I'm having a white christmas...

I'm having a white christmas..., originally uploaded by jamesburden.

the horizon of dunstable downs

the horizon of dunstable downs, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

Sometimes I crave horizon: the ‘long way a way’ kind of horizon. This is Dunstable Downs – near where I live and it is magnificent. You can feel your eyes stretch as you gaze out over the plains of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

This has been a long hard year. One of the hardest in a long time, and in many ways I’ll be very glad to see the back of it. So roll on 2010. I now have ten days off work and I intend to spend time with my family and relax – properly relax. Not the ‘I’ll squeeze in an episode of 24’ but the ‘that horizon is a long way a way’ kind of relax.

My apologies that I haven’t been as present on flickr as I would have liked – there are many excuses why and none of them really amount to reasons. Thank you for bearing with me, for welcoming me back on the intermittent occasions when I make an appearance. Your creativity, comments and friendship mean a great deal.

So I wish you have a wonderful Christmas, filled with laughter, love and lashings of cranberry sauce. I hope you find a horizon to stretch your eyes.

See you in 2010.

Stained Glass Abstract I

Stained Glass Abstract I, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I feel the need for something colourful tonight. So here are some abstracts I did of some stained glass windows in a church. I don’t like to brag – but these shots were made at 400mm with no tripod. I know, I know, I should have been a surgeon with hands as steady as these…

Which one do you like best?

the weeping trees of November

the weeping trees of November, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

It is common to shelter under a tree from rain. Not so in the midnight November mists of Middle England. The nights draw in, the temperature drops, the mist descends and the air takes on an intense cold humidity. Here you can walk the streets through the mist and remain utterly dry. But pass under a tree and you enter a delicate waterfall. The collected mist dripping incessantly onto your head as winter struggles to vanquish autumn.

I nearly didn't take these photos. It was 11.30pm and I was ready to go to bed. I was putting the rubbish out and noticed the mist. I grabbed my monopod, my camera and my woolly hat and set off a trek through my village to capture this amazing midnight world.

a place where silence is the loudest sound

a place where silence is the loudest sound, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I'm reading Birdsong at the moment: a powerful and sobering read. It brings home the harsh realities of war and the horror that those involved go through.

I had a heavy cold at the end of last week, so nearly didn't go to our village Remembrance Day service. But the fresh power of Birdsong inspired me to make the effort, and I'm glad I did.

So at 10.45am on Sunday morning I, and most of the rest of the village, gathered outside around the village green. The priest began to read out the names of those who had died in the two world wars. And whether it was through coincidence or immaculate timing, the roll call was completed on the dot of 11am. The police stopped all traffic driving through the village and the priest fell silent as the village bells rang out eleven times. The village hushed to an unnatural silence apart from the sudden and oddly appropriate activity of crows wheeling and calling high above the village green.

I make no comment on the rights or wrongs of war. But I pay tribute to those who lay down their lives because they believe in truth and in justice.


 



 

perfect proportions

perfect proportions, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I’ve been trying to design a bookcase today. And it’s really hard. I can’t get the proportions to look right. I can’t balance function with form. Then I saw a flower. Perfect function. Perfect form. Unfortunately not much good for storing books on.

and this is surely where E.T. landed...

and this is surely where E.T. landed..., originally uploaded by jamesburden.

Boo!

Boo!, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

There’s a lot of serious stuff going on at the moment with my friends, my colleagues at work and my family, and life seems very heavy. So I thought I’d just get my lovely son to say ‘boo’. Did we make you jump?

Lightroom 3 Beta

I use Lightroom for all my image management and processing. It is a wonderful piece of software. Today Lightroom 3 Beta has been released. Click here to see more.

what would your patronus be?

what would your patronus be?, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I’m a big fan of Ly' Wylde's photostream. It’s fresh, vibrant, varied, powerful, personal, achingly real and often jaw-dropping.

I’m also a fan of the Harry Potter books. One of Lyanne’s photos got me thinking about what my patronus would be, and I decided that it could be this – a black headed gull. I love these birds. They’re intelligent, unpredictable, elegant and so fast. And surely, if nothing else, your patronus should be something you aspire to!

Go and look at Ly's stream. You won’t be disappointed.

What would your patronus be?

three remarkable people

three remarkable people, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I want to introduce you to three remarkable people: my sister, Esther, her husband Pete, and their brand new baby Jasmine Ella Hope Freeman. I have held her in my arms. She holds my gaze with uncanny precision. She is wonderfully alive. And I am glad to the depth of my soul.

the humble bumble

the humble bumble, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I have varied ambitions as a photographer. One of them is to create a good picture of the humble bumblebee. An easy challenge I thought to myself and then tried to do it. It’s really hard!! They move so fast. I take my hat off to all who have tried to photograph this curious creature that scientifically shouldn’t even be able to fly.

the rise and fall of the 50mm lens

the rise and fall of the 50mm lens, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

A week ago I went wilderness camping in Snowdonia. The amount of shots I took where unfortunately inversely proportional to the prodigious amount of rain that fell. After 24 very wet hours, presumably in shock at the incessant dampness, my 50mm lens just fell apart. My 50mm prime lens is my cheapest lens but oddly, my favourite. I love how it demands that I move in order to frame the shot rather than lazily zooming from wherever I happen to be standing.

The photo above is the last shot taken before it broke. Not the standard Snowdonia landscape shot. This was taken in the middle of the night at the mountain refuge hut at the top of Foel Grach. It was cold, wet, dark and utterly utterly brilliant.

The Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia

The Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

You don’t want clear blue skies as a photographer. You want storms, you want wind, rain, clouds, ideally snow and ice - you want weather chaos. If the sun makes an appearance, you want it to have waged war against the clouds to get there. You want to feel as though you’ve battled against the very elements to make your image.

Down with blue skies. Push them down the stairs.

all the better to see you with...

all the better to see you with..., originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I’ve been away for a week or so, in the wonderful world of North Wales – hence my general lack of flickr activity. I’ve got some landscape stuff which I’ll post up over the coming weeks, but I was most struck by the garden where my Mum and Step-Dad live. It’s a totally amazing garden, with enough food in it to support a small army for several weeks. It has wonderful plant life and a puzzling array of insects. Here’s insect no. 1 – no idea what it is.

Truth really is stranger than fiction. Have you ever seen an alien more alien looking than this?

Zebra Abstract

Zebra Abstract, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

Today is my 13th wedding anniversary.

What have I learnt in 13 years of marriage? Two things:
1: My wife is more wonderful then I could ever have imagined.
2: Nothing in life and marriage is as black and white as it might seem.

The 21 Greatest Photographs of Space

If only I had taken these...! See here for the 21 Greatest Space Photographs

White Lion on White

White Lion on White, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

After yesterday’s White Lion on Black , here’s a White Lion on White!

White Lion On Black

White Lion On Black, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I photographed some white lions yesterday. Magnificent, imposing, inspiring creatures. So here’s a white lion on black.

Vaudoy-en-Brie

Vaudoy-en-Brie, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I recently read about a man who decided to spend a few days in a monastery on a guided retreat. On arriving he was met by one of the monks who welcomed him and showed him to his cell. As he left him there the monk said ‘I hope your stay is a blessed one. If you need anything, let us know and we’ll teach you to live without it.’

to boldly go...

to boldly go..., originally uploaded by jamesburden.

’m a big fan of the split infinitive. I think it’s important to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, and its impact appears to be no less diluted by the passing of four decades.

Neil Armstrong hasn’t said much over the intervening years, but when he has said something it has been worth listening to:

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand”

Asiatic Black Bear

Asiatic Black Bear, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

How do you relax?

I’ve had an intense day, and my brain hurts. And (you’ve guessed the tenuous link with today’s photo) I’m like a bear with a sore head. So time for some light relief. I’m going to make a Bolognese, pour a glass of Rioja and put on some Country & Western.

“Hold on a minute! Tarry a tick!” I hear you cry, “I was with you up until the glass of Rioja, but Country & Western??”

There is an art in appreciating Country & Western, and it all lies in the title, the lyrics and the fact that it is the one genre of music that never takes itself too seriously. Here are some of my favourite titles:

Get your tongue outta my mouth, cos I’m kissing you goodbye

How can I miss you, if you won’t go away?

I liked you better before I knew you so well

I still miss you but my aim is getting better

My wife ran off with my best friend and I sure do miss him

And my personal favourite:

Mamma get a hammer – there’s a fly on Papa’s head

Do you have a favourite Country & Western song? If not, how on earth do you relax?

Starburst Sun through Leaf Canopy

Starburst Sun through Leaf Canopy, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I have a theory that men have a finite amount of words for each day. I think I've run out of mine already.

not an f/4 mindset

not an f/4 mindset, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I remember once hearing some advice from a professional photographer that the key to a successful wedding shoot was to shoot everything at f/4.

I was struck last weekend by how tempting it is to stay in that f/4 mindset. Everything is the immediate, the now. Even the financial crisis that many countries are now experiencing is, I think, essentially down to an f/4 mindset. Choosing to focus only on that which is directly in front of us. Choosing to focus on what will bring us a quick win or an immediate profit.

How different would our society look today if we thought at f/22 instead of f/4? What would our jobs look like? What would our relationships look like? What would our priorities look like for this week?

It was this view which provoked that thought - which incidentally I shot at f/13.

the reason the sun shone

the reason the sun shone, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I like to think that it's sole reason was to light this small flower up.

water water everywhere

water water everywhere, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I have something to share with you. 12 years ago my father went missing. He had been suffering with depression for many many years and was last seen running into a stormy winter sea. My world caved in. Last week my four-year-old son jumped into the swimming pool without any help. My heart burst with pride.

I have a love-hate relationship with water. Sometimes I don’t know what to feel about this amazing, ubiquitous, calm yet tempestuous, life-giving/life-taking, substance that forms so much of what we are. Sometimes I marvel at its wildness and beauty. Sometimes I shudder at its malevolence. I’m constantly drawn to capture something of its essence.

A few people have asked me recently for my thoughts on what it means to make photos. Many people will tell you that photography is all about light. And it is. But I believe there is something more. I believe that photography is all about emotion.

So if you’re looking for inspiration, find something you feel emotional about. Find something that makes you pause in awe, weep with gratitude, shiver with anticipation, tremble with anger. Find something that creates such emotion in you that you can’t swallow because of the lump in your throat. Then is the time to raise the camera to your eye and make that photograph.

bokeh beer

bokeh beer, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I’ve just been away on conference exploring how the organisation I work for can work more collaboratively with other organisations around the world. We met at a basic but beautiful place in France and spent many hours sharing thoughts and ideas about our various areas of work. It was great. But we only got so far.

Then we went for a walk together. We talked on the walk – but not much about work. Then we stopped for a beer on the way home. Then it all started to make sense. Then it all started to seem possible. The fact that our offices are thousands of miles apart suddenly didn’t seem to matter anymore. I’d shifted from working with colleagues to working with friends.

I don’t really drink beer. But I did this weekend.

hint of a hand

hint of a hand, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

Here’s my thought for today: take your precious camera, and give it to a four year old.

With my heart in my mouth I often “supervise” my four-year-old son using my Canon 40D. He loves it and seems to know his way round the camera better than I do. You would not believe how he has progressed just in the course of a few sessions. Now he intentionally looks through the viewfinder and shoots away.

And here’s the thing. The world is a totally different place when you’re three foot high and can crawl under the table at a restaurant and generally get a perspective on the world that we have long forgotten. This is his latest photo and I think it’s fantastic. The only processing I’ve done is to convert it to black and white. No tweaking with levels, no selective vignetting, no fiddling with the channels.

My son makes photos. I am very proud.

he looks so small

he looks so small, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I was going to post this in black and white, but there was something so deliciously green about the light on Sunday that I couldn’t tear myself away from colour. We had torrential rain showers with bright sunshine and the most enormous black clouds, and the light was just beyond fantastic. Apologies for the vaguely impressionistic look of this shot - I only had my 50mm prime lens and I think it struggled a bit with the overwhelming light. But maybe it doesn’t matter.

So here it is: my boy, his bike, his brand new bell, and some rather large trees.

englishness & ginger beer

englishness & ginger beer, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

What does it mean to be English? Or American? Or Ukranian? How do we define our culture? There are plenty of people around who define our culture for us. The essence of Englishness is often illustrated by reserve – the stiff upper lip. This doesn’t sit too well with that other great English stereotype – the hooligan. My upper lip is not stiff and I have not to date illustrated any tendency towards hooliganism. And yet I am English.

For me Englishness is about ginger beer. More precisely, it is about ginger beer on a sunny day with clouds scudding across the sky and an expanse of non-geometrically composed fields laid out before you.

Open minded that I am – I put it to you that Fentimans make the best ginger beer.

i'm thinking (self-portrait)

i'm thinking (self-portrait), originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I've been thinking a lot about style lately. Particularly photographic style - you know the kind of thing - what makes an Ansel Adams photograph recognisably an Ansel Adams photograph. We probably all have favourite photographers (or even photographers we don't like) whose style we can instantly recognise. And it's led me to wonder what my style is.

I love interpreting landscape through my lens. I love the challenge of capturing the magical moments of birds, I can't resist trying to capture a fraction of the beauty of a sunset. I'm inexplicably drawn to horses and flowers, and increasingly, I am drawn to black and white - partly because the influence of some truly astonishing talent here on flickr who focus almost exclusively in that medium. So what's my style? The honest answer is that I don't know. Maybe I'll never get one! My most popular or "interesting" images here on flickr certainly don't have one stylistic theme or one definable characteristic…

I'm a huge fan of Seth Godin’s blog which is creative, provocative and inspiring in equal measures. Seth is very influential in marketing circles - although the relevance of his blogs go way beyond that. In response to comments about who might be "the next Seth Godin" he replied:

"I'm still trying to be pretty good at being 'this' Seth Godin, so I wish people who want to be the next one a lot of luck. There's never been a next Elvis Costello or a next Jill Sobule. There wasn't even a next Chuck Berry or a next Charlie Chaplin ... I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else."

Well said Seth.

Miami Skyscraper (Espirito Santo Plaza)

Miami Skyscraper (Espirito Santo Plaza), originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I’m on a few different social networking sites. And I find them useful, interesting and absorbing – all the rest of it. But here’s the thing. When I was on LinkedIn I began to feel dwarfed by other people’s job titles. How do you compete with someone who is called Leadership Coach, Facilitator and Organizational Effectiveness Consultant? Or here’s another one: Senior Creative Strategist & Experiential Designer? I kid you not – these are real job titles. Maybe you’re not the kind of person to feel dwarfed by other people’s job titles. But most of us have insecurities. And social networking sites are one area where it’s easy to succumb to the fact that your once spotty classmate is now running a multi-national company.

We spend so much of our time trying to be something that others will be impressed by. I suggest you give up. Where does your worth come from? Here’s an ancient Chinese proverb that I’m making up on the spot: He who seeks worth from others is on a path to self-ruin.

I heard the other day that the company Gore-Tex has only one job title – common across the entire organisation – Associate. If you get a business card from anyone at Gore-Tex it will merely have:
James Burden
Associate
Gore-Tex

And Gore has been on the Fortune list of 100 Best Companies to work for every single time that list has been published.
Go here to see why.

Facebook asked me the other day to “say something” about myself. What do you put in that box? Do you use the five lines to describe your professional career? To describe your large and impossibly well-behaved family? To describe how you singlehandedly brought about peace in a small Middle Eastern country? Me? I put “I make photos”.

The Melting Sun

the melting sun, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I haven't taken any sunset photos for quite a while - difficult to come up with something that is original and remarkable. Not that I think this photo is particularly original or remarkable - but it's not often you get the chance to see the sun melting on the horizon like this. And I craved some colour today. Do you get days like that?

blue sky thinking... walking on tree tops

blue sky thinking... walking on tree tops, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I'm at a small conference/forum at the moment in the US. There is a wonderful amount of creative and enthusiastic thinking going on. I've heard the inevitable cliché of 'blue sky thinking' mentioned a number of times - the incredible thing about this forum is the ability of those involved to turn the thinking into doing. I hope you experience a blue sky doer today!

Personally I'm in a win-win situation. I'm giving a 110%, pushing the envelope and really trying to deliver on maximising customer satisafaction in a totally web2.0 kinda way. At the end of the day it's all about the low-hanging fruit.

If you want more great clichés then visit www.squidoo.com/businesscliches - truly absorbingly wonderful. Enjoy.

Glen Etive

glen etive, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

We all have special places. Those of us who take photos often go back to these places to try and find that elusive shot - that new angle. This is my place. Glen Etive is one of the most beautiful places in the British Isles.

It breaks some of my landscape composition rules. But to be honest that's what I like about this shot. I like how I can't see what's round the corner of that tree. This is a photo that draws me in, that makes me yearn, to turn my head to the right and watch the sun setting over the distant hills.

I wish I was there today.

My Son and the Plesiosaur

my son and the plesiosaur, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

This is my son at the Natural History Museum in London. His question today: "Why did they cut me out this shape?"

Answers on a postcard...

The End of the Rainbow

The End of the Rainbow, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

A dark stormy day on the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. I know this is a really dark photo - but it really was that dark! I've already upped the exposure by a stop and a third.

I feel sorry for the house. He was so nearly a pot of gold!

What's Black and White and Blue all over?

it's not a dandelion, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I like this shot. It conveys what I think about the world. There is black, there is white - and there are some tones in between.

The Leaves of Late Spring

the leaves of late spring, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

There's a tree at the end of my road which has the most beautiful soft translucent leaves I've ever seen. For me it is the sign that summer has started. These leaves only last a few weeks in their translucent state then they become quite ordinary.

I hope you see something extraordinary this weekend!

Hint of a Horse

hint of a horse, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

No-one has ridden these horses. You can see it in their eyes.

if you go down in the woods today...

if you go down in the woods today..., originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I love forests. Somehow no matter how small they seem from above they always appear to be vast when you're in one. This is my newly favourite forest - just south of the Cairngorms in Scotland.

My First Munro

my first munro, originally uploaded by jamesburden.

I've just got back from a week's holiday in Scotland. I climbed a munro. I rested. I relaxed. I had a fantastic time and actually feel better than I have in a long time.

The munro was The Cairnwell (standing at 3059 feet), and the view was amazing. The photo doesn't do it justice.