Richard Cooper-Knight

Canalside captures

/ mikeosbornphoto / 28 Comments

In a first I’ve joined forces with another photographer and friend, Richard Cooper-Knight of CK Ponderings.

We took a long walk along London’s Grand Union Canal, starting at Paddington Station and finishing at Ladbroke Grove in the west of the city. It encompassed the contemporary high rises of Paddington Basin, the charm of Little Venice to urban grit – and even a meeting with a photography barge selling pictures.

Click to enlarge

The photographer photographsPhotographer by Richard Cooper-Knight

Richard takes up the story of two photographers’ first collaboration: 

I’d been looking forward to working on a joint photo project with another fellow blogger. After a false start and unexpected change of venue, Mike and I hit Paddington Basin with the weather on our side.

It was interesting to see the different approaches we take to photography. Mike has a studied approach, taking time to work out the framing and set up of each shot, while I tend to go for more quick fire shooting.

There are definite pros and cons to both approaches – I like capturing the moment, while Mike ends up with fewer photographs to process (he had around 40 shots compared to my 200). But it was interesting to see both in action, and I hope you’re pleased with the results!

Click first image for the full gallery experience

Louise from The Photography Boat happily posed for a windswept portrait

Dark tulips

/ mikeosbornphoto / 20 Comments

Black floral sheenA beautiful flower bed peppered with velvety tulips in a cultivated corner of London. 

In monochrome, these blooms look silky and black as ink – in a richly coloured high key shot, they are a rich maroon as they rest on a dazzling carpet of yellow blossom. The colour sizzles while the black and white broods – which do you favour?

This was one moment in a photographic walk taken with fellow camera fancier and blogger, Richard Cooper-Knight. You can see our first joint post here very soon…

Tulips on gold

green

300

/ mikeosbornphoto / 32 Comments

300selection

This is a moment to sit back and enjoy the photography. This is the 300th post on mikeosbornphoto, and marks two years of taking images and sharing them on this platform.

These composites are two random slices from my media library, which has slowly grown since April 2012. It’s a snapshot of people and places I’ve captured, from strangers to my most devoted supporter, Dermot (he’s on the bottom right of the first image, looking out from London’s Shard).

This is my chance to say thank you to fellow photographers and bloggers who support every post, to those who might just visit once. They’re all much valued.

The thing is, what next? A steady, satisfying momentum has established itself and I know what I really like doing. But it wouldn’t do to just stop there – plenty of challenges lie ahead.

Those bloggers help with this, including amazing self-portraitist Malin Helleso, who suggests I should try turning the camera on myself. And young, talented Portuguese photographer Diogo Pereira, who is teaching me how to take HDR photographs. A very first collaboration – with my closest photo blogging comrade Richard Cooper-Knight – is also being planned.

This is a good chance to share and enjoy more ideas, celebrate what we like best, and make it bigger and better…300selection2

Autumn colour

/ mikeosbornphoto / 8 Comments

Autumn colourThis is a simple capture of a clutch of dazzlingly pink cyclamen plants at my local garden centre. They are colourful stalwarts of the colder months here in the UK and a sure seasonal sign.

But there’s another point to this photograph. I walked through Ravenscourt Park in west London before seeing the flowers, stubbornly resisting the urge to take pictures of autumn leaves and trees turning bare.

As lovely as those browns, russets and yellows might be, photos of them are even more commonplace than the piles of fallen leaf debris. They’re everywhere.

In an effort to tease out more inventive seasonal snapshots, my friend and fellow photographer Richard Cooper-Knight is organising a special autumnal Mass Observation project.  You can also sign up via Facebook.

There is more to autumn photography than leaves, isn’t there?…

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