Early one morning, just as the sun was rising
August 31, 2008
More precisely, early one Sunday morning. And whilst, speaking literally, the sun probably was rising there was little evidence of it apart from a general lightening.
But what there was evidence of was fog! And plenty of it. Well, possibly more of a really heavy mist than actual fog of the pea-souper variety, but it’ll do for me. Cos I love fog!
Grab camera. Switch on. Battery… check. Memory card… check. Chuck lens cap on table, no time for hat or coat before diving outside in typical cavalier fashion and start looking for things to snap.
And damn this cavalier attitude of mine! For what there was plenty of to snap was webs! Lots of ‘em! And of course I should have known. I’m no stranger to fog. Or to early mornings. Or to webs for that matter.
As too I’m fully aware of how enchanting these bejewelled wonders of nature can appear, dew-laden and hanging by almost invisible threads.
So, given the less than ideal lighting what I should have done was grab a tripod as well. Its not as though I haven’t got enough of them, in various weights and sizes. But could I be bothered? Could I hell.
Consequently ended up with loads of shots of moisture-bearing webs, only a couple of which are even remotely acceptable. Ah well. That’s another lesson I seem totally incapable of remembering.
But, that said, nevertheless I was still quite pleased with the results of my little sortie, with one shot particularly delighting me…
And yep, I actually laid down on the road to get that!
Previous to that, I’d started the jaunt in my back garden where views that under other conditions look either too “busy” or simply uninspiring were transformed into something else entirely.
Off to such an exciting start, venture a bit further afield. Surely there can’t be anything left in my village that I haven’t already snapped under various conditions and a multitude of different angles. Can there?
Yep!
The kids’ playground, adjoining the Village Hall. Offering a veritable feast of interesting shots, hitherto (and inexplicably) totally unexplored by me. How strange that I should have bypassed it on previous excursions. Clearly somewhere to revisit… maybe on a really bright, sunny morning. Or in the rain? Or snow? Hmm.
Anyway, this time around impatience got the better of me so, having fired off a handful of quick shots simply had to move on to another part of the village to snap a coupla flowers in neighbours’ gardens.
All in all then a satisfying little session, pleasantly rounded off by the return home for a quick bit of processing whilst enjoying a nice warming nip or three of the hard stuff.
More on The Bear artist…
August 28, 2008
Remember the guy who did those marvellous drawings on the walls of The Bear’s loos? (This post refers).
Well, just a quick heads-up…
First, contrary to my earlier correction of someone (who shall remain nameless) miscalling him Mike… its not Mikey either. Its Myki!
And second, he’s now got his own Flickr photostream!
Well done Myki!
So much for intentions (or lack of them)
August 28, 2008
Wednesday 27th August… I had absolutely no intention of taking any photographs today. Nothing planned. Nothing anticipated. Wander into town; mooch around; do some shopping; pop into the Bear… and chill!
Such complete disinterest in wielding the camera prompted by a number of factors. I’d just about reached the end of a fairly intense period of photo-related tasks. The weather was totally uninspiring… grey, overcast, drab and dreary. And, to cap it all, I’d finally managed to track down a batch of Climate Camp pics that had somehow gone astray… meaning another round of selecting/processing/uploading within the not-too-distant future.
So, there I was, waiting at the stop for the bus to arrive and carry me into town when I hear the sound of an approaching siren. Hmm. Dunno what it is, what its for, what its about, but might be interesting.
And quickly whip out the camera (well, despite my lack of intentions inevitably I had my camera backpack with me… after all, you never know). Within seconds a Fire Service vehicle comes belting around the bend… straight into my viewfinder!
A totally inconsequential shot maybe but I was quite pleased nevertheless… if for no other reason than my presence of mind.
Camera away. Bus arrives. Jump on. Head into town.
Bus station. Wander into a couple of nasty bill-paying type places, then amble on to the Bear. And there, on the High Street, another Fire Service vehicle! Wow! Two in one day! The coincidence and opportunity was just too good to miss (even though the vehicle/crew didn’t seem to be doing much at all), so fire off another shot.
Finally, the Bear! But I ask you… how long do you seriously expect matey (matey at the Bear that is, the ill-fated fotddarren… ill-fated cos he knows me! Heh heh) and I to be rabbiting away to each other before the good old pic-taking kit comes out and we start messing around.
Alas, the lighting therein was particularly abyssmal today… no doubt on account of the fact that there was absolutely no sunshine coming through the windows at all. So all the messing-around shots we did were virtually unusable. But we then repaired outside and, though I say it myself, I ended up with a coupla shots that I actually find quite pleasing.
During the course of all this messing around we started chatting to a mutual acquaintance (a Bear customer, naturally) who happened to mention that the John Howard statue along the High Street a bit is well worth looking at… particularly the ornamental base which possesses some interesting features. Might be worth a shot or two.
Matey finishes work and the three of us (matey, his girlfriend, and yours truly) set off on the regular weekly mile or so trek to our favoured supermarket for the week’s supplies, stopping en route at the aforementioned statue.
Now normally about this sort of time (early evening) the Wednesday market is still being packed up and cleared away but today, bizarrely, it had all gone. Not a soul around!
Well, despite the crap lighting the opportunity was too good to miss, so out come the cameras and click, click, click.
It has to be said, the pics in this particular set aren’t terribly inspiring. Getting decent shots of statues at the best of times can be a bit of a challenge, and this certainly wasn’t the best of times. But I came out of it with a handful of moderately reasonable ones, and one particularly that seems to me to be quite dramatic.
The final shot of the day (same location, but not of the statue) also turned out to be one I find rather pleasing.
And so much for lack of intentions… or the intention to not take any pics today!
Colour management in Firefox
August 27, 2008
Just updated Firefox to version 3.0.1 which means that at long last I’m able to try out the Colour Management Add-on (Color Management 0.4 by Sean Hayes) that was mentioned in a blogpost a while ago.
Its available from addons.mozilla.org and its a “GUI front end for enabling color management in Firefox”; the way it works is by enabling the Firefox browser to render images according to a specified colour profile.
In the Options dialogue you can point the Add-on to a user-defined colour profile on your machine (I’ve obviously selected the one I used post-colour calibration of my monitor) but if this field is left blank the system default is used.
If there isn’t a system default then a default sRGB profile is used.
Even before installing the Add-on I noticed that the updated version of Firefox appears to render colours slightly differently… my impression is that they seemed somewhat stronger, or darker maybe.
And all that installing/enabling the Add-on appeared to do was to enhance that effect. Generally then, images seem to me to appear darker across the entire colour spectrum.
I then went through the same exercise with another machine that isn’t colour calibrated, and thus used the system default colour profile.
Same impression.
Now there may be other, subtler, differences that I just haven’t picked up on yet, so what I really want/need to do is spend some time comparing with a machine running v3.0.1 but without the Add-on… an exercise for another day.
Absent that, on present showing was it worth the effort of installing it? Well, its a very small download and the installation process was entirely glitch-free. Nor do there seem to be any adverse side-effects (i.e., conflicts with other Add-ons, or the browser itself) so… probably yes. And certainly if I can discern that the colour rendition is more accurate… even if only marginally.
Oh woe is me!
August 26, 2008
I knew today was going to go pear-shaped right from the start… when I woke far too early and just couldn’t get back to sleep, so decided to be up and about.
Shoulda stayed in bed!
It all started in the kitchen.
For years now I’ve had a couple of dripping taps in the kitchen. Knew all that was needed to stop the irritation was a new washer but (believe it or not) never having changed a tap washer before I was a bit reluctant to tackle the task.
However, a month or so ago I had a water meter fitted (see this post) so the dripping taps issue was plaguing my conscience. Consequently, a little while ago I cast aside my timidity and tackled one of them… the worst offender, needless to say.
And guess what? Success! Yep! Within a matter of minutes the fault was sorted, no problems at all. Still the other one to do, but that can wait for another day.
So, with my ridiculously early start today I made the foolish decision to tackle the second tap. And now, courtesy of a nut that simply wouldn’t budge, I’ve got a tap with a broken seating (requiring a complete replacement), and not one but two drips, from the same (now broken) tap, requiring the placement of a bowl beneath the sink to catch the water. Damn!
Shoulda left well alone.
Second task for the day then. This new photo project that a few mates and I thought we’d try our hand at. It entails picking a set theme each month (each of us taking it in turns to choose the theme) then shooting up to five pics that represent our individual interpretations of that theme. All in a very non-competitive way.
A bit of fun, and a chance to maybe try out new techniques and certainly experience a different approach to this whole photography caper.
Well, August was the launch-month for the project and one of the crew had chosen for the month’s theme… “August”!
So I gave it a bit of thought and fairly rapidly came up with an idea for an image that would do me just fine. Only proviso was that I needed a longish spell of really hot weather to capture one particular element of the pic. But hell, its August isn’t it? Shouldn’t be a problem.
Consequently I’ve been waiting most of the month for that longish spell of good weather, and it still hasn’t happened. And if I’m to get my contribution to the photo project done before the month ends, well, basically I’m running out of time.
So, despite the ill-omened start to the day it now seemed like as good a time as any to do the business.
Fortunately I’d had a sort of “Plan B” roughly worked out that now only required a bit of refining… accomplished with just a few moments’ additional thought.
Dive out into the back garden then to do a few test shots of the intended location… mainly to check for lighting, test different exposures, DoF etc. And the sun was starting to shine through! Great! Just needs to get a bit stronger and I’m laughing.
Wait a while then. Have a coupla cups of coffee (damn, I’m running low on milk… and won’t be getting into town ’til tomorrow!). Glare at the broken tap, which drips defiantly back at me. Another coupla cups of coffee (yep, I’m definitely getting dangerously low on milk). And gradually become aware that the day’s clouding over.
Peer out at the sky. Have a bit of a mull. Swear at the tap. Worry about the milk situation. Peer out at the sky again. Have another coffee (maybe I can make the milk last if I ration myself… some hope!). Go and inspect the sky once more and decide that if I’m to get any pics done before it becomes completely overcast then I have to do it now. So I do. But I hate rushing. Hmph!
Spend some time selecting, processing, uploading, and… well… job done. Finally.
On to the next task of the day… getting prepared for a meeting that had been arranged last week. Preparation consisting mainly of having a quick tidy up, and putting away the remnants of my camping gear that still seem to be loitering around in various obscure places… and the not-so-obscure tent still draped all over the lounge, receiving its thorough end-of-camp airing. I hate repacking tents!
Just reach the end of that particular task when I receive a phone call… the meeting’s been postponed!
Shoulda stayed in bed!
Who remembers this?…
August 23, 2008
Yep. Mikey the artist. The guy that did those wonderful drawings on the walls of The Bear’s gents’ loos. (This post refers)
Well, he’s been at it again! And this time my mate’s been wielding his camera, so check out the latest pics on his Flickr.
And apparently there’ll be more to come!
A rare occurrence!
August 23, 2008
This is one of those rare occasions when I blog a pic from someone else’s Flickr photostream.
But I just had to do it this time. Cos its from my mate’s stream, and the pic is… me!…
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Originally uploaded by fotddarren
