DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

I know, it’s only a few months since I’ve been, but, I have just booked another trip back to Monaco and the Cote d’Azur for this coming May.

This time, I’m away with Morgan, Ciaran and Andrew (that’s the list so far!!) for a week at the end of May to take in the Grand Prix, and have a couple of days chilling out as well. I’ve worked an unbelievable deal for us (booking early has been a real bonus) which has seen us getting flights for EUR 100, hotel for EUR 35 per night, and with Grand Prix tickets thrown into the bargain, we should have the entire trip for circa EUR 500. Of course, food and drink will more than double the total cost I’ve no doubt, but, it’s still an amazing price for a week in the south of France on Grand Prix (and Cannes Palm d’Or) week!!

Now, to figure out a way to make the next few months go faster…., maybe I’ll just sit here and flick through the pics from this year to keep me going

Well, it has all the right ingredients, Photography, Blogging, and New York, New York City Photobloggers contains a collective of New York Photobloggers, and, having spent the past while browsing through it, makes a worthy entry into my blogroll for regular reading.

10 years ago today, the Dayton Peace Accord was signed in order to put an end to the Bosnian War. During the past summer, I visited Mostar in Bosnia, and driving in from Croatia, it was quite shocking to see that the country is still suffering hugely from the ravages of war.

I’ve included just a selection of the photo’s that I took that day in Mostar. It’s quite shocking to see the amount of bullet and shell damage that is still evident throughout the entire town.

This image is of a Five Star hotel in the centre of the town which was bombed in or around Christmas time, evident by the fact that all these years later, there are still Christmas and New Years decorations hanging from the outside of the building.


This is a shelled out house on the Catholic side of town (see the cross on the wall)


Bullet holes and shell damage on the side wall of a house


The view through the front door of a house. Note the bullet holes in the wall, and the mortar hole blasted through the walls in the background. These houses were being lived in at the time this damage was carried out!

I’ve just been sorting through some of my photo archives, and found this one which I quite like

Whilst we were in New York on Friday, Anna and I fell in love with the work of a photographer we found exhibiting down at Union Square. He had a collection of really quirky, really unusual photo’s. The photographer in question is Matthew Schwartz, his website is at shehitpausestudios.com. What really caught our eye was a series of polaroids which looked like watercolours. We got talking to him, about his technique and what he does, and, it turns out (although I still haven’t quite grasped how he’s done it, but, he has promised to mail me) he shoots the film, then straight away rubs the polaroid neg onto watercolour paper, which, comes out with some rather cool results.

If I hear from the man, I will try out his technique, as I really like it, and will report back here. In the meantime, you can check out some of the work that we really enjoyed here.

NY was amazing as always. We had an absolute ball of a time, walked sooh much and really tired ourselves out, but, it was all very well worth it. Saw lots of the usual sites, Rockerfella Centre, Fifth Ave, Central Park, Union Square, Empire State building et all. Done lots of shopping along the way too, including buying myself some very nice new toys:

As a result of this, my kit now comprises a
Canon EOS 20D
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
Canon Extender EF 2X II
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
and Canon Speedlight 580 EX