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!

Using the website site Venice Paparazzi to find out about events (Venice art crawl etc) we spotted a national event taking place along the boardwalk which would offer some interesting photo opportunities…The National GoTopless Day – “a US organization, claim that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men.”

You only have to scratch beneath the surface with a bit of research to find religious connection involving the Raelians; a religious mission lead by a former French racing car driver, who believe in an advanced race of extraterrestrials called Elohim who created life on earth. No surprises to see books for sale on his website, what religious movement would be without an income stream.
To add even more spice to the Topless march a few religious types turned up with their t-shirts, placards, A-boards, orange jumpsuits and even a home made 20 foot cardboard cross! How exciting!

Coincidentally the 5th Annual Supergirl Skateboard Jam was also taking place which involved young women skating and snowboarding on a 28-foot-tall man-made mountain packed with 80,000 pounds of snow. So with camera in hand and zoom lens attached here are some photos from the events. (All nipples are actually covered using fake nipples / tape!)
On the evening we headed out with Sarah and Maria from Yoga class for some Tapas in a lovely place on Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice Beach, followed by Ice Cream in posh Brentwood.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

It was a pretty quiet day for the Leica, Helen decided to take a few shots in her yoga class (blog post to come!) and Dave was getting us ready for our move to the new pad on the beach front! With a spot of Wholefoods shopping and a bit of sorting out we eventually moved out of our wonderful home that has been at Matt’s Feel Good Lounge and he ever so kindly offered to give us a lift over to the new place! So we have now moved and are in a little studio space above a garage on the row just back from the Venice boardwalk. We expect noise, skateboarders passing by and bin dumpsters keeping us awake at night. The studio itself though is very nice! Although we will miss the abyss that we had only a mile away.

Dave had found out about the Venice Art Crawl a few days earlier and so it was on our list of things to do for the evening and along with Sarah (from Helen’s class) we started off at Lilly’s on Abbot Kinney for an exhibition opening. This was one of the many venues featured in the art crawl which happens in Venice on the 3rd Thursday of each month. At Lilly’s we received some free wine and nibbles and enjoyed the atmosphere. After a brief chat with the artist Olivier Pojzman we made our way closer to the beach front to seek out some more venues in the crawl. Pretty much most bars on the front were involved, even the apartments were having little events on their rooftops. Eventually though we made our way to the Erwin Hotel where a good few hundred people were dancing, being photographed, interviewed, drinking and so on, and over the road at the no longer in use Gas Station Courtyard were even more people gathering around live performance art, people painting, selling their work, their vintage clothes, dancing to funky house and enjoying the overall vibe. This whole event was the 1st year anniversary of the art crawl and loads of people were there to enjoy it. We were impressed!!

We ended the night in the Canal club, enjoying a few more drinks and listening to a band play motown classics. We need more of this in the UK, an appreciation of local art and music and more live opportunities for people to showcase their talents.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)