Spent a few days up in the French Alps. This time it was just me and Alex. We did a spot of filming and pretty much destroyed ourselves…

I was commissioned to take photos at the NACONF in January. I didn’t know what to expect, but I really enjoyed the event. Some great speakers from around the world. View all the photos on their Flickr stream here. The image above is available to purchase for a limited time via the panodrop Store.

Been working on a little project the past few months. I’m in the process of setting up an online store/gallery dedicated to the stereographic images I make.

Click below to read the rest of this post..

To start off with I needed a name for the site. Calling it Stereographic Projections wouldn’t be very catchy. Thinking of something that would work and hasn’t been used before, turned out to be harder than I originally thought. I spent about a month trying out different names. I decided I wanted the word ‘pano’ to feature in it somewhere. I played with various combinations and eventually settled with Panodrop. Pano being short for panorama and drop describing the feel of the images. The way the logo looked was important too, with it being eight characters I could stack the two words on top of one another and it looked right. Also each word has an ‘o’ in it which works with the rest of the theme. The circle to the left derived from a combination of a lens and the shape these images produce. I wanted the logo to look clean, simple and bold.

Working with Paul and Stuart at Tribe we developed the logo and made a start on how the site could work. After a couple of brain storms we came up with a plan for the lay out. Above is the initial design of the home page. It has come on since this photo was taken. Developing our own ecommerce system has turned out to be quite a mission so the look of the home page may be entirely different to this..

Currently there is a simple holding page on the panodrop.com domain.

One of the things I was keen on doing was getting stickers made. I would use these every time I took a stereographic projection in the hope that people would see it and wonder what it meant, then check out the site. Above is the initial concept I had. I effectively wanted to get two stickers out of one. As far as I know this hasn’t been done (but it probably has). I thought having a donut shaped sticker might be quite unique therefore stand out, also it ties in with the logo nicely.

I did a bit of research, to work out who would be best at getting them produced, and eventually found out about the company awesome merchandise. I got in contact to see if it was possible to create a sticker of this sort. They said it was, so it was all systems go. I sent off the final designs and the stickers arrived the following week.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this one develops. I’ve been wanting to start this project for a long time and its good to finally get it going. Ill try and keep the blog updated with its progress.

I’ve known about this place for about 2 years and have been meaning to go check it out ever since. It’s one of the few remaining train tunnels in Nottingham, not filled in or blocked up..

Click below to read about this little adventure..

To start of with, here’s some copy pulled from Wikipedia about the location..

Mapperley Tunnel is a 1,132-yard-long tunnel, built for the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension of the Great Northern Railway. This line ran from Colwick Junction in Nottingham to Egginton Junction in South Derbyshire. The route planned took the line through Mapperley via the Mapperley Tunnel built to avoid attempting to get the railway over the ridge. The tunnel was in use by 1875 but suffered a roof collapse due to mining subsidence on January 23, 1925. A length of roof about 12 yards long collapsed blocking the line with approximately 150 tons of rubble. Whilst repairs were undertaken traffic was diverted along the Nottingham Suburban Railway. The tunnel was repaired but the continuing effects of subsidence resulted in speed restrictions in the 1950s and closure on April 4, 1960. The Eastern Portal is still open and accessible and the tunnel itself is open to a point just West of the second air shaft (counting from the East). Beyond the second air shaft the tunnel has been filled with earth. The tunnel portal is on private property and permission should be sought from the owner before entering. A large quantity of rubbish has been thrown down the second air shaft creating an unstable pile in the tunnel which may collapse in the future causing injury to anyone present.

Train going through the old tunnel on the last day of operation.

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Here’s the location of the tunnel if any one’s interested.

Me and my mate Greg rode out towards Mapperley and along Arnold Ln. We walked across a couple of fields eventually coming to the old train route. We walked along where the tracks would have once been and came across this old bridge.

A bit further on we walked down into the valley leading to the tunnel entrance. There was this old burnt out car slowing being taken back by the elements.

Arrived at the tunnel entrance. The crumbling brick work was slightly worrying. I sent out a couple of texts, just to let people know where we were, in case this thing collapsed and we got trapped inside…

We used my 160 LED camera light to lead the way. It was pretty cold down here.

Ahead of us we could hear a strange noise, we discovered it was only a stream running under us.

Water coming through the old brick work.

A bit further a long I set up my tripod and got the Spyder Laser out.

We then came across an airshaft leading to the surface. Standing under it you could get a sense of how deep under ground we were. I finally made use of my Panosaurus 2.0 and took a stereographic projection. Using the LED light I ‘painted’ the tunnel while the shutter was open.

Eventually we came to the end. Someone had used the other airshaft as a bottomless pit. Although it wasn’t bottomless and the crap built up, until reaching the roof. The way it stacked up in such a neat pile was quite odd.

On the other side of the rubbish was a huge mound of rubble that led nearly to the top. I climbed up and walked along the narrow gap until reaching a dead end.

We then turned around and headed back out towards the light, which by this point (535 meters away) looked very distant!

Over all it was a fun adventure. I’m glad I finally got round to checking it out. If you fancy going here I recommend you bring a bright torch and expect to get your shoes muddy

This summer I finally made it to Outlook festival in Croatia. This post is a collection of photos and video I took while out there. There wont be much chat, as it’s hard for me to explain in words what it was like. What I can say is, it was one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life..

Click below and hopefully my photos and videos can do it some justice..

Above is the little video I put together from footage captured on my GoPro, iPhone and D90.

I wanted to put something together that showed that its not just a festival of night time party times, but in the day you can have fun with your friends in the amazing clear blue sea and 30 degree heat.

This video was spotted by the organisers of Outlook, they loved it, posted it their Facebook wall where it received massive positive feedback. Not only that, they said that I had won a prize for it. Turned out I have two press pass tickets and a backstage photo pass for next years event! A little overwhelmed with that outcome. Cannot wait to do it, I have already started thinking of ideas I can try out there.

Most of the festival is located in the old 18th centaury Fort Punta ruins. This makes the atmosphere feel quite special. The deep, dark, heavy bass music and the deserted fortress seem to go hand in hand.

On the last night there was a pretty spectacular storm. The sky was like a strobe light. I have never seen anything like it. Luckily I had my time-lapse equipment with me so I set it up and captured the above video.

I also put this little stereographic projection video together. I’ve been meaning to try this for a long time. This photo seems like a good one to test it on. The results are rather interesting.

So this was a pretty shot post, there’s soo much I could have gone into..

If you want to see more pics I recommend heading to my Outlook 2011 Flickr Set

If you want a more personal and detailed account of events head to my daily photo project.