The blog is dead, long live the blog!

Hello everyone,

Apologies for my extended silence. Happy new 2009 and all that. I hope you're all well.

After a lot of hard work, and procrastinating I have finally decided that having a blog AND a (terribly inefficient) website was proving too much. So, I have consolidated my efforts and combined the two - the result of which can be seen here: http://www.bengrubb.co.uk/

Hopefully this will make updates to both my blog and my portfolio a lot easier, and thus more regular. Hopefully. I hope you'll still drop by - it'll be lovely to see you.

See you on the other side!

-Ben x

US and A...

Hello? Anyone there?.... Does this thing still work?!

I hope everyone/anyone reading this is well, and once again, apologies for my absence. I've been super busy of late! Along with the usual weekly events of climbing, work, climbing, photography and more climbing the most exciting thing that has happened to me recently has been my trip to America! Woo! I mention this now, as tonight, I have officially finished uploading (the best) of my photos to Flickr! It's taken me almost longer to edit and upload my shots that the amount of time I actually spent Stateside! However, this is good, as it means that I have been able to enjoy the trip for a lot longer, and now I feel slightly sad that it is officially over. Ho hum. The two week, 1, 500 mile trip began for Snoo and I in Denver, CO. From there we headed west to Moab, Utah then onto Grand Canyon, AZ, Las Vegas, NV (where we met up with Benny who would stay with us for the rest of the trip) onto Yosemite, CA and finally winding up on the coast at San Francisco. It certainly seemed like a lot longer than two weeks with a whole multitude of climbing, photography and exploring getting done. I really feel like I've experienced a good chunk of the western United States and I can't wait to return!


Anyway, the full set is available to view on Flickr and contains a mix of shots take with my trust DSLR, as as my Holga and my Polaroid. Yes, I really was in my element! Enjoy!

Autostitching...

Hello all, long time, no post, eh? Sorry about that. I've been super busy recently and it doesn't really look like it'll be letting up soon at any time either. I really need to sit down and sort out what needs doing and get it into some semblance of an order... Anyway, I'm sure you're no really all that interested in my inability to time manage. No? I thought not.

Perhaps this would be more interesting. Over the past couple of months I've really been making an effort to learn the technical aspects of using my camera. Previously, I've not been too happy with he out comes of my attempts at night photography with my 400D. They always seemed to come out over exposed and lacking something which my PowerShot A510 seemed to handle with ease. So, I finally bit the bullet, refreshed my memory of all those rules my Dad ingrained (or at least tried to ingrain) in me from an early age and ventured into the word of the unknown which is the Manual mode! Shock horror! I certainly paid off. I also invested in a decent tripod giving me far more scope to get the image I wanted instead of the image I was limited to. Armed with my new gear and my new knowledge I've been revisiting old haunts around London with a view to capturing them in all their true glory that my DSLR should be capable off. Here's a few of my recent efforts...
My new tripods has also afforded me the luxury of being able to make some perfect joiners (as shown here). The two shots above are four or five shots stitched together with a fantastic bit of free software called Autostitch. Feed the right photos into it, and Autostitch can provide you with totally seamless joiners! I'm hooked! I can't wait to get out again and capture the world in it's full panoramic beauty.

AOTM - January 2008: Alex Green

http://www.alexgreen-illustration.co.uk/

First off: Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a good one. I'm finally starting to get some blog motivation back...

I thought it was about time that I kicked off 2008 with a AOTM. I discovered this guy while flicking through a copy of Building magazine at work. I was (unsuprisingly) drawn to his loose yet bold and confident pencil sketching style, as well as some nifty mixed media work. It's certainly gotten me thinking that a) I really need to start producing some new work again and b) Maybe I need to try experimenting more with some traditional styles in order to stop my digital work growing stale. Food for thought at any rate...

I hope you enjoy the site.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To everyone who's read (or reading) my blog - Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2008...

AOTM - December 2007: David Mack

www.davidmack.net

Being home over the festive period, I've been re-united with my humble, yet prized collection of comics and graphic novels. I was flicking through some of my Daredevil back issues when I found the run written and illustrated by mixed media artist, David Mack.

I really love this story run. The story along with the composition, layers and details of Mack's illustrations are amazing, and every time I flick through them I always find something new that catches my eye.

Oh, Christmas Tree...

Seasons greetings, blog fans. I hope you're all full of the joys of the festive season. Here's some photos...

Turn on the bright lights...

Turn on the bright lights... originally uploaded by Ben Grubb

One of the reasons I love winter time - you have so much more opportunity to shoot after dark...