Author: lensabstract

One of my images was featured in the second volume of Banksy, Myths and Legends collated by Marc Leverton and published by Carpet Bombing Culture. The book explores many stories from Bristol and beyond exploring the Banksy legend. You can see more images from the Stokes Croft riots here

This years Womad Festival was one of the best yet, blessed with hot, dry weather the festival sold out for the first time in it’s history. Highlights of the weekend included Chico Libre, Kobo Town, Muyayo Rif, Hazmat Modine, the Perch Creek Family Jug Band, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Goran Bregovic and His Wedding & Funeral Band, Oliver Mutukudzi & The Black Spirits, Tunng, The Good Ones, Youssou NDOUR et le Super Etoile de Dakar, Sinead O’Connor and many more that we didn’t manage see personally. In addition to all the live music, sculptor and performance artist Neville Gabie was on site doing a series of performances and video installation. You can take a photographic journey through the festival here

We made the trip out to Australia for my wife’s sisters wedding, this gave me the opportunity to spend a bit of time in Brisbane. The city has grown rapidly over the last 8 years when I first visited. It has recovered well from the devastating floods of 2011 and the Southbank area of the city has seen a lot of development with lots of new bars and restaurants popping up.

The sunny climate in Brisbane made for some great opportunities for some great abstract photography, whilst I was keen to explore the local area from a resident’s perspective and not a tourist.

View the photoset on Flickr

As part of our trip to Australia we had a 3 night stay at Noosa Heads right next to the National Park. The highlight of the trip was a boat ride down the famous Tea Tree River with it’s black mirrored reflections.

Click here to view some of the pictures from the trip

The 52×52 Members Book features the work of numerous Flickr photographers, each week a new challenge was set by a professional photographer, these included Simon Norfolk, Gerd Ludwig, Nadav Kander, Simon Roberts, Peter Dench,  Edward Burtynsky, Christopher Anderson, Harry Benson, Olivia Arthur, Phillip Toledano, Terry O’Neill, Roger Ballen, Donald Weber, Alec Soth, Chris Floyd,  Palani Mohan, Marcus Bleasdale, David Maisel, Martin Parr, Benjamin Lowy, David Chancellor, The Caravan Gallery and many others.

My picture, Colston Abstract was featured from challenge 37:

Try to transform our world into an abstract image. – Lucie & Simon

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamabstract/7202729758/in/set-72157629575057598

http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/detail/3848388

I’ll be exhibiting a selection of my prints in Art on the Hill this year. The Art Trail is held on the weekend of 6/7 October and it will be open house from 12-6 both days. You can find more information about the trail on the Art on the Hill website

I wish I’d found this sooner but this Flickr group www.flickr.com/groups/52by52/ offers a weekly photographic challenge set by a different photographer every week. So I am starting out a bit late on week 35 on the subject of boredom. I’ll be adding more pictures each week so be sure to check back to see more.

www.flickr.com/photos/dreamabstract/sets/72157629575057598/

RGB Awards in Bristol. The opening night of the Festival of Photography will be held at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster. Private view where the winners will be announced is on Thursday 3rd May.

Just added new photos from my recent trip to Brisbane, Bali and Kuala Lumpur. Highlights of the trip included seeing Yayoi Kusama at Brisbane GOMA, the beauty of the Ubud and the rice paddies, the amazing stormscapes off Lombok and the colour and smells of Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur.

Visit galleries

Every December thousands of Santas and Elves descend on central London for Santacon, despite losing the main group for an hour or so we managed to have a very merry time and I also managed to take a few shots along the way…

View photos

I am pleased to announce that a series of my photos from the Stokes Croft Riots were featured in a new Tangent Books publication ‘ Bristol Riots by Louis Davis, Jason Davies and Mark Cains. If you want to purchase the publication please go to the Tangent Books Website

The Stokes Croft Riots kicked off on a balmy Friday evening in April 2011, the flashpoint seemed to occur when a raid on the squat Telepathic Heights on Cheltenham Road led to a full scale riot culminating in the damage of a highly contested new Tesco Metro Store.

I was lucky enough at the time to live straight opposite Telepathic Heights and was able to follow the riot from the ground and from above street level. I also witnessed the interesting aftermath, the clean up, the anti-tesco tea party.

View the photos here

Nelson Street in Bristol held the first annual See No Evil urban street art festival, artists worldwide flocked to produce a number of works on buildings and facades along the street. The event was visited by thousands of people of the weekend with live music and food stalls making up the experience.

Pics from See No Evil, Bristol

Last night we witnessed some amazing scenes on Cheltenham Road on Bristol as a raid on the squat Telepathic Heights culminated in a riot which focussed on the damage of a newly installed Tesco Metro. Local opposition against this new store seemed to fuel the riot and was a precursor to the more widespread riots in August 2011. From our vantage point opposite Telepathic Heights I was able to get a number of shots from above ground level and also on ground level as the riot developed. As a result I got 2 pictures featured on page 21 of the Mirror. Pictures from the riot can be found here.