Tikkis Mikkis in Paris!

Tikkis Mikkis in Paris armed with a couple of French phrases and a Nikon D60 (nice and light for travelling)!

Tikkis Mikkis became a Paris Photographer for the weekend of the marathon and photographed the marathon runners (well two runners in particular, known as G and F). The day was beautiful and I cycled around on one of the hire bikes that you can rent for an hour or two (called Velibs) gasping at sites such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Photography in the Notre Dame Cathedral was a bit more challenging as there wasn't much light and I wasn't carrying a tripod. I took some slow shutter photographs whilst zooming in on the windows. We even had a mini Paris Tikkis Mikkis photography course in the Cathedral for G & F to have a go at zooming and rotating the camera whilst on a slow shutter. Digital photography is great for learning as you can see the instant results and learn what effects changes to different settings make. I've included one of the shots below as an example.

I want to Belly Dance....!

Fleur Estelle, international Belly Dancer, needed a London event photographer to capture shots of her show, Tikkis Mikkis went along to the University of London Union to document the event. I was completely blown away and had to keep reminding myself that I was there to take pictures and not just to stand in complete awe of the beautiful dancers. The belly dancing classes must be amazing to produce such a well choreographed event.

The Bedlehs, or traditional suits, were all completely individual and made the acts with more dancers seem even more impressive. There were all different types of belly dancing, from Tribal Fusion to Bollywood Fusion, from beginners to advanced. The finale was a dance by the three belly dancing instructors. They had the most beautiful silver fans to make a truly dramatic end to the show. Here is a small selection of the pictures I took. The rest can be seen on the Tikkis Mikkis site here.

Sanaz the beautiful belly dancer!

So there's Sanaz, she's beautiful and she's a belly dancer and even better still, she wanted her picture taken! So Tikkis Mikkis teamed up with Lara Myles and her amazing make-up skills (obviously not that I'm saying you needed it Sanaz!) and this is a tiny selection of what we ended up with. Sanaz and Lara were so much fun to work with (although Lara kept pulling faces at Sanaz to make her giggle, so she might have to sit on the naughty stool next time!).

Sanaz brought along some traditional music to belly dance to. (I didn't notice that it was only 3 tracks on loop though!)

Thanks so much Sanaz for being so beautiful and Lara for doing such fab make-up.

Crouch End to L.A.

Lindsay Lucas-Bartlett asked London Portrait Photographers, Tikkis Mikkis to take some shots of her that were a little bit different, edgy and would look fun on her new website.

Lindsay asked me to come up to Crouch End to photograph her in woods and tunnels (errrr.... really? I vaguely remember something about not going into the woods with strangers Lindsay).

It gets worse....I randomly opened the book Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live In The UK and found that Crouch End was listed in there!!! Hmmmm!?

So, off I trotted to meet a stranger in the woods in one of the worst places to live in the UK. Excellent....

It turns out that both Crouch End and Lindsay are lovely. Lindsay was a lot of fun and not someone anyone should be afraid of going into the woods with (!!).

Lindsay has since moved up in the world of acting and is now living in L.A. Although, I'm sure she's missing those 'urban graffiti tunnels' that she was so fond of.

Lara the fab make-up artist (I'll post her latest work if I get permission from the model) and Lindsay together with a friend of hers from Greece.

London Photography

With the sun shining, for the first time in what seems like ages, London Photographer Tikkis Mikkis took off with camera in hand to try to capture some of London's sights but from a slightly different angle. Battersea Power Station was the first stop..... I obviously had ideas above my station, as I tried to persuade the guards on the main gate that they should let me in to take some pictures. It would have made a great location for a trash the dress shoot. Surprise surprise, the guards were having none of my chat, and nor was the receptionist in a new build with what looked like a great roof terrace. So I made do with a pub balcony and a bench by the side of the road!!!

Next stop was to take photographs of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. But on the way, I came across these crazy guys jumping great distances onto various different posts.

You can see that the aim was to land on that tiny black box at the side of Albert Embankment!!!

And so, on to Big Ben and then the London Eye.