor Cooper

So that is the latest edition to my Camera arsenal which now consists of: Canon 5D, Canon G9, Mamiya 645, Yashica 24 TLR, Minolta Weathermatic, Polaroid 600, Sony Ericsson Camera Phone and a few others. Next on my list is an motor-drive SLR - but until then I just have to work out how I am gonna take all these on holiday with me. 

Happy Weekend All.

Monday Monday

Monday rolls round again - and due to lack of recent major photography activity (that I am able to share right now) I thought I would instead share a day in my life in images. This is pretty much what I am going to see tomorrow.

Dropping Storm off at School (we only drive when it's raining -  don't own a raincoat)

The picturesque Morden Leisure Centre - I took up swimming for New Year and so far manage 42 lengths a day.

The marshy woods around the leisure centre - I keep thinking I'm gonna find a dead body in here.

Morden road markings are slightly confused.

What my car gets to look at while I'm in the pool

Storm gets home from school and we mess about with cameras (this is a commemorative Carling black label 35mm point and shoot)

And finally... Storm at the weekend cruising down to Portsmouth.

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West taken with the Canon G9 Powershot.

TGI Friday. Bring back Smoking!

2am @ The Jazz Cafe, Dalston. Image © Olivia Grabowski-West

Since becoming a freelance I have found that days merge into one another and the weekend seems little different from the rest of the week. Above is the scene from The Jazz Cafe in Hackney on a friday night, a late night drinking hole with free entry that sells 3 kinds of drinks for exorbitant prices. A well renowned meat market where people are crammed in like Sardines, it seemed like every cool kid within a ten mile radius had descended upon it. Now I'm not actually all that old, but I felt geriatric in here and after squeezing my way in to one side all I could think of was getting out. What made it so bad? Well, it's what makes most clubs in London so bad since the introduction of the smoking ban - the smell of people breaking wind is unbearable. So please dear government, I beseech you, please bring back smoking and save our night clubs!
Have a great weekend everyone.

Stamp collecting just got cool.

Had to pop into my local Post Office (yes - I am lucky enough to still have one) and saw these little beauties in the kiosk window. I am a huge fan of sending letters so couldn't resist picking up a set to adorn my postcards and envelopes. They cost 50p more than the price of 10 stamps because of the packaging or something, but well worth it I think. So if you are nice to me and send me your address you might find one winging it's way to you a top an equally exciting polskey-made card!

Dog Face

©Olivia Grabowski-West

Lady with Dog in sweater, Morden Hall Park.
Olympus OM-1, 50mm Zuiko Lens.

Interesting and Unusual Wedding Invitations

I guess now is about the time that everyone is planning their weddings and sending out their wedding invitations so I thought I would have a little plug of one of my favourite photographic jobs - creating wedding invitations. So bored of receiving little white cards with embossed text inviting me to weddings - they are so soulless and say nothing, they kind of set the tone for yet another dull but perfectly traditional wedding.  So why not do something different and creative to let your guests know that your wedding is going to be worth the 200 odd pounds your guests are probably going to have to pay to get there and stay somewhere. If you make the effort in the invite then it certainly sends a good message. The couple above sent out this invitation for their wedding in South Africa and said it had an amazing effect on their guests. So go own - do something different, if you or someone you know is interested in getting a unique invite and making the most of my creative juices then they can contact me here.

All images © Olivia Grabowski-West

Help for Haiti

No one with a soul could fail to be affected by the tragedy that has befallen the people of Haiti, myself I cannot watch the news without bursting into tears at the scenes, the most harrowing for me of all the children who due to lack of medicine are having to have limbs amputated without any form of pain relief. They need so much help there, not only to help in the immediate future but in the long-term there is going to be a lot of work that needs to be done. As a grey-haired professor on newsnight put it - it is a more difficult challenge than anything the world has seen as in most countries after a disaster like this the aid agencies have to get countries back on their feet - the problem with Haiti is that they were never on their feet so rather than re-building they are going to have to build something from scratch.

All images ©Emiliano Larizza courtesy of The Guardian Newspaper website.

As soon as I heard the news I like many others rang through a donation, although pretty small, if everyone does the same it makes a lot of difference. However, photography fans can now help in another way. A group of renowned photographers have put together a special magazine of photography from Haiti and are selling it through the website MagCloud. All proceeds go to the International Red Cross Haiti relief fund. It's 40 pages of photography and can be bought and shipped for just $14. I have ordered mine already, YOU can buy it here.

©One Respe - A Photographic benefit for the survivors of the Haiti Earthquake.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

Fighting off the January blues I headed down to Bournemouth this weekend to stay with my favourite friend to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for saving me from near mental collapse and basically just listening to all my crap.
On Sunday the weather was blissful and sunny so we took a stroll along the promenade and my trusty 5D came with, was  a great opportunity to catch a glimpse of the British seaside in winter.

"Poole - it's a beautiful place"

A handful of people had ventured into their beach huts to enjoy the sun

Inside

I was particularly taken by the array of faded curtains in the beach huts

Talking a walk in Sunday best

Bournemouth kids don't do Playstations

Eating Chips

I loved this girl's fusion of prints

Mum and daughter in matching cherry

Bare-foot beach girls

Love?

No promenade would be complete without a splattering of silly dogs

And finally an ode to my friend who cheered me up enormously - here she is having a bit of a giggle.....

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Storm Ring Flash

I treated myself to a ring flash just after Christmas - let's call it my Christmas Bonus. It arrived on friday and my first  victim was my gorgeous son Storm who also happened to have just started school. So here is a combination of my two favourite things - Storm and new camera equipment. I have been wanting a ring flash for ages but only bought a cheap one (actually not that cheap at £125), in hindsight perhaps I should have stumped up a bit more as I took the flash out to shoot a party this weekend only to find that it dismantled itself in my hands whilst I was trying to attach it to my camera :( I am going to send it back and hope it gets replaced or at least fixed! I think the light itself is great and I am dying to practise some more with it, but for now - here is Storm on his second day at school using ring flash.

All images © Olivia Grabowski-West
Picture details: Canon 5D, 50mm, f1.8, 1/50, ISO 200 with Marumi DRF14 C (Canon) Ring Flash

Wall Flowers

As January is pretty slow jobs wise, I have finally had a chance to start going through my archive - I am working on a new updated website and it is funny when you go back and look at your old pictures how you see things differently and like different pictures than you liked before. I think this is going to take me a good few weeks to do as as well as choosing pictures I want to re-edit a lot. My photoshop skills have come along way from when I started so it's going to be fun seeing what I can do with my old work. 

Here are a couple of pictures I did two years ago of some cute Japanese girls at LCC. A lot of post-production on these but all elements of the images are my own. They make me smile anyway. Enjoy.

All images © Olivia Grabowski-West

Men In Film

And here are all the men :)

Women In Film

Busy day today so I thought I would share one of my favourite youtube clips - the maker of this is truly an expert at morphing and I love sitting through it and trying to shout out all the names as they appear.

Oh yes it is, Oh no it isn't, Oh.....

Had a great weekend of simple pleasures and it's kind of a rare thing for me these days.
Saturday night I walked through a snowy Victoria park with my brother to the Approach Pub (Hackney) just in time for closing. The sober journey on the way was rather treacherous as the compacted ice and snow was just daring you to slip over an break your neck. The return journey however (after 4 JD & cokes) seemed to just glide past as we did our best to shoe-ski home.

Snow falling on the frozen Canal.

The Gates of the Night-Walk, Victoria Park, Hackney

The benches of London have become seriously lonely since the arrival of the snow.

Seeing double (and this was before the pub)

Toto lapping up the heat from a street lamp

Toto doing his best shoe-skiing before taking it upon himself to pelt me with rock hard snowballs all the way home.

The next morning Tom and I decided to take Storm out to enjoy some snow fun, we nicked a tray off my folks and took him the Hackney equivalent of sledging (much to the envy of all the other children in the park)

The weekend was rounded off by Storm's first trip to a pantomime. I went with trepidation considering the last panto I had gone to I was almost thrown out for heckling Mark from Neighbours (that ages me!). Anyway, it was the most spectacular panto I have ever seen and definitely worthy of it's 'Best Pantomime in England' billing. The production values were outstanding, there was a Camel, Elephant, Flying Genie (it was Aladdin) and a huge flying Dragon. Ok, so Storm was trying to fling himself off the dress circle by the end but I think it was more to do with the slightly too long 2 and half hour running time, not because it was rubbish.

The cast of Aladdin at the Hackney Empire taking their final bows.

I hope you all had an equally great weekend - back to proper photography work now and promise to put something up with slightly better production values myself soon.

Best day of the week

Yes - it's that lovely day again, I finished off my job at 6am this morning and then rolled into bed and was able to have a cosy sleep as Tom was around to look after Storm - I think that's why I love Saturdays the most. The frames above were part of the job I was doing, shooting lots of great jewellery from Orelia.co.uk for their new season and catalogue. It's an arduous job but I get to play around with shiny jewels all day which is something that appeals to my feminine magpie'ish nature. 130 pieces later and i've gone boss-eyed and have repetitive strain injury in my mouse finger from cutting them all out on photoshop. Off to see my folks later today and a roast is promised tomorrow - my mother cooks the best roast in the world so I can't wait.
Have a great weekend!

All images © Olivia Grabowski-West. (Font: Monjiboux)

And Snow it begins....

So it's been snowing for a couple of days and the whole country has come to a standstill. Personally I hate the snow (cold, wet, slippery, sludgy, urkk) and have just viewed it from the comfort of my home with no desire to leave the house at all.
Still it would be a shame not to get any photographic record, so this is the snow as viewed from my office and bedroom.

Storm struggles up to the window to take his first peek at the snow.

My ASBO family garden (as described by my lovely brother) looking rather better than normal covered in snow.

Storm taking a swipe at the snow

My neighbours garden also benefits from a sprinkling of the white stuff

Charney looks on, she like me chose not to get her feet cold

My street and a car slipping over the pavement

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West (taken on Canon G9)

Room for one more?!

©Olivia Grabowski-West

I now remember why I gave up my nine to five. This was the scene at Stockwell tube station this evening at 6pm changing from the Victoria to the Northern Line. I had to wait six trains until I could squeeze in and be squashed tightly against the door. No wonder Londoners are a stressed bunch of people.

(I apologise for the pixelation of the image - I am still trying to work out what is going wrong when I resize the images for the internet, bit weird as they are large images but perhaps its down to the sensor size - any suggestions welcomed!)

Seeing Double, Triple, Quadruple......

Kev Davidson

This is a set of images I did for the band Oystar to be released on a weekly basis in the run up to a big gig they were doing at Scala in London.

I really enjoy creating composites, both the shooting and the post production and hope I will be posting more up here in the future for your enjoyment.

James Henderson

Ben Richards

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Wedding of the Year!

I stumbled across these images of South Africa's president Jacob Zuma getting married for the SEVENTH time and they put such a big smile on my face that I thought I should share them.
I just love the bride's Louis Vuitton headscarf and her bridesmaids chubby calves - those must be among some of the most unflattering bridesmaid outfits ever!
ENJOY!

The President/Groom dances in front of guests

The Bride arrives with her Bridesmaids.

All images © Siphine Sibeko/Reuters

Last Chance to see...Weegee

As you may have noticed I have failed to put up many of my own images recently - the reason - I have put myself on a proper holiday and even my trusty Mac Pro is still hidden in my cupboard from when I went away for Christmas day. So, this is the final night of my holiday and having worked like a dog throughout 2009 it was well deserved (I think so anyway) and thoroughly well enjoyed. Back to work tomorrow with all guns blazing.

So today's post is about a photographer I adore (enjoy/respect/wish was still alive). I am writing about the fantastic, vertically challenged, cigar-chomping WeeGee (real name Arthur Fellig) he got his pseudonym from his 'Ouiji Board' like ability to know what was going to happen almost before it happened and be there to take shots - it transpired later that he had a police scanner radio and was later the only photographer to be given permission to have one in his car.

I don't want to go into his biography - it is easily found on the internet if you are interested - however, he was the most prolific photo-journalist of the 1930/40's New York, and is now something of a legend. A lot of his most famous images are the shots of criminals,crime and fatal or near fatal accidents (some really quite gauling). 

Two offenders in a paddy wagon.

Simply add boiling water.

While these images allow the voyeur inside us all a glimpse into a life we shall probably never see, it is his pictures of daily life, society and 1940's nightlife that I really love. What makes his work all the more amazing is that when he was working he was using a huge camera, one-shot flash bulbs and processing it all in his car.

Lovers at the Palace Theatre 1943

Heatspell 1938, Children Sleeping on the fire escape.

Mending, Coney Island 1940

At a concert, Harlem 1948

Transvestite in a police van, 1941

All images ©Arhur Fellig (WeeGee) and courtesy of Amber Online.

There is currently an exhibition of Weegee's work at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee place, SW3 3TD, it is only on until 9th January so you will need to hurry if you want to see it - I also understand that it is possible to buy prints - oh if only my bank account didn't resemble a black hole already!

The man himself:

Self-Portrait.

Sitting above his studio in New York.

The Sundance Kid

The Sundance Kid (Harry Longabough) and Etta Place c.1900

Father Christmas dropped the 70's classic film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid into my stocking and earlier this evening when faced with a choice of The Bodyguard (Kev Costner and Whitney Houston) or Brit Traffic Cops on the telly I decided to whack it on. It's a great movie and was happy to be reunited with it although I am slightly perplexed by the musical montages and the weird relationship between the two outlaws and their gal Etta Place.
As per usual when I watch a film that is even slightly connected to real life events and my laptop is within arms length I can't resist picking it up and googling it. The real story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is actually much more lengthy, dramatic and exciting than the film has time to portray (check out Wikipedia for the full story), and bless the lord, there are a couple of great portraits of the pair and their moll Etta. I love portraits from the late 1800's early 1900's, I think it is because the subjects sometimes had to stay still for up to a minute that gives them a lot of gravitas. I would love to learn how to take pictures like this (with all the original equipment, film, etc.)
So for your enjoyment, here are Butch and Sundance - not quite Newman and Redford (Butch was certainly no looker), and the sweet-looking Etta Place.

Robert LeRoy Parker a.k.a Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch (Butch is seated on the right, the Sundance Kid is seated on the left).

What are you going to be in 2010?

Hope ©Olivia Grabowski-West

A new year is upon us and I know that in my case I feel like there are a lot of big decisions and choices to be made. I enjoyed 2009, I learnt a lot and worked very hard but at the end of it have felt a little empty. I still love my job and am proud of what I achieved but relatively spent very little time creating and most of my time being a slave to money and jobs that left me feeling a little blue. Sadly I am not one of those people who has the luxury of being able to pick and choose work - I need to pay the mortgage whether through creativity or drudgery - but in 2010 I have decided that I am going to make a serious assault on getting where I want to be.
I will keep you posted on my ongoing struggle - in fact you can come along for the ride!
I hope everyone has their sight set on great things for 2010 and that they achieve it. I think it's gonna be a good year!

The world's widest panoramic photograph?

How did he do that? This is for all my Kenyan friends - a walk down Kitengela Road, Nairobi.

The General

I know that pictures of ones children are horribly boring but in this case I think I can make an exception. This is my son Storm in his new pyjama's bought by his lovely baba (grandmother). Storm is one of those toddlers that has a lot of mannerisms of an older person and I think he suits the general's uniform - especially when he's taking the call at the end.

The sleeping General

Greeting his public (the Royal wave)

Phone call with the War Cabinet

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Improvocateur - Neil Mullarkey

Images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

This is the fabulous Improvocateur, Neil Mullarkey. A stalwart of the comedy circuit he was a founding member of The Comedy Store players with great friends Mike Myers and Paul Merton. He starred in Whose Line is it Anyway among other things and is well renowned for his Improvisation comedy. He was a little scary at first (you're just waiting for a great comedian to rip it out of you) but really nice and yes, very funny.
He currently has a book out called "Don't Be Needy be Succeedy' as his alter ego L.Vaughn Spencer (Profile Books).

"Vaughn Spencer is to life coaching what Alan Partridge is to broadcasting" The Metro

Ways of Seeing - The Great John Berger

I was lucky enough yesterday to shoot Booker Prize winning author John Berger. Lighting was terrible and I had less than five minutes (he hates to have his picture taken and is notoriously reclusive) but I managed to get a few shots I was pleased with. He is an amazingly interesting man and full of energy which would put a much younger man to shame at 84! We had a chat about Hackney (his birthplace) and while we  were having a cheeky cigarette break in the pouring rain he was very interested to learn my in-laws are Polish farmers, so interested in fact that he went and got one of the books he had written 'Here is Where we Meet' and insisted that I take it and read the last story which is about a wedding in a small village in Poland, he also wrote a lovely dedication at the beginning of the chapter which I shall treasure.

I always find it rather daunting going to shoot weighty intellectuals because although I am no dumbo I am certainly no intellectual and I worry that I will not be able to think of anything to say and appear as a babbling idiot. However,  I have found that it is these people who are the kindest and most interested in others, and our conversations have been very natural, amusing and highly interesting.

John Berger was in London to receive the Golden PEN lifetime achievement award and normally resides in the French Alps.
All images © Olivia Grabowski-West

From the Archive - Head in a Box

This is a series that I started when I was still at college. I was so pleased with these images but always a bit bemused that people think they are down to photoshop - they are not - I genuinely got these personalities to stick their head in a cardboard box for the portrait - they have been retouched to give them a slightly kitsch look. I want to continue this project, but as you can imagine, it's quite difficult to find sitters!

Me myself:

Jimmy Tarbuck:

Bear Grylls:

Kathy Lette:

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Never buy a Christmas Tree in the Dark

I finally managed to pester my husband enough to let me get a Christmas tree today at about 6.30pm. Off we drove to the local tree yard and I picked out a beauty, paying most attention to the fullness of the top and the height (I can't stand a mean little christmas tree) and I couldn't really see the rest as we were in practical darkness. He sleeved the tree and it fit in the boot of my car just fine, only when we got it home and slipped off it's webbed sheath did we realise that it was actually about a quarter of the size of our sitting room!  So, my husband has been evicted from his desk for the month so we can fit it in the corner, I made him feel better about it by telling him how huge our sitting room is going to look when it comes down!
Anyway - it's not too bad (my mother is going to tell me it's vulgar and tacky but who wants a pint-sized tree covered in matching bows and baubels?) It could have been worse - check out these Christmas tree disasters:

(This is kind of how mine looks but a bit more shapely and I don't have all that white crap on the floor)

I know these aren't real christmas tree's but how chronic are these jumpers (and hairstyles)

Canary Wharf on a rainy night

I was working yesterday for one of my city clients who have an office in Canary Wharf - I always love going there as I feel like I am walking into a different world. I get a  crooked neck from looking up constantly and am always surprised that I am the only one who does. If you take out a DSLR in Canary Wharf you will very quickly be stopped and asked to move on - it's a terrorist threat of course! So I took out my mobile phone and snapped some pics of London's metropolis.

I was working in the atrium at the top of this tower (hideous light up there for the job - urghh)

The lift-well (what do you call that?) on the 30th Floor.

There is an amazing sculpture in the foyer which I gaze at every time I am there, as you move around the sculpture you see different faces coming out of the bumps - see how many you can see from this angle (I will try and find out who it's by next time I'm there).

In the disabled lift of the Underground

Canary Wharf Underground Station

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West