The quest for the Elephants continued on Saturday but now I need to plan my hunting more carefully to ensure that I am finding previously unseen/un-photographed elephants.  With this in mind, I decided to head off to the last large concentration of elephants … Covent Garden and its surrounding area.

Along my way, I also managed to shoot the odd elephant that had got away (so to speak) from my previous trips because I couldn’t find them.  The other added bonus was that the Heathrow elephant, “The Happy End of Nature”, is still waiting at Paddington appropriately on the Heathrow Express platform – may be it hasn’t got a ticket or is too big to get on the train?

“Ferrous” (left) was my favourite one of the day and can be found outside the Royal Opera House on Bow Street.  I think that it is the stack of smaller elephants on its back and the colours of the weathering metal, presumably iron, that delighted me.

I have posted all my new elephant photographs in my Elephant Parade gallery and to make it easier for everyone to see the latest elephants I have reordered the gallery so that they appear first.

At lunchtime today, I managed to take the short trip on the DLR to Greenwich to photograph the three elephants there.  These are now in my Elephant Parade gallery.

The weather at the weekend was glorious and it looks like summer may be here at long last.  To celebrate, I was up early on Sunday morning and on the hunt for some more elephants.  The light was perfect for photography and with less people about the elephants were not mobbed with kids for a chance.  I must say that the elephants have brought a great deal of pleasure and colour to our streets – great job done by the Elephant Parade.

Here are the latest set of elephants which now includes 190 different elephants of 258 possible elephants.  I am still trying to get the remaining 68 elephants but may have to get some of these when they are moved to Royal Hospital Chelsea on 23rd June before they are auctioned on 3rd July.

Unusually, I managed to get out for a midweek photo shot on Wednesday  with a colleague from work.  We headed for Mayfair to hunt down some more elephants and I was better organised that my previous elephant trips.

In about 2 hours I managed to shoot another 27 elephants so I am now over half way with 133 out of 258 – there is a fair chance that I will be able to get most of them before they are moved to Chelsea Hospital on 23rd June.  See the newly shoot elephants in my Elephant Parade gallery.

I am planning to go out on an early morning shoot tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

Yesterday (Saturday), I was out around London for about 8 hours hunting for the elephants that form the Elephant Parade London 2010.  It was a long day and I must have walked miles zig-zagging across town.  There is a “Happy Herd” in Green Park and a number in St. James Park which made it easy to quite a number of them quickly.

So far my favourite elephant is “The Singing Butler Rides Again” by the famous artist Jack Vettriano which can be found in Burlington Arcade, just off Piccadilly.

To see the latest elephants visit my London Parade London 2010 gallery.

For the London Marathon back on 25th April, I decided to shot with two cameras so that I didn’t need to change lenses and could switch between my Canon EF 24-105mm f4/L and EF 70-200 f2.8/L IS lenses quickly.

As I only have a single pro body at the moment, I hired a second Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III body from Fixation who are based near the Oval cricket ground.  Their customer service was excellent and good pricing at the weekend (one day hire charge for the whole weekend) … I definitely recommend Fixation for hiring equipment and will be using them again.

I had already bought a new innovative camera strap from BlackRapid who make one for two cameras – check out their RS DR-1 Double Strap.  It was really good and made a huge difference to me because it ensured that both cameras where easily at hand without getting separate straps tangled up.  It also made carrying the cameras around much easier providing great balance and spreading the weight across across my shoulders.

When not shooting with two cameras, BlackRapid’s RS DR-1 Double Strap can be split to provide a single camera strap like the other R-Strap models.  It is really comfortable and allows you to get the camera to your eye very quickly.  I am really please with it and am now using it all the time.

On Sunday 25th May 2010, I volunteered to photograph this year’s London Marathon for a great charity called Bliss.  I have previously blogged about the day and since then I have been busy editing all the images and creating a new gallery which is now complete.

Please check out the full gallery of Bliss at the London Marathon from which you can purchase image downloads and ordered high quality prints through Fotomoto.

Unfortunately, Fotomoto only currently provide professional printing from USA based lab which require international shipping to UK. Having been in contact with Fotomoto, they are looking at partnering with professional printing labs in UK and other countries but no timelines.

All the profits that I from these downloads and prints are being donated Bliss to help them in their work for babies born too soon, too small, too sick.

Finally, thanks to all the great runners and supporters at Bliss who I met on during this photo shot.

This is the first of the elephants and is called “Izzy”.  “Izzy” is located in Lime Street near Lloyds of London’s iconic building and not by the “Gherkin” as the map suggests.  This was taken last Monday 3rd May but I have only just had time to finish processing the Bank Holiday shoot.

The photos I have taken so far can be found in my Elephant Parade London 2010 gallery and I managed to photograph 21 of 255 elephants on the Bank Holiday Monday.

There are in fact 22 photographs because I have included a photograph of the internal view of Elephant number 255 which is titled “The City in the Elephant”.  It is an amazing elephant with a whole city with miniature elephants inside its body.

If you live in London then you may have seen the appearance of elephants on the streets over the last week.  They are part of the Elephant Parade which consists of 255 differently decorated elephants on our streets.  Locating them is easier than you think as there is a online map but it is not 100% accurate.

The elephants will be here until 3rd July when they are being auctioned in aid of a conservation campaign that shines a multi-coloured spotlight on the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant.

I have decided that I am going to try and photograph as many of these elephants as possible before they are auctioned.  This may be a more ambitious project than I original thought when I decide to do it.