Small Wins – Backup
Posted: Fri 26 April, 2019 Filed under: Business, Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Photography, Technology, Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »Way, way back in the day – Nov 2006, to be precise – I bought a backup drive for all my music, photos and work. It wasn’t anything hugely special – a now laughable 320Gb drive – but it did what I wanted, and made sure I’d got everything preserved. (Amusingly, I just took a look, and the roughly-similar drives now done by WD start at 3Tb!)
And then I moved a few times, and the drive got separated from its power brick, and I sort of gave up on it a bit. Over the last few years I’ve mainly been using online backups instead (which mean that as soon as I save a file, it’s backed up, and synchronises to my other machines) and the drive became even less of an issue.
I always knew where the drive itself was, even though I was fairly sure I’d lost (or thrown away) the power lead/brick. The drive has been on one of my bookcases, doing nothing except attracting dust.
Last weekend, though, I found a random power cable that looked like it might fit the drive. So I took them both into my office this week, and gave it a go.
At the end of the day, I’d pretty much given up on it – it’s been sat there doing sod-all for a number of years, and has been carelessly moved, shoved in boxes and so on. So I expected nothing.
And yet, when I plugged the cables in and connected it to the laptop, it all worked. Straight away, with no issues, clanks, grinds, or other Warning Noises Of Doom. Needless to say, I’m actually pretty impressed.
Of course, I’ll also now be working to ensure that a lot of it is backed up somewhere else as well, as that drive is distinctly venerable, but all the same, it’s a bit of a win for it all to have come back in the way it has.
2017 Inspirations – Photography
Posted: Sun 8 January, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, 2017 Inspirations, Change, Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Photography, Single Life, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »As things change for me in 2017 – well, as I do new stuff, or restart old stuff – I’m hoping/intending/planning to write more about it here on D4D as well, along with things about what’s driving those choices. So there’s a new subject/category to cover it all. And this is where it all starts.
As long-term readers know, I was into photography for a long time, did pretty well at it, and even ended up taking a course while I was in Norfolk in order to better understand what the hell I was trying to do.
But since Norfolk and Suffolk, I’ve been doing a lot less photography. Some of that is due to my mobile phone, where the pixel count is higher than the SLR I still have. It’s also about faff – lugging an SLR around for the day (particularly when doing anything else, like one of my idiotically long walks) is a hefty job anyway, and it’s simply never ready for a quick photo. Using the SLR is a much bigger commitment in many ways, and over the last four years, I really haven’t been making that commitment.
This year, I want to change that, and do more where I actually go out with the SLR, with the intention of taking photos.
The first real inspiration for that has been this story on the BBC, of Dean Saunderson’s photos of a deserted Nottingham on Christmas morning. It’s something that works for me, having been to many places at ungodly-o’clock, and seeing them with very few people around. Oxford, for example, is beautiful at 5am on a summer Sunday morning – and the same applies for many other cities. So this is a theme/topic/idea I could get into, and will probably have a few goes at over this year.
We’ll see at the end of the year how I do on these inspirations. It’s going to be a year where I (hopefully) figure out more about the things I want to continue doing, and which ones I’ll be happier to leave by the wayside in order to do other things.
Inspiration
Posted: Tue 23 August, 2016 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Thoughts, Write More, Writing Leave a comment »I’m just leaving this here as a remind to myself, on occasion…
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work.
All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”(C) Chuck Close
This came from Zack Arias’ DexPxl blog, a piece entitled “Get the F*ck To Work” (his asterisk, not mine!) which also included the clip below of David Bowie’s advice to musicians…
A transcript of that is :
When asked if he had advice for musicians, Bowie replied: “Yes, never play at a gallery. [Laughs] I think. But you never learn that until much later on. But never work for other people at what you do. Always… always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt, that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society. And I — I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations; I think they produce — they generally produce their worst work when they do that. And if — the other thing I would say is that if you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in, go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
Again, just a reminder for me, more than anything else – but if anyone else finds it useful, that’s grand.
Sunrise
Posted: Wed 25 November, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, Photography, Weather Leave a comment »One of the few good things about the way the days are getting shorter right now is that I get to see sunrise, which is always one of my favourite times of day.
This week has had a couple of stunners – Monday was beautiful (if bloody chilly) as I was driving to my current client’s office. As I was on the road, I couldn’t stop to take a photo. But sunrise through mist and clouds, silhouetting trees on the hill-ridge, that was a thing of beauty – and one of the few times I wished I’d got either a dashcam to save the image, or a camera linked to my field of view.
Today I was in my own office as the sun came up, and it was another stunner…
Hell, it even made Milton Keynes look pretty…
Durham Lumiere 2015
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Photography, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »Two years ago, I went with friends to see the Lumiere exhibition in Durham – which was ace.
This year, it was back, and so were we.
While it’s organised by the same people, and has some of the same artists, it was utterly different – and still brilliant. The weather this time was absolutely rotten – my coat still isn’t dry – but still it was great. The theme (if there really is one) was more about science and maths this time round, with the main ‘showpiece’ projection onto Durham Cathedral this time, “The World Machine” being more about the birth of modern cosmology from the 12th century until the present day.
One of the big draws this year was Mysticete, a projection of a whale on the river Wear, visible from the bridge above. Done by the same people as the Elephant last year, it was ace – and so clever, being projected onto a water-spray. (although with the heavy rain they could probably have just done the same onto the rain) Sadly, because of that weather it got cancelled on the Sunday, but it was well worth seeing. (we were there on the Saturday)
Image (c) Durham Chronicle
We got to see a good portion of the exhibits – although not all, by any means – and really enjoyed it. Some of the stuff was really magic and fun, other bits were ‘just’ excellent.
As per the last one, I will definitely be going again when it’s next on. I may also visit the one they’re doing in London in January 2016 – I hope that’s as clever and fun as the Durham ones are.
Creatively Becalmed
Posted: Fri 1 May, 2015 Filed under: Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »This year so far – and probably for a bit longer than that, if I’m honest – I’ve not been getting all that much done on a creative front, and I don’t really know why. It’s more a feeling of being bogged down, uninspired, and just not in the mood.
Writing is going better than anything else – lots of ideas, but nothing is particularly gelling at the moment. I’ve got a couple of things started, but it’s still bogging down, and not flowing.
Photography-wise, I haven’t even taken my camera out in ages. Really it’s been since I did the NCFE course, which is a bloody long time now. I don’t know why that seemed to flick the ‘can’t be arsed’ switch, but it has. I’ve tried a few things and ideas, but it’s just all a bit “meh”, with no real desire to take the photos.
In some ways, the day-trips over the last few months have helped on that – I’ve taken photos, even if ‘only’ with the phone (although that’s a surprise, considering how good they’ve come out) but still can’t really bring myself to take the actual camera out for a day. A lot of that is also because I can’t be arsed with lugging it around and faffing about, but mainly it’s just the faff of it all at the moment.
I’m sure things will change again – I certainly hope so – and that the changes will be positive for once. The rest of this year to date has been positive, so I’m hoping that once I have some headspace and time, I’ll be more prompted.
(And I’m sure I’ve written about this a couple of times this year already, so forgive the repetition. It’s just something that’s bugging me at the moment)
Bath DayTrip
Posted: Tue 23 December, 2014 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, Photography, Solo Dining, Travel Leave a comment »Continuing on from the last couple of day trips, this weekend I decided to go cross-country, and head to Bath. Still a two-hour drive (although the trip from Park&Ride to city centre was another twenty or so) but no coast. I lived in Bath for a period back before D4D™, but haven’t been back there since, so it was interesting to see what’d changed and so on.
I’d also decided, as part of the Solo Dining project I wrote about yesterday, to go and visit Grillstock in Bath and have one of the burgers that I’ve been interested in, but not got round to trying (because they’re only in Bath and Bristol) So that was part of the plan, but really it was more about visiting Bath in general.
The drive was pretty rotten – it started with fine weather, but got progressively wetter as I went on, but that wasn’t going to stop me.
I got there early – indeed, the first bus in from the Park and Ride – and wandered around most of the city centre, which turned out to be really pleasant.
Due to the time of year, it got pretty busy, but I spent most of my time avoiding the majority of people – I wasn’t interested in shopping, so didn’t have to hit those bits too hard, thankfully.
Even better, I got to wander around bits of the city I hadn’t seen before – in my previous time there, I’d more been focussed on getting from train station to home, and didn’t really get to explore the place that much. It wasn’t a great time in life, but there we go, I could’ve done more.
And as for that burger from Grillstock, oh hell yes, it was worth it…
The Lockjaw burger from Grillstock
Brighton Images
Posted: Tue 9 December, 2014 Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, M1, M25, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »On Sunday, I trolled off down to Brighton for the day. I haven’t been there in years – the last time was a flying visit five years ago for an interview, and before that it had been a number of years too – but realised it’s just about the same distance as Felixstowe is (they’re both a two-hour drive time) to get to, so what the hell.
I don’t know Brighton as well as I should, and so having a wander around was also appealing. It’s on the list of ‘places I could re-locate to at some point’, so seemed like a worthwhile explore – and I was right on that score.
Being December, it was pretty blowy and chilly – although less cold than a December Sunday would suggest – but that’s never bothered me all that much. I lived by the South Coast for a couple of years before, and have no real issue with cold. That was the flat where the freezer shut off because it was colder outside the freezer than inside it, and where more than once I woke up with frost on the top of the duvet. Sunday, by comparison, was almost summery.
As it turned out, the weather made it ideal for what I actually wanted – waves, and the sound of the sea on shingle beach. Walking along one of the groynes/piers (not one of the Proper Piers, but the little jutty-out ones) was a joy, just for getting out to be where the waves were hitting the beach.
And then the sun came out, and it was even better…
All told, I think it’s a place I’m going to go back to a lot more in the coming year. It’s an easy run, and I think I could really get to quite like the place.
There’s others still on the list too – something I’ll be writing about at some point this month, I’m sure – but yeah, Brighton is definitely now more of a destination, and pretty high on the possibility levels too.
Coastal – Brighton
Posted: Sun 7 December, 2014 Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), M1, M25, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from last week’s day-trip to Felixstowe for coastal stuff, today I’m off – assuming vaguely decent (or at least non-abysmal) weather – down to Brighton for similar reasons.
I realised afterwards, looking at maps, that actually the two places are a very similar drive-time (and indeed mileage) away, so sod it, go for something different.
I haven’t been to Brighton in yonks – well, I had an interview there a few years back, but that doesn’t really count – so it’ll be fun to go back, and have a wander around, plus spend some time on the beach (I know, it’s stones rather than sand) and see how things go.
That’s the plan, anyway. I’ll update later/tomorrow with how it goes, and any relevant photos etc.
Backed Up
Posted: Mon 1 December, 2014 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Media, Photography, Technology Leave a comment »One thing that’s changed over the last four years is the way that I back up data. I used to have a big-ass (for the time) hard-drive that held all my backup files, but I haven’t (hadn’t) fired it up in years.
Now I use DropBox for most things – at least the things that aren’t commercially sensitive or need extra security, etc. I don’t necessarily trust/rely on them, but it tends to be where most of the stuff sits (as well as on through another paid-for service for my work stuff and so on) and it suits me to use them for the moment. That may change a bit over 2015, there’s a more secure and privately-held service that might do better, but for now, DropBox suits me.
However, I recently realised that all my photos and music files were still sat on that old hard-drive. Which has sat untouched for four years, through four or five moves. Oops.
I fired it up over the weekend, thought I might as well bite the bullet and see if all’s well or if it’s dead and I’m screwed.
Thankfully, everything worked first time. I’ve pulled all the music data off, and that’s now sitting in multiple locations again. Next will be the photos – although I’ve also spent some time looking at old images and seeing what’s what (and just looking back at events of the last eleven years, which is what the drive holds) It’s been quite the journey…
Coastal – Felixstowe
Posted: Sun 30 November, 2014 Filed under: A428, D4D™, Domestic, Driving, Photography, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Over the years, I’ve always known that I love being by the sea. It’s an environment I love – although it makes a lot of other bits of life more complex. (For example, working in London or other techie environments) I’ve lived by the coast a couple of times, and would certainly consider doing so again.
Which all makes it a bit weird that the location I live in currently is about as far away from the sea as it’s possible to be in the UK. And I realised recently that I haven’t actually been to the coast properly since I moved here. Which is quite a surprise for me, it’s fair to say.
So today I upped sticks, and buggered off to Old Felixstowe. It’s an easy run, but still two hours. (And all coast is at least a two-hour run, from the look of it) It made for a really enjoyable day, leaving earlyish, getting over there, walking along the seafront, having lunch, walking back, sitting on the grass above the – well, it’s not a cliff, I don’t know quite what to call it – and just enjoying the sound of the sea on the shingle and so on.
I had been going to take the camera as well, but in the end I couldn’t be arsed. I did get some nice stuff with just the iPhone though, so even that qualifies as a bit of a win.
Felixstowe Ferry
I had sort-of forgotten how much I like that environment, and it’s certainly something I’m going to look at and consider as part of the plans for 2015 and 2016, depending on how things go. Ideas are bubbling, so we’ll have to see how things go…
CGI
Posted: Mon 10 March, 2014 Filed under: Cinema, Films, Photography, Seeing Films, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over on Twitter this morning, I saw this image, a behind-the-scenes photo from Pirates of the Caribbean, showing the actors in their motion-capture suits, that allows CGI stuff to be added afterwards and move the same way the actor does.
Now what interested me the most was that the entire outfit – clothing etc. – was also all applied in CGI. And that had never actually occurred to me. I got that the various faces/tentacles/prosthetics were applied by CGI, but for some reason I’d never clicked that the clothing was all computer-generated as well.
Ain’t progress grand?
Photo Resurrection
Posted: Thu 28 March, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Photography 2 Comments »One area where I’ve really slacked over the last few months has been on the photography front – I just haven’t been in the right mindset, and haven’t really had any locations where I’ve wanted to take photos at all.
Last weekend, Lori held her “Rarely Wears Lipstick Awards“, a celebration of the ten years of blogging, and a whole bundle of other reasons. I was going already, but it turned out the person who was meant to be taking photos couldn’t make it, so I volunteered to do so.
I can’t deny, it felt good to be doing it again. I really enjoyed the night, but I loved taking the pics as well, seeing the people and the scenes, and grabbing the images. It was also a joy (as always) to be using my f2 portait lens, which is so excellent in low-light, and lets me grab photos without needing flash.
All the photos on the resulting blog article are mine, but there’s a lot of others as well- obviously – some of which I’m really pleased with. Some less so, but more through issues with the lighting and focussing, rather than the shots themselves. I might add some more up here, I don’t know.
Hopefully, though, it’ll be the kick to get things going again on the photography score, though.
Photos of Building Sites
Posted: Sat 9 February, 2013 Filed under: London, News, Photography Leave a comment »I don’t quite know why, but I find this set of photos on the BBC really interesting.
Basically, as the title says, it’s about photos of building sites in London, but the views just make it interesting.
Royal Knees-Up
Posted: Sat 30 April, 2011 Filed under: Charm School, Media, Photography Leave a comment »From a range of sources, this has to be the best/funniest photo from the Royal Wedding yesterday…
Dirty Mind, Royal Wedding
Felixstowe
Posted: Mon 18 April, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »A photo from the weekend, through iPhone and Autostitch…
Panoramic photo of the beach at Felixstowe Ferry
Taken at Felixstowe Ferry (the old end of Felixstowe) on a fantastic day over the weekend.
Basset
Posted: Tue 23 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Photography Leave a comment »One of the better images of the week…
Upside-Down Basset Hound
I just love it.
Batman (On Fire)
Posted: Wed 10 November, 2010 Filed under: Art, Photography Leave a comment »via someone on Twitter (I think) I came across this image on Flickr…
Batman on Fire, by Mina Mikhael and Matthew Barhoma
Love it.
39
Posted: Fri 5 November, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Driving, People, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Today, I is 39.
Today, I is travelling down to Bristol to be at Pixeldiva‘s wedding. A camera will be in attendance too.
Today is a good day.
Water Balloons
Posted: Fri 22 October, 2010 Filed under: News, People, Photography Leave a comment »From NPR, I love this set of shots of water balloons without the balloons…
Splash (C) Edward Horsford
From the article :
Edward Horsford‘s high-speed photography freezes the spherical innards of water balloons — just as the balloon skins break open, and just before they splash to the floor. He works at night in his garden in London, using flashes to light the action.
Very, very cool.
Photography Bits
Posted: Tue 27 July, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, NCFE Course, Photography Leave a comment »Of late I’ve been trying to get out a bit more with the camera, and fortunately there’ve been a couple of occasions recently where I’ve been able to do so.
The first of these was a couple of weeks ago, a Sunday in Norwich doing some photos for a local event, which went really well. (And that reminds me, I really must sort out those photos this week and send them in)
The second was over the weekend, a couple of hours in one of the local well-regarded plant centres, taking photos in their show garden. There’s the potential for some of the photos to go into their yearly brochure, but we’ll see how that goes.
Tonight is meeting up with the people I did the NCFE Photography course with – hard to believe it’s a year now since that finished – so it’s been a bit of a photoggy week all round.
iPhone + D4D
Posted: Wed 9 June, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, iPhone, Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Since getting the iPhone a couple of months back, one development has surprised me more than any other. And that’s been the difference in how I use the phone and how D4D™ has changed since I got it.
Despite it’s comparatively crappy camera (bearing in mind that the previous phone had an 8Mp camera compared to this one’s 3Mp-ish) I’m using the camera part of the phone far more than on any other mobile I’ve had, and that has really surprised me. Some of it is, I suppose, the ease of taking photos off it – I primarily just email them to myself, and it’s a painless process, as opposed to that on the previous Sony-Ericsson phones. I don’t really know what the rest of the reasoning is, but whatever it is, it looks like D4D™ is becoming more photographic in nature.
That’s no bad thing of course. It’s just surprising (to me, anyway) that I’ve gone from pretty much all-written to having a noticeable portion of the posts having photos in them. Strange the way things work out, isn’t it? I don’t plan for D4D to turn into a full-on photoblog – I’ve got other plans on that score, thanks – but it’s just another change in the evolution of D4D™, I think.
Parking – Again and Again
Posted: Sat 22 May, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Parking, People, Photography Leave a comment »Same day, same bit of the carpark. Possibly that was just the section for people who can’t park cars…
This isn't how it's supposed to be done
AP05HTG, you’re supposed to park in the bit between the lines, not on the bit with the lines through it. FFS.
Photography Out’n’About
Posted: Wed 28 April, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »Last night I finally got out and about with my camera a bit.
We’d organised an evening meet up with the people I went on the photography course with last year, and we met up in Norwich to have a walk around.
It was a really pleasant evening, and I got a whole bundle of photos. Haven’t had the time to check them out yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few good ones in there. Damn well hope so, anyway.
House Filming
Posted: Wed 14 April, 2010 Filed under: News, Photography Leave a comment »Apparently, the finale of the current season of House has been shot entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II handheld SLR camera.
That’s pretty impressive, however you look at it.
I really like the specs of the 5D, but I know it’s way out of my current price-bracket and skill-set. I’m still enticed by the 7D though, and keep trying to figure out whether I can convince myself that it’s a worthwhile upgrade. I haven’t managed yet, but I can keep on trying.
Pheacock
Posted: Mon 12 April, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Norfolk, Photography Leave a comment »As I’ve mentioned before, our village has quite a colony of peacocks. In addition, the fields around here are filled with pheasants as well as partridge(s).
This year, we appear to have a couple of hybrid birds, taking bits from both. I’m sure it’s not the first time they’ve happened, but it’s certainly the first time I’ve seen one.
I’ve christend them Pheacocks, for want of a better name – and today I managed to get a couple of photos of them. They’re not perfect, and I want to keep on trying through the year because when you see them, they’re absolutely stunning. The head and tail are definitely pheasants, but the body colours are those of a male peacock – totally stunning in sunlight.
Pheacock 1 - click to embiggenify
There’s also the following one, which again isn’t perfect, but gives a good impression…
Pheacock 2 - again, click to embiggenify
Fashion – in the loosest sense
Posted: Fri 9 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, People, Photography 3 Comments »Holy Jumping Jesus – sometimes I’m really glad I have no real interest in (or concept of) fashion.
Well, if this little lot are fashionable then I’m deeply glad I’m not.
Photo Project : Phase One
Posted: Sun 21 February, 2010 Filed under: Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Norfolk, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Part of my 2010 project is about getting back out with my camera – or at least trying to. And as part of that, I’m going to work on Amateur Photographer magazine’s “Amateur Photographer of the Year” competition.
The first round of it is due to be in next Friday, so I’m planning to take some time today to go out and see what I can do.
It’ll mean taking Hound out too, as I’m off to the coast – the project is about the interaction of water and land, and there are some fantastic environments for that kind of theme around here.
We’ll just have to see what comes out of the day. I hope it’s worth the time.
Actually, I’m sure it will be – even if it doesn’t come up with the results I want, there’ll be something from it.
[Update : Well, I was going to go, but then it’s chucked it down with snow. So currently re-debating the plan]
Getting Rid – More Stuff
Posted: Mon 11 January, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Own Business, Photography Leave a comment »As well as getting rid of the poxy hire car (with luck), we’re also getting shot of some other stuff through eBay.
Admittedly, Herself is being the driving force on it – the majority of the stuff is hers, which makes it a good reason for her being so – but we’re working on it.
The really big lot is the floor tiles – we bought enough to do the floors in all the rooms in the house, plus the extensions we initially thought we’d do. However, we’re now pretty sure we won’t be doing the extensions in the foreseeable future, and the thirty-odd remaining boxes of tiles are taking up space in the garage. So they’ve been on eBay, and we’ve already sold a third of them, with people wanting the other twenty as well.
The next big set of lots is going to be Herself’s doll’s house and furniture. Nothing’s been done with it as long as I’ve known her, and again it’s all taking up room in the garage. We’ve looked at other options before, but now it’s going on eBay, and we’ll see how it goes (or even if it goes) from there.
And my part in the proceedings? Primarily, it’s been about taking photographs of the stuff that’s for sale, working in some small way to build up my photography portfolio a bit, see how things go on that score too.
December
Posted: Wed 2 December, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, People, Photography 1 Comment »
It seems like loads of people around us spent last weekend putting up all their fucking manky house decorations for the Festering Season. some of them really do have to be seen to be believed.
In particular, two houses on my regular commute have gone hysterically over the top. I’m going to have to stop off some time this week on the way home and see what I can do about getting a couple of photos.
The TV’s full of shitty ads about perfume, CDs, chocolates, and fucking scumshit bastard Iceland.
And to top it off I’ve just had a spam email of “Festive Offers from Tesco Credit Card”. Fuck off, you dirtbags.
Well hellooooo, December.
Library of Dust
Posted: Sat 14 November, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »A while back (and I thought I’d written about it at the time, but a search reveals I hadn’t) I came across a project by the photographer David Maisel called “Library of Dust“, and since then I’ve kept on coming back to it.
From the project information page…
Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of patient from a state-run psychiatric hospital. The patients died at the hospital between 1883 (the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum) and the 1970’s; their bodies have remained unclaimed by their families.
The copper canisters have a handmade quality; they are at turns burnished or dull; corrosion blooms wildly from the leaden seams and across the surfaces of many of the cans. Numbers are stamped into each lid; the lowest number is 01, and the highest is 5,118. The vestiges of paper labels with the names of the dead, the etching of the copper, and the intensely hued colors of the blooming minerals combine to individuate the canisters. These deformations sometimes evoke the celestial – the Northern Lights, the moons of some alien planet, or constellations in the night sky.
Since first seeing the photos from the project (and the associated Asylum project) I’ve kept on coming back to them time and again. I don’t know why they affect me as much as they do – after all, they’re really ‘just’ photos of old copper cans – except it’s not ‘just’ a set of cans. I’ve shown the site to a few friends over the months, and they’ve all been affected by the images too, allbeit not quite to the same degree as I am.
Anyway, there’s also a book of the photos and project which I wishlisted on Amazon as soon as I discovered it, but never got round to buying.
I finally did so this week, following on from my birthday – It’s been something that’s on my mind for a long time, so it was worth getting. The book arrived yesterday, and while I haven’t looked through it properly, it’s already awesome. I don’t know how often I’ll look through the book itself – but I’m glad I’ve got it.
Reorganising and Rationalising
Posted: Fri 23 October, 2009 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography, Web Development, Writing Leave a comment »As part of the run-up to my birthday – and yet another of the “Five Year Plan” rundowns, as at that point I’ll be 3/5ths of the way through – I’ve been starting to think about some site organisations and rationalising a few bits of what I’m doing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere even close to having sensible levels of life/work, but I’m trying to do something about some of it, at least. In some ways, weirdly, it means I’m going to have more to manage, but that’s OK too.
One of the projects I’d had on the cards this year was to merge my ‘creative’ sites together, so that the Photography and Writing stuff would all sit under one roof. I did it back in April/May time, and what it’s actually meant is that I’ve not added much to either site – which of course wasn’t the expected action at all. So I’m spending a bit of time separating the sites again, and going back to (almost) how they were a year ago. Retrograde steps or what?
In hindsight, while it was logical to think about putting the two ‘creative’ sides into one place, the two bits don’t actually go together all that well. Putting the two in one place led to more separation and confusion than the seperate sites did/will, and while in some aspects it’s now a wasted effort, at least I know for sure that the idea didn’t work, and (to some degree) why it didn’t. Sure, it’s annoying. But like the man said, “It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t”.
There’s other bits of rationalisation and thought in the offing, but that’s the starting point. I’m sure I’ll write more of the other stuff over the next two weeks. For in two weeks time, I shall be 38. And that’s pretty scary in itself.
Bell-End
Posted: Tue 22 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Photography, Stupidity Leave a comment »There are times where I am a complete twat. This evening was one of those times.
Part of the reason I’m doing a really stupid week of driving and travelling is because I thought it was this week for the meeting of the local camera club we formed following on from the NCFE course. Which was tonight.
Except, um, it wasn’t. You see, there’s another Tuesday still to come in September. Which means that…
- I’m a twat
- My mental calendar is at least a week out of kilter.
- I’m a twat, and don’t know what day it is.
Photographer, Not Terrorist
Posted: Sun 16 August, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »As regular readers now, I do a fair amount of photography. Over the last couple of years it’s become clearer that more and more photographers are getting stopped and searched in anti-terror searches and the like.
Amateur Photographer magazine is running a campaign about Photographer’s Rights, (Not that you’d know it from their fucking awful website) and there are a few sites now relating to this problem.
The latest one is “I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist” – and while I’m not a great fan of the emotive title/subject, it’s doing a far better job than “Not a Crime”.
It’s going to be interesting to see how these campaigns work out – and hopefully get a bit of sanity back into life as well. We’ll see.
Thunderstorm
Posted: Fri 14 August, 2009 Filed under: Photography, Weather Leave a comment »This small video is absolutely fantastic – a thunderstorm in Toronto.
It’s taken by Sam Javanrouh from Daily Dose of Imagery, one of my favourite photographers. (There’s also an interview with Sam here, although that’s not related to the thunderstorm video)
All told, the video consists of 347 15-second shots, with two seconds between each shot. (I suspect he used his Pclix for it – he’s obviously better at programming it than I am with mine at the moment)
Well worth the effort, anyway.
Toronto Lightning Storm from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.
Night Photography – Results
Posted: Sun 9 August, 2009 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »So, a couple of the results of my expeditions out to take photos in the dead of night…
They’re *very* long exposures – 10 minutes plus in some cases – but I’m really quite pleased with how they’ve turned out, although I’ve had to do some stuff in Photoshop with them to get them to this point…
As always, click on the photos to see a bigger version…
Hay Bales, taken at night
And the second one
Another long-exposure night shot of hay bales
Night Photography
Posted: Sat 8 August, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Weather Leave a comment »For the last two and a half years, I’ve had a mental image of a photograph I wanted to try and get – basically, haybales lit by moonlight, so they’d be silver rather than gold. I know, strange but true.
Over the last two summers, events have conspired against that plan – there’s been no full moon when the bales are available, and conversely no bales when the full moon’s around. And on the occasions when there was a full moon + bales, the nights have been too cloudy to do anything with it.
Last night, I finally got the perfect circumstances – lovely full moon, clear skies (OK, a tiny bit of cloud, but nothing important) and bales in the fields. So off I went.
And it’s been reasonably successful. I’m pleased with the results in general, except for one thing. They’re horrifically noisy as well as everything else. Now some of that’s my fault – the wrong ISO setting, for one thing – so I’m going to go out again tonight and see whether I get anything better while using a super-low ISO – 200 at most, but preferably 100. It’ll also probably mean I need to take even longer exposures, although the ones I got last night of about 2.5-3 minutes seemed to work OK.
Even at that point I think I’m still going to need to do some editing in Photoshop and/or Capture ONE in order to get the results I’m actually thinking of , as it turns out that my mental image is probably rather more “romantic” than the reality. Still, it’s fun to try.
Additionally, it also meant I finally got to use my PClix 100 properly for the first time since I bought it three years ago. It’s a nice bit of kit, but ’til now I haven’t really had the project and/or ideas that necessitated its use. Long exposures though are one of the areas it specialises in. Without the PClix, I wouldn’t have had any real chance of getting a decent exposure at all.
Portraiture
Posted: Sat 25 July, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography Leave a comment »I think that the photo accompanying this article is absolutely fantastic.
It sums up everything about the article in one image – you know what the person does straight away, and in my opinion it’s just brilliant.
Portrait of a bridge painter
Image (C) Guardian Newspapers 2009 and Murdo Macleod
NCFE Photography – The Result
Posted: Wed 1 July, 2009 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), NCFE Course, Photography, Resolutions Leave a comment »So, ten months after starting the course – three terms of ten weeks each, plus breaks for half-term and between terms – I’ve now passed my NCFE Level 2 Photography certificate.
I’ve written about the course on odd occasions over the last year, and it’s been a pretty good course all told. I wouldn’t say I’ve learned masses, but that wasn’t necessarily my goal for the course – it was more about getting more motivation for going out and taking photos, which was more what I needed – and in that way, it’s been pretty successful.
There’s a fair number of the final portfolio images in this set on my Flickr pages although I haven’t added all of them yet.
All told, I’m pleased to have successfully completed the course, and to have built up the portfolio project, and it’s another thing to add to the CV. All the people on the course have decided we’ll continue to meet up on a regular basis, and keep our motivation going in that way, creating in effect our own photography club, so we’ll see how that goes.
And for further further education? I don’t know yet – Norfolk’s Adult Education has apparently been hit hard by budget cuts, so there are nowhere near as many courses for 2009/10, and even more annoyingly it looks like the NCFE have also stopped doing the Level 3 certificate completely. So we’ll just have to see what I decide to do on that score.
For now, I’m going to enjoy a summer off, and take some time to think about what comes next.
NCFE Completion
Posted: Tue 23 June, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, NCFE Course, Photography 2 Comments »Tonight, I get to hand in my final printed portfolio for my NCFE Photography course. And that’ll be it, I’ll be done except for finding out how I did.
In a way I’m glad it’ll be over – I’ve had to get out more to take photographs for the course, but at the same time my time has been horrendously crunched and I’ve had significant levels more added pressure while doing it, which I could’ve done without.
As it is, I’m just pretty pleased that I’ve completed the course – I’ve doubted I would several times, where there just didn’t seem like enough time to get things done, and particularly when I got let down on not one but two project/portfolio ideas before finally settling on the one I’ve done.
As for next academic year, I don’t know if I’m going to do any courses or not yet. We’ll see.
Norfolk Safety
Posted: Thu 18 June, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography, Weirdness 1 Comment »I saw this a while ago, and completely forgot I’d taken a photo of it until I went through the photos on my phone today.
Yes, use a forklift as one support for a ladder
Well, it’s one way to do it, I suppose…
NCFE Completion
Posted: Sat 13 June, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »As regular readers know, over the last year (well, nine months or so) I’ve been doing an NCFE Level 2 course in Digital Photography + Photoshop. It’s been OK – I’ve learnt a few things, although nowhere near as much as I hoped to – but it has meant I’ve been getting out and taking more photos, which really was the prime reason for taking the course.
There’s a larger piece being written about me, motivation and other issues, so I won’t go into them too much here, but suffice to say that my motivation has been distinctly lacking over the last year or so, so I’ve been working along the way to do things that get me doing more. And the NCFE course was one of those things.
Anyway, it’s coming to a close, and the main thrust for this term has been the assemblage of a final portfolio, which needs to be done by the 23rd June. We’ve all known about needing to do this portfolio, and in truth I’m actually on the third iteration of it – the first two project ideas fell through due to a lack of available opportunities and/or time (in fact the idea for the first one still wouldn’t have been available for me to do ’til next week, which is cutting it just a little bit fine…) so I’ve ended up with one that I’m happy with, but that’s completely in my comfort-zone, which isn’t the ideal for this course. But there we go, them’s the breaks.
But it’s now completely done, with everything being printed and assembled by Photobox. In some ways it’s a relief to have it all done and out the way, but in others it’s more a case of “OK, so what’s next?”
GPP Group shot
Posted: Wed 15 April, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over at Zarias, Zach Arias writes about the process he went through to get the group shot for GPP (Gulf Photo Plus) this year.
I’m always interested in seeing how (and why) photographers take on certain challenges – in this case, taking individual shots of each person in the group, then merging them together into one composite image – and to look at the techniques used, just in case I can find a way to use something similar at some point.
In this case, I don’t know that I’ll ever be in the same sphere as Arias – or the other photographers in the GPP group shot – but it’s still something that’s interesting to see, read and think about.
If nothing else it’s another example of why t’Internet is grand, granting you access to far more of the details of a photographer’s life (or whoever’s life, really) than you ever would do in “normal” life.
Five Year Plan – Half Way!
Posted: Sun 5 April, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Writing 1 Comment »Back in November, I made a more basic list of what the plans would be for 2008/9 on the Five Year Plan.
I’m now halfway through – both the 2008/9 year, and the Plan itself. Which also means that in 2½ years time from today, I’ll be 40. Shite.
Anyway, here’s the list from November, along with progress comments.
- Sort out the mortgage renewal along with Herself (March/April)
- Write and Launch the main site ideas that are in my head at the moment, and see how they do
- Daily Word Challenge : launched
- Creativity Merger Site : done
- Two Three other primary sites : under development
- Promote one of the other sites I’ve done, which has a big dollop of potential – probably going to sack this one off
- Complete the NCFE Photography qualification/course – ongoing, 2/3s of the way through now
- Redesign my photography site – considering a significant change of theme on this one
- Promote the photography and site more – working on it
- Write at least one more big piece to get it out of my head at last – getting there
- Possibly redesign D4D™ a bit – I know, I’ve been talking about it now for years
Oh yeah, and… - Lose some weight, as my plans for doing so in 2008 have emphatically failed – primarily due to zero motivation to do so, but also due to life over-riding gym etc. Ahem, yes, well, absolutely bugger-all done on this one.
Rationalisation
Posted: Thu 5 March, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, The '09 Writing Project, Writing Leave a comment »Over the last few months, I’ve decided that in some ways I’ve been spreading myself too thin – and particularly with regard to the more creative side of my life, the photography, the writing, and so on. Up ’til now I’ve had separate sites for all the bits – plus D4D™, of course.
Equally, while the photography site is currently connected (by name) to the business site, I’m not overly happy with that, or the name that came about because of the connection. To my mind it just doesn’t fit, doesn’t connect properly.
So now I’m working on bringing it all into one site, and rationalising it all a bit.
D4D™ will stay here and separate, for a number of reasons I’ve written about many times before. The company site will stay separate, because it doesn’t fit in with the “branding” of the new concept.
However, all the creative bits – primarily the writing and the photography stuff – will move to the new site.
I’m still not going to overly publicise the connection between the new site and D4D™ – I prefer to keep them as separate as possible, and don’t plan to change that separation anytime soon.
The new ‘brand’ for the creative bits also fits in with my avowed intention to get my finger out and get on with doing the stuff. I’ll no doubt write more about the plans as they come closer to happening.
Transform
Posted: Mon 23 February, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »via Chromasia, I found Zack Arias‘ piece called “Edit: Transform“.
It’s awesome.
There’s just no other word for it. Spend six minutes of your life watching the video. It’s worth it.
Photo Opportunities
Posted: Fri 20 February, 2009 Filed under: Driving, Photography Leave a comment »A few days ago, a friend made me aware of a burned-out van out in the wilds of Norfolk (and fortuitously close to where I’m currently working) which was of interest to me for some photo ideas.
I was going to go over there this weekend, but changed plans this morning, loaded the camera into the car along with the satnav (in order to find the bloody place at all) and took the opportunity while it was there – the local council usually being vaguely efficient when it comes to vehicle removal.
The road that it’s on is – interesting, I think it’s fair to say. Distinctly rural, single-track, and covered in mud for the first mile, deep ditches on either side – I’m just glad I wasn’t going with the initial evening/night-shots plan. (Now I know where it is, I might give that a go next week if it’s still there)
All told, I’m quite pleased with the photos I’ve managed to get – or at least, I’m pleased with how they looked through the lens, and on the screen on the back of the camera. I’ll only get the chance to see them on the big monitor tonight, and see what I think then.
Cooling Towers
Posted: Tue 10 February, 2009 Filed under: Green, News, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »Having lived near(ish) to Didcot when I grew up, and having worked a couple of times in the shadow of the towers themselves, I thought this BBC piece about Didcot power station and its cooling towers was really interesting.
It’s relevant to the entire energy, power, and pollution thing too, of course – but I can’t deny, it’s relevance to me was more about the location.
I’d love to go inside these towers one day and take photos – although from the sound of it, the photos would just be grey mist.
New Tripod
Posted: Mon 12 January, 2009 Filed under: NCFE Course, Photography Leave a comment »Over the Festering Season, we discovered that my old camera tripod had expired – it had been left in the back of Herself’s car, and somewhere along the line had got cold enough that the plastic around the centre column had completely sheared, with no real chance of repair. (Anything approaching a decent repair would have cost more than the original tripod)
So I took the opportunity to upgrade it a bit, and I’ve now got a new tripod (a Manfrotto 055XDB, if anyone cares) which is a bit of a beast. It’s heavier than the old one, weighing in at just over 2Kg all told. That’s OK, as I rarely do a lot of photography where I’m lugging the tripod around as well. (although that may change during the next year or two) However, it’s also a fair bit bigger/wider, which means that the old tripod bag I had won’t hold the new tripod. Arse, as they say. (However, I have now ordered a new one)
Still, it’s a great tripod, and should last a fair while too (assuming I don’t leave it in the car all the time, of course) as there’s far less plastic in the entire thing. I’m planning on getting out with it at some point this week, particularly as ‘night shots’ is one of the assignments on the NCFE course that I never got round to completing to my satisfaction. That’ll be the real acid test, using the damn thing properly – but for the moment I’m pretty satisfied with it, and I think it’ll do the job well.
More Memory
Posted: Wed 3 December, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »The other day, I noticed that Amazon had a 4Gb Compact Flash card for the price of £15.
I’ve been using 2Gb cards for a while, and that’s fine – but sometimes it’s nice to have the extra storage, and at that kind of price I just thought “Ah hell, might as well”.
Of course, for twice the price, I could’ve got a 16Gb card, but I don’t really need that much storage.
In fact, the 4Gb will do me fine, particularly with the two 2Gb cards I’ve also got now.
All the same, I do find it amazing the way the prices for digital storage just keeps on dropping.
The Girls
Posted: Sat 29 November, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green, Green Garden, Photography 3 Comments »When it snowed last weekend, I finally got round to taking photos of our hens. It’s taken a year, but I knew I’d get there in the end…
Gladys
Elsie
Flo
And that’s the girls.
Sony C905 Mobile
Posted: Fri 28 November, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Ten days ago, I got the new mobile phone that I’d been whittling on about – the Sony-Ericsson (SE) C905. It was an upgrade from my old SE K800i, and so far I’m impressed with it.
While I don’t use it that often, the 8Mp camera on the phone is impressive when it comes to everyday photos. I haven’t played with night or low-light shots etc. yet, but I’m sure I will at some point. But (as last weekend’s photos of the snow show) it certainly brings out some good results in general use.
There are annoyances, but they’re more down to decisions by the maker than the phone itself – for example, the simple changes of function buttons, so where one used to use the right-hand control button to get to an option, it’s now on the left. (which the “Back” or “Cancel” button now being the right-hand one) I know I’ll re-learn the muscle-memory to take me to the correct button before long, but while getting used to it, it’s an annoyance.
And the thing is, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. The menu system is much the same as it was on the K800i, so you kind of expect the option buttons to remain the same too.
The a-GPS is still incredibly slow when it comes to finding itself, and the navigation software isn’t all that great (although that may change over time) but it’s better than nothing, and will probably get tested over time. We’ll see.
The keypad takes some getting used to – there’s no real definition between the keys on each row, so it’s (currently) very easy to hit the wrong key while touch-typing a text message (Yeah, I can do that. I know, I’m sad.) or whatever, so you do need to check the screen before sending. But it’s a good responsive keyboard, which helps.
Call quality is the same as I had on the K800i – no problems, no issues, and all calls come through nice and clear. Because we’re out in the sticks, we don’t have full 3G coverage, so I can’t comment at all about video call quality – but then, I’ve never used them anyway, so *shrug*.
Internet and GPRS access are decent – even better, the phone also has Wi-Fi, so it can connect over a wireless network if one’s available – and generally pretty usable. Email send/receive over the mobile network is slow, but acceptable if I need to use it instead of the laptop for some reason…
Overall though, it’s a really nice bit of kit – of course, I’m sure it’ll be completed outmoded within 18 months, but that’s the way of things at the moment. As it is, it’s a good phone, and I’m pleased with it.
Snowy 2
Posted: Sun 23 November, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Photography 3 Comments »The front garden is probably a better example…
Snowy
Posted: Sun 23 November, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »Yep, we have had snow overnight…
Oh, and if you want to see the full-size image taken direct from my new Sony-Ericsson C905, click here.
And it’s still snowing now…
NIN Photos
Posted: Wed 19 November, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Photography Leave a comment »One band who have always seemed to grasp the power of t’internet is Nine Inch Nails. I’ve been a fan of theirs right back to the first album (Which I originally had on cassette, to give an example of timescale) so it’s been great to see that they’ve now launched an official photostream on Flickr.
Among the photos are hi-res images of the photos taken for the cover-art of Downward Spiral, which will make an excellent desktop image as well.
In addition, there’s photos from their concerts, and a bundle of other goodies.
Fantastic!
NCFE – Daylight Filters
Posted: Sat 15 November, 2008 Filed under: NCFE Course, Photography Leave a comment »In direct contrast to last week’s assignment, this week’s one I’m really pleased with.
The basic idea was to take a set of photos of the same scene, but using different white-balance settings, so that you could easily see the difference between the settings.
Now, I find it quite difficult to compare the images side by side and get a decent idea of what’s going on, so I came up with an idea where I could use some Photoshop jiggery-pokery, and actually get all the images side by side.
The inspiration for this came at about 4am on Friday morning, and by Friday night the assignment was complete.
And I’m decidedly happy with the entire thing…
Camera Defaults
Posted: Wed 22 October, 2008 Filed under: Geeky, Photography, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »One of the things that has surprised me on my photography course is the number of the people on it who haven’t really played with their cameras at all.
For instance, the great majority still even have the default (and highly irritating) beeps, clicks and whistles that accompany every keypress or option change. During the course, as the tutor describes certain options, you can hear them beeping through the menus, trying to find the things he’s talking about.
Now I have to say that as well as being bloody annoying, I do find that this is quite inconsiderate – both to the tutor, and to the other people in the class. For me, those sodding beeps are really distracting – and I’m sure I’m not the only one on the course who finds them so. But while they’re going through the menus, they’re also not really listening to what the tutor is saying next, which means he’s either got to repeat it, or they’ve missed it completely.
I think sooner or later I’m going to go and silence the cameras in question – but we’ll see.
I suppose that I just find it strange that people seem to be happy to buy a new device/gadget/whatever, and not fiddle with it and try all the options. And yes, I know, I’m a techie geek, and thus fiddling with new things is always going to happen with me, but all the same – wouldn’t you want to try out most of the options on a new camera as soon as you got it? And/or figure out what these arcane settings like Av, Tv, ISO etc. actually do?
Projects
Posted: Thu 16 October, 2008 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »One thing that’s been interesting so far in this NCFE Photography course I’m doing is that it sets weekly photographic projects or assignments that need to be completed. If nothing else, it means I’m getting out more with the camera – and that’s really what I needed.
The assignments aren’t hugely complicated (so far) but they at least make you think a bit more about photos, what will work, what won’t, and what will fulfil the requirement.
This week it’s been around taking a series of shots of the same subject, but at different shutter speeds and apertures. Now, I know how that all works, and what the results will be, but it’s still something that’s of interest – and even meant that this morning I had the tripod out, as one of the shots is a full one second exposure, which is impossible to take hand-held without insane levels of blurring.
Having seen the cameras of the other people on the course, there’s only myself and one other with a full DSLR, so most of the conversation on Tuesday was around how to get the other people’s digital compacts to do the same things – and I must admit that I was quite surprised by the percentage of the people there who just shoot on auto all the time. I suppose I shouldn’t be, but well, I was. Hey Ho.
Still, it’s going OK so far, and like I said – at least it’s getting me out more with the camera. And that’s definitely a good thing.
Photography Course – Week One
Posted: Wed 24 September, 2008 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »So, the photography course was actually OK last night. Happily, the first ten weeks will be based around the technical side of things, so that’s me satisfied – and the course covers things like focus, depth of field, apertures and the like.
Following on from that, we’ll be doing more about photography, and then digital manipulation (or non-manipulation) of the images, and that’s cool too.
Of course, it would have helped if Norfolk Adult Education had actually sent out the workbooks that were meant to be being used for the entire course, but the course tutor will be chasing that up today, so hopefully by next week’s session, we’ll all have the books.
The other bit of weirdness is that the course was advertised online as being for only four people. However, there are actually ten people doing it. Admittedly, I’d thought that four was going to make for quite a small and intense class, but I didn’t have a problem with that.
All told, it looks like it should be interesting though. I’ll know more once the workbook comes through, of course, but yes, for the moment it looks promising.
Photography Course
Posted: Tue 23 September, 2008 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Tonight’s the first night of the photography course I signed up for a while back. Quite honestly, I’ve no idea what to expect – I know what I’m kind of hoping for, but whether that’s what will actually happen or not, I don’t know.
What I’m hoping for is to get a better grounding in the basic terminology and techniques of photography – things like Depth of Field, Apertures, and the like. I use these techniques when I’m taking photos, and I suppose I’ve got a rudimentary understanding of apertures and f numbers – but I don’t understand how f-numbers work or why they are always f4.2 or whatever, rather than just f4 .
I’m also hoping to have to do at least one project or portfolio, to build up my motivation again on that score. I know that I haven’t taken anywhere near “enough” photos this year, it’s just somehow ended up being at the bottom of my list, supplanted by work, business, writing, D4D™ and many others.
So that’s what I’m hoping for. What the course will actually be like, I don’t yet know. I’ll start finding out at about 7.30 tonight. And I’ll write more about it once I know more.
50D
Posted: Mon 1 September, 2008 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Oh Canon, you evil evil bastards.
Since I bought the EOS20D, I’ve been really good and not even been tempted by the 30D and 40D. The upgrades they offered weren’t enough to make me think about it at all, really.
But now, they’ve launched the 50D, with double the pixels of the 20D, along with a new faster processor, bigger/better LCD screen with Live View, and a bundle of other features.
And oh Lord, am I tempted. Particularly when it can also count as a business expense…
Photography Course
Posted: Wed 27 August, 2008 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography 3 Comments »In the last week, I’ve signed up for a Digital Photography course based in Attleborough. It’s a year-long course, and will lead to NCFE Level 1 and 2 qualifications in Digital Photography.
I’m actually aiming for the Level 2 more than the Level 1, as I’m pretty certain I don’t count as a “beginner” in photography at all. What I’m hoping is that the course will also include some grounding in some of the basic photography stuff that I still don’t fully ‘get’ – apertures, f numbers, and calculating the appropriate shutter speed for a particular aperture/Depth of Field.
Additionally, I’m hoping that just having the extra impetus of this course will add some motivation for getting out more and taking more photos. It’s something I’ve been struggling with all year, the entire thing of keeping on going out and taking photos, so I hope that having something to work on will help on that score.
The course starts on 23rd September, so I’ll know more at that point. Should be interesting, anyway.
Sunset
Posted: Mon 18 February, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »As Mike commented elsewhere, last night’s sunset was pretty spectacular. The photo below is a bit ropy (Cameraphones still don’t come anywhere close to proper cameras, but well, the sunset was going so fast that it would’ve been completely different by the time I’d gone back home and got a decent camera) but still shows the colours to some degree or other.
Still, not bad.
Coastal
Posted: Sun 10 February, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Photography, Travel 1 Comment »Yesterday, we went out on a trip to a piece of Norfolk we hadn’t seen before/yet/so far. While we’ve regularly been up to the North coast around Wells, Blakeney, Holkham and so on, we hadn’t yet been up around the Cromer area, or down some of the East coast.
So we ended up going around Necton, Bacton and Walcott (If this means sod-all to you, this link to Multimap might help) and taking Hound for a couple of plays on the beach at Walcott, which was thoroughly enjoyable.
At the same time, while touring around I managed to stop the car, and start a photography project I’ve been considering for the last nine months or so. I won’t go into loads of details just yet, but for now it’ll suffice to say that I’m pleased with how it’s gone so far, and that the start seems to have been successful. Now I just need to carry it on, of course. (*Ahem*)
All told though, it was a really pleasant and relaxing day. Much, much needed.
Interior
Posted: Sun 13 January, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, House Work, Photography Leave a comment »And as well as finalising the room moves, we’ve also started the job of putting up various pictures and photos in the house, which has certainly contributed to making it feel more like “home” than “house”.
Hey, it’s only taken six months.
There’s still another fifteen or so photos to put up, but at least we’ve now put up all the ones we had specially framed earlier in the year (And yes, pedants, I do mean 2007) along with a couple of others in other rooms. A big job all told, but it’s started now, which is something at least.
Away Again
Posted: Sat 10 November, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend I’m down seeing the parents, and also taking them to see Kew Gardens, and the Henry Moore sculptures that’ve been put there ’til March ’08. It’s quite a happy confluence (for my parents, anyway) as my dad loves sculpture, and mum loves gardens.
Because of buying the chickens last weekend, it means we’ve had to replan things a bit at home, so that it’s just me going down this time, and Herself will deal with The Girls, and I’ll be back on Sunday. In fairness, she was away earlier this week and I looked after all the animals, so it all works out fine in the end. It means I’m going to be leaving home at about my normal week-day time (i.e. around 6.15-6.30) to drive down to Oxfordshire, pick up the parents, and go to Kew. By the end of the day it’s fairly likely that I’m going to be knackered.
I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing the Henry Moore stuff – I’ve never been an epic fan of his work, but the combination of the work and the setting should be pretty impressive. And, of course, I’ll be taking the camera too – it’ll be good to be able to add some more stuff to the ‘Sculpture’ section of the online portfolio…
So anyway, posts are likely to be a bit thin on the ground this weekend, for the reasons above. There’ll still be a couple, I’m sure, but not loads.
Too much camera
Posted: Wed 7 November, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »One of my colleagues at work has just bought a Canon EOS40D. I’m not quite sure why – other than as a status symbol, really – because the photos I’ve seen of theirs taken with a Sony Cybershot compact camera are (to be blunt) bloody horrible.
Seeing them buy this Canon camera, while not knowing anything about what the lenses do, or even that this meant that the lenses detached from the camera body, well, it just saddens me really.
Now OK, I’m not a great photographer – I’d like to think I’m fairly good, but I’m in no way great – but I progressed through the various stages of compact camera, bridge camera, then made my way up to the SLR. And I’m pleased with how things have gone, and will keep on learning as I go on.
But to me that’s the way it’s supposed to be – that you learn, and progress. Not just jump in to buying a bloody great SLR with no understanding, and somehow expect it to “make” you take better pictures. Because the fact is, it won’t. I went from taking pretty good photos with the bridge camera to taking some truly bloody awful ones with the SLR. I’m still learning about it now, just over two years down the line, and still make fuck-ups on a regular basis.
So I wonder how long it’ll be before this EOS 40D is consigned to a cupboard somewhere “because it’s a crap camera”. And I think it’s a pity, because it’s a fantastic bit of kit, and I’d love one. Not as much as I’d love a 5D or a 1Ds Mk III, but that’s life. Maybe one day, when I either a) have made a decent level of money from photography, and can rationalise the purchase or b) when I’ve run up to the limitations of the 20D.
Five Year Plan: 20% done
Part One – What/How I’ve done
Posted: Sun 4 November, 2007 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Purchase, House Work, Photography Leave a comment »
So, I’m now one year through that five year plan. Which means that – fucking hell! – I must now be thirty-six. The last six months haven’t been quite so productive as the first six, but that’s because there also turned out to be a lot of other stuff occurring that wasn’t on the initial set of plans. You know, things like “buy house”, “work on house”, “work on garden”, that kind of thing. It’s meant that in some ways I hit a bit of a pause, but in others I’ve been productive as hell.
Of course, the first year was always going to be about groundwork, getting a load of the basics out of the way so that the next two or three years can make more progress. Well, that’s the concept. Whether it’ll work out like that or not, I don’t know.
Anyway, here’s the list that I wrote up for last November 5th, so let’s see how it’s all gone – the comments are in italics, in case you hadn’t guessed…
- Photography
Get a Macro Lens- Get a Wide-Angle Lens
still deciding whether I really need one. Maybe soon. Finish the Portfolio website
Completed, and with extra uploads on a fairly regular basis- Sell/Publish some stuff
Working on it, submitting it, and had one used in the Killarney page of an on-line guide to Ireland, although not for any money. - Join a local club
Still haven’t really found one. There’s a local club, but *shrug* I dunno. Get a decent flash
Done, a Speedlite 580EX- Start aiming to get work and projects
Started, and ongoing. I’ve sent out some initial letters to a couple of places regarding projects, and I’ll be sending out more over the next month or so.
- Writing
- Finish at least one piece of writing
still working on it, although not all that quickly - When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
Reliant on #1 being completed - Just see how things go
- Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
- Finish at least one piece of writing
- Work / Websites
- Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head
working on it, and getting some of them sorted - Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible
so far, three new sites launched, as well as the photography portfolio Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.
All done, and no need to get that nasty ‘proper’ job after all- Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
Merge lots of hosting accounts into one reseller account, and onto one server
done- Start getting better at invoicing for work done
in progress, and all being done a lot more efficiently - Develop some ideas in partnership with others, and see how they do
In progress – I’ve formed a couple of small collaborations, and they seem (so far) to be working well
- Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head
- Education
Sign up with Open University
initially for a refresher course, and work from there- Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?
Yeah, OK, ‘Education’ is going to be the category that falls off the radar for ’07/’08, I’m afraid – mainly due to motivation issues, but also down to the fact I’m permanently busy doing other stuff. As such, any progress on this one is going to be a way off in the future
- Other
Restart the Archery once we’ve moved
Made all the enquiries, booked to go and do it, but not yet got round to attending. I suck.Move to NorfolkSort out work in NorfolkBuy houseStart work on house, garden- I must say here, Herself has been the prime organiser of most (if not all) of the stuff below. We’ve got a long way so far, and there’s still a long way to go, but most of it is down to Herself’s organisation rather than mine
Wood BurnerWood PileMaking house initially liveable-inInitial sort out of garden, lawn, veg patchDealing with various electrical issues etc.
Get Planning Permission for house alterationsGet Building Regs for hourse alterations
all doneBuy a car
Bought, insured, taxed, driven it for about 10,000 miles already
Moving posts
Posted: Sun 14 October, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »I’m in the process of changing some things on D4D™ Primarily, I’m going to be taking the “photography” posts out of here, and moving them over to my portfolio site. For the moment at least, I’m not going to be ‘photoblogging’, but I am going to be doing a blog (although probably not a daily-updating one) on the site.
In general, I think it’ll make sense to move the posts for that over to the portfolio site, and maintain some separation between D4D™ and my other stuff. If nothing else, it’ll add some more content to the portfolio site, which makes sense and may (over time drag more people there.
I may also move some of the shots stuff there, which is part of the greater “D4D™ redesign/rethink” idea that I’ve been chuntering about for a while. It would make sense to move things about, as there’re whole sections that I don’t update at all, and perhaps would if they were easier to do – despite the fact that that’s a pathetic reason, considering I’m a techie, and could do it all easily anyway. But all the same, moving it all into something more sensible makes sense.
So anyway, yes, some (if not all) of the photography stuff will be heading over to the portfolio site over the next week or so, and then photography-based stuff is more likely to sit there than here.
Better to be lucky than good
Posted: Sat 13 October, 2007 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Over the last three months or so, there’s been a field that I travel past fairly regularly that I’ve wanted to take some photographs in. It’s nothing special, just a large field with a whole load of hay bales in, but it’s very photogenic.
However, I’ve also had in my head a particular image that I wanted to get – kind of related to the long-exposure stuff I’ve banged on about before – that just wasn’t going to happen. Regardless, every time I’ve gone past that field, I’ve thought “I really must come out and take some photos before they bring all that hay in” , and then not been organised, or forgotten, or any number of other reasons.
Last weekend, I finally got round to going and taking the photos. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the one I specifically wanted, but all the same I figured it would be better to get at least something, rather than just being annoyed that I’d missed all the opportunities. So I took a bundle of photos, and got a few that worked and looked good along the way.
As it is, I got lucky on my timing – I went past again during the week, and they were bringing in the hay. In the end I’d managed to get my photos by a matter of days. I’ll be more organised next year, and hopefully get a couple of sets – including, just maybe, that ideal shot that I have in my head, and that I’d love to turn into reality.
Louise Bourgeois
Posted: Sat 22 September, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »Ooooh, Tate Modern has an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois’ work from October to January – I think I may have to go.
I’ve seen her stuff before a couple of times – once at the Serpentine Gallery, and once at Tate Modern – and think it’s genuinely fantastic, so it’s pretty much a certainty for me to go and see this one.
And what with the Henry Moore exhibition at Kew (which I already know I’m taking my father to see) well, it may be a bit of an arty winter…
Wood Pile
Posted: Thu 20 September, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Photography 1 Comment »So, all the wood from the delivery on Monday is now stored in the wood pile. Twenty wheelbarrow loads, and this is what it looks like. (Apologies for the ropy cameraphone image, but there we go)
I have to say, I’m really quite pleased with it. And yes, I so need to get out more…
Long Exposure
Posted: Wed 19 September, 2007 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Recently I’ve been starting to look at doing some photos at night, which requires much longer exposures. As it is, I’ve got the necessary stuff – a decent tripod, and the PClix that I got a while ago to manage long exposures.
I’ve had the PClix (pronounced pee-clicks, apparently) for a year or so now and never really got round to using it properly. It’s a clever little device, entirely programmed by two numbered wheels, and one button – although that means there’s quite a learning curve to the thing, and it’s one that I’m only just starting on, to be honest.
The minorly annoying part is that because I didn’t really get round to using the Pclix until the last couple of weeks, I’ve missed out on taking some of the photos I was planning to take this year – but that’s no great hardship, the same type of photos will be there next year. In the meantime, though, I’m going to make some effort to get familiar with all the settings and gubbins that go into it – and to be honest, it’s probably better to be playing with evening and night-time long-exposure shots during autumn and winter than summer anyway, so it’s likely to all work out for the best anyway. Well, that’s the theory.
Whatever happens, it’ll be fun to see how things work out with the Pclix, and it might just chuck out some interesting images as well. Along with some right shite, obviously.
Making The Leap
Posted: Tue 17 July, 2007 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography 1 Comment »Over the weekend we went to see a local framing store – yes, we’re going to put more of my photos on the walls of the new place – and while we were there, we started talking about whether he might be interested in stocking some of the photos I’ve done, in order to sell them to shop customers.
I’ve no idea whether we’ll make any progress – I guess that the odds of making a sale on one’s first attempt are fairly low, if I’m being realistic – or whether he’ll decide to give it a go or not. That’s something where only time will tell, really.
But for me the important thing is that I’ve now made that leap, and from here it really only gets easier. It’s something I’ve been talking about trying for a while (for which read “flummin’ ages”) but now I’ve actually started looking at whether I can sell some of my stuff.
There’s a long way to go yet, I know – but at least the first steps are now being taken. I’ve no idea whether I’ll be successful or not – I’d like to think it will, but reality tends to kick in at that point with a good healthy “Yeah, Right”. I’m going to try, though.
And like the man said, “Life’s too short to be filled with ‘I wish I’d….'”.
Taking Photography Forward
Posted: Thu 12 July, 2007 Filed under: Introspective, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yesterday I was writing a bit about the portfolio site, and what to do with it. At the same time, I’ve also been looking at what I need to do as the next ‘phase’ of the photography that I do. And when all’s said and done, the simple answer to that one is ‘take more photos’. It’s when you get to the question of ‘What of?’ that my brain currently stumbles a bit.
As it is, I’ve got several projects in mind, and once I’ve started them off, I’ll be fine – it’s just those initial stages where getting started requires some energy, inspiration, and motivation. Not necessarily in that order. But they’re the bits in which I’m currently lacking quite significantly.
In the mean time, I’ve also gone back to some earlier ideas, and been thinking about the best ways to get certain photos I want to try. Currently my big weakness is that I’m really bad at just asking people if I can take photos of them, even when they’re in a public place, and in theory I don’t even need to ask permission at that point. As it is though, well, I feel uncomfortable doing that – although I feel even more uncomfortable asking people. I’ve ordered some business cards, though, which will hopefully come in handy. To my mind, it’s all too easy to just say “I’d like to take your photo – I’m legit, honest!” without any corroboration, and I figure that the cards might help a bit on that score, and at least lend the semblance of being somewhat competent. We’ll see.
At the same time, I’m considering getting some decent(ish) notepaper done up – it won’t be too expensive, and again it’s probably going to come in useful. I know I need (or, more accurately, feel the need) to gain permission from certain places before going off to photograph them, so again it strikes me that having a request come through on ‘proper’ paper, rather than just any old printer paper might be a bit of a bonus.
As with many things this year, I suspect that a lot of this is all about initally “laying out the groundwork”, getting everything in place so that when I do have the inclination/motivation/energy, I don’t have to hang around doing the organisational scutwork – by that time, everything will be as in place as I can make it.
Photomotive
Posted: Wed 11 July, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Introspective, Photography 1 Comment »Of late, I’ve been updating my photography portfolio site with more photos, and also looking at what the next stage should be, what I should be doing next. On that score, I’ve now got some ideas, and I’ll be aiming to start putting them in action over the next month or two.
When I look at the portfolio site, though, I still wonder whether I should add a photoblog or not. At the moment, I know I couldn’t add a new photo every day in the same way that Chromasia or DDOI do. But then maybe if I had the incentive to do so, I would.
At the same time, though, I wonder if a photoblog is what I actually want. It’s a portfolio, at the end of the day – do I want to then be adding in regular images to a different section? Particularly if they’re done on a regular basis, and thus perhaps not up to the level where I want the site to be? That’s my problem – as yet I still don’t know. Of course, the easy answer is that if I don’t know, then I’m not yet ready to do it, and that’s fine with me as well. Maybe it’s just something I need to think about for the future.
As it is, the front page of the site updates the main image every time the page reloads. Maybe for now that’s enough…
Photographic Memory
Posted: Wed 4 July, 2007 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few days, I’ve been going through the archives of my photos, all the way back to 2002. In many ways it’s been quite interesting, looking at the way things have developed (pardon the pun) over that time, and the differences in the way I take photos.
At the same time, though, it’s also interesting to see that even back at the start, I was getting images that I was (and still am) proud of, and happy to have prints of up on the walls. I guess that that’s the real sign of being able to get the essential images – that it doesn’t matter what gear is being used, whether it’s a low-end digital compact, a super-zoom ‘bridge’ camera, or a semi-professional DSLR. And I suppose the corollary is that it’s also just as easy to get ropy images whatever equipment you use – god knows, I’ve got any number of those!
I suppose I could go back through the archive and spend some time deleting the really bad stuff, the blurred fuzzy out-of-focus ones and so on. But sometimes even those can bring back memories, regardless of how much I wince and wish I’d taken a better shot at the time. At the same time, it’s good to go through them, and firstly get a reality check – while the majority of the stuff I’ve taken is at least ‘OK’, there’s still a lot that’s really bloody bad, and maybe one in ten, or one in twenty that’re really good, but also to look at ways I can improve in the future.
The archive as a whole has its uses. It reminds me of ideas and locations, and gives me inspiration for future ideas. There are at least two complete sets where I just want to go back, revisit the location and/or client, and do a better job with the improved gear I have at my disposal. Also, it gives me a huge repository of files that I can work on to improve my skills with either Photoshop or PhaseOne.
Does my archive depress me? Hell no, even with the seriously bad photos. And even then, I know there are also plenty of really good ones that are certainly of printable quality, and that people (either ourselves, or others) like to have on their walls. And to me, that’s what it’s all about.
Guilt Art
Posted: Sat 21 April, 2007 Filed under: Green, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »(via Gordon)
I’d love to see these pictures/prints/paintings at the true life-size – they must make an impact on you similar to the way some of Andreas Gursky’s ones do.
Basically, they’re artworks displaying our conspicuous consumption, and when done to life-size must be truly huge/impressive.
In fact, Chris Jordan’s entire site is pretty phenomenal.
Photography Workflow
Posted: Mon 9 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography 1 Comment »Just under a month ago, I wrote about planning to change the way I use my camera a bit by starting to use the RAW file format as well as normal JPG.
Along the way, I got very lucky. I’d decided to use Phase One’s Capture One LE software to process the RAW files – I’d heard good things about it, and for starting to learn about RAW processing, it seemed like a good deal for a fairly decent price at about €99 + VAT. At the same time, because of the extra memory requirements (in the camera) for processing RAW and JPG, I ordered a couple of SanDisk 2Gb Extreme III CompactFlash memory cards (I could’ve got one 4Gb card, but it was actually more expensive than two 2Gb cards) and they came with a promotion for CaptureOne LE to get it for free. So I spent £20 to get a licensed copy of Capture One LE instead of €99. Bonus.
So anyway, I got started using RAW captures as well, and the first real time of using them was at my parent’s 40th Anniversary, and it was a life-saver. The room they had the reception in, while lovely, was a lighting nightmare – lots of windows with daylight blazing in, and thus a large amount of really harsh light coming in.
Looking at the JPG results, the photos are OK, but there’s a lot of glare, dodgy contrasts and so on. The results would’ve been OK, but nothing really worth printing or using.
By contrast, the RAW files can be adjusted on the computer, and I can change the exposure, contrast, colour balance (not overly necessary in this case, but still) as well as doing all the cropping, sharpening etc. that might prove necessary. And it’s meant that I’ve been able to send my parents some photos from the event that they’re really pleased with, and want more copies of to send around.
If it had been an event I were getting paid for, RAW and Capture One would have been the difference between an impressed and happy customer and one who wondered if they could’ve gone elsewhere and got better results.
Five Year Plan : 10% done
Posted: Thu 5 April, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »So, back on November 5th I turned 35, and started what I semi-laughingly refer to as a five-year plan. I’m only working on it year-to-year, and doing it mainly through non-new-year ‘resolutions’ – although they might as well be a to-do list, really. In my head I hold what is pretty much the full development curve of what to do and when, but really I’m working on it on that year-at-a-time basis. It makes for something vaguely resembling a sane approach to the entire thing.
The final goal? Making enough money that I can make my own choices, and do my own things, rather than being tied to a job for the next thirty years. (Twenty-five, by the end of the project). There’s some other stuff in there as well, but that’s the bottom line. One of the things about me is that I have loads of ideas that could, should, or might make money, but for various reasons over the years I’ve failed to follow them through and see how they did in reality instead of theory. Since last November 5th, I’ve been working on making them into reality, and seeing how I do. With most of them, the initial costs are pretty low (and intentionally so) so that if any of the ideas do take off, it won’t take a lot to knock them into profitability.
We’re now six months in, so I thought I’d jot out a little progress statement, just to see where things are going…
- Photography
Get a Macro Lens- Get a Wide-Angle Lens
Finish the Portfolio website– completed, and with extra uploads when necessary- Sell/Publish some stuff – working on it
- Join a local club
Get a decent flash– Done, a Speedlite 580EX- New : Start aiming to get work and projects – Started, and ongoing
- Writing
- Finish at least one piece of writing – working on it
- When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
- Just see how things go
- Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
- Work / Websites
- Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head – working on it, and getting some of them sorted
- Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible – so far, three new sites launched, as well as the photography portfolio
Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.– All done, and no need to get that nasty ‘proper’ job after all- Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
Merge lots of hosting accounts into one reseller account, and onto one server– done- New : Start getting better at invoicing for work done – in progress, and all being done a lot more efficiently
- New : Develop some ideas in partnership with others, and see how they do
- Education
Sign up with Open University– initially for a refresher course, and work from there- Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?
- Other
Restart the Archery once we’ve moved– booked, but not attended yetComplete the move to Norfolk– all done- New :
Buy a car– git it insured, all that.
So actually, the first six months has been very productive. All the foundations have been laid now, the website hosting agreements rationalised and merged where it’s necessary or beneficial to do so. In fact, just doing that and merging most of them into one reseller account has saved me £150 over the year, which is pretty impressive. In addition to that, the invoices I sent out at the end of last year amounted to a few hundred quid, which was also surprising – they were all for small amounts, so I hadn’t really thought about the way it all added up. Actually, though, D4D™ is going to be moving off that reseller server, though – it needs a space of its own, and it’s just taking up too much of the space and bandwidth available on the reseller server, so it’s going to go back to being a seperate entity. And that actually makes some sense, keeping D4D™ seperate from business sites etc.
In addition, I’ve been able to average at getting one solid site out per month, as well as a couple of smaller basic designs and/or amendments to existing stuff. There’s a whole lot of new stuff and new connections coming through at the moment, and that’s all going to start coming together over the next six month period, I think. That’s the plan, anyway. There’s some initial steps that need to be taken in order to make sure that everything has the potential and stability to get through (sorry, I’m sounding enigmatic, and while that’s not really the intention, at the moment it’s certainly the necessity.)
Photographically, now that the portfolio site is completed, and being regularly updated, I can start getting in touch with publishers, agencies and the like. I’m also considering doing image-library stuff, but it’s about making sure the photos get the best use made of them. I’ve also got a few projects in mind that have a lot of potential commercially as well – although the main thing about them is that they’re things that interest me – otherwise, if I’m honest, there’d be no chance of me going through with them. And of course there’s going to be lots of pictures of Hound over the summer…
Oh, and let’s not forget, within that six months we’ve also moved to Norfolk, bought a house, gone through all the bureaucratic nightmares of that little endeavour, and come through it intact. Over the next 10%, we’ll be moving in, and sorting the new place out too.
It’s been a good start. There’s still a long way to go – 4½years, to be exact, but the initial steps have been promising. Long-term I’ve no idea whether my goals and plans are realistic or not – but this way well, there’s no way I’ll be able to say “I wish I’d tried xxx” – because I’m trying it all. As time progresses, I’ll get ruthless, and if the ideas aren’t working out, they’ll be culled. Darwinian business – the good ones survive, the bad ones fall by the wayside.
Work/Life Balance
Posted: Sat 31 March, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Purchase, Introspective, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »One of the things that’s always being blethered about in TV programmes like “Relocation,Relocation” and the like is ‘Work/Life Balance’. It’s not a phrase I usually like, as it’s one of those things that’s usually indicative of someone who’ll spout every buzzword known to man at any given opportunity – but then at the same time it’s something I find myself thinking about more and more.
In fact, that was the exact motive behind the move to Norfolk. It’s also something I need to think about a lot more for the future, and how I want to plan things.
Of course, the real ‘balance’ side of things still isn’t going to happen this year – and possibly/probably not until even this time next year. There’s a lot that’ll need doing to the new house once we (finally) complete that process and move in. The garden needs a lot of work too, although I think Herself is going to do the majority of that – her fingers are far greener than mine. But there’s still going to be a fair amount of heavy labour involved. So over all, yes, I think it’ll most likely be April ’08 before we really start enjoying the place, rather than just working on it.
Work-wise, Norfolk really isn’t a great place for a web techie – well, not in the context of normal business stuff, anyway- unless, of course, you want to work in the IT department of Norwich Union. Which I really, really, really don’t want to do. It might mean that I end up working away from home during the week again, although there’s still some decisions to be made on that score too. But at the same time, and pretty much on the same timescale as the house stuff (i.e. over the next 12 months) I’m also aiming to get my own business up and moving, doing a number of smaller local sites, as well as that plan for launching my own sites, and seeing what works and what doesn’t with them.
At the same time, I’m also going to be working fairly hard on building up the photography portfolio as well. While Norfolk and its surrounds aren’t great for a web techie, they’re bloody marvellous for a photographer, and I wholly intend to take advantage of that over the coming months. Some of the ideas I’ve got on that score will have to wait now ’til Autumn comes around, but at the same time they may be all the better for it. Others really start coming into their own now, and would work less well come Autumn, so it all works out, one way or another.
In the end, I currently think that it’s going to be this time next year before things really settle down. There’s a lot to be done in that time, and it’s going to be a lot of work to get it all sorted.
But – and this is the thing – already we’re far, far happier, and more relaxed, than we were in Bracknell. Yes, the pace of some things (fucking house purchase) takes some getting used to, and in that kind of thing I’m still probably far too driven and impatient with buffoons, but well, that’s life.
Hound is definitely far happier out here – if for no other reason than that she gets to go to the beach fairly regularly, or on big long walks through Thetford Forest, or Knettishall Heath. But she’s more relaxed about other things as well – fireworks, jet planes, loud noises and so on. Of course, Hound being Hound, she finds other things to be stressed about instead – like the phone ringing – but we’re working on those. And once we’ve finally moved, we’ll have fields all around us, she’ll be able to go for decent walks on a more regular basis (for example, the morning one will be across fields, instead of the current use of the local recreation ground – if there’s one thing that Attleborough is bizarrely shit for, it’s places to walk dogs. On that score, Bracknell was far more useful)
It’s not just Hound, either. We’re (probably) more relaxed, allbeit in different ways. My commute takes a lot longer than it did from Bracknell to Wokingham (although nowhere near the shitebag day that involved working in London from Bracknell) but I get t sit on a train and usually see deer, hares, rabbits, and the occasional fox. (Of the four-legged russet-coloured variety, pervs) Or alternatively, F15s, Chinooks, or Blackhawk helicopters. (What can I say, I’m a geek) The train isn’t jam-packed with Blackberry-wielding tosspots, nor is it standing-room only. A good 95% of the time, I get to sit at a table, and either do some extra website work, or bash out rubbish like this. Or read. Whatever.
Herself has a job that is – in general – OK, and she seems happy with how everything’s working out. Or at least she will be once the fucking house purchase has completed. (Can you guess yet what our current main stressor has been? Thought not. I’ve avoided mentioning it so well.)
Yes, life at the moment is actually pretty good, and it’s beginning – just beginning, mind you – to feel like that elusive balance may not be so far out of reach after all.
Changing Workflow
Posted: Thu 15 March, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »While we’re away next week, I’m aiming to start getting used to the RAW format for photos. I know the camera will take RAW and JPG images simultaneously, so that’s going to be the initial stage.
As for processing those .RAW images, I’ve just downloaded a trial edition of Phase One‘s software, Capture One LE, which should be interesting. I’ll install it on the laptop, so it’s away with me, and then just see how it goes.
I’ve written before about my feelings with regard to RAW vs. JPG, but I’m slowly coming round to the idea that maybe I do need to do some work with RAW files as things progress. So we’ll just have to see how it goes – I suspect that the learning curve may be rather cliff-like, but it’ll give me something new to do…
Late Amendments
Posted: Wed 14 March, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography 2 Comments »Gah, there are times when I’m such a twonk, it’s unreal.
I’ve just redone some things on my photography portfolio site, having decided (once I’d uploaded a whole bundle of photos at one size) to change the image sizes so that the site looks better. And now, having re-uploaded all the photos that were there before, and some extra ones as well, something else has just occurred to me.
Fortunately, this one isn’t likely to involve me having to redo all the uploads, and I can change things around primarily using PHP.
But it’s still one of those blinding moments of “Ah! That’s an idea! Why didn’t I think of it earlier?” that can be awesomely annoying, even when they are a good idea, even if it’s one I should’ve had like two months ago.
Right Place, Right Time
Posted: Fri 23 February, 2007 Filed under: News, Photography 1 Comment »While I think the story itself is more than a little hysterical, every time I see the image involved, I just think “Wow”. The photographer, Martin Rickett was so obviously in the right place at the right time. It’s just a brilliant shot.
Missed Opportunities
Posted: Sun 11 February, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography 3 Comments »Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve missed the chance of taking some photos that would’ve been beautiful. Needless to say, this is invariably bloody annoying.
To me, there are two main problems – first is that I’m sat on the train, and the windows are invariably disgusting, which would probably add some gunk and nastiness to the final image. But the second problem is simply that the SLR isn’t the right tool for the job. As with Problem One, I’m sat on a train, and I don’t want to be sat there advertising the fact I’ve got £1,500 of gear with me – along with the corollary of ‘if he’s got that camera there, what else is in the bag?’.
I love the SLR, it’s a fantastic bit of kit, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. But I’m coming to the conclusion that I do need to have a small extra camera, one that I can carry everywhere, with a decent resolution, excellent zoom, but small and compact enough that it never leaves my bag/pocket – oh, and doesn’t look like I’m some well-off bastard.
It’s a pain in the arse – and I’d like to start earning some money from the photos in order to balance out some of the costs…
Portfolio
Posted: Mon 5 February, 2007 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography 2 Comments »About four or five months ago now, I bought up the domain I wanted for use as a portfolio for my photography. I did some basic development of it, then got distracted by other things.
And so it remained.
However, over the weekend just gone, I’ve finally got working on it again – and even better, it’s now got some photos on it! There’s still a way to go, and I need to re-do some of the styling and programming (well, that’s what the train journey to and from work is for, after all) but it’s one hell of a way further on the way to being a decent portfolio site than it was, say, three days ago.
Of course, once I’ve got everything sorted, I’ll add in a link here (and in the meantime there’s always a small selection on my ImageKind page) and hopefully be able to do some promotion and so on in that way too.
New Media
Posted: Fri 2 February, 2007 Filed under: Own Business, Photography 1 Comment »Had an interesting conversation today with a media company up in Manchester.
Following on from the photographs I did for a charity up there back in November ’04, they now want to use those photos in a TV advertisement. I’m not quite sure what they plan to do, but it’ll be interesting to see once they’re done.
Oh, and yes, I still retain copyright on the images, and I’ll get a copy of the TV ad as well to add to the portfolio.
I have to say, I’m really quite chuffed about the entire thing…
Photographic Paraphenalia
Posted: Sat 16 December, 2006 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography Leave a comment »This week, I’ve sorted out the last semi-major purchase of photo gear this year. It’s already just over a year since I bought the EOS20D, and I’m still really pleased with it – although I’ve known there was extra stuff I needed to buy.
So this week I’ve been able to get the 100mm f2.8 Macro lens (which is bloody huge) plus lens hood, a Speedlite 580EX flashgun, and a small home-studio thing so I can start taking some specific photos of stuff that Herself has been working on – which will also be one of the websites for developing very soon now.
As such, I’ve now got pretty much all the stuff I want right now, and the set-up I’ve got is capable of wide-angle landscapes, macro, portrait, flash, and all the general types of photography I’m currently interested in.
I just don’t want to think about just how much it’s all cost, or what the value of the gear is!
Lego® bricks
Posted: Wed 29 November, 2006 Filed under: General, Photography Leave a comment »(via Slashdot)
Fantastic photo-story on how lego® bricks are made. Makes for really interesting reading, along with some great photos.
Long Weekend
Posted: Wed 8 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography, Travel 1 Comment »So, a brief list about the weekend…
- Happy Hound because of
- Quiet nights
- Quiet village
- No fireworks
- Daily visits to Dunster beach, at least an hour each time
- Visit to Tarr Steps on Saturday
- Daily walks in the local park, which also had a stream
- Happy Us because of
- Happy Hound (see above)
- Being less than 300 yards from the village pub
- Fantastic weather
- Nice cottage through English Country Cottages
- Peace and Quiet
- Being able to turn off for a few days
And that just about sums it up.
Oh, and lots of photos that I need to do something about at some point soon.
Walks, Woods, and Fireworks
Posted: Sat 28 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »This afternoon we’ve taken Hound up to Burnham Beeches again, and she’s had a great time.
The past week, and the next couple, are the worst time of year for Hound – there’s fireworks all over the place, and Bracknell seems to become like a war-zone with them going off every night. While I’ve been away, there’s been a whole week already with fireworks every night, so Hound has been fairly stressed. I took her out this morning (she’s still been getting walked every morning, but apparently when Herself does the walk, it’s just not the same) and she ran round the local park like an absolute loon, burning off some of that nervous energy that’s built up over the week.
So Burnham Beeches was always going to be part of the plan this weekend, and she’s had a great time.
It also gave me the chance to get some photos with the new lens, and it’s a fantastic bit of kit – even though it was the “wrong” lens, it’s still great, and is providing me the chance to get a lot of a certain type of photos I was wanting to experiment with.
But the most important thing for us was to make sure that Hound had a really decent run – and she’s most definitely had that now. And we’ll most probably be doing something very similar tomorrow, although not at the same place. Variety is the spice of life, and all that jazz.
Dog Results
Posted: Sun 22 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Photography Leave a comment »Not that they’ve publicised it yet, but The Kennel Club has released the winning images (and runners-up) for their Dog Photographer of the Year competition.
And neither Herself nor I have come anywhere in it.
Ah well, maybe next year.
New Lens
Posted: Sat 21 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »Photgraphically, it turns out I’m a numpty.
OK, that needs a bit of explanation.
On Saturday, I ordered a new Lens for my camera. Turns out I ordered the wrong one. Not the wrong fitting, or anything really stupid. It’s just I clicked on the 100mm f2 USM lens, instead of the 100mm f2.8 Macro USM lens which was the item under the one I clicked on. As Scary would say, “Oh, Spoons”
Luckily, despite being a numpty who can’t even click a mouse on the correct item, the lens I do now have is going to be fine for a lot of things. I’d been looking at (OK, honestly, dreaming of) the absolutely beautiful – and effing huge/heavy – L Series 85mm f1.2 lens from Canon, and while that’s well out of my current price range, this new lens will do a similar job for about a sixth of the price – and will at least give me some range to see how I do with it.
But I still need to order that Macro lens too – I might wait a few weeks now, though…
To PhotoBlog or not?
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 3 Comments »I’ve been doing some more thinking about the site for my photography that I was writing about yesterday.
Basically, the question that came up was this : Do I make it into a photoblog like Chromasia, DDOI et al, or do I have it as a simple portfolio site, just to show off what I can do, along with contact details, etc.?
I can’t deny, I’ve always kind of liked the idea of a photoblog (I hate that word, but can’t come up with a better one at the moment. Hey Ho) although it does have the potential downside of not updating every day, or – to my mind even worse – the intention of adding a new shot every day, but never quite managing to do so. Combined with that is the part of me that worries about diluting “the brand”, or similarly of diluting the strength of some of the images by just having one every day, so some are great and others merely so-so.
As for having it as “just” a portfolio, that quite appeals too. It’d certainly be simpler, and (in theory at least) a lot less work than a constantly updated site with new photos all the time. This is of particular relevance at the moment, where I can’t deny that my motivation is pretty rock-bottom and merely ticking over, and also where I’m away from home for four nights a week. While this should give me the time to get a lot of stuff done, I can’t deny that at the moment it’s leaving me a bit numb, and slightly “CBA” about the entire thing.
So I think that for now it’s likely I’ll leave the site as “just” a portfolio site, where a selection of my better/favourite photos can be viewed, rather than doing stuff for it every day.
Although, of course, that doesn’t mean that at some point in the future I won’t add in a PhotoBlog section…
Macro Lens
Posted: Mon 16 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Photography Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I gave in to temptation, and ordered myself the Macro Lens I’d been thinking about.
So, I’m now the proud owner (well, I will be when it arrives) of a Canon 100mm EF f2.4 Macro Lens – and no, I didn’t order it from Jessops, but their site had a decent page that described the lens, rather than the appaling site of the place I did buy it from. I’ve used them before, and the service I got was fine, despite the site, so on this occasion I’m going to go with them again.
At the same time, I also ordered a second battery for the camera – I figure it’s best to have two, which’ll keep me going whenever necessary.
So, that’s one resolution out the way, anyway.
Photography Decisions
Posted: Tue 10 October, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions 2 Comments »So, before long I really need to get a couple of things for the camera – but the question is which should I get first?
I know I want/need a decent flashgun, but also with the stuff I do a lot of (and intend to get more done over the next few months) is the macro close-up stuff again.
I can get away with not needing a decent wide-angle lens for a while, as I’ve got the 18-55mm lens that came with the camera, and I can do a fair amount of work with that before I need to do anything else.
So really it comes down to : a) Macro Lens or b) Flashgun.
Which first?
Upgrade?
Posted: Mon 25 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Hmm, now this might just constitute “overkill” when it comes to upgrading my camera(s).
A 160Mp digital camera? That produces images 6″ x 17″ ? Oh yeah, that’s something to aim for. Maybe one day…
New Link
Posted: Fri 22 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Still on the subject of photography, I came across a blog yesterday that I didn’t know existed, but that has been added to the photography section of my links straight away.
I didn’t know that Dan Chung had a blog – he’s one of the main photographers for The Guardian and I think a lot of his stuff is fantastic. Don’t believe me? Check out the first couple of shots here, or the shots of the famine in Niger.
So yes, I’m pleased I came across his blog, and intend to keep an eye on it from now on.
Bizarre
Posted: Fri 22 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Weirdness Leave a comment »Yesterday I had a sudden thought. Not a common occurrence at all, but anyway.
Why not have a look to see if Cambridge has a Camera Club?
Thought I.
So I did a quick search, and lo, Cambridge Camera Club hoves into view. Great, that’ll be a good way to spend an evening once I’m there next week.
Um, no. Membership is now closed ’til September 2007. So what’s the point of that then? Photographers are only allowed to join once a year? Not even get a chance to see if they like the place?
Bag o’ crap.
New Toys
Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Photography Leave a comment »On Friday, I got the Pclix that I’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. It’s a little device that is going to take some getting used to, but I think it’s certainly going to be interesting in the mean time.
One thing I really liked about all the packaging that came with the Pclix is that the entire thing is recyclable – all the cardboard and so on – and they don’t supply a printed manual. Instead, it comes on a CD – which I have no problem with. It saves paper, and means I can read the thing any old time. Fine. Hell, I can even copy it over to my phone, and read it from there.
The other really cool thing, though, is the case the CD comes in. I’d not seen them before, but it’s a VarioPac ‘trigger’ case, which holds the CD securely, but doesn’t “open” as such. Instead there’s a trigger to push the CD out of the case, and look ma! No hands! Really very, very smart. I may just make some use of them myself…
ImageKind
Posted: Sun 10 September, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »Regular (and observant) readers will have noticed a new button over there on the right, which leads to ImageKind, and my gallery there.
ImageKind is an on-line gallery and shop where you can upload images, and then sell them using “print-on-demand”, as well as having them mounted, framed, and generally looking absolutely top-bollock. It’s an interesting idea, and I now just wish I could remember who it was who mentioned it first. It might’ve been Meg, or it might’ve been Gordon. Or, in fact, it might’ve been someone else entirely. All I know is someone mentioned it a few weeks ago, and I thought I’d register myself.
Of course, it’s taken another month for me to sort out the first batch of images I want to put up there, but the ones I’ve now uploaded are ones I’m very pleased with – and in fact there’s a couple on there that’re already up on our walls anyway – so it’ll be interesting to see whether anyone else likes them, and particularly likes them enough to buy…
But anyway, yes, this is my first baby-step towards looking into whether I can actually sell any of my photos or not. There’s a lot more steps still to be taken, but I figure this is a pretty good first one.
Autumn Fair
Posted: Mon 4 September, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Well, the Autumn Fair yesterday was pretty good. Knackering, and the usual NEC extortionate food charges etc., but still pretty good.
Herself was able to get some of the stuff she wanted, as well as a whole bundle of ideas, and I was able to sound out a few photography companies, and see what kind of stuff they were looking for. Additionally, I was able to check out a few others and realise the ones I didn’t want to work for, which can be just as useful when all’s said and done.
And the main thing I really need to do? (And should’ve thought of a long time ago, but never did) Build a website for my stuff, and market it from there. Doh!
Businesslike
Posted: Fri 1 September, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography 1 Comment »Over the weekend, we’ll be up in Birmingham at the Autumn Fair, a tradeshow for all kinds of gubbins at the NEC. We’ve got some specific stuff to be checking out, but I’m also aiming to sort out a couple of those resolutions, and make some contact with a few photo publishers and the like. Should be interesting.
Anyway, because of this I’ve had to make myself look somewhat professional, and get some business cards printed along with getting a useful stand-alone number that I can redirect to anywhere, so I know if it’s a business call instead of a personal one.
The cards came yesterday, and actually look pretty good considering that they cost me about £6 all told. In fact it’s quite surprising how easy it can be to set up all that kind of stuff now, with all the trappings of respectability…
Photographic Stuff
Posted: Tue 29 August, 2006 Filed under: Photography 1 Comment »Of late I’ve been wondering what’s next on the list of photographic gubbins that I want – and it came down to a few things, really.
- Something for time-delay shots
- A decent Macro lens
- A portrait lens – particularly the spectacular Canon 85mm f1.2 USM II lens
or - a decent flash
While all of these are on the list still (well, with the exception of that Canon 85mm lens, which as it currently retails for around £1500 is actually more expensive than the camera – and I’m definitely not that good yet!) I’ve only ended up getting one of them at the moment.
So following on from seeing some very impressive stuff with it on DDOI, (such as this, this and particularly this) I’ve ordered a PCLix time delay device (plus control cord) that’ll allow me to do time delay and time-spaced photos with the camera, as well as long-exposure shots well over the current 30 second limit.I should point out, I know, there’s the Bulb setting, but to my knowledge without some kind of cable release etc., I’d have to hold down the shutter release for as long as I wanted the shot, and that brings too much vibration to the shot, what with heartbeats, wobbles, and all. So this device is going to be winging its way towards me, and it’s cost £100 all told, including the control cable and the airmail postage from the US.
Obviously I’ll post more about what I’ve done with it once it arrives.
Competition
Posted: Sun 27 August, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Getting Organised, Photography 3 Comments »This weekend I’ve finalised – and posted – my entries for the Kennel Club’s Dog Photographer of the Year competition. I was going to submit some last year, but didn’t get round to it in time. So this year I made sure that I was in line for it, and got the entries in on time.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the results are. I’ve no idea how many entries they get – and I also know that Herself is sending in some entries of her own, which could make life interesting too – but it’s one of those things where we have so many great photos of Hound, it’s got to be worth a go.
Workflow
Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Photography, Technology, Thinking About... 7 Comments »Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to be banging on about iTunes, Picasa, JPEG vs Raw, and so on again. Because it’s all come up in the last week, Workflow has been on my mind a bit (and there’s some work-related stuff behind the scenes as well) so it’s all ending up as a bit of a brain dump.
Personally, I can be bloody disorganised. Well, that’s not strictly true. I usually know where things are, what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by, and how I’m going to do it. It’s just that I can be very “last minute” about things – particularly when it’s all to a deadline. It’s something I know – and acknowledge – about myself, and that I know I need to fix, or at least learn to handle better.
So anyway, I working on organising myself a bit better. But that’s not what this post is about. Oh no. Instead it’s about file structure, and file organisation instead. You lucky people.
You see, Gordon has said a couple of times that certain bits of software (iTunes, Picasa etc.) mean he no longer needs to know where files are – the software keeps track of it for him, and – for him – that’s fine. Unfortunately, doing that kind of thing drives me utterly fucking crackers.
Because I know where I put stuff, and I know (pretty much) what is where. I know that all my music sits in c:/music, but then I know that under that it’s kept in a file structure, so it goes c:/music/[band]/[album name]/[tracks] , and I never, ever have a problem finding where the stuff is that I want. To me, that’s organised, because I don’t need to fuck about thinking “is it in that folder? Or is it (iTunes, I’m talking about you here) in ‘compilations’? Or in some utterly random other place?”. I don’t need to use Google Desktop Search, I don’t need to Search for files. I think I use the “Search for files” function in Windows maybe once a year. If that. I know where my stuff is.
With photos it’s similar. Everything sits in c:/photos. I know, it’s unimaginative. But it’s easy to find. Then I name folders with where I was, or the subject of the photo series, and all the photos from that session/day/trip go in. If it’s been a holiday, you’d find it in c:/photos/[trip name]/Day [number] . I’m bad in that I don’t rename the files individually to say what’s in them – I should, but I don’t. But I know what’s where, and I can usually find the images I want when I want them. And again, to me that’s what being organised is about.
Yesterday, Gordon wrote
WHERE the files are doesn’t matter. HOW iTunes structures the folders doesn’t matter. As long as you can find the MP3s in iTunes (which is where the ID3 tags come in) then why do you care that an album is stored in ‘compilation’?
To me, it does matter where the files are. I want to be able to find them, to use them outside of that one specific application. For my music stuff, I can play it on the PC using RealPlayer, but I also use another program to write the music files to my MP3 player, or yet another one to write them to the phone so I can use that. For my photos I can use one program to view the thumbnails so I can select what I want, I can use Photoshop – or Paintshop Pro, or ImageMagick, or Corel, or whatever – to edit those photos, I can write them to a CD/DVD as backup, or I can transfer them using FTP to another site. Because of the way I work, I do need to know where the files are. I don’t want to be wasting time figuring out where Application A has stored them so that I can find them with Application B, C or D and use them in that.
So yes, it’s my workflow. Maybe I should be more flexible, or something. But because I do use different programs for different things, I want the files that I use to be in the same place, in my own organisation. Not in some arbitrary thing that one program uses, and then insists I have to use because it uses it. It’s a personal perspective, but I don’t like having workflows and decisions forced on me, whether it’s by Arsehole Bosses, or programs.
Maybe I’m a dinosaur. Maybe I’m a control freak. I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that at no time soon am I going to be letting a fucking program tell me it’s storing stuff according to its own structures where I can’t find the bloody stuff easily without using a search to do so.
JPG vs RAW
Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Photography 5 Comments »In a post I wrote last week, Richard asked me a question.
Do you shoot JPG or RAW images. I understand that RAW images need more post-processing on your computer, but are there quality gains to be made by doing that?
Way back in November ’05 I wrote a bit about image manipulation, JPG, and RAW and basically said that at that time I was still using JPG rather than RAW.
And to be honest, that situation still hasn’t changed. I still shoot in fine JPG rather than RAW – and I’m probably going to attract howls of derision from other photographers now for saying so. But I just can’t get into RAW. I know it gives me a greater flxibility, a greater range of data and image information, and can allow me to do a lot more, and resurrect data from blown-out areas of a photo. All of which JPG just can’t do – you take the photo, and really that’s it (well, unless you want to spend a lifetime in Photoshop® doing image cloning, airbrushing, resampling, and all that bollocks)
It’s the workflow with RAW that I just can’t be bothered with, I suppose. And maybe that’ll change once I’ve done a set of photos and had them all fucked-up and blown out without the details I want. But so far – and we’re talking about five years of photos here – that hasn’t happened. Yeah, there’re a couple of images where I would like some more data, and where sections have blown out because of light/white conditions. But those sections are small, and it’s only when I’m looking at entering those images for a competition or something that it becomes an annoyance. And even then the annoyance is a minor one.
If I were taking shots of an important event – a wedding, for example – then I’d probably move over to shooting RAW + JPG, to make sure I’d got a backup for a one-off event. For the normal stuff I do, I’m quite happy to just keep using Fine JPG at the moment.
Maybe as time goes on I’ll get to a point where I do need to use RAW. I hope I’ll be able to identify when that time comes, and then I’ll probably also invest in some decent software to handle/edit RAW files, rather than just Photoshop (Sorry, Gordon, I just can’t get into Picasa at the moment either) but for now, JPG suits my needs just fine.
Yuck
Posted: Sun 6 August, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Weirdness Leave a comment »All I can really say is Blech. Caterpillar hell.
Selecting
Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »One interesting thing we did over the weekend was spend some time going through some of the photo files/archives I’ve got from the last three years. The sheer number of photos is really quite scary, and I should perhaps consider killing/deleting some of the older ones.
Or, of course, I could just do a back-up of them, and dump them all to a DVD. That’d be sensible. But no, instead I suspect I’m far more likely to just keep them all on the hard-drive, although I do have a back-up of them on another portable hard-drive too. But it’s interesting to see the way my photography has improved and changed over the years – I’ve been taking photos properly now for about five years, which is pretty scary in itself – and the way things have changed with the use of different cameras and so on too.
As it was, we were going through trying to find the images we wanted to enter in to a competition, so there was quite a critical eye being used, and many fell by the wayside for just not being technically great, or for the lesser offence of just not being “right”. Whatever that means.
Anyway, in the end we narrowed down the list to about 20. Not good, but not bad either – considering that initially we had a list that numbered into the hundreds. So I’ve ended up running those 20 to Photobox, so we can have 6″x4″ copies of all of them, and then narrow it down from there.
Canon
Posted: Sun 23 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Photography, Weirdness 2 Comments »I knew there was something I hadn’t installed on the new PC, and today it came to me. All the drivers and software for the EOS20D – no drivers, no software, nowt. Ooops.
And just when did I discover this? Yep, when I was trying to move some photos around. Ain’t it always the way?
And then when I looked on the Canon site, it’s got all the bloody updaters and revisions for the software, but has it got the original files? Has it buggery. Cue a mad hunt through the CD Graveyard – really must organise that a bit better at some point – and eventually found the relevant CD.
So now I’ve installed all the original programs etc., and then I have to update them all. It’s fucking bizarre.
Ah well.
Amateur Photographer
Posted: Sat 24 June, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Every year, Amateur Photographer magazine runs a competion called “Amateur Photographer of the Year”, also known as APOY, which has about ten different “rounds” of photo submissions, where people get given a theme, and have to submit photographs that fit in with that theme.
And every month, when they publish the results, I get annoyed.
You see, the competition is for Amateur photographers, which to AP means “Photographers who don’t make their living from photography”. And yes, I agree that that is the true definition of “Amateur”. But when you look at the competition results, well, sometimes you have to wonder.
In the results in the current issue – and believe me, this is a rarity – only one of the top three has been edited to within an inch of its life. I’m not having a dose of sour grapes here, because the winning image for this round is beautiful, and utterly deserves the prize. The third place one is pretty damn stunning too, and so are many of the others in the top 30 that are published. But – and this is where I get annoyed – the second place image isn’t actually a photograph.
Instead, it’s two photographs, skilfully merged in Photoshop. And yes, the merging is bloody superb – it *should* be one photo, and if it was one photo, I’d have no qualms about it being in the top three. But it’s not one photo, it’s a merge – not even a double exposure, or anything using a photographic technique that might take some skill. No, it’s Photoshop.
I can’t help but feel, when it comes to these things, that the prizes should be allocated to photos, and to a person’s skill in spotting that image, framing it, and taking it. That – to me – is what photography is about. I don’t want to see things that have been hacked, altered, merged, composited and beaten to within an inch of their lives, images manipulated in photoshop (or similar). Maybe I’m too much of a purist.
Don’t get me wrong – I use Photoshop myself. But only to do what, if I were using a film camera, I could do in a darkroom. Crops, resizes, blowups, maybe even on occasion some alteration of brightness and contrast. I like my photos to be real, to portray a scene as I’ve seen it (or, technically, as I’ve envisioned it could be, say I’m using a long exposure or something). I don’t want to portray a scene as it should be, or could be.
And when these images win in an Amateur Photographer competition, what kind of message does that send out to photographers, to people who just want to take photos?
Raptors
Posted: Thu 8 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Photography 6 Comments »On the bank holiday weekend, we ended up at the Tring Canal Festival – various reasons, but well, that’s where we ended up.
While we were there, there was a falconry centre that had brought along some of their birds, and I took advantage of it to get some photos of kestrels, owls, and a golden eagle with the benefit of no bars between them and the camera.
As it happens, I’m actually really pleased with some of the results…
Click images to see big versions
Card Reader
Posted: Tue 6 June, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Before going off on this week’s holiday, I made sure that I ordered a USB card-reader, so that I can easily copy all the photos from the Digital SLR onto the laptop, rather than using the hellish method offered by Canon for doing so.
I suppose that I should’ve tested it out before going away, but well, that’d take all the fun away from it, wouldn’t it?
Still, more news/reviews/thoughts about it when I get back. I hope it works – I’d hate to have thrown the EOS20D through a window…
Nuclear Nightmares
Posted: Wed 26 April, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »A set of photos from Chernobyl, twenty years on. Incredibly sad, and extremely powerful stuff.
Somerset
Posted: Mon 24 April, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »The weekend in Somerset was actually really pleasant – it does make a change for us to just go somewhere and pretty much collapse and die for a couple of days. Of course, we still have an Idiot Hound to knacker, but it’s just good to be doing less than we normally do for a weekend.
The drive down was a pig – the M4 was rigid all the way, and the start of the M5 section involved ten miles of 40mph traffic (well, it would’ve been 40mph maximum, but as it was hardly moving at all for most of that, it was more like 10mph. *sigh*) which slowed us down considerably.
Anyway, once we got down to St Audries Bay, all was well. Hound perked up (she knows the place well, and loves the beach) and so once we’d unloaded the car off we went down to the beach where Hound ran round like a loon for about an hour. Some things never change.
Saturday was a day for knackering Hound, but also for us to mooch around a bit, see some of North Somerset, and just generally have a relaxing day. So it started with another hour on the beach for Hound (from just after 7.15. It’s like having an excitable four-year-old sometimes, I swear), then off up North Hill in Minehead, and another hour-ish of Hound running round the woods while we walked around in a less-manic fashion. Then drove to Tarr Steps, stopping off for lunch in a village called Winsford. Another hour of Hound diving in and out of the river, chasing sticks, while we walked up along the side of the river. Then back to the caravan, with an utterly wiped-out Hound. We’d planned to go back to the beach again in the evening, but she didn’t even stir at the word “Walk”.
So, a quiet evening along with some website fixing, and all was well with the world.
Sunday just involved driving home, and being domestic.
But all in all it was a good weekend, and much needed. Pictures will probably follow, mainly on Flickr again…
Another Snapper Snaps
Posted: Tue 4 April, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Photography 1 Comment »RIP Bob Carlos-Clarke, one of the more influential photographers of the last few decades.
You might not know the name, but his images were fairly well known.
Canon Software
Posted: Sun 2 April, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography 4 Comments »Over the years I’ve got used to the software provided by Fuji with their cameras for moving photos from camera to computer. Well, I say software, but the primary piece is just a driver so that you can copy stuff via USB straight down. Simple as that – it takes about five minutes at most to dump the entire card onto the PC or laptop , just a basic file transfer.
However, with the new Canon SLR, things have changed. For some godforsaken reason Canon use software similar to an image scanner, so you can only move one image at a time. And it’s just taken me the best part of two hours to move seventy images across from camera to laptop. Not including the time it took to make three other attempts to move all the files at once, which resulted in a .tif file that ran to 560Mb before I gave up and quit the program.
I think I’m going to have to invest in a cardreader-to-USB device so I can simply slot in the EOS20D’s memory card and be done with it. But Jesus what a fag, although the alternative is an even bigger pain in the arse…
Photos
Posted: Mon 13 March, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Travel 1 Comment »Ok, yes, photos from Lake District break are up on Flickr – enjoy.
Windmill
Posted: Mon 13 February, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography 3 Comments »For the first time this year, I managed to go out for a while yesterday with the camera in tow. Of course, it would have to be on a day when the weather was truly manky and foul, but there we go, beggars can’t be choosers.
Anyway, because of where we were, I wandered over to the village of Brill and got some photos (albeit grey and rainy ones) of the windmill there. I’m quite pleased with them, although it’s still more about learning the idiosyncracies of the new camera, and all that gubbins, before we go off to the Lake District in a couple of weeks time.
But anyway, it was good to get out a bit more with the camera – definitely something I intend to do more of as this year progresses.
Quitting the World
Posted: Thu 19 January, 2006 Filed under: News, Photography Leave a comment »Blimey. Konica Minolta has announced it’s giving up on its camera and photography business completely.
That’s quite an announcement – KM have been in the camera business for a long time, yet now they’ve decided that it’s time to bail out. Some of the business, primarily the digital camera stuff, is being sold to Sony. Other than that, it’s just being gradually folded up.
Shutter Bug
Posted: Sun 15 January, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Another thing I haven’t really started up yet this year is the photography stuff. There’s a lot I want to do there, and some ideas I’ve got for a (potentially) big series of images to work on, but as yet I haven’t done it.
The new camera bag, though, is fantastic. One of my continuing concerns (concern isn’t the right word, but for now I can’t think of the right one) is always about bags etc. that make it look like you’ve got important/valuable equipment with you. I never use a laptop bag for that precise reason – yes, sure it makes my laptop look a bit rougher, to have had it in a backpack instead of the perfect case, but that’s a small price to pay. I don’t understand the people who carry their super-expensive laptop all nice and protected in its case, hanging off one shoulder. It’s so easy for some scrot to come alongside, grab the bag, and run like shit. I’ve seen it happen – the victim doesn’t expect it, the ever-present “it couldn’t happen to me” mindset firmly in place, and then bang, gone and away down the road.
Obviously I feel the same about pro camera-bags. The one I got with the camera for my birthday falls into this ilk – it’s a great bag, but at the end of the day it looks like a camera bag. And for wandering around, I don’t want to advertise “Hey, look, there’s this camera bag here – the likelihood is, it’s got a grand’s worth of gear in it.” . The crumpler backpack fulfils my requirements on that score just about perfectly – at a glance, and even on further inspection, it’s just another backpack. Different styling, sure, but nothing special or obvious about it.
It’ll get its first really heavy-duty outing in a couple of months time, when we’re up in the Lake District. Obviously the camera will be going, and the backpack will be the best way to do it. So that’s the plan.
But there’s other stuff over the year too – and it’s all filed at the moment under “Ideas to Try”. I’ll get there, and there’s the ideas and thoughts, but at the moment it’s all “to try”, rather than “in progress”.
Camera Bag
Posted: Thu 5 January, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »The new camera bag arrived yesterday, and it looks as good as I’d expected.
It’s bloody huge, because the camera section is a seperate section at the bottom, while there’s still space for the general gubbins of everyday life in the main backpack section, so it should fulfil all my requirements. Haven’t quite got round to loading the camera into it yet, and all that stuff, but that’ll come.
But it’s certainly going to make life a lot easier when we’re up in the Lake District in a couple of months time – being able to carry camera, monopod (or tripod) and other stuff in a backpack without any risk of damaging the gear is going to be a Very Good Thing.
Crumpler
Posted: Fri 30 December, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Well, despite one of the nastiest websites I’ve seen in a while (so bad I’m not going to even link to it) I’ve just ordered myself a new Crumpler camera bag.
I did get a camera bag along with the new camera for my birthday, but having used it a fair bit, it’s just – well – ungainly. Awkward to get into, a pain in the ass to carry (it’s a bag with a handle, rather than the more helpful straps’n’stuff) and just generally not suited for the stuff I do with cameras. It’s great for use at home, or in the car, but for general walking around it’s not ideal.
So yes, I’ve ordered a new Crumpler bag, bizarrely named (as are all Crumpler bags) the “Formal Lounge”. It’s big enough to hold the camera plus lenses, plus laptop, and still some space for other normal stuff too. It’s going to be interesting, using it and carrying everything around.
A proper review will follow once I’ve used it a while, probably at the end of January, or thereabouts.
Photo progress
Posted: Sat 3 December, 2005 Filed under: 2005 Resolutions, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »A very large thank you to the person (he knows who he is) who sent me a monopod for the camera. I’m sure it’s going to come in very useful indeed.
Progress with the new EOS20D has been slow of late – I’m still getting there, but over the last couple of weeks I haven’t really had the opportunity to go out with it and get anything good. I suppose that over time that’s something I need to do more, is make time to go out and take photos. After all, the best learning method is practice, or so people keep telling me.
The monopod will come in handy for a lot of the stuff that I do, I’m sure. I saw one in use at the Euro OSCON in Amsterdam earlier this year, and realised that once I’d got a heavy bit of kit like the EOS20D, it’d almost certainly be something that’d come in handy.
So yes, many thanks again.
Qoop revisited
Posted: Tue 22 November, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Photography 1 Comment »Having posted some stuff over the weekend about them, I figure it’s pretty impressive that I got a response in the comments yesterday from a representative of Qoop…
D4D et al:
Thanks for checking out QOOP. Right now the only option for the ordering of photos in your books is in the way they were uploaded from Flickr, so that means the way the photos were ordered in your sets, etc. You can, in Flickr, edit the order of your set to be uploaded. We realize this doesn’t provide much flexibility and additional layout options are in the works. We had to start somewhere and we opted for efficiency and convenience first. Both cover and page layouts will have greater design possibilities very soon.
We hope you’ll check us out again!
Hugh
QOOP
Pretty impressive – and, as such, only fair for me to do this and print it up on the front page rather than having to hunt through the comments for it.
Portfolio Printage
Posted: Sat 19 November, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions 3 Comments »Arse. Remember that post about resolutions? Where I said “I’ve got the portfolio itself, but not done anything with it yet. I’ve also recently found another way of doing it that I haven’t yet experimented with – but I intend to do so before the year’s out.“?
Well, I just tried it out – and failed.
I was quite optimistic when I saw Qoop‘s page, which supposedly made it easy to print a photo-book from your Flickr photos. And yes, in many ways it does make it easy – you can simply select a bundle of photos (either entire sets, or individual frames) to be printed.
But – and, in the context of printing a portfolio-type book this is a bit of a big issue – you can’t organise how they’re going to be laid out. It seems to work from an alphabetical point of view, that the photos are done in order of the alphabetical names of the sets. So really it’s more hassle than it’s worth to come up with something viable.
I’ll keep on looking around, because I do like the idea of a printed book as an alternative method of portfolioing (is that a word?), but I’m also going to have to work on completing that proper ‘folio now as well.
Still, it was worth a try.
Infamy, Infamy
Posted: Tue 15 November, 2005 Filed under: Music, Photography, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 3 Comments »Well, now there’s a turn-up for the books.
The semi-review mainly-rant I wrote last week following the Tracy Chapman concerts has been put up on the Tracy Chapman site, for the day we went. Now that’s kind of scary – a whole new bundle of people who might just link here having read the review/thoughts. Well, unless they were some of the lower primates solipsistically convinced of their own importance above all others. In which case they may be just a tad offended (assuming any form of self-awareness or introspection at all) and leave nasty rude comments here.
Who knows?
And frankly, who cares? *grin*
Now, maybe I can start angling for press credentials, which’ll let me get my Canon past the door-gorillas.
Photo-Manipulation
Posted: Tue 8 November, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Hmm, not often I do this, but in the comments, Wulvern wrote:
Like the photos. Are they ‘as taken’ or did you do any bodging in Photoshop or similar? Am thinking of upgrading from a basic digi camera but the reviews in magazines and at dpreview.com (top site) suggest that the output digital SLRs need ‘working on.’
So – as with previous photos I’ve put online either here at d4d™ or on my pages at Flickr – no, I don’t do a great deal of alteration to my shots if I can help it. I tend to limit myself to cropping the images if necessary, and resizing them. I’ve done some aspects of editing them in some cases, or converting from colour to black&white, but even those are a bit of a rarity.
However, I also probably don’t use the camera to its fullest power, because I tend to shoot photos as JPGs rather than in the RAW format. RAWs take up more room on the card, and need to have an amount of processing done on them on the PC before they can be usable. Quite honestly, that’s beyond my current skills a lot of the time, but also I don’t like knobbing about too much with images. Yes, sure, I could take a RAW image and do any amount of stuff with it – but I know I wouldn’t do so.
I like to keep images as close to their reality as possible. OK, maybe in the future I’ll play with images and saturation levels etc. so that I could come up with images such as this, but at the moment it’s just not my thing. I like to use my own creativity and the power of the camera to produce something like the shot of the log in the waterstream – I don’t want to be sat in Photoshop for hours blurring the bloody things to the correct consistency.
So – to go back to answering the question – no, I don’t mess about with the images. The ones from the weekend have only been altered to rotate some of them through 90°, that’s it. Yeah, some could do with some trimming or cropping, but I haven’t done so yet. As for the images needing processing from a DSLR, yeah, they can do. But it’s up to you – I stick (for now) with JPG images, and don’t need to stuff about the same way I would with a RAW. I could do, but I chose not to. As with most things on SLRs, you can make life pretty much as complicated or simple as you want and/or as your skills let you.
Photies
Posted: Tue 8 November, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Travel 2 Comments »Well, I’m back in the land of the living. And photos have been uploaded to my Flickr page so you can see them there. I’ll probably add more to it later, but for now that little selection will do.
As should be fairly obvious, I’m beginning to get the hang of the new camera. It’s an amazing bit of kit (and no, Andy, all the offers etc. on it don’t mean it’s a crap camera by any stretch!) that I hope will be able to keep pace with my development for a few years at least. There’s still a long way to go at the moment – and I definitely intend to sort out a macro lens early in the new year, along with (possibly) a Lensbaby, which could make for some interesting ideas and creative odds and sods.
I still find an awful lot of my inspiration comes from people like Chromasia, although there’s also a lot of other sources involved. And I’ve got a couple more shots that are going to get submitted to Amateur Photographer in the next couple of months and so on too.
So yes, photographic development (pardon the pun) is progressing, and I’m pleased with the way it’s going. I haven’t done a whole lot of photos this year, but I intend to change that in 2006 again. And I’ve *still* got to put together that portfolio…
Canon Can
Posted: Sun 6 November, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »Buying the new camera has been an interesting experience in a number of ways. The sheer number of offers related to the purchase has bordered on the ridiculous.
Not content with Jessops offering the lowest price around for the kit I got, if I registered with the Canon Image Gateway (a kind of Flickr-like service for users of Canon cameras) I got a 256Mb Compact Flash memory card free. Not bad – so of course I did it.
Also, if you buy a Canon DSLR before the end of the year, they’re offering a cashback offer of £100 / €150 which obviously brings the price down even further.
Oh yeah, and as well as all that, you also get a booklet with a further £625 of cashback offers on lenses, flashes etc. if you buy them before the end of the year too.
Anyone would think they were trying to give the damn things away!
First Results
Posted: Tue 1 November, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »Well, I’ve just looked at the first photos with the new camera, and my conclusion is this :
“Fuck, I’ve got a lot to learn“…
*sigh*
EOS 20D
Posted: Sun 30 October, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Travel 1 Comment »Yes, I’ve now got the digital SLR I was aiming for – the Canon EOS 20D. I managed (after some struggle) to get the package that included both the Canon 18-55mm Lens and the Sigma 55-200mm lens – and all for less than the RRP of the body on its own. Camera pricing is weird.
Of course, the learning curve on this thing is going to be enormous. I’ve actually taken the radical step of reading the instruction manual – that’s how steep the curve’s going to be. I’m over the moon with it, and looking forward even more now to being away next weekend.
Yes, we’re off again next weekend – well, a) it’s my birthday on the 5th, and b) it should hopefully reduce Hound’s anxiety about fireworks. We’re going to be in the backside of nowhere in Somerset, roughly where we went earlier in the year.
I got some fantastic stuff last time we were down there, several shots from which have been printed up to A4 size, framed, and now populate some of our walls. So it’ll be interesting to see what I can get with the 20D…
Canonical
Posted: Sat 29 October, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »After much hooing and haing, and assuming that the store has some still in stock, I’ve finally decided that I’m going to get the Canon EOS 20D.
Yes, the decision has been made, and the price at the moment looks pretty good – particularly from Jessops. So we’re going to have a look at the local branches, and see if we can get one. And then we’ll just have to see what kind of stuff I can come up with, won’t we?
Gadgets
Posted: Fri 14 October, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s obviously “Devices Day”, as Pix has just taken delivery of her brand new Digital SLR too. Hope she has fun with it, and it’ll be interesting, seeing what she thinks of the thing.
Bugger
Posted: Mon 19 September, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts Leave a comment »OK, I’ve just decided that one thing I really need to do is organise myself a lot better. I was planning on entering a photographic competition ages ago, but had it fixed in my head that the closing date was the end of September. Having just looked at the site again, turns out it was the end of August, and the deadline was September 1st. Arses.
So yes, what with one thing and another over the last couple of weeks, I really need to start organising myself. Maybe I’ll register with Gordon‘s recommendation, Upcoming, which certainly looks like it’s pretty handy for that kind of thing!
Showing Restraint
Posted: Thu 18 August, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 3 Comments »Last weekend while I was in Manchester I made a very bad move. We went in to the Jessops camera store, and I had a serious look at the three main contenders on my Digital-SLR list. For those with a short memory span, the list is
The main thing I’m still unsure about is whether I should go for a more “entry level” SLR like the 350d or the slightly more advanced/complicated 20d. The 350d is currently running at about £650 including a lens, and the 20d is about £1200. Oh, and the Fuji is closer to the £2000 mark, which is the main thing that puts it out of the running in my estimation.
Anyway, I looked at all three, and I think I’m most likely coming down in favour of the 20d. But we’ll see.
And in the meantime, I did manage to show some restraint, and actually not just buy one and the hell with it. This may be more of a problem next month, when I’ve been paid an obscene amount again…
35mm
Posted: Mon 8 August, 2005 Filed under: News, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »I’m going to be slightly hypocritical on this, as I don’t use a 35mm camera myself, but I do think it’s pretty sad that Dixons has announced it is to stop stocking 35mm cameras once their current supplies run out. A lot of new photographers go straight to digital cameras now (I know, because that’s what I did) but that doesn’t mean there’s not still a large demand for 35mm cameras.
Many camera companies are having trouble at the moment with continuing to manufacture their 35mm range, and are all heading towards making only digital cameras. Maybe this is progress, the gradual removal of a film standard in favour of digital. Maybe it’ll just make 35mm cameras a more “professional” choice – but I know I’d hate to see them die out altogether.
Competitive
Posted: Sat 30 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »Part of my Resolutions this year was to start working harder on my photography stuff, and to both enter more competitions and build up my portfolio. All of these things are now happening, slowly but surely.
Currently, though, I find entering competitions to be quite a demoralising experience. Last month I sent off one I’m particularly pleased with (and, in fact, that we’ve had printed up and framed for the house) of The Hound, taken when we were in Somerset earlier this year. I sent it in to Amateur Photographer‘s “Amateur Photographer of the Year” competition as part of their “Pets” category, and – I can’t deny – I was optimistic. Technically it’s pretty much spot-on, except for the fact it can be a victim of the “it’s not an SLR” snobbery occasionally evidenced in AP, because I took it with my Fuji S5000. But there’s been no alteration to the image at all – no curves adjustment, or white-balance alterations. Not even a crop to make the photo better – that’s how I took it, and as such, yes, I’m bloody pleased with it.
The results were published from the Pets round this week, and of course it came nowhere in the top 30, which is all that’s published in the magazine. And while I can see why some of the images won, there are others that I simply don’t rate at all, and wonder how they were class as winners.
Photography is a horrendously subjective discipline at the best of times, and I suspect that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of entries in each round. I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes, because it isn’t – I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram screaming “It’s not fair!”. I just wanted to write out some thoughts about the entire thing. I’m not going to stop submitting photos I’m proud of – in fact, there’s two more competitions that I’ll be entering this weekend – and I’m not going to stop working on building a portfolio.
But yes, sometimes I do find it demoralising, sending off stuff I’m pleased with or proud of, only to see it fail to even be rated. Maybe I’ll learn to harden myself a bit to this sort of thing, I don’t know. For now, well, we’ll see.
Chromasia
Posted: Wed 20 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »I’ve written about Chromasia‘s photos a couple of times recently, as he’s becoming a fairly major influence on how I want to go with photography etc. As such, I’m really pleased to see his photos and thoughts featured in a BBC piece today on Photoblogging. Congratulations!
And the same goes to Sam at Daily Dose of Imagery, also featured in the piece.
Photo category
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »While I’m stumbling around thinking about how to write a CMS for a photoblog (yes, I think that’s the way I’m going to go with it – having looked at a couple of photoblog templates, they’ve annoyed the shite out of me very quickly for not doing stuff the way I want – oh good, more coding work) I’ve changed around my blogroll a bit.
There’s now a new category, simply named “photography” for the photographic sites I look at regularly, such as Chromasia, DDOI and so on. I just want to keep the two sections seperate for a while, and see how I do with it.
I’ve got a lot of photo stuff coming up – for our Anniversary thing, Herself bought me a portfolio (I’ve been saying about doing one all this year, and hadn’t got round to it just yet) so I’m also going to be working on building that up in order to whore out sell some of my stuff, with any luck. It’ll be interesting to see who says what when I get round to touting it about a bit.
All of which makes this kind of thing a lot more interesting, of course…
Arse’oles
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Photography, Sweary, Thoughts 7 Comments »Dear Brixton Academy,
You utter, utter bunch of cunts. I arrived at the venue last night to see Nine Inch Nails, which I’d been looking forward to since the tickets went on sale. When I got to the door, the security jobsworth motherfucker person searched me and my bag, and refused me access.
My sin? To be carrying a camera. To whit, a digital camera. Now, I realise that the ticket says “no professional cameras”, which is fair enough. And mine, while nice, is most definitely not a professional camera. But no, it turns out that – according to Brixton Academy – “professional” is the same as “digital”. If you’ve got a digital camera, you’re not coming in. If you’ve got a 35mm camera, you’re not coming in. Non-professional cameras would be non-digital, non-zoom, “use once” cameras. And that’s about it. Fucking hell, my bastard phone is listed as a professional camera under your classifications.
Oh, I did get told “you can leave it with us, and collect it at the end of the show“, but that comes listed under the “Yeah, right, pull the other one it’s got fucking bells on” scheme of things.
So, all told, that’s £40 up the swanny. I don’t know if the “no digital cameras” is the policy of the venue or the band, or if it’s just that you have utter fuckwit bastard cunts for doormen. Quite honestly I’ve no intention of finding out. Because I won’t be going back to Brixton Academy again.
You cunts.
Sincerely.
Lyle.
UPDATED : What really rankles is then seeing other people’s photos from the gig.
Photobloggery
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography 5 Comments »(Note : I’m going to I did leave this at the top of the page for a few days. There’s new stuff underneath, just scroll down a bit…)
I’m thinking about setting up a seperate blog (potentially held under a different site name) purely for photos. I like the design and ideas behind Chromasia, but I know he runs that on MT, which is a bag of worms I really don’t want to get into.
So, what I wonder is this : does anyone run a pure photoblog under WordPress? Or is it going to be easier for me to write some stuff myself in order to do it how I want? Or even just use a different CMS entirely? (I’m currently slightly edging towards the latter, if only because I’m a sad sod, and don’t have a problem with learning yet another piece of software)
Party Photo
Posted: Tue 12 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography 1 Comment »Knew I’d forgotten something – and that was sorting out some of the photos from the party we went to in Norfolk a few weeks back. This one is my favourite, and seems to just sum up how it all went!
Bunny
Posted: Tue 5 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts, Work-related 1 Comment »
One thing that’s great about doing mock-ups and screen-examples for a new website is that you can add in your own favourite images, rather than having to necessarily worry about copyright etc.
For the work I’m currently doing, I’ve opted to use this image, just to amuse me, and probably to do the same for other people when they look at the screen examples etc. It’ll never make it into the final version, but for now it makes me smile.
Is that sad?
Flowers from Dublin
Posted: Fri 17 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Travel 2 Comments »Not quite “Tulips from Amsterdam”, but I’ve now uploaded a set of flower photos that got taken last week in Dublin Botanical Gardens to flickr.
In particular, the orchid house was stunning, but there’s a few others in there as well that I’m pleased with. Specifically, the bougainvillea and the foxglove.
Enjoy.
Ireland – First Photos
Posted: Tue 14 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Well, the first two sets from Ireland are now up on Flickr. Both sets were taken on the second day, going down from Kilkenny to Waterford, and then on to Cork. Round Towers and High Crosses is pretty descriptive, as is Kells Watermill, a watermill just round the corner from Kells Priory in – you’re way ahead of me – Kells.
More will be up later, I’m sure – but for now, Enjoy.
Chelsea on Flickr
Posted: Wed 1 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Well, I finally got round to it. Yes, my Flickr account has been used for the first time.
So, you can see pretty much all my photos from Chelsea by clicking here. I’m fairly sure it’ll work, but if it doesn’t, let me know.
Enjoy.
Chelsea roundup
Posted: Mon 30 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Well, some of the photos are now available, along with some more thoughts, on this photo page.
I’m also going to upload more photos to my Flickr stream, but that’s not likely to happen ’til Tuesday. So there.
Chelsea
Posted: Sat 28 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Urggh, what kind of time is this to be up on a Saturday?
Anyway, we’re off to Chelsea to see the Flower Show, which’ll either be fun or a complete nightmare. I’m sure I’ll come back with plenty of photos etc., so in the meantime have a good day.
More later / tomorrow.
Chelsea
Posted: Tue 24 May, 2005 Filed under: General, Photography 1 Comment »This weekend, we’ll be going up to Chelsea Flower Show. I’m actually looking forward to it, as I’ve never been before.
Also, it’ll give me a chance to use that Flickr account I was so nicely given a while ago…
Brilliance
Posted: Mon 16 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 3 Comments »via the Guardian, I’ve just found a site/ comapny that I’m sure I’ll use at least a couple of times. Hireacamera.com does exactly what it says on the tin – you can hire a digital camera for a weekend, or a week, and use it as much as you want.
And they’ve got two out of the three cameras that were on my list, so yes, I reckon it’s a fair bet that I’ll be sending some money their way before long so I can spend a week with each camera, and see which I prefer.
An utterly brilliant idea, it has to be said.
Flickr Pro
Posted: Wed 20 April, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Photography 1 Comment »Well, after the thoughts a while back about whether I should try Flickr out for a while, a very nice person has given me one of the Flickr Pro accounts that he was offered yesterday.
So I’ve still no idea what I’m going to do with the Flickr account, but it’s given me some impetus to do something with it, anyway.
In the meantime, Photobox are offering a sale on 7×5″ prints for 10p each, so I think I’ll be getting some more stuff done by them.
Dead Can Dance – Photos
Posted: Sat 9 April, 2005 Filed under: Photography 3 Comments »As promised, photos from Thursday’s Dead Can Dance concert at the London Forum. As always, click the thumbnails to biggify.
Dead Can Dance
Posted: Thu 7 April, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Tonight I’m off to see Dead Can Dance at the London Forum. I haven’t seen them in at least five years, and I’m really looking forward to it.
No idea what to expect really, but with luck I’ll be able to get some photos.
And speaking of photos, I’m hoping to knock up some more photo pages over the weekend, when I’ve got some time to do so. Fingers crossed, and all that jazz.
A mini-review of the gig will go up tomorrow, when I’ve nowt better to do.
Flickr
Posted: Tue 5 April, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 9 Comments »David asked why I didn’t bother using Flickr to display more of my photos. The simple answer is “because I never got round to it”.
The supplementary answer comes down to other things, including stuff to do with certain resolutions of mine. For a range of reasons, I’m not happy with passing copyright (or even potentially passing copyright) for my photos/images on to Flickr. Or anyone else, in fact. If I keep them hosted on d4d™ as I do now, then the copyright stays with me. Maybe that’s control-freak-esque, maybe it’s not. I don’t know. But it’s part of what I feel about Flickr, and the rest of the online photography stuff.
I rarely (if ever) leave the full-size images anywhere accessible, even on d4d™. They normally stay at 800×600, or perhaps 1024×768 if you’re lucky. Yes, they can be downloaded by people who look at d4d™, and that’s fine with me – I’ve posted them here, and it’s the only place they can be got from. I – for want of a better word – allow them to be used for that purpose from my site. With Flickr, they can be picked up by anyone, with no real link back to d4d™, other than user-name etc.
During 2005 I’m going to be seeking out some commercial opportunities and outlets for some of my photos. I’ve got some ideas already, and there’ll be more things happening. I just don’t want there to be any issues where anything I submit has been publicly available elsewhere previously. In some ways d4d™ suffers slightly for that – for instance this weekend there were a couple of photos that worked beautifully, but because I intend to see what I can do with them commercially,I’m not putting them here. There’s a balance to be drawn somewhere in all that, and I’m still working on managing to draw it.
So – I may try out Flickr, and indeed I’ve sorted myself out an account. But where I’ll use it, or what for, I don’t yet know. We’ll see. In the meantime though I’ll keep using the photos page on d4d™ for some, and this page for others.
Time will tell.
Prints
Posted: Tue 5 April, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »When we got back on Sunday, I ordered some prints of the favourite shots from the weekend from Photobox. They arrived this morning, and they’re great.
It’s easy to see how they’ve managed to keep getting awards for excellent service.
Upgrading Cameras
Posted: Mon 4 April, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 6 Comments »As I wrote a while back, I’m thinking of upgrading cameras at some point soon, and going for a digital SLR (DSLR), most likely either a Canon EOS 20 D or a Fuji S3 Pro.
However, weekends like the one I’ve just had leave me with a dilemma.
When I can churn out images with a quality like those posted yesterday, and do so on a regular basis, with my £400 Fuji S5000, then can I justify spending upwards of £1,000 on a new camera, plus lenses etc.?
I know that a DSLR will give me more creative control, and both the prime candidates have a higher resolution than the camera I’m working with, but well, can I justify the cost?
Weekend Break
Posted: Sun 3 April, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Photography, Thoughts, Travel 4 Comments »Well, we’re back. The weekend was fantastic, although it was altogether far too short. Then again, weekends always are.
We stayed in West Quantoxhead (also known as St. Audries, for reasons unknown to me) close to Minehead. But not too close – probably 10-15 miles away from Minehead, which is just fine with me. I used to go to north Somerset with my family years ago, to the same kind of area, but we worked out that I hadn’t actually been back for at least twenty years. And it’s amazing how little has actually changed.
Saturday dawned – for me – bloody early. In fact, at dawn. The site had a pheasant that insisted on squawking it’s way through the morning loudly. So by half six I was dressed and awake. As The Hound was also awake and perky, we went down to the beach, leaving Herself to sleep more. Besides, I’d got my camera, which has been woefully underused so far this year, so it’s time to recitfy that. Sixty photos later, yeah, it’s back to being well used. I’ve got some thoughts on cameras and so on which I’ll probably write up for tomorrow, but for now it’s safe to say that some of the stuff was stunning – including finally figuring out for myself how to take successful shots of waterfalls with that shutter speed that makes the water look like mist. It’s a photographic cliché, I know – but it was a shot I’d tried to take on several occasions before, and failed abysmally. But now I’ve got a few – OK, I’ve got a lot – but they work, and I’m well pleased with them as a result.
For most of the day we went over Porlock Hill and Countisbury Hill to Lynton and Lynmouth, which was fantastic. We spent a large proportion of time knackering The Hound, spending at least two hours on the beach playing catch, and getting her to dive into rockpools in order to retrieve the tennis ball. For some reason this also gained us a bit of an audience, but there we go. We also travelled up to Lynton on the funicular railway, a water counter-balanced system which is ace, if rickety as hell.
Travelling back, we then ended up spending another hour on the beach, wandering along and getting yet more photos I’m really pleased with, and a couple that are going to get printed out at A4 size and mounted/framed properly, we’re so chuffed with them.
Today has involved a trip to Watchet, which is still nothing special, and driving home. Knackered – utterly, utterly knackered. But also ultimately happy – it’s been lovely to have a truly relaxing weekend, even if it has involved about 120 photos, all told. But it’s been great.
Well Deserved
Posted: Thu 31 March, 2005 Filed under: News, Photography Leave a comment »Just a quick post to say congratulations to Chromasia for winning in the “Best European / British / Irish Photoblog” category of the 2005 Photobloggies Awards. Chromasia’s been an inspiration many times over the last year, and has made me think “Oh, I wonder if I can do something like that with my camera?” more times than I care to think about.
Also, congratulations to Daily Dose of Imagery for winning three categories in the same awards, including Photoblog of the year. On a personal preference, I enjoy far more of Chromasia’s shots than DDOI’s, but they’re still both excellent, and truly deserving of the awards.
D-SLRs
Posted: Mon 7 March, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »As referred to in the post below, I’m looking at upgrading this year to a Digital-SLR camera. Really there are two in the running for it – well, three now that the Canon EOS350D has been released. However, the two that I’ve been primarily considering are the Canon EOS20D and the Fuji S3.
I’ve been impressed with the Canon results, up to a point – and Chromasia has done a lot to show me what the 20D is capable of doing. I was less impressed with the 300D when I played with that a while back, although I suspect a lot of that was down to the owner/user not really knowing what he was up to. And in honesty, I was pretty sure that the 20D was the way to go, until I saw about Fuji releasing the S3. I’ve used Fuji cameras all the way through my digital camera series so far, and I’m still very happy with the S5000 that I currently use, and have had for about 15 months now. Quite honestly, for anyone wanting a semi-pro camera, and particularly one that comes in at under £300 now, I’d recommend it and the upgraded S5500 without any hesitation at all.
What the S5000 does lack though is the creative controls. Sometimes I just can’t get the shot or effect I want with the camera, which is frustrating, to say the least. So I know that a DSLR is the way to go – it’s just which one to choose. I’ve a lot of loyalty for Fuji, so I suspect what I really need to do is see if I can find a decent photography club and get my mitts on both for a while. I don’t think the odds are high on that one, so I’ll just have to think more, and see which one I want to go for in the end. Unfortunately, at the current moment I don’t even know quite what the deciding characteristics will be. I’m sure I’ll write more about it soon though.
Photography
Posted: Sun 6 March, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Photography 6 Comments »Well, I did get quite a lot of photos over the weekend – some of which I’m really pleased with. A trip to Windsor to see the castle (the joys of friends with children) got some really good bits, and lots of portrait-type stuff which has worked out really well, although a lot of it won’t be publicised here due to certain issues with photos of kids, and the internet. Joy.
What I do find though – and I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this – is that I take a lot of photos in “portrait” orientation, instead of landscape. It’s not something I think about a lot while taking photos, it’s just a natural camera positioning, but when it comes to Photoshop afterward, I probably have to re-orient about 2/3s of the shots, which can be a pain in the arse.
Of course, once a digital SLR is in my possession then it becomes less of an issue, as both of the main ones I’m considering come with the ability to automagically reorient themselves so that picture rotation becomes a thing of the past. But for now I’m stuck with using a Rotate function somewhere along the line. No big thing really, just an extra thing to do/ remember.
So – which format do you prefer for photos? And why?
Assembling the Proof
Posted: Sun 30 January, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions 1 Comment »I’ve spent a large part of today sorting through some of my photo collection (a rather worrying 3,750 images, or 4.5GB) to build up a selection that I can build up a bit of a portfolio from. Thankfully, today’s work has involved just one section, the flowers and macro shots I’ve taken. Mind you, even that worked out initially at just over 100 photos, although I’ve since whittled it down to a mere 69.
I’m getting them printed by my normal place, so I’ll have them here for Tuesday, or at latest Wednesday. Once that’s done, I’m going to look at how best I can crop some of them, get them reprinted, and then start work on assembling them into some kind of comprehensive grouping.
There’s a reason for all this. Not only was it part of my resolutions to myself this year, but I want to test the water and see what the reactions are. I’ve got a couple of companies lined up that I’d like to see printing up these photos, but well, we’ll have to see how it all goes, and what they say.
Catching Up
Posted: Fri 28 January, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks – really since before Christmas – one thing I haven’t done much of has been photography. What with one thing and another, it’s just taken a bit of a back seat. Partly because there’s been a slight lack of inspiration, partly I’ve just been hugely busy with other stuff.
Still, on that score it’s not been an inspiring start to the year. I’m hoping to get back on track with it over the next couple of weeks though – and I also intend to go and see what Bracknell Camera Club is like next week (particularly as they’re doing something about flower photos, which are a subject I’m quite into)
I’m also going to go through the process of putting together some of my photos, then braving the vagaries of Amateur Photographer’s critics. Oh, and also submitting a few others to a couple of greetings card manufacturers who specialise in the type of shots that I enjoy, and seem to be pretty good with. So we’ll see how it all works out…
Awards
Posted: Thu 10 June, 2004 Filed under: General, Photography Leave a comment »I’ve been wavering about posting this – in some ways it seems deeply bigheaded, self-centred and many other things. (Oi, you at the back, I heard that “So what’s different to normal?”)
Anyway – I’m going to blither about this now, but it’s one of the few posts that may get deleted if I decide it’s too far up itself for its own good. You’ve been warned.
This week I saw that Panasonic Batteries are sponsoring an Amateur Photographer award. I’ve been playing with camera for a few years now, and (as we all know) got very into digital photography during the run of d4d™. And there’s been quite a lot of good feedback, from a range of sources – people who’ve seen shots I have as my desktop at work and asked where I downloaded them from, people assuming that the framed prints I’ve got have been bought from somewhere, that kind of thing, as well as the people who’ve said here that the ones I publicise can be pretty good. So, bollocks to it, I thought – I’m going to enter.
A maximum of six photos can be uploaded for judging, there’s a monthly prize for – logically – best ones each month, and a big grandy prize type thing in October. Just in time for a certain birthday…
I’ve no idea how they’ll do – having looked at some of the current competitors, I think they may do well, but obviously it’s not down to me. The site itself has some problems, and doesn’t like loading second pages of anything in the gallery, which is a pain.
Only time will tell. But I’m going to keep my fingers crossed anyway.
Peter Gabriel – part 2
Posted: Mon 7 June, 2004 Filed under: General, Music, Photography Leave a comment »Finally, the photos from the concert (well, some of them – I’ve got plans for a few of the others) are online along with some more thoughts about the show itself.
Enjoy.