I recently had the pleasure of a funny spending a funny if not somewhat bizarre afternoon with two thirds of the London based comedy duo trio Bad Bread. On their web-site it says

The history of Bad Bread is long and is currently being made into a trilogy starring Daniel Radcliffe, Joey Essex and Denise Welch. The brief plot outline of the film and their lives is depicted below:

Ant meets Tom.Ant offends Tom. Ant apologies to Tom and they become friends. They write comedy together. Ant and Tom meet Brydie. Ant offends Bryide. Tom apologies for Ant. Brydie agrees to do comedy with Tom (and Ant). Ant + Tom + Brydie = Bad Bread

Bad Bread had a very successful 2011. After a sell-out at the Brighton Fringe, their Edinburgh run garnered much praise and only the odd death threat. Bad Bread also featured on ‘Spank’, ‘High Jinx With The Hamiltons’ (where Ant kissed Christine) and ‘Gemma Goggin’s Celebrity Sleepover’ to name but a few. Individually, they also all featured in the ‘Great Big Sketch Off’ at the Pleasance. They would like to thank all that came and made the festival great!

(That’s Tom above and Ant below)

As you can see I got all excited and made my first gif animation on photoshop. It really was quite easy to do, just go window-animation, load your images into layers, make frames from layers, save for web and devices. You should try it, I think I may do this again one day.

Anyway they’ve got a new show coming up called the lol-o-caust and decided a trip to Swansea was in order to make a pilgrimage to the famed Hitler House. This humble end of terrrace abode on Swansea’s Fabian Way was catapulted into the limelight last year after comic Jimmy Carr tweeted its resemblance to the Furor himself, it went on to feature in numerous national newspapers and made a brief appearance on Have I got News for you or some other similar programme. Anyway Tom and Ant had heard of the house and travelled from London to Swansea, where I meet them, made them a cup of tea then took them down to have a photo or two outside. We also took the opportunity to shoot a few head shots. After we finished they headed to Mumbles and enjoyed a Joe’s Ice Cream, which they later informed me via email was very nice and the perfect way end to their brief visit to our fair city.

Please note – those are not Swastikas they are smiley faces. In NO way does Ben Wyeth Photography seek to promote the Nazi party!

As part of the on-going project with Swansea Metropolitan University, documenting their graduates who have gone on to found their own businesses, I went along to The Americano Jazz Caffe in Swansea’s SA1. What a venue, seriously awesome place, its not huge as you can see from the images below but its very nicely done out inside and is a about as far removed as you can get from the horrors of Wind Street (if you haven’t been to Wind St, just think the only way is Essex, throw in heaps of steroid fuelled meat heads, a few buckets of vomit, sea gulls peaking at a discarded doner kebab and your nearly there.) The Jazz Caffe is an intimate sophisticated venue right on the water front serving some awesome tapas and with regular live music. The evening I was there there was an awesome trio of musicians form Porthcawl who play under several names, depending on the style they’re playing, JpThree (new blues) and Milk Biscuit (jazz, funk and fusion)

I was fortunate enough to have a ring side seat for the Swans debut in the Premiership, last Monday up in Manchester. I had high hope’s for this outing with Man City being one of the worlds richest clubs so you can understand my slight disappointment to discover the photographers are kept in the basement and only given a sandwich and a cup of tea whilst the journo’s are upstairs in plush surroundings, free bar and a choice of hot food. But dispite the four hour each way journey time and the lack of a decent meal it was an awesome experience to witness from such close proximity a real moment of history for the club and the city. Sure the result didn’t go our way but when you compare budgets between the two clubs thats hardly suprising. Still plenty of positives for the team to take from the match and I’m sure Wigan will be a different story this coming weekend.

Maureen Lipman

James Cracknell and Brian Moore

David Baddiel

Eric Hobsbawm

Dara O Briain, Dara popped into check out this talk on theoretical physics and the sub-atomic world by John Polkinghorne. Got to be honest this one went straight over my head!

John Polkinghorne

Esteban Antonio with his unique seventeen string grand concert harp guitar, the only one of it’s kind in the world.

Digby Jones

Astronomer Martin Rees

Roy Hattersley, politician

Larry Lamb and Son George

Pretty apt I put this set up today featuring the Duchess of Cornwall as that’s where we’re all heading later on this afternoon. That’s right we’re packing up and heading down to Porthtowan to photograph a wedding down there on Friday, all taking place right on the beach, wooohoo can’t wait. Still not sure whether Cornwall counts as a destination wedding and I therefore become a destination wedding photographer, but it sounds pretty darn glamorous to me so going to roll with it!

Anyway back to the pictures at hand. During my second day at Hay, Camilla made a surprise visit catching most people unawares. The police sniffer dogs checking the site the morning of her arrival should have been a bit of a clue as was the sound of the private helicopter landing in a nearby field. She came, read to some children, wandered around then left, I got a few frames, check em out!

mmmmmm can I have a chip please?????

I think is probably my favourite image from the whole festival. This guy glanced up saw what was going on but remained completely unfazed and just carried on reading his book about Nazi Germany. I had a quick chat with him afterwards, and he simply said well I thought the book was more interesting than she was. Fair Play!

I thought this was hilarious and just about sums up the press’ ability to conjure up a story from no where. Whilst visiting some of the stands at the festival Camilla popped into this shoe store selling these funky coloured shoes. Making a polite comment about how they would be perfect for royal visits as they looked more comfortable than the heels she was in, the assistant replied that they had sold out of her size. The next day, that was the story that ran, shoe shop denies Camilla footwear for the festival, really did they, I dont think so!!!!!!! Great little bit of pr for Zims shoes however.

About to blog a whole heap of photo’s from the not so recent Hay Literary Festival 2011. 26/05/11 – 05/06/11 I only covered three days but with sooo much going on got to see loads of interesting stuff. I can’t recommend the festival enough, it was cheap (no entry fee and you only pay for the talks you want to see most less than £10 each), loads going on with in excess of ten/fifteen events per day for ten days, and a whole host of amazing people from household names to leaders of academic fields and more.

Here’s a few general shots from the three days.

As a graduate from Swansea Metropolitan University I still stay in touch with a few people there and was recently commissioned to photograph and produce some display materials featuring myself and some other graduates who have gone on to become entrepreneurs.

As well as my handsome self (above) we also featured three other young entrepeneurs. Ben Room has set up Board Riding Development BRD and runs a mountain boarding centre at Weobley Castle, Gower.

Meg Evans (below) runs On Your Beach, an environmentally aware arts organisation that addresses costal litter issues by turning them into various works of art and textiles.

Last but not least is my good friend and fellow photographer Jon Lewin. Jon and I worked together to produce these posters to be displayed in the University.

Clare Jones, Tonypandy, South Wales, was recently found guilty of benefit fraud at Pontypridd Magistrates and recieved a suspended sentence. Miss Jones was illegally claiming incapacity benefit alledging that she was unable to walk without assistance and could not stand to work. The case received a fair amount of press coverage as the investigators found that Miss Jones had infact been skydiving at Swansea Airport whilst claiming she was to ill to work.

I was asked to go along and photograph her at a court apperance at Pontypridd Magistrates. Upon her arrival she kept her head down as she approached the court building making it very difficult to get a useable shot. As she got closer I decided to shoot from a low angle with a wider lens in the hope of getting a decent shot. As she drew alongside me she lashed out punching me in the side of the head. Fortunately for me the punch was fairly weak and only served to knock my sunglasses from my head, fortunately for you ITV were there filming for the local news and they very kindly released the footage meaning everyone can have a good laugh at Benji getting knocked out by a supposedly incapacitated woman.

Following on from my work with the British Legion I was asked to do some pr stuff for the organisers of Armed Forces Day, covering the Cardiff event. This job represented something of a first for me in that I was asked to shoot both stills and video throughout the day. Shooting both stills and video single-handed posed a few problems and meant that both were in a way a compromise. That said I’m still pretty happy with the result. I really enjoyed shooting video and liked the challenge that it presented. With a fitness video currently in the early stages as well its unlikely this will be my last video commission.