Rowan Lamb Photography

Shut up Rowan, it's a flippin' telephone

2012-01-29T13:19:00.000Z

I simultaneously hate and love the camera on my iPhone. As far as cameras go, it's a bag of crap, but for god's sake, it's a telephone, what do I expect?

We're dog-sitting at the moment, and we took her out for a walk in the mist this morning. I was going to bring my regular camera, but I decided that I couldn't be bothered; I was likely to be holding a dog lead in one hand, and anticipated holding a small bag of poo in the other for about 50% of the time. I figured my phone would have to do.

They say the best camera is the one you have with you, and in this case that was the phone - I really like these shots that I got, but I hate them too.

I took this one last night - same story; without my phone, I wouldn't have this shot. But I wish it were better, you know? If it's not obvious, this is a whale's skeleton...

Wedding Updates!

2011-10-25T15:03:00.000+01:00

More time since my last posting, more weddings to catch up on!

I'm starting to get some nice bookings for next year - book soon to avoid disappointment!

Updates

2011-08-09T22:03:00.000+01:00

Wow, wow, wow! It's a long time since I've posted anything, and for that I apologise. I've changed jobs recently, and where I used to update during the day in my spare moments, now blogger is blocked, so I can't just tap away when the thought strikes.

Anyway, here are some shots from some recent weddings - there have been quite a few this summer, and they were a lot of fun. I'm still super busy at the moment, but we're winding down now towards the end of the season. September's still pretty hectic though.

I went to a wedding... Part 2!

2011-05-01T17:51:00.001+01:00

This has been a long time coming, but having a little spare time has meant that I can finally post these - some more pictures from Tom and Tarana's wedding. Hope you like them!

Weddings

2011-04-25T14:15:00.001+01:00

I had a very busy weekend last weekend, thanks to two weddings in three days. One of them was a last minute booking, after the couple's original photographer bailed on them with less than a week to go. It's that kind of behaviour that reminds me that some photographers can be real idiots, and how important confidence in your photographer can be on the big day.

Anyway, thanks to the bank holidays and easter breaks, I've been able to process the photos in double quick time, so here's a little taster. I'll get the discs sent out to Sarah & Aaron and Sarah & Ed this week. I hope they like them!

Sarah and Aaron:

Sarah and Ed:

Time to say goodbye

2011-03-23T13:26:00.004Z

After keeping hold of it for over 5 years, I'm finally getting rid of the great big bag of film that I've had lying around the house. I'm selling it on eBay;

19 Rolls of Fuji Sensia

19 Rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600

It's a bit of a wrench to finally admit that I don't use film any more - I still miss the smell of the darkroom and the heady rush of opening the developing canister to see what I've got, but digital photography has meant that I can shoot far more pictures far more cheaply - without it, I really don't think I'd still be taking photographs in the way that I do now. I still have a few film cameras that I'll keep, mainly for sentimental reasons but also because they look so lovely, but I think I'll be selling my old film SLR soon too. I do still have a couple of rolls of film left to put through my gorgeous Canonet (so generously given to me by friend Jo), so I'm not dropping it completely.

To commemorate what seems to me a landmark in my photography, here's some pictures taken with film

UPDATE: So, the auctions have ended, and the final total came in at over £60. The lucky person who got the Neopan got an absolute bargain if I may say so. Congrats to the winners!

'Tis the Season

2011-02-28T16:14:00.000Z

Wedding season starts again soon, and my diary is already filling up really nicely. July and August are pretty much full, although September is pretty sparse. This is especially odd, as it was my busiest month by far last year. I'm really looking forward to getting back into the wedding photography swing - in fact, I've recently bought a new (nerd alert!) 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM lens, which was perhaps a bit too expensive for me at the moment, but it gives really fantastic results.

The first wedding is at the end of March, so I'll post some results soon!

Landscapes

2011-02-10T13:17:00.001Z

I haven't ever been someone who takes landscape photographs, but I've been thinking a lot about the landscape that I inhabit recently. The area where we live is still being developed, and is in a constant state of change. Added to this, the (mis)guided busway passes close to our flat. It's a project linking Cambridge and the surrounding towns using a dedicated route for buses, and has been stuck in project management hell for over a year. The route is finished, but no buses have ever passed along it, as far as I know. It's basically a ghost road, used by cyclists and joggers, dog walkers and commuters, but not by buses. And I love it.

It's also unusual for me to shoot in colour, but I've been looking at a lot of Joel Sternfeld's work recently. He's not a photographer I've ever really paid much attention to - I know he has great skill, but I don't think I ever 'got' his images before. Now I've tried taking landscape photographs with a modern twist, I can see that he makes it look easy, when it really isn't.

Oh, and by the way - I've changed the design of my blog - I was getting quite bored of the blackness of the last layout.

Wedding Photography Website!

2011-01-10T09:39:00.001Z

Hooray! My new wedding photography website is now totally live! You can see it here:

www.rowanlamb.co.uk

My old website, which used to be at that address, can now be seen at alt.rowanlamb.co.uk, if you're feeling sentimental.

I went to a wedding...

2010-12-14T22:09:00.000Z

So, my friend Tom got married on Friday. I wasn't the official photographer - when you know 3 gabillion photographers, it's hard to pick one to ask. And we all know the old saying, 3 gabillion photographers are better than one, right?

So anyway, because I was 'off the clock', I was able to cut loose and take some fun shots. And break my flash into tiny pieces in the process. So here they are, in roughly chronological order. You can see the slow-then-rapid decline in decorum.

It started off so gently...

These two are handsome.

See? Told you.

I don't quite know what's going on here. I also don't know who took the photograph, because that's me in the background there...

I'm not saying that this is how my glasses got broken, but...

A monocle suits you sir!

Yeah, I was looking at your wife's bum. WHAT OF IT?

Congratulations to Tom and Tarana - I can't think of a nicer couple, and a better party.

Wedding Photography

2010-11-30T15:33:00.001Z

As you may know, I am a part time wedding photographer. In the past, I've been happy to let this trundle on as a fun side-line to my day job. Next year, though, I'm going to try and take it up a notch. Phase one of this is a new website, so here we go. It's not completely finished yet (my excellent brother is building it for me in his spare time, a commodity that he has very little of); there are some tweaks to the home page to come, and perhaps some minor changes in content, but the skeleton is there, and most of the meat.

Preview!

Hallowe'en!

2010-11-01T11:34:00.002Z

I took a lot of pictures, but you'll have to make do with these two, of my brother Leigh and his wife Shelley. All together now, BRAAAAAAIIIIIINS.....

Dead

2010-10-22T11:05:00.000+01:00

The Cambridge University Museum of Zoology is cool.

Runners!

2010-07-26T15:35:00.000+01:00

Went to a local 10k race on Sunday, with a borrowed 70-300mm lens. I've been thinking about buying something similar for my wedding work, but this one is about £450 on the web. It seems to be nice and sharp (softness in these images is a combination of bad focussing on my part, and the processing that the images went through. Plus I was shooting in jpeg, which I will never do again, even if time is limited), and the image stabilisation works really well. The copy I had had obviously been dropped or banged at some point, because the USM motor was whirring like a bastard.

Anyway, here are some 'portraits' that I took for fun.

Camping!

2010-07-14T11:18:00.000+01:00

We took advantage of the great weather last weekend to take a nice little camping trip to the North Norfolk coast. As mentioned below, I've been shooting a lot more with colour in mind, so the sun really helps.

Long time

2010-06-30T12:14:00.002+01:00

pool 1, originally uploaded by monkeyfinger.

Wow, I have totally neglected this blog recently. The intense period of activity involved in moving house, followed by a self-imposed period of little-to-no activity after moving in, alloyed with doing a few weddings in fairly quick succession, means that I haven't taken any 'arty' pictures in a long long while. The picture here isn't even that good, but illustrates nicely that now the summer is here, it's time to break out my colour photography hat. I find that colour photography is much more appealing in the summer - I suppose it's because it's sunny, simple as that. Anyway, more colour stuff on the way.

Poking Around the New House

2010-04-19T09:19:00.001+01:00

As you can see, it is still a bit of a building site...

Book

2010-03-15T18:33:00.002Z

Photo 2 by Rowan Lamb

Landscape

2010-03-09T21:36:00.002Z

Wow, it's been a while.

A couple of weeks ago I went down to London, and on the way took some snaps out of the train window whilst moving a fair old lick. Some of them turned out not half bad:

Competition Time!

2010-01-04T14:13:00.003Z

Happy new year, all. This year, I'm going to try and enter more competitions. Ranging from local things to win a tin of beans, all the way up to the Taylor-Wessing Portrait prize (seriously).

Anyway, to kick things off, I've entered another portrait prize in Black and White Photography magazine. The prize is a studio lighting kit, which I would love to have.

Anyway, my four entries are these:

Anomoly

2009-12-21T12:15:00.003Z

It's been a while since I blogged specifically about Flickr, but I just had a look at my stats and, well, there's something going on. My daily hits average at somewhere around 100 per day. Not very impressive, but it keeps me happy, especially as I've long since given up actively chasing views and comments. The past two days, however, have seen a massive surge in views of my stream, and more odderer than that, my sets. Actual individual views of my photos are still relatively low. Given that flickr only give you the provenence of clicks on actual photographs, I'd be intrigued to see where all this traffic is coming from...

Long time...

2009-12-09T11:45:00.002Z

...no see.

Haven't blogged anything for some time here. To be honest, I haven't taken many photographs - the winter weather has meant that I go to work in the dark, and it's dark before I leave. Anyway, here's a shot from recently, just to keep things ticking over.

Halloween Party

2009-11-02T10:10:00.001Z

On Saturday I went to a marvellous party:

New Book

2009-10-19T14:21:00.003+01:00

I have a new book available, basically a collection of the best of the images taken over the last year.

Photo 2

By Rowan Lamb

Book Preview

holiday shots

2009-10-02T18:54:00.001+01:00

went on holiday to the artistic city of aarhus in denmark, and all i got was a shot of a massive model boy...

Gear

2009-09-22T19:02:00.004+01:00

New Lens! New Flash! Woo!

Collaboration

2009-09-02T14:24:00.004+01:00

I'm currently working with a Flickr contact, Pierre, on a shared blog. We're not really sure what it's going to be yet, but it's nice to have someone to work off. He's in France, and I'm here in the UK, so it's the perfect balance of independence and collaboration.

The link is here:
Contact Sheep

UPDATE: We've just added another friend of ours, Jiro to join the blog, so we should be seeing some great work.

Black and White Photographer of the Year

2009-08-24T10:39:00.003+01:00

This very morning, I have sent off my entry for Black and White Magazine's Photographer of the Year competition. I don't expect to win, but then again, you have to be in it to win it, apparently. I've sent in prints that are about 11x15 inches, which is the largest that I've printed my shots in some time. They looked pretty good! I get the prints back afterwards, so I think I'll try and sell them.

Anyway, the 4 shot portfolio that I submitted was made up of the shots below:

Results announced in December, so fingers crossed!

Skellington

2009-08-23T09:54:00.003+01:00

Walking home from dinner last night, I was telling my friends how I'd like to visit the Department of Zoology here in Cambridge, as I'd heard that they had a pretty impressive whale skeleton hanging in a specially designed alcove. What I didn't know was that this alcove was outdoors, and as I was telling everyone about it, one friend glanced to his left, and there it was!

I was very excited.

Interview on CFYE.com

2009-08-04T14:21:00.003+01:00

Wow, long time no post!

Not a lot has happened, until the last few days. I am now InternetFamous: inspired by finding my Army set on flickr, Kaymir from CFYE.com made it the "expo of the week" on Shutter Crack, which was really nice of him. They also asked me to do an interview with them, which was really fun and cool, and can be read here. Please read it, it makes me think I'm cool, and he says some nice things about me.

Magazine Submissions

2009-06-11T10:21:00.002+01:00

Ellen convinced me that I should submit some images to a magazine for publication. I've sent a selection to Black+White Photography, and hopefully they'll feature them and send me a voucher for something I don't want! The exposure would be good though...

The Falconer

2009-06-05T09:35:00.001+01:00

Took this shot at the weekend, it's one of many, and the only one without the falcon in it, but I think it has an unusual atmosphere...

Recent Wanderings

2009-05-26T10:34:00.002+01:00

Fake cross-process

2009-05-15T15:06:00.001+01:00

These three shots are fake cross processing. I quite like the effect...

Old

2009-05-09T23:30:00.002+01:00

I've just spent some time scanning some old prints, from about ten years ago. Here are some of my favourites;

And the dark

2009-05-05T14:35:00.002+01:00

After the levity of the previous post, here's some more usual fare...

Sheet

2009-05-04T14:37:00.000+01:00

Loving the fabrics at the moment...

White Knight

2009-05-01T16:20:00.001+01:00

White Knight, originally uploaded by Eccie.

I don't really want to make a habit of putting other people's stuff on my own blog, but I just had to share this shot by a contact of mine on flickr, Eccie.

This is one of the few shots on flickr that I wish I had taken...

Inventive little lad...

2009-04-20T13:07:00.004+01:00

My mum just sent me this, apparently I was a hilarious little fella in 1995 ( I think...)

New software

2009-04-14T09:10:00.002+01:00

Last night I downloaded Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro, which, amongst other things, emulates a number of traditional black and white films. I think the shot below is Delta 3200. Its a great program, making conversion to black and white in Photoshop much easier, and more authentic looking. It also has a number of presets that emulate things like tintypes and pinhole photos, which are fun, but have less long-term appeal for me.

Music

2009-04-06T14:52:00.002+01:00

Last night I downloaded People That Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World by Andrew Jackson Jihad, and I simply haven't stopped listening to it. I love the cover too:

Favourite

2009-04-05T22:31:00.002+01:00

I rocketed past 10,000 all time views on flickr today, which is only really important to me, but there you go. I've become somewhat obsessed. Anyway, here is one of my most favourite shots that I've taken. Ever. It was only this afternoon, on the way to the pub, but I think it will stay with me for years...

Don't Mess With The Chicken....

2009-04-03T09:38:00.003+01:00

Or The Chicken Might Mess With You...

New shots

2009-03-23T22:15:00.004Z

Went to Girton for a wander around the other day, and got some pretty nice shots, I reckon...

Nostalgia for Places You've Never Been To

2009-03-18T12:59:00.011Z

Bored at work, I was browsing through my favourites on flickr. I have to say that I was blown away; the quality of photography that will basically never see the inside of a gallery is staggering. Even better is watching them as a slideshow, which I hope you will do by clicking here.

I also seriously SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY recommend that you download the track 'Primary' from Minotaur Shock's album 'Chiff Chaffs and Willow Warblers' and listen to it over and over again while looking at the pictures. The whole album is worth having, but if you only listen to one track this year while looking at someone else's idea of what great photography is, then it should be that one. Its only 80p or whatever from i-Tunes, and it will inject into the experience a goodly amount of nostalgia for places you've never been to.

WARNING: There are a couple of rude ones in there - nothing pornographic, but if you don't like bums then steer clear.

WARNING NUMERO DEUX: The whole thing will take about 50 minutes, so go to the toilet first.

UPDATE: I can't stop favouriting people at the moment, so it's well over an hour now. Better than most films though...

UPDATE 2: Well, in a way this proves my point - there are so many great pictures in there now that the slideshow will take about 90 minutes. That's a whole bunch of good shit...

UPDATE 3: Well, it's December now, 9 months later, and there are 4,257 pictures in my favourites, which will take about 3 hours to get through. I defy anyone to listen to same track on repeat for 3 hours, so maybe buy the whole Minotaur Shock album!

Poked

2009-03-16T15:02:00.004Z

Walking along the Devil's Dyke near Newmarket yesterday, we came across this grisly sight:

All buggery knows how the thing got in a thorn bush, but he wasn't happy. All poked about he was...

2009-02-20T14:39:00.001Z

I'm not usually one for self portraits, but this one was begging for it.

Pathetic Celebration

2009-02-19T09:05:00.000Z

Yesterday, for only the third time ever, the number of views on my Flickr page topped 200. This isn't much compared to many people, but it's nice that people are looking...

Anyway, here's a picture of my lady to celebrate:

Filler

2009-02-18T15:42:00.004Z

Haven't posted in a while. Not much has been going on to be honest, I certainly haven't produced anything worth posting. Plus I am sick like a dog.

So anyway, here's a vintage shot from the archive, hope you love it.

Television Portraits

2009-02-09T14:27:00.010Z

This is a project that I've been wanting to do for a long time, which is to take portraits of world leaders from the TV. I've only got one so far, of Robert:

Sadly, as we don't have TV at home (long story for another post), I very rarely get to take these shots. I did get another shot a few years ago that, whilst not exactly fitting the brief, I think fits in. Anyway, it's of George:

Provoke

2009-01-29T20:32:00.004Z

I've long been inspired by the work of Daido Moriyama, and in his spirit, and that of the Provoke series of photocopy books he helped create, here are some of my own Provoke efforts:

Wedding

2009-01-27T20:52:00.004Z

I am only now making my way around to posting some wedding shots I did last summer - don't worry, the happy couple got their shots months ago, but I've haven't got around to blogging them till now!
Hope you like them, the rest can be seen on my website and on my flickr page.

Website

2009-01-23T10:46:00.002Z

I've just realised that I haven't mentioned my website here. Duh.

Anyway, check it out over at www.rowanlamb.co.uk

Plonker

2009-01-21T11:34:00.000Z

I feel like a bit of a fool right now. I had to travel up to Manchester for work yesterday, and decided to leave my camera behind because it was a bit bulky, and I already had a pile of bags to carry around. Anyway, on the train journey up, I was treated to some absolutely wonderful views of the peaks, which were lightly dusted with snow. Contrasted with the industrial landscape, they made a great picture. Of course, no camera, no photos! It wasn't even the kind of scene that I usually photograph, but they were just so lovely. Then, wandering around the city centre last night, I saw a number of things that would have made a great picture, more my usual style, but of course, no camera, no photos. Then I woke up this morning to be greeted by the most amazing sunrise, and another great view of the peaks in the distance. Again, not my usual thing, but something worth shooting none-the-less. No camera, no photos.

Moral of the story? THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM FOR A CAMERA! Lesson learned...

Drawings

2009-01-19T18:51:00.008Z

I've been playing with drawing very naive pictures recently. Here are a couple:

Advert :-

The Executioner :-

Books and prints and things...

2009-01-19T15:59:00.004Z

I have now decided to make selected prints available from my website - initially this will be from the 'Barcelona' series, but other galleries may become available in the future.

If you do wish to buy any prints, please get in touch with me using the 'Contact' tab on the website, and we can discuss your requirements regarding size etc, and I will also give you a price.

I also have a number of books available for sale over at blurb.com - the bookstore can be viewed here: Bookstore!

You should really think about buying this one, its great:

Holiday

2009-01-19T15:46:00.004Z

Well, the first thing I'll mention here is that we (that's me and E) are due to go to Vienna this weekend. However! we may not be able to, as our friend's passport has not been returned from the evil visa people. So this time next week you might be looking at pictures from Vienna, or pictures from London. Fingers crossed, you'll be looking at some kind of picture.

So, now for an image. How do you like these apples:

First!

2009-01-19T15:44:00.002Z

Hi all. This is going to be a new experience for me, I'm going to start posting irregular snippets from my photographic life, and then in May, begin a monstrous 365 project. We'll see how that goes...