December 23rd, 2009

Snowed in

Good old England! For a country that get so much rain we sure do freak out when it snows (y’no a different kind of water). Hell, #uksnow has been trending on Twitter for almost three days now! Not only is our wonderful public transport under threat from leaves, “the wrong type of rain” and running on time, the snow is akin to an earthquake! Just take a look at Google news and you’ll see the devastation that white blanket of evil has caused. All 4 inches of it… It seems so laughable after witnessing the crazy snowfall in Montreal last winter and how life went on as usual.

I keep thinking back to January this year and the snowfall we had. I think there was around 6inches of snow in one day and everything came to a halt. As I lived very close to the office at that time, only myself, my housemate and three others made it to work that day. As you can imagine that was a particularly productive day. Although it did give me that chance to make a snowman with my housemate and take some great photos (pictured).

I think snow is beautiful and even thought the cold weather makes me a right miserable so-and-so, snow really does make my inner child go nuts. I think the reason behind that is that I never really experienced snow as a child. Growing up on the coast meant that snow is pretty uncommon, and when it does snow it rarely settles due to the sea air. I hope some snow lasts until tomorrow so I can go for a nice long walk and get some nice Macro shots. I’ve been wanting to experiment more with my macro lens for a while. Hopefully once I’ve got a bit more equipment and practise I will be able to take photos as beautiful as this by Alliec.

I keep thinking about the mountain of Christmas shopping I still have to do and cringing. This will not be a fun weekend.

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December 22nd, 2009

2009 – Photo Recap

This is a long one!

Christmas is fast approaching and it will soon be a new Year. I can’t say I wont be glad to see 2009 out of the door, it’s been a tough year for me. However I wont linger on the bad, but reflect on the good that 2009 has brought. Since a picture can say a thousand words here’s a quick photo recap of my year. I wont be updating until after the new year as I will have limited internet access. Do doubt I will be online to check twitter. Also I have have recently joined MyDailyPhoto as it seemed like a fun way to share my life, my photos and a fun test of my attention span!

I hope your year has been as fulfilling as mine – remember to live each day to it’s fullest and live for the moment. I enjoy the photos and have a Merry Christmas and New Year!

January

15th – My Tarantula moulted for the first time since I got her. I was so excited and pleased that ti went well. There are some more photos and a daft write-up here for those interested.

February

2nd – This was the snow day I mentioned in my previous update. Her you can see the amount of snow and my house mate Jonny. More photos can be found here!

6th – This was the day of my first scarification. I can still remember how nervous I was. It took 6hours in total and was one of the most intense sensations of my life. It taught me a lot about my body and my mental strength. I don’t think I have ever concentrated as hard as I did that night.

11th – Almost a week on and my leg was still healing.

16th – STILL Healing. This was the itchy stage, starting to look really nice though.

20th – Leo joins my family. Sadly he passed away a few months later, he was a lovely little snakey. Would often sleep in my hoodie while I was gaming.

27th – The hand tattooing was added to my scarification. IT IS COMPLETE! It was well worth the experience and I still love it today.

March

10th – The Japanese Arts Festival in London. I had a great time photographing the dancer, they were beautiful! More Photos here.

30th – Minamicon rocked as usual .Lots of awesome people and lots of epic cosplay to photograph. The photos can be found here.
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April

21st – Met up with the wonderful Chevi and attended Koei’s Tokyo Toys day. Much fun was had – I love those guys.

26th – BUGS ARE HERE! I love the coming of spring, means I can get my camera out and chase some bugs. I met a rather interesting man this day, ended up chatting to him for a good few hours at my local pub. Good times.

28th – My first attempt at HDR photography and my first steps into real photo editing. I was really proudof this photo. The original images is linked here.

May

16th – Maya joins my family. She looks cute, but she’s a cheeky thing.

25th – The London MCM Expo went down a storm with work. Unfortunately the sun and pollen was against em so I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked. I was still pretty happy with the result though.

June

1st – New flat, new start. it was such a relief to get out of the crappy place I was in before. Weybridge is a great place to live. I still love being here.

12th – Some of my baby stick insects were finally old enough to go to a new home.

July

8th – I had my first proper fashion photography gig in London! This was The Twisted Collection

26th – The Summer brought em a lot of relaxation and joy. The wildlife was abundant this year and I really enjoyed it.

31st – Completed the Race4Life with the Ladies of Ubisoft. I was really pleased that I managed to finish it.

August

6th – Magnus joins my gang. Just after this shot he tried to venture into my nostril. :S

9th – I visited the London Wetland Centre for the first time with my friend Andy. I got some fantastic photos, you can read my post about it here.

22nd – J’adore l’orange! This was the birth of my orange look. I love it so much, shame the bleaching started to kill my hair…

September

1st – My third gecko, Saffron, joins my family. She is the youngest of the three and utterly adorable.

2nd – I’m starting to get more confident with my photo editing. I’m still really proud of this edit.

21st – Mike’s Birthday and his ITG/DDR tourney. It’s been a long time since I left that community, Mike is still very passionate about it.

22nd – My stick insects has babies. They were so small and cute!

24th – I attended Retro Reunited, a retro gaming event. You can read my write-up here.

October

6th – Went on an epic journey to Brighton with my best mate Smithy. We ate epic steaks, I pretended to be a crab in a rock pool and the entire way there and back we changed the lyrics to songs on the radio to be about how much we love our ex-colleague Manab.

14th – A much needed holiday on the Isle of Wight with Mike.

17th – Genki Gear photo shoot with Chloé! MOst photos can be found here.

31st – Work trip to Montreal! I took a group of game writers to Montreal to see Assassin’s Creed 2. Was a cracking trip with amazing company!

November

2nd – The MCM Expo was a blast! Met loads of great people and had a fantastic time. Also zombies <3

December

10th – Ubisoft Christmas Party. Nuff said.

12th – The first part of my tattoo sleeve was completed. I can’t wait until it’s finished!

15th – I went Skiing for the first time ever with my work colleagues. I had a very bruised bum the next day.

Bring on 2010!

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December 12th, 2009

Korina’s Comet

mothsleevewip As I’m sat here irritated by the clingfilm constricting my skin and the long-forgotten feeling of tingling from the fresh tattoo on my arm, I’m reminded of my scarification and how draining the healing process was. I feel like after dealing with such an intense experience a tattoo pales in comparison. Today I had the first sitting of my half-sleeve; four hours of work done by the awesome Luci at Diamond Jacks. Although it was no-where near as painful, the buzzing from the gun started to drive me crazy after such a long session. I was glad I didn’t choose to do it all in one sitting.

This design has been on my mind for some time, three years in fact! I had been worried about having a tattoo that could be seen when I wear t-shirts. Now that I have finally made up my mind and it’s been started I can’t wait for it to be finished so I can show it off! Luci did a fantastic job of interpreting the sketches I gave her and so far it looks great! I’m excited to have another moth tattoo, especially another one of my favourites. You can see a photo of my Death’s Head Hawk moth here and yes, I am a fan of the Silence of the Lambs. The moth featured in my half-sleeve is a Comet moth. The Comet moth is part of the Atlas Moth family so it’s huge (20cm wingspan!) as such it was scaled down for the tattoo. As the moth is from Madagascar I chose flowers native to the country. Sadly the Comet moth is an endangered species. Yet another beautiful creature soon to be lost to the world.

After my sitting I had arranged to meet up with my mate Cero for some much-needed food and good company. We went to our favourite Korean restaurant in London, Gama, and I stuffed my face! I can’t get enough of that place, I wish I lived closer to it. Cero was kind enough to treat me to dinner in celebration of me getting a new job! I’ll be starting as a PR Executive in February, I can’t wait. After eating until I could burst he kindly walked me to Waterloo. I had to stop and take a photo at the decorations on the South Bank, purely because they look like Jelly Fish and that makes me happy!

I’m hoping to have the second sitting in February as I am attending a suspension event in January and I need time for my body and bank balance to heal. Before you scroll down to see my WIP tattoo, here’s one of my favourite Moth-inspired poems written by Anne Yohn. Enjoy!

Moth by Anne Yohn

A winged sunset flutters, drawn
toward the lamp behind me.

Addled by errant desire
it bumps my knee,
leaves a smudge of moonlight.

Recovering, the moth drunkenly swoons toward the glow
again
heavy-winged and awkward,
a novice angel.

Now stained glass before the light
it feather-drums the lampshade,

insistent

delirious with longing.

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December 6th, 2009

Feeling Genki

robo4-small Back at the beginning of October I was commissioned by Genki Gear, a well-know T-shirt company that attends many UK Anime Conventions, to create some promotional photos for their new designs. A good friend of mine, Chloé, had been talking to Genki Gear and had recommended me to them. Of course, that meant it was only right that she modelled for it! This was a first-time for both of us. Chloé had never modelled before and this was the first shoot I had done where the model wasn’t the main feature. After a few silly shots we were much more relaxed and we’re both really pleased with the outcome. It was great to work with Genki Gear and have an excuse to see more of Chloé, I hope they would like to do some more work with me in the future.

This week a selection of the images have been published in NEO Magazine as part of Neo’s Christmas Gift Guide and the pages can be seen below (thanks Chloé!). Oh and for good measure, here are a few more images from the shoot that weren’t published!

[View with PicLens]