And I'm back...

A lot has happened since I last blogged at the end of last year.

I've been busy with a selection of work, but the most important thing that has happened is my wedding....I'm now a married man, which is cool.

My wife and I had the most incredible wedding day and then headed straight off on honeymoon. We flew to Tokyo and spend 12 non-stop days exploring Japan. We spent time in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, Kyoto and Hakone before heading back home.

Japan is a brilliant country that I thoroughly recommend you check out if you ever get the chance. It's a mad combination of ultra modern and traditional. The food is delicious (well, it is if you like Japanese food in the first place!), and all the people are super friendly and welcoming, even if they barely speak a word of English!

Here's a selection of images from our time in the land of the rising sun.

Taking A Break In Morocco

As some of you who follow me on Facebook and Twitter may know, I've been in Morocco for a week soaking up some sun before the cold reality of the British autumn and winter hits.

Morocco, in north west Africa, is an amazing place to go visit from Western Europe. It's just a short flight of a few hours and you're there, in a place that feels much further away culturally than it is geographically.

The whole country is a photographer's dream, with bright colours everywhere,  beautiful golden light and no shortage of interesting people. It's these people that I love photographing. The trouble is that when you take a photo of someone, it's rare they wouldn't ask you for some small change in return for the snapshot. That's all well and good but if I did that I would have been stopping every two minutes and the small change would turn into a large amount of cash! So I took the opportunity to practice some true street photography and 'shoot from the hip'. And it's such a great place to do it, as it seems to be the norm in Morocco to just hang out on the street, whether you're selling things or not!

Street Photography Tips

With my camera hanging on my strap by my waist with a fairly wide angle lens about 30mm,  all I had to do was set my ISO to a high enough level (I found 800 was usually fine) so that I could whack the camera on shutter priority, set it to 1/2000 of a second, and snapped away (using silent shutter on my Mk III). The challenge with shooting from the hip is composition and autofocus. I definitely got better with practice though. Although my girlfriend tells me it wasn't very subtle, I managed to get through the trip without someone chasing me down the street demanding money in exchange for their photograph.

We spent a couple of days in Marrakech but more time in Essaouira on the west coast, where it was great watching the fishermen bring in their daily haul each day before selling it to the locals. You could then head to the market stalls by the port and pick out your fish before they grill it in front of you - it doesn't get much fresher than that! 

Here are a selection of my favourite images from the trip. Hope you like 'em!