UK – London and Brighton 9th-12th September

Hello, we’re hoping that you’re enjoying the last of the summer, we seem to be having some very cool starts to the day, reminds us of being in other parts of the world exploring the West Coast of America this time last year. Oh to be reminiscing. But the truth is we’re both quite happy in our lives back in the UK. We’ve had an amazing summer with the Olympics taking center stage and we’ve been busy freelancing in both of our professions whilst also managing to take the time to work on some of our own stuff too. Notworkrelated has launched it’s first shop and we have collection number 1 ready and waiting for your eager viewing.

So onto something Notworkrelated. Last week we took ourselves off to London and Brighton for a few days and along with Dave’s mum Barbara we ventured to the Paralympic Closing Ceremony having picked up some tickets a little while back. And WOW was this an event to be a part of. It was absolutely amazing with a soundtrack from Coldplay that just seemed to work so well with the performance throughout the night. It was a surreal experience and we kept having to pinch ourselves to check that we were really there! Well not quite but it was definitely an event to savor. Coldplay were fantastic and we were able to applaud the fantastic achievements of all the Paralympians along with the ever-so praised volunteers who really did make a significant contribution to the smooth running of the Olympics as a whole. Well done to you all and yes we felt very proud to be ‘Made in Britain’.

We were in London for the TeamGB parade taking place on Monday the 10th also and so thought it would be rude not to go and support our athletes and medalists who represented us at both the Olympics and the Paralympics. After a long wait we stood along with thousands of others on The Strand awaiting the team who were being driven on 30 or so big trucks. After an hour and a half and a few moans and groans later the athletes made their first appearance with Mo Farah and Jess Ennis on the first two floats followed by the rest of the athletics team. Helen even had a brief exchange with one of her friends from the Junior GB team who recognised her in the crowd, she was buzzing from this for the rest of the day! But along with this moment it was great to cheer on and congratulate Olympic and Paralympic legends such as Sir Chris Hoy, Ben Ainslee and Ellie Simmonds. It was another special moment that we wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Onwards we went to The National Portrait Gallery where Road to 2012 was being showcased featuring works by 8 photographers whose insightful portraiture celebrates exceptional British sportspeople, and some of the crucial figures working behind the scenes. With photographers such as Anderson & Low on show this was something that we both wanted to go and view and having had our Olympic experience it felt very relevant too. We also purchased the book Road To 2012 a National Portrait Gallery publication which holds great significance to the likes of Helen who has a strong interest in Sports portraiture. The exhibition is on until the 23rd September 2012.

Through the power of Twitter Dave had been conversing with a follower and managed to arrange for us to go to a design talk at the British Design Museum located on Shad Thames. The talk was again Olympic themed but perhaps on a more interesting level of design focusing on Design Munich ’72 with guest speaker Ian McLaren who was part of the design team for Munich. It was a really interesting discussion centering around McLaren’s involvement in Design Munich along with the importance of lead designer Otl Aicher whose work has become highly influential upon design as it is today.

The project was huge and without the technology as we are surrounded by today, the deadlines were strict and the planning very thorough. The use of colour and horizontal lines is consistent throughout and there was an advancement of pictograms for Munich which have been used and developed in so many contexts since. The conversation then went onto discuss London 2012 design which managed to stir some interesting views in the audience including one designer who has worked on the current branding and who was quite defensive of her role on the project. The ‘Branding Police’ were in the room!

It definitely gave us a lot to talk about on the way home and when we got to Helen’s parents we found an ‘Illustrated London News Special Publication’ showcasing some of the design work attached to Munich ’72. Jan Roscoe competed in Munich 72 and Montreal 76 as a 400m runner for Great Britain.

The next morning we drove to Brighton which took an hour and a half from London by car. We’d decided to use Airbnb for our Brighton accommodation which has been our first UK experience. Our hosts were here to welcome us, but we weren’t expecting a young baby nor were we expecting the house to be only partly complete! Perhaps this is part of the risk of going through Airbnb, although we did have the top floor to ourselves including a nice roof terrace area where we ate our breakfast in the morning sun each day. They were friendly enough but we figured we have probably experience the best Airbnb has to offer with our hosts in LA, Seattle and Melbourne coming up trumps. Anyway the benefits were we stayed in a good location on the northern side of central Brighton close to Queens Park and not too far from a good cluster of restaurants and it did have a nice homely feeling about our accommodation which always helps.

We had been scheduled to do a photography talk in Brighton which has now been postponed until the end of November and so we decided to go all the same and enjoy the seaside city for a few days. We enjoyed the food scene the most, Brighton is home to many a good restaurant, bar and cafe and we couldn’t help but indulge in this scene with The Black Dove, and Food For Friends coming up trumps. We enjoyed local cider and lovely vegetarian food at these places and we also loved our little sitting in an authentically Mexican place; La Chozo in the North Laines side of town. It was good to explore the Lanes and feel the vibe Brighton has to offer along with having fun with our own photography at Brighton Pier.

It was quite busy but we did hear that perhaps it’s best to visit off season so we are already looking forward for a short return visit in November and perhaps we’ll be doing some of our Christmas shopping there too. Oh no we already said it…Christmas shopping! Eek! Too soon!

Anyway back to the grind, in case you missed it we launched a collaborative wedding photography site this week too; HelenPlusDavid. Yep things have been busy for us on the Itsworkrelated side but we hope to do more of this again soon. Enjoy!

Related posts that may be of interest to you:

1. USA – Road Trip – Ozette – 12th September We woke up to sunshine and photographed the sun rising across the lake, pretty idyllic so far! Packing up was easy as the tent is...
2. Our Olympic Games Experience, London 2012 In case you’ve been out of the country or have had your eyes and ears shut these past few weeks, London has hosted the 2012...
3. USA – Los Angeles – 12th August Up at 6am today as we were both feeling jet-lagged, making ourselves stay in bed as long as we could having woken up on the...
4. Bali – Ubud – 12th Feb We were up early morning before breakfast for a morning walk and to really take  in our surrounds. We were truly spoilt in our location,...