When we took a stroll around the Heath today we came across the stunning azaleas and rhododendrons at Kenwood which have flourished in the rain and produced magnificent displays this year. The whole Heath looks lush and green. All the photos I took are here.

Here are a few of the photos.

Back in 2009 I spent a day photographing the front of every shop on the Holloway Road from Manor Gardens in the north to Holloway Road tube station in the south and I recently browsed through the images I captured that day and realised just what a colourful and diverse a place Holloway is. To see a selection of the shop photos click here.

We went for a walk on the Heath today and saw spring arriving, the photos are here.

I couldn’t resist revisiting the new amazing ticket hall at Kings Cross and so Isabel and I strolled down today and spent a pleasant hour or so wandering around the new complex taking in the views and browsing in the new bookshop. This time I took my Nikon DSLR, click here to see all the photos.

I strolled back from central London today, in the perfect spring sunshine, admiring the city I live in. On the way I visited the amazing new ticket hall at Kings Cross. It is very impressive, go and visit it. Here are some photos I shot with my iPhone. More photos here.

This a one of the many large signs stuck on the ground pointing people to the new hall.

The last of our babies seem to be growing up and this year a lot will hit the big three oh. We gathered to celebrate Sophie’s 30th birthday on Monday and it was very pleasant evening indeed. The photos are here

We went for a walk in the crisp sunshine across a snow covered Hampstead Heath today and everything looked very beautiful.

Here are some photos shot with my iPhone

A frozen pond

A tree against the clear blue sky

Birds on the frozen pond

Posing

A giant snow ball from a couple of days ago

Isabel and I took ourselves off to Dulwich Picture Gallery today to see an exhibition of works from the Group of Seven, sometimes known as the Algonquin school, who were a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920-1933. The paintings were very good, although the exhibition was crowded, and they reminded us a great deal of our trip through the Canadian Rockies in 2006.

Mount Robson by Lawren S. Harris

A view from our drive along the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies in 2006

Christmas went on for a long time and consisted of a seemingly endless series of rooms full of people, food and sometimes quite a bit of noise.

We kicked off as usual with Christmas Eve at Eva’s, a night of great company and simply wonderful food. Eva’s food table is a work of art.

Christmas Day was just Isabel and I and the kids at home with a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, several recorded films watched back to back, and a great big inviting sofa. Very, very pleasant. The photos are here.

Boxing Day was the gathering of the extended Russell clan in Hackney, more mountains of food and drink, two rounds of fiercely contested Trivial Pursuits and an energetic round of Secret Santa present opening (and trading). The photos are here.

A few minutes of video of Trivial Pursuits and Secret Santa

After a brief pause the Swash extended family gathered at our place for more food, another round of energetic Secret Santa and some charades by the kids and some adults. The photo’s are here.

A few minutes of video of various charades.

Another glorious day, another walk through the autumn colours of Hampstead Heath, a few more photos from my iPhone……

The camera on the new iPhone is simply astonishing.

This glorious autumn continues with another wonderful sunny and clear day today. It reminds me of the autumn of 1977 when I was living above a community children’s nursery in the large old rambling Deanery in Hackney. As we moved in to the Deanery the surrounding streets were demolished and the whole area, including the gardens, was bulldozed and then the site was left to go wild for the best part of a year. During the summer of 1977 the vast open space around us became a wonderful overgrown thicket of plants springing up from the seeds and roots that the bulldozers had smeared around. The autumn of 1977 was like this one, dry, warm, sunny, still and seemingly endless and our old building became marooned in a sea of plants and wonderful colour. Unfortunately back then I didn’t have a camera.

We went for a walk on the Heath today and here are some photos taken with my iPhone.

I finally managed to get a new iPhone 4s this week, it took some doing as they are sold out as soon as they arrive. It is a big upgrade from my two year old iPhone 3GS and one of the biggest improvements is in the camera. The new iPhone camera has improved optics, improved sensor and improved electronics and takes photos at least as good as a decent compact camera. This is a big deal for me as it means I will have a pretty good camera with me at all times and that means a lot of fun and a lot of captured photo opportunities.

The new iPhone camera comes with a very good HDR (High Dynamic Range) function that opens up shadows and recovers blown highlights. Here are two photos shot in my room, one with no HDR (hence the blow out highlights outside the window) and one with the HDR function turned on. You can see the huge improvement the HDR brings.

With no HDR

With the HDR function turned on

Some iPhone photos from the Heath today – the weather was simply glorious

A nice moody B&W shot in the evening damp gloom

This photo shot from the platform at Tufnell Park tube station is actually three shots stitched together as a panorama using software on my iPhone.

This is a photo of the blue autumn sky and a contrail above a wooden fence in Junction Road

We gathered at my brother Chris’s house for a few fireworks and some conversation. The small boys (and a few of the larger ones) got awfully excited. Click here to see all the photos.

Isabel and I took a stroll across the Heath today to look at the autumn colours and I took some photos. To see them click here.