Category Archives: Leisure Time

Oscar

Continue reading …: Oscar

Yes, Oscar is my new grandson’s name.
Here at The GBs home we are all staggering around in a state of dazed wonder.
Any how I’m sure we’ll come back to earth soon enough.
Meantime I’ll tell you the details, add a few snaps (yes, I’m afraid they are just snaps) and try to move on without boring you all with the minutiae of our family life.

Oscar weighed in at 7 lbs 9 ozs at 4.45 am on the 12th August 2014

Flamenco – a start

Continue reading …: Flamenco – a start

Well as some of you know I’ve been talking about a personal project for some time now and I have finally got the photography off the ground.
By joining a flamenco group in London I have been able to attend and photograph my first public performance, last Sunday. Continue reading

Flamenco and Paco

I’ve had a bit of a thing about flamenco for a long time.
Know nothing about it, yet somehow it seems to reach out and demand attention.
So much so in fact that it is a dream, no, more than that, a plan to photograph it,
I had heard of Paco de Lucia and knew of him as a top guitarist.
His recent death though made me look him up on the web.
He was a phenomenon.
Check him out and here’s a good place to start HERE
I need to get closer to this flamenco thing and see if there is any relevance for photographing something which is essentially guitar, singing and dance.
But it is “La Duende” that I’m after.

If you’re local to Surbiton there’s a flamenco guitar event featuring Ramon Ruiz planned for a local pub which I have put into my diary for the 17th May
https://www.facebook.com/events/525794557477396/

Like it ? See you there 😉

Christmas Card ? It’s driving me bonkers

Normally by this time in the year I have got our Christmas card sorted out.
Well not this year.
I’m getting desperate now.
It’s been a tradition over the years that we produce our own card for Christmas each year and having started something like that it’s very hard to stop.
People will say, “where’s the card ?” or even worse “so, you’ve given up photography then !”


I’ve had a few years when I’ve gone for humour (one year the Guardian newspaper actually printed one of my “funny” ones), but Mrs. GB thinks I should stick to the traditional image of Christmas – frost, snow, sleigh bells, robin on a log sorta thing. (!!!)
Well I have to live with her so I do wot I’m told.
This year the picture hasn’t come.
Normally by now it’s in the can and off to the printers.
December looms and I have nothing, so this morning I was up before dawn on a trip to Richmond Park which is quite local.
It’s a lovely place and when there’s a bit of frost and mist in the valleys it looks quite magical.
This morning wasn’t really cold enough – hovering around freezing point and there was no mist.
The sun was beautiful but without the other ingredients it just didn’t work.
I spent two hours chasing deer around the park (see the pic at the top of the blog post) and getting quite chilled but was not getting anywhere. Chucked it in but will have to go out again.
It’s not easy finding that one image that says it all.
Watch this space !!