Franklyn follow-up and Covent Garden compact

I'll start by saying I've spent more time in London's west end than usual this weekend. On Friday night I headed in to see the movie Franklyn which I spoke about in my last blog, you remember, the one that was filmed on my street? It's fair to say it was an unusual movie, I respected the fact it was something new and original (unlike the 4 previews which were all for sequels), what I didn't respect as much was the fact the movie made no sense and 2 days later I'm still left wondering who or what Franklyn was. I guess that's why it was showing in only 1 London cinema 3 weeks after release, a cinema consisting of just 4 rows!! I did a quick headcount, there were 24 others in there with me. Still though, it was awesome seeing my street on the big screen, it played a pretty major part too which was great.

My second West End experience came about yesterday when I headed to Covent Garden to check out the London Transport Museum. I guess it was an okay museum, as far as museums go, but I've concluded I'm more interested in the future than the past and the whole experience, while slightly interesting, didn't really float my boat (not unlike the Princess Alice in 1865 - look at that, I did learn something). While my friends Bec and Danny were still looking round the museum I took the opportunity to put a recently acquired inexpensive Panasonic FS3 point and shoot through it's paces. I find that I almost never use a point and shoot now that I've got my big cameras, but there's something to be said about using something no bigger than a deck of cards to create images, and from the 15 minutes I had to take some shots you can see that it is possible to get nice images with basic equipment if you know how to compose a shot and understand light.

From Covent Garden Compact

(the guy with the umbrella is actually standing on someone's head in this shot, it wasn't possible to get the whole scene though as the people on the balcony have direct sun on them while the foreground is all in shade, and the dynamic range on a little P & S couldn't handle the contrast)