May, 2008

25th May is a special day marked by some as Towel Day - a day when fans remember Douglas Adams who died two weeks before this date in 2001. I am the hugest fan of the hitchhikers guide series of books and also have all the original radio recordings and the TV series (didn't think much of the more recent film but tsk...I'll watch it at a push). Mr Adams I salute thee...so long, and thanks for all the fish!

This photo is not only my 365days shot for today but a tribute to the man who created the material which has given me so much enjoyment! Apologies for lack of updates this last week, I'm kind of on holiday! kind of...

oh and like most things in life there is a group on flickr full of towel day photos, you can find that here

what a miserable day its been here today in Dorset! lots and lots and lots of rain.....which is bad news for photographers. It did mean that I got lots done around the house though! I wish i'd made more of some of the tips on this article that was posted over at DPS a short while back....

7 things to do for photographers when the weather is bad

.....oh well a bit late now, but I urge you all to have a look at it because its a great article.

I'd also like to send you all over to Simes blog at blogger.gtvone.com, he was busy last week on a self imposed project trying to get his photos published in 7 days....well he was successful and it makes for interesting reading...I'm gonna interview him about his project soon and will have that up here. The international man of mystery has just left for Peru to go trekking though so it may be a few weeks before that surfaces! I'll keep you all posted. I did take a few snaps today around the house but nothing to write home about, I've added a couple of the highlights below for you to enjoy!!

ok does anyone calibrate their monitor? I was thinking the other day about maybe trying to actually take some pictures that might have commercial or print appeal. A wierd thought in it's own right as it means I'm slowly becoming more confident in my own work and even to the stage where I think people would be prepared to pay for it......hmmm not so sure now I've typed it out like that! LOL....

.... Then it struck me that I have never made much effort in calibrating my monitor and because I don't actually print much, I have no idea if what I'm seeing on screen is what people are going to get if they ordered one of my shots from an online store! or even if what I see on screen is anything like what you guys see on your monitors when you view my images!!

So there is a few online tools for trying to set gamma levels etc eye (like here) but that all seems a bit hit and miss especially with me being partially colour blind (true story- don't laugh). I'm thinking along the lines of a Spyder2express or a PantoneHuey both are USB solutions which kind of hang over your monitor and check things and tell you how to tweak your monitor. Both retail for about £60. Has anyone tried either of these products? Please share your opinions......

I've spent some time looking for a half decent standards compliant flash slideshow widget thing for using on this blog this week and I think I finally have a winner, the widget being used below is from monoslideshow.com it isn't free but it was cheap and it has lots of options for customisation plus it works neatly with the standards compliant swfobject and even better it can pull images straight from a flickr rss feed, so I don't have to upload and mess with images I'm using elsewhere already! Sweeeet! as I mentioned FDF yesterday I've made a show of my recent efforts.

woohoo it's friday, I thought this day would never get here. Its been a long and gruesome week in a number of ways and I for one will be glad to see the back of it, hopefully this weekend I can concentrate on getting caught up on everything I've had to let slide this week.

F-F-F-F-F-Friday is always cause for celebration anyway because that means it's Fancy Dress Friday (FDF) over at flickr. FDF was started by the extremely talented the_brownhorse (Adam). Adam decided to dress up in a number of silly costumes for his 365days/threesixtyfive shot on October 12th 2007 (see below) and made a plea for all of his contacts to do the same the following friday....well the idea took off and 30 weeks later a number off us are still dressing up in silly costumes every friday and lots more people have joined us! It's basically a bit of silly fun and a nice way to raise a smile after a horrid week! I'm not sure what my costume is going to be today but make sure you stop by my photostream this evening and find out!! You can checkout all my previous wierd and wonderful FDF shots here

photo credit: fancy dress friday! by the brownhorse

I shot this yesterday whilst taking a short walk through the nature reserve, quite pleased with how it turned out, shot with the trusty 50mm and a set of cheap ebay closeup/macro filters. Wish I'd packed a tripod.....grrr

slightly annoyed with myself this week. I re-started this blog with all good intentions to blog everyday but the last week has been stupidly busy, it has just not been possible. Time (my greatest enemy) has been against me. I'm way behind on keeping up on friends photos over at flickr, I have two blog entries (in my head) I need to get onto site....grrr patience people I'm workin on it! did manage to update my bio page so things are moving!! just slowly...grrr

These are my two favourite pocket tools. the first is a good old fashioned victorinox swiss army knife....very useful for well cutting things and loosening screws and opening beer and tins etc.

The second is a 4gb USB pendrive....I love these things, mine is not only holding handy documents but is running a fine array of open source and freeware portable apps (from portableapps.com) . I can plug into any PC anywhere and have all my stuff with me (browser and plugins, email, office suite, image editing, audio editing, media player, IM software, and minesweeper to name but a few). I even carry round a copy of my website files, databases + apache and mysql just in case I need to carry out some emergency website work on the move. All of this convenience for under ten pounds...ain't technology grand these day!!

If your not already using your portable drive like this...I suggest you try it, very useful indeed. I can also recommend another freeware program called TrueCrypt for encrypting your drive....it's not the simplest tool to use but if you have time to figure it out, its very powerful and having such an easy to lose piece of technology crammed full of personal info encrypted helps me sleep better. =)

This morning I've been playing with the ND4 filter I picked up from ebay the other day (coincidently still waiting on close up filters...grrr), for you non photographers...

...so basically because the filter is grey it lets less light in thru the lens which means you can open the shutter for a longer time and still expose the shot correctly....this is great for creating 'fluid' motion or traffic trails and motion blurs etc. My shot below isn't a great example....I need to get outside with this baby and capture some waterfalls etc...... I can't wait!

edit: while typing this my close-up filters have arrived....w00t!

Yay Friday is here and I'm staring down the barrel of a three day weekend! woohooo. I'm hoping to get chance to take some pics after work toady so had my camera out during breakfast to be prepared. Couldn't resist taking a few photos....for a change these won't go on flickr (blog exclusive..oooh). Make sure you click the 'read more' link to see the couple of portraits of robyn.

No this isn't a post about star trek at all!! Today I want to use my blog to celebrate space and minimalism in photography. I really dig shots where the photographer has decided to step back and not fill the frame, really make a feature of the negative space and let the subject have room to breathe and even better the viewer a little mental space to ponder and take it all in. I guess it breaks a few of the 'normal' rules of how we compose shots as photographers....I like that!

I think of it in terms of the photographic equivalent of a Zen garden or Xtreme negative space!! Like most styles and techniques it will comes down to personal tastes as to whether you like this style or not. I've included some examples I like below. Try shooting some of your own! and make sure you send me links so I can enjoy them 2 =)

photo credits:
top left- 1 duck by the brownhorse
top right- penny for them by disco~stu (me)
bottom left- I'm Okay by lintmachine
bottom right- don't walk by disco~stu (me)