Trierenberg Super Circuit Archives - Richard Spurdens Photography

Le Train Bleu Restaurant -Images

As I recounted in this blog. I have been lucky enough to attend the Austrian Super Salon Gala Dinner and awards evening in Linz. Another successful year at the Super Salon Circuit Salon meant I received an invite to attend the event so we need to plan another trip to Linz.

With a few days of research by my wife on how best to get to Linz with out flying, resulted in us opting to going by train. Which gave us the option of taking a few other places we had wanted to visit too. We found that we could get a visits to Zurich, Linz and Vienna as part of this trip. (We opted to fly home from Vienna). So instead of flying both ways as the last time see my blog about my visit to Munich we opted to go by train. (Thanks to the man in seat 61)

The trip started with a train down to London on the East Coast main line an overnight in the London area then out from St Pancras by Eurostar to Paris. A few stops on the Paris Metro to Paris Gare de Lyon. Where the modern French TGV-Lyria train leaves for Switzerland. It whisks you across France and on into Switzerland via Basel and then Zurich. Running at up to 320 km/h (200mph) you arrive in Zurich around 4 hours after departing from Paris.

Le Train Bleu Restaurant.

Before I post some of the Zurich images I though it was worth sharing these images of the historic Le Train Bleu Restaurant (“The Blue Train”) which is located in Hall 1 of the Gare de Lyon station.

The restaurant was originally created for the World’s fair (1900) and each of the ornate dining rooms are themed to represent cities and regions of France and they are decorated with 41 paintings by some of the most popular artists of that time.

Initially called “Buffet de la Gare de Lyon”, it was renamed “Le Train Bleu restaurant” in 1963, after the train of the same name. It was designated a Monument Historique in 1972.

Having seen the website we decided that it was well worth getting to Gare de Lyon station with a few hours to spare so we could pay a visit to this historic Restaurant.

A few Images

train bleu ceiling — 1/60 sec @ f11 ISO5000 Touit 2.8 12mm

train bleu interior 1 — 1/60 sec @ f5.6 ISO1600 Touit 2.8 12mm

train bleu interior 2 — 1/30 sec @ f9.0 ISO3200 Touit 2.8 12mm

It is not cheap but is well worth spending the extra euros just to take in the interior decorations, which are certainly very impressive as you can see from the images above – no one seemed to mind you taking images either.

The final image is as we started to pull out of the station on our way to Zurich really liked the all the lines and the feeling of traveling with this one.

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Architecture Photography - Architecture Photographer - high and low Lines — Richard Spurdens Photography – High and low Lines

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Events, FIAP, General

2015 – a review of the year

So here we are at the end of 2015 and a time to reflect on the year photographically.

Has 2015 been a good year?

The answer, I think is yes, it has been a good and varied year.

I have worked with a quite a number of new models which was one of the aims of the year. On the photographic Salon front I have continued to enter a few of the National and International Salons and been rewarded with some success with images being accepted into the exhibitions and on a number of occasions picking up awards. One of the highlights was picking up my second Gold medal in the Trierenburg Super Salon, which resulted in an invitation to the Gala dinner in Linz in October to collect this. This year our trip was by train and we visited Zurich on the way there and Vienna on the way home. A blog post will be coming in early January about the visit to these two locations.

A few Judging invitations this year, including one of the National PAGB competitions (The GB Cup with fellow judges Leigh Preston and Eric Orme) and also the international Yorkshire Salon 2015 with fellow judges Libby Smith and Rod Wheelans.

I have also had a number of invitations to present my images to camera clubs both locally in Yorkshire and nationally too, I even did a Couture fashion shoot too.

Mid-way through the year, I managed to put myself out of action for around 2 months when I broke my foot, so I had to cancel a trip to Spain and also a number of booked shoots which was a real pain. Fortunately at least one of the models I was able to work with later in the year. Just at this time I also got a studio space to work from so that has been a good step forward to have somewhere to work and play with lighting styles etc. I just had to wait for two months to start using it!

To make up for missing the trip to Spain in June we arranged a trip in September to visit the city of Bilbao, in northern Spain, which was well worth the visit as you can see from my post about it here.

On to the new models that I had the pleasure of working with this year, starting in January 2015, with Rosa brighid, then in alphabetical order: Angela Hudson, Amber Tutton, Darren H, Dee Delahunty, Gem, Mischkah, Rosewell Ivory and Tillie Feather.

I also enjoyed working again with Carla Monaco, Ella Beth, Faith Obae, Ivory Flame , Jen Brook, Kayleigh Lush, Raphella, and Madam Bink.

Finally I must put in a short bit around the FIAP awards which last year were revised upwards dramatically which made me decide not to follow on with the level awards. (see FIAP silver) Well in the FIAP congress in November 2015, guess what – they changed them all around again, you really do have to wonder!

So the upshot is I can now apply for my FIAP gold level award.

So to finish off here are some images from the 2015:

landscape photography - landscape photographer -January light Javea 2015 — Fuji XF18mm 1/60sec @ F8.0

artistic nude photography - artistic nude photographer - pushing the blocks

portairt photography - portairt photographer - carla m — Richard Spurdens Photography – Carla M

Landscape Photography - Landscape Photographer - scotish highland view to the buachaille — Richard Spurdens Photoography the buachaille

artistic nude photographer - artistic nude photography -Fine art nudes - shapes in the square — Richard Spurdens Photography – Shapes in the square

artistic nude photographer - artistic nude photography -raphaella floor shapes — Fuji XT-1 Zeiss Touit 12mm /f2.8 i/125 @ f5.0

Dance photographer - dance photography -Faith and Darren

Artistic nude photographer - artistic nude photography colour image of model looking out of a large window wearing a sheer top. — Richard Spurdens Photography

fashion photographer - fashion photography -gem 1

fashion photographer - fashion photographer - jen and amber — Richard Spurdens Photography – fashion photography – Jen and Amber

portrait photography - portrait photographer - high key monochorme image of model looking through to gap in some net curtains, subject is lit with natural light from behind — Richard Spurdens Photography – portrait image – mischkah highkey – III – Canon EOS 5D Mark III : EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 1/125 @ F / 3.2

dance photography - dance photographer -checking the dance shapes

fashion photographer - fashion photographer - dee delahunty — Richard Spurdens Photography – Dee

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Events, FIAP, News

Trierenberg Super Circuit 2015

Following on from my success in the 2014 Trierenberg Super Circuit I went to the Gala Dinner to collect my medal and it was a great night of photography images and meeting fellow award winners. I again entered the 2015 Trierenberg Super Circuit and I was more than delighted to be a medal winner again in 2015.

Travel Photography - travel Photograher - Linz photo awards — Richard Spurdens Photography – Collecting the Gold Medal

So again the invitation to the Trierenberg Super Circuit Gala dinner was accepted and a trip to Linz was arranged to attend the award ceremony and dinner.

So Monday of this week (12/10/2015) I was among those photographers at the gala dinner and awards evening held at the Design Centre in Linz, Austria. My award-winning image this year was Perfecting the art of chair levitating which was awarded a gold medal for best mono image in the Bregenz salon.

dance photographer - dance photography - in the mono perfecting the art of chair levitation — Richard Spurdens Photography – EFIAP Gold – Perfecting the art of chair levitation

This is again a great evening, well organised and with a well curated exhibition of a large number of the accepted prints. To have one of your images on display with all the other impressive work and to stand on the stage in front of all those other photographers and creative artists for a second time was really a good feeling.

This year I was one of the winner who Dr Chris Hinterobermaier chose to interviewed on stage so a little nerve-racking to start off with but I felt I gave a good answer to this questions.

travel photography - travel photographer - interview image 1 — Richard Spurdens Photography – On the big screen

There were a few other UK-based photographers attending too – Slywia and Marcin Ciesielski based in Southampton and Marek Biegalski based in Dublin and Mike Pilkington again from Dublin.

There were two other photographers who I had met at the event in 2014 Lotta van Droom (Ireland), who I managed to have a chat with after the dinner and also Mohammadreza Rezinia from Iran but I did not manage to catch up with him this year. which was a shame as his work is really creative.

Have a look at their websites if you have the time.

Again as I said at the end of my post last year if you get the invitation to attend then GO

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Events, FIAP, News

The Trierenberg Super Circuit gala dinner and awards evening

Part of the introduction on the Trierenberg Super Circuit website states that:

“It is the aim of this competition to find out the very best photography from different styles, techniques and genres. The Trierenberg Super Circuit has established as an international benchmark of perfect photography. Not only amateur photographers, but also internationally well-known artists and professionals have been participating.”

And on Monday of this week (13/10/2014) I was among those photographers at the gala dinner and awards evening held at the Design Centre in Linz, Austria. One of my 8 accepted images had been awarded a gold medal for best colourprint image in the Feldkirch salon. (Expression on red Pointe).

Dance Photography - Dance Photographer - red pointe expression — Richard Spurdens Photography – Red pointe expression

As medal winner you get an invite to attend the Gala Dinner and awards evening, and as I have known other UK and Irish photographers, (Ron and Maggie Tear and Ciaran Whyte) to name but two, who have attended in the past and talked about the event being impressive, so when the invitation came I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to attend.

I was not disappointed as it was certainly an impressive event, well organised and with a well curated exhibition of a large number of the accepted prints. To have one of your images on display with all the other impressive work and to stand on the stage in front of all those other photographers and creative artists was a good and humbling feeling.

There were a few other UK photographers attending too – Tim Pile and Brian Hooper were two whose work I know.

They were also there to collect medals for their work so it was good to meet up with them and also spend time with photographers from around the world, the furthest being one from Australia and the other from Brazil.

Thanks to Brian Hooper for the the next two images, which are me collecting my medal; and the other guests on our table (myself and Ro, Lotta van Droom and partner, Brian Hooper, Jalal Sazeli and Jack).

Then we have Tim Pile been interviewed on stage.

bph6874 — Some of the other award winners

Three photographers who I met at the event and whose work is worth looking at are :

Lotta van Droom (Ireland),

Jalal Sazeli from Singapore, and

Mohammadreza Rezinia from Iran is also an impressive creative and it was good to meet and talk with him about the challenges he faces in creating his work.

Have a look at their websites if you have the time.

To sum up the Gala evening – it is just amazing. The presentation of the images, awards, and company made it a special event, and if you ever get the invite, then GO.