Lemmings in Dundee.

Hey everyone,
Finally, I'm back with some new landscape photos for you all, well as new as it gets! So, let's cut straight to the good stuff, recently my inspiration to edit my long lost personal photos has come back stronger than ever and since they were always in the back of my mind I guess it was finally time to get them finished. Well you may have guessed these shots aren't exactly new by this introduction and you're right...they were taken last summer around the same time I photographed the bandstand in my previous post, so they were truly overdue an edit! I couldn't wait to finally get them finished and online as I love these little guys.
Who's an old school video gamer?...anyone remember Lemmings from the early 90's? Those little spiky green haired guys with the cool purple overalls? Well, the game actually happened to be one of my favourites and I only found out not that long ago that it was created in Dundee of all places. Now they have been given their own little monuments in celebration and are now showcased in Dundee's city centre. I couldn't help myself but act like a tourist for the day and take some snaps of them, guaranteed it always feels a little awkward in your hometown, snapping away photos and someone you know spots you, oh well haha!


I actually like the way they positioned these little guys, they are right in the centre of the most beautiful location on Perth Road in Dundee and right beside the mini bandstand (a smaller replica of the one I photographed in my last post). It features such a gorgeous view over the Tay as well, and many people stop and visit this spot before heading into town every day of the year. Whether the weather is bad or not, which unfortunately for all tourists this year Scotland hasn't had the best of times, sorry folks, I'm sure it'll be better next year, don't worry.
Moving on, I actually planned to take some shots of a few more cool spots in town but unfortunately last year I managed to catch glandular fever and my little adventures had to be cut short for the time being. Hopefully I will get the time to indulge in some personal landscape photos again very soon as there are still a couple of little locations that I would definitely like to photograph in Dundee, surprisingly! For the time being, I'm back to my regular work and I may blog about it soon if I get the chance, so keep a watch out for that, thanks once again for viewing.


Nicola. x

Magdalen Green.

Hi everyone,
What lovely weather we've had recently right?...and considering Dundee rarely sees any sight of the glorious sunshine, I took advantage and photographed a couple of locations that I've been wanting to revisit lately. I've been majorly inspired especially after watching a few tutorials from Mike Browne, he's a great photographer and he has definitely encouraged me to pick my camera a lot more and shoot whatever's around me, but not to get carried away and also think about the photo that I'm going to take rather than just point and shoot like most people would do and I must admit at times I can become one of those people, so it is always good to think outside the box! So as I previously mentioned I had photographed the Magdalen Green bandstand before a few years ago and I wasn't all too thrilled by the photos I had taken so I decided to go back and revisit, and I managed to achieve a lot more than I had expected.


I'm more than pleased that there was a plane travelling above the bandstand at the time I was photographing, it made for such an interesting image and I luckily happened to be at the right side for taking the shot when it appeared. I'd say it's my favourite photo from this set as I also quite like the way the clouds are situated and there's something almost fisheye looking about the shot. Anyway, I've thrown in a couple of pics from the surrounding area as there is a really cool atmosphere to the streets in this part of town. I also believe that there was been a petition of the sorts to try and bring back the life and colour in the old bandstand, I think it has had occasional repairs in the past but apparently it's really needing a good spruce up these days. Hopefully they manage to achieve their desired amount and it's a great feature to the city.
I hope you all enjoyed looking through these photos and as always let me know what you think.

Nicola. x

MAC Cosmetics Alluring Aquatic Collection.

Hey everyone,
I normally don't write these kind of posts on my blog as most of you will be aware, but as one of my other main interests is make-up artistry and I have been majorly inspired by MAC Cosmetics new Summer collection this year, I thought it would be nice to do a little review of the products. First off, I always love MAC's Summer collections, and last year they had two that I really fell in love with which were called Temperature Rising and Tropical Taboo, both absolutely gorgeous with stellar must have items! Futhermore, this year they have released their Alluring Aquatic collection in May and again I have been totally captured by all of the products and not to forget the incredible water droplet packaging this year (and yes it's real, I didn't put water droplets on the items for added effect incase you were wondering, haha!)
I bought a fair few items from this collection and I know it's a lot of money however I saved up well in advance as I was looking forward to this one. The products I picked up were a Lipglass in Water Deities, Pet Me Please lipstick (I was super excited about this one as I remember it from the Fabulous Felines collection) I also bought two Extra Dimension eyeshadows in Silver Sun and Legendary Lure, an Extra Dimension Bronzer in Aphrodite's Shell, a Nail Lacquer in Neptune and a Lip Pencil in What Comes Naturally.

Now, let's cut to the chase the must have's from this collection for me are definitely Water Deities Lipglass and Legendary Lure Eyeshadow, for one I couldn't take my eyes off of them when I opened them out of their boxes and two, they are absolutely great pigmentation and colour. I'm also mega happy with the Extra Dimension Bronzer, I've never owned any of the Extra Dimension products before and they are an incredible texture to work with. However, you're probably wondering if I really needed all of these things and the fact is I probably didn't but there are some must have items in this batch and I've thoroughly used all of the products so I know exactly how they work and out of all the things I bought the only item I could have possibly done without was the liner, it is beautiful don't get me wrong and it is still a great item but it definitely is the least used item I own from this set so I guess I could have done without it.
However, I'm in love with the rest of the products and they are an amazing purchase so if this collection is still in stock where ever you live, make sure to check it out and pick up a few pieces!
Nicola. x

Celestial.

Hey everyone,
It's been a little while since I've posted something on here however I have been concentrating on a lot of things at the moment including a couple of huge blog posts so this one has been slightly delayed which you will notice as it contains shots I photographed of the full moon from a little while ago. However, I still really wanted to get these online, and although I've taken a few photos of the moon before with a long lens and a tripod, I decided to change it up for these shots! I've focused predominately on the clouds rather than focusing on the moon itself as I quite liked the atmosphere this gave the image especially considering the kind of night that I took these photos. What this really means is that I didn't expose my settings for the moon but for the clouds instead, and sadly that does means the moon will look slightly overexposed but I wanted the clouds to be the main feature as they were really noticable and I think this gives a much different look to what could be another boring and dull photo of the moon. I hope that you all enjoy these photos as much as I do, so let me know what you think, it's always great to talk to people that share an interest for photography!
Hopefully I'll be back soon with those two posts that I've been keeping back!

Nicola. x

Seaside Cottages and Fisherman Bars.

Hi everyone,
Today I'm back with a continuation to previous post about artists, including local murals, graffiti and design, and at the moment I'm focusing on places in my local village that I'm currently interested in, I've previously talked about how I have been particularly fascinated with the seaside theme, so I decided to capture a few popular spots in Broughty Ferry. The main photos below this little paragraph are what I am specifically talking about, the classic Ship Inn bar alongside the Barometer cottage, and the last shot of The Fisherman's Tavern, both much loved little venues that are very well associated with Broughty Ferry. I'm especially attracted to the appearance of these two venues, the colours of the Fisherman's Tavern and the typical seaside look of the Ship Inn with the Barometer cottage are perfect fitting with Broughty Ferry's seaside aesthetics.

Of course, I've included another angle of the glorious Broughty Ferry Castle and beach which I photographed a couple of blog posts ago, it's such a lovely place and sometimes it's just nice to take some different angles of a location. After all you never know what treasures you may find along the way, no pun intended with the seaside theme or anything...you get what I mean! Also, I thought I'd mention if any of you follow me on Instagram you'll notice that I've been posting little sneak peaks of what photos I'm currently working on, so there's definitely more blog posts coming soon with my latest adventures, but make sure to check out/follow my Instagram page at, http://www.instagram.com/nicolasharkeyphoto for more consistent updates!
Nicola. x

The Artist.

Hey everyone,
Lately my never-ending fascination with architecture has taken a turn and I'm currently fascinated by local murals, graffiti and design, so here's a couple of my most recent shots that I've photographed around my hometown. I've always had a particular liking for this mural that you are currently looking at above, every time I venture around this area in Dundee I wish I'd brought my camera with me to snap a quick shot, so I decided to finally make it happen since I've had a little bit of spare time, and thank goodness it was fairly good weather for the occasion!
The mural itself was painted in 1982 and shows many views and historic references about Dundee including the Tay Bridge, Dundee docks and Tay whale. I believe there were talks about it being restored which I kind of hope happens as it would look even more beautiful with a bit of a repaint!
I'm going to continue with my current theme on creativity in my next post as I've already planned a feature around a few of my other favourite places in my hometown, which I have infact already photographed so once I have finished editing the shots they will be online soon.

Nicola. x

Let Bloom.

Hey everyone,
A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to capture some amazing pink and vibrant orange sunrise shots, which I've been longing for some time now as many of you will remember. These were taken quite early in the morning, I think roughly about 8am and literally after I took these photos this amazing pink sky faded within only a few minutes, something of which always half annoys me but astounds me at the same time when I realise I managed to get the best of the best! Although, the annoying part being that I could have missed such an amazing shot which has happened many of a time before as most photographers will have experienced at some point in their career.
I talked briefly about RAW format photos in my previous post and I feel like I've mastered how to work these kind of shots now so I'm excited about getting back into photographing some of my more favourite peculiar and select locations to see how they translate this way. I'm definitely thinking about getting a few of these shots printed from photobox to see the quality difference, and update some of my photo frames at the same time!

Be sure to check out my Instagram page as I always post sneak peaks of any new photography pieces I'm working on before they're uploaded to my blog, my username is @nicolasharkeyphoto
As always I'll be back soon with lots more photos for your viewing pleasure!
Nicola. x

Dreaming Of The Seaside.

Hi everyone,
I'm back with a set of photos that I've been fairly excited to get online, I enjoyed taking these shots at the time and I knew that they were going to be a lot of fun to edit.
I've never really taken photos in RAW format before, shock horror and I know someone should give me a slap on the wrist for it but I have started trying to slowly bring it in to my photography routine...although sometimes I forget to turn on the RAW option so forgive me for forgetting the last time, now it's on for good though! Anyway I did luckily remember this time around as I was predominately photographing the clouds which kept coming out too flat so this instantly reminded me to switch on the RAW option, and thank goodness I did as it really brings back all of the lost quality that JPEG seems to take away.


Back to the idea of the seaside theme, I've actually recently discovered an artist called Tracy Savage on an outing around Broughty Ferry's local gallery. I am in total awe of her unique and quirky painting style so much that I had to buy a couple of prints for my room. I posted an instagram photo of the prints, I bought 'The Grand' and 'Bridge Keepers', two beautiful paintings that caught my eye, but I do feel I may go back for one of the VW camper van pictures, such a 70's beach vibe and I love it!
On another note, I'm glad I've finally photographed Broughty Ferry Castle, who would have thought it would have taken all of this time to get around to photographing places in your hometown? haha! However, I am proud of the shots I managed to get even if it was a bit of an overcast day, I like those kind of photos as it makes the location look way more moody, which seems to be something I bring out in my landscape pictures a lot, haha!


Anyway, I've still got lots more shots to upload and I'm already thinking about what's next, I've definitely missed taking landscape photographs!
Nicola. x

Pop Cop Photography Competition!

Hey everyone,
I'm back with another one of those short updates before I post any of those exciting photos that I was talking about in my previous entry.
Last year I decided to enter Pop Cop's annual music photography competition, now I'm not really one for putting my photos into competitions and that's mostly because I don't get the time to, however since I had a good spare bit of time at the end of last year I thought it would be fun to enter a couple of my photos. Luckily enough my photograph of Purson managed to get into their honourable mentions section which is pretty awesome considering last year I only took photos of less than a handful of gigs and didn't have many shots to choose from to enter!
Below is what my photo looks like featured on their website, if you want to check out the other lucky entries for the competition, go to Pop Cop's website at www.thepopcop.co.uk

I can't wait to get back into photographing more gigs again but seeing as it's taking some time to settle into my new home, it may take a while but I'll be back soon enough!
Nicola. x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!
I know it may seem irrelevant to say so as it's already near the end of January but I've just recently got settled into my new place after moving at Christmas, and I must admit that it was pretty stressful at the time but at least I'm finally ready to get started with everything again.
Since I've entered the world of Instagram and have seen what everyone else has been getting upto it's made me very inspired and encouraged to get back into photography, lots of ideas have been floating around my head for a while so it's time to finally put them into action. Not before long I was dusting the cobwebs off my blessed camera and was strolling around my local area for inspiration, and funnily enough I realised I'd never taken photos of this cute little 16th century castle that I happen to bypass most days of the week.

Of course I've still been inspired by mid 90's and early 00's films, one of the latest on my list has been The Little Vampire ever since I watched it for the first time over the holidays, it's such an incredibly adorable film! Anyway, you're probably wondering what the significance is with my photos but the movie was predominately filmed in Scotland and the castle that I photographed reminded me of many scenes in the movie, although I'm sure there are no vampires living in this one!
The photo above was actually a quick snap that I caught when I was about to walk away, I just loved the look of the black iron gates infront of the small wooden door, I don't know what it is but every time I take a photo of gates, they always seem to add a certain creepy value to the building, although it maybe doesn't help that I turned this shot black and white, haha!

Anyway, I'm going to leave it at that for the time being, but I'll let you all know that I recently went on another jaunt and photographed the beautiful Broughty Ferry seaside in the gorgeous low winter sunshine. It was absolutely stunning and peaceful, almost like a holiday away from home! I'll try and get those photos edited as quick as possible, they're a bit different from the usual castles and creepy buildings that I tend to take photographs of, haha, so I'm looking forward to getting them online!
Nicola. x

2013 Music Photography Highlights!

Hey everyone,
Well it's that time again folks, the time of reflection upon 2013. It's been another good year for photographing gigs albeit a slightly smaller amount of work than last year due to having a busy personal life but hopefully that will change in the near future.
Let's start off with the first gig I photographed this year, the almighty Kerrang Tour 2013 at the 02 Academy in Glasgow, quite a big one and I was super happy I managed to get on the bill for this. I had the pleasure of photographing Fearless Vampire Killers once again who are always a great act to work with, aswell as Tonight Alive and Chiodos who I hadn't previously seen but I thoroughly enjoyed photographing both bands and although the lighting was a tad red and dark I still managed to get some great shots, my personal favourite being the one of Chiodos at the start of this post.

The next gig was later in April, I photographed the lovely Purson at King Tuts in Glasgow, they are a relatively new group from London and as I've been told the photos do the speaking for themselves with this one, especially the first one below of Rosie, another personal favourite of mine from the year. The band have so much emotion and passion when they perform and it really shows through when photographing them. The lighting for this gig again was mostly dark and red so it was a minor challenge but I'm still glad of the outcome, and the band liked the photos as they posted them on their social sites and my Flickr page somehow managed to achieve near 500 views on each photo in a day, so I was really happy!

In July, I had the opportunity of photographing Heaven's Basement at Ivory Blacks in Glasgow, and I was super excited for this gig as I'd been wanting to photograph the band since earlier in the year. The show was absolutely amazing, infact one of the best I've been to for a long time. Again, the lighting was fairly dark but nothing you wouldn't expect in a smaller venue, aside from that I was really pleased with the shots I managed to achieve. I'm also more than happy that the band's guitarist used one of the photos for his Facebook page, it's always great to see that the musicians themselves appreciate the photos!
These shots were all taken for Is This Music? Magazine accompanied with reviews of the show that I have written so feel free to check those out if you'd like to read more about the gigs.
To conclude my post, here's to another of year of photography ahead and I wish everyone all the best for 2014.
Nicola. x

Instagram.

Hey everyone,
Just another one of those short and sweet updates before I get into my end of the year summary post! Some of you will probably have already noticed that I've finally joined the iPhone pack...who would have thought it?!
Needless to say I've also jumped on the bandwagon and created an Instagram profile, I never realised how addicting it could be and so far I've posted a photo every day, if you want to check out my page the link is http://www.instagram.com/nicolasharkeyphoto and be sure to follow it for more updates.
Scroll left and right on the image below to see a quick view of my latest photos!



Nicola. x

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!
Would you actually believe my blog has finally managed to reach 100 posts...and what a more perfect way to celebrate than on All Hallows' Eve!
Although I haven't had the time to go to any gigs for the past couple of months due to packing/moving, I've been putting my creative efforts elsewhere until I can get back into gigging again. The street photos below are unfortunately not where I live or going to be in the near future, but I've loved the place ever since I was young and it looked so beautiful in the Autumn sunshine when I last ventured past on my travels.
I also love the little semi-detached houses that for some reason remind me of San Francisco, it just looks and feels very American compared to the rest of the houses in the area, my ideal kind of home! Enough about that though and more about the photo below, we had Shaun over for a week in October and I'd seen photos of these tiny pumpkins with fake vampire teeth on the web so I thought it would be a great idea for a bit of Halloween craft. We made a couple of them and I'm happy with how they turned out, an easier take on the alternative pumpkin carving. Although that being said, I did carve a Harry Potter pumpkin afterwards which also turned out well, especially for a first timer!
Anyway, I hope everyone is all enjoying their Halloween, have a spooky one!


Nicola. x

Witches' Brew.

Hello everyone,
Another short and quick update! Even though I'm going to be moving super soon I've decided to put all of my Halloween decorations up for the past few weeks to get the benefit out of it, I've always been more of a Halloween kind of person rather than Christmas so when I celebrate it's done in full circle, haha. Anyway I thought I'd post my newest decor findings as it isn't that easy to find good decorations these days for Halloween, the little green witch below I bought recently from a gift shop in town along with the lavender in my watering can plant pot. The tiny crystal cauldron above was bought some time ago from a fair at my primary school...needless to say it's a much loved item. My most recent purchases are the china pumpkin tealight holder and the Witches Brew Yankee Candle, I believe mine is the old edition as the cover is from last year but I loved the look of the skull design far too much, and it smells absolutely amazing...a mix of spices and patchouli. I've also bought a few more things from Asda, they always come out with good decorations every year, this time I bought two tiny skeletons bride and groom, skeleton bone salad servers and a couple of skeleton candle holders for the living room. I think it's safe to say I'm totally skint but who can resist buying awesome things at Halloween?! haha.

Anyway I'll hopefully be back soon with another update and more photos but until then, ciao.
Nicola. x

Practical Magic.

Hi everyone,
It's finally Autumn, my favourite time of the year and a purrfect reason to start taking some shots in the beautiful Fall sunshine, see what I did there...yeah it was terrible I know! Anyway, whilst it's nearing Halloween, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to post a few photos of this cute little black cat that I had a very short photoshoot session with the other day, talk about not liking the camera. He isn't my cat but one of my neighbours and I'm not all entirely sure what breed he is but I think it may be along the lines of a persian/siberian mix, if anyone knows write in the comment section! He is adorable anyway and I wish I could steal him, but don't worry I won't!

Since my last post on here I've actually been preparing for moving by throwing out some of my old things and I've actually been getting back into a lot of 90's movies and music that I managed to come across in the depths of my house, of course as the title suggests I've been watching one of my favourite films Practical Magic many times over just in time for October 31st. Is anyone else looking forward to pumpkin spice latte's coming back to Starbucks? I'll be first in the line for sure! Along with making some more pumpkin pie again...I'm beginning to think I should move to America at this rate, California maybe?...
I can't wait to start getting back into more photoshoot type set-ups again (with people might I add) as I've been looking into buying a lighting kit for some time now so I think it's finally time to take the plunge and roll with it. First things first however is moving house, so it may be a while before any promotional photos make their way online, hopefully that will all happen soon enough though!

Nicola. x

Dundee in the Summer.

Hey everyone, I've recently been hugely inspired by a few youtube photography tutorials to try out some sunset shots, so about a month ago I set off on a really good sunny night hoping that there would be an amazing shot to be achieved, but alas there was nothing special...(and I hate to say it but the next night the sky looked utterly amazing at sunset but I wasn't prepared). However I thought I'd put up the shots I managed to get at the time anyway because I quite liked them nonetheless, and the first one has quite a moody atmosphere to it, the second is totally the opposite and funnily enough, these were both taken at the same time but different directions of the sun.



The photo below is the current situation Dundee city centre is in, quite a state if you can see! It seems that they're trying to start and finish different projects all at the same time and I can understand the point of getting work done quickly but it's a pain to get places in traffic everyday. Ranting aside, I thought it made for a good image anyway, the building actually used to be the Tayside House and I'm pretty sure it was also a good five or six storeys higher than it is in this picture as they have been slowly taking it down over the past few months now, and I believe it is fully gone now, hooray!



Oh, also I recently loaded my Holga camera with a new roll of 120 film as I was cleaning my room the other day and noticed it gathering dust in its box, so it was about time it got put to good use again, expect some photos from those outings soon!
Nicola.x

Heaven's Basement, Ivory Blacks Glasgow, Live Photos.

Hi everyone, I recently went along to photograph Heaven's Basement at Ivory Blacks in Glasgow at the start of July, and I'd actually wanted to photograph them since earlier in the year but sadly their gig clashed with another show I was covering at the time so I had to give it a miss however I'm glad I've finally managed to get around to seeing these guys live.
First things first, the gig was absolutely amazing and I'm already obsessing about wanting to see these guys again! If you're following me on Facebook/Twitter you'll already know that I've said their performance was the best I have seen in years so I was already half planning to go see them the next day after at their show in Aberdeen but I thought that might have seemed a little bit obsessive...haha, but next tour I'll be there again for sure! If anyone wants to read what I thought about the gig in full, I've written a review for Is This Music so check it out at this link, www.isthismusic.com/heavens-basement


Aside from the gig itself, photographing it was a little harder than I'd imagined, for starters it was a sold out show so the place was absolutely packed and secondly Ivory Blacks didn't actually have a proper photo pit, instead it was filled with all types of technical equipment however the right side of the pit was empty so...I luckily managed to squeeze myself inbetween the barrier and I had enough room to photograph from there, which to be honest worked out pretty well in the end although at one point the guitarist got a little too close with his guitar and I feared for my camera's life...it was almost a goner but thankfully it's still in one piece, haha!
The full set of photos are online at my Flickr page so make sure to check them out, http://www.flickr.com/nicolasharkeyphotography
Nicola. x

New Business Card Samples from Moo.

Hey everyone, after months of talking about new business cards I finally finished off the design and ordered the 10 free set from Moo.com last week and they actually arrived by that very weekend!
I'm extremely happy with them and the quality is unbelievable, especially in comparison to my previous set that were printed by another company who may have been a little cheaper but I would say it's definitely worth paying a little more if you're interested in setting a good example with appearance and aesthetics.
I also managed to choose the free sample pack, I'm not sure if that is always included with the 10 business cards as I actually clicked onto the sample pack first by mistake and never cleared the cart before ordering but hey...it was free aswell so I'm not too bothered, plus it gave me the chance to look at the other textures/designs/luxe business card options, which were all lovely aswell but I think I'm still happy with the classic matte look.





I decided to design the whole thing myself and chose large photos for the back to showcase my photography, I hadn't previously done this with my old set so I was super excited to try it out and I'm more than happy with the results. Each card has a different shot on the back and I didn't originally plan out exactly which 10 photos I wanted so I kind of just rolled with it at the time choosing a few favourites and some random ones for testing. Incase you're wondering the 'Moo.com' logo on the photos are only on the sample versions and aren't printed on the cards if you buy them which I think is pretty fair I would say.





Of course I'll be buying my first set of 50 very soon, and then I'll finally be able to hand them out instead of being super embarrassed about the old design I originally started out with, haha.
Let me know what you think about my new design and if you've updated your business card recently.
Nicola. x