A 'wasted' day

Yesterday I spent the afternoon on a large strip of wasteland. Kind of a cross between someone's 'used to be' home, school and field.
The purpose of this was not because I was homeless and looking for refuge but to help me find interesting things to photograph and let me tell you the place was full of things. Apart from the buildings themselves, there was a river (very dirty and smelly) but where there is water there is life, flowers and insects, and of course lots of rubbish :(

It was a pleasant afternoon alone, the only other person in the area was a jogger; to be honest it is FAR too hot to run anywhere; unless you are being chased.
I managed to get some nice photos, and practise different things with the camera such as angles, shadows and depth of field techniques. Oh and a lesson learnt - don't waste your time chasing butterflies - you wont win!

I have entered some of my photos into online competitions just for a giggle, but amazingly I have won several of the contests!! Hussain a friend of mine in the UK, says I have a natural talent as I am artistic in nature; he's too kind. Really I just like being free and seeing what I can see and do. To be honest I know its taking hold as I am looking at the world with fresh eyes, which is nice, the big question is... ...could this be my calling!??!

As photography equipment is SO expensive I have sought cheaper but hopefully effective options. This is my DIY kit so far - a car sunscreen reflector, one small and one big floodlight and I have also bought lots of offcut material from a textile shop in town.
So far so good - really its all practise if/when I turn pro, I will consider upgrading. Although I was amazed to see that one professional uses a stick in a can as his stands - cheap and simple option that works wonderfully.

UPDATE: I have built a lightbox out of an old cardboard box with sides cut off and paper put on all sides. So far so good - why not give it a try.

If you want to see my latest exploits click HERE

May they rest in peace

David Carradine - an actor who earned cult status in the 70's television series “Kung Fu”.
He regained the limelight through Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies where he played the enigmatic killer 'Bill'. David was found dead on June 4; he was 72.


Michael Jackson - was the most iconic stars of my generation. He had led a troubled life and was sadly misunderstood. However no one can deny his genius. The internet made Michael's death global within in minutes of the news. Michael died from a heart attack on June 26; he was 50.


Farrah Fawcett - played Jill Munroe, one of three fearsome female private investigators on the 1970's TV show "Charlie's Angels". Farrah died of cancer on June 25; she was 62.


Ed McMahon - was Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show,” introducing it with his ringing trademark line, “Heeeeere’s Johnny!”. Ed died June 23; he was 86.

Scorching Salamanca

As per orders I made my way to Madrid to meet the Anglo's and as usual we had 4 of us to do a 5 minute intro - I honestly don't see the point of us all having to be there. Luckily Marisa has very kindly agreed for me to crash at her place so as to avoid paying more money for accommodation whilst in Madrid.
I got to meet a guy called Peter who is training to be a MC. We are yet to discover whether this is to pick up the odd program that is available or whether he is going to replace one us; we shall see. Personally, I think a proper sit down cards on table kind of meeting is well over due.

Well finally I'm back at the usual venue in Salamanca; instead of being everywhere else, but hey a chance is as good as a rest, so they say. The weather here is scorching hot quite a few of the Anglo's are returning from their 1 to 1's bright red! This week was a very small group only 10 and 11 participants.

Some of the Masters were back this week, this is their last Vaughan Town (they have done 4 of them now). I can see the improvements they have made but there are still a lot of simple mistakes being made. Really the only way to improve is to work really hard and take advantage of all the situations they have available to them, I know that's easier said than done.
They also highlighted the point that different teachers advice they say things one way and other teachers advice them another - this is obviously confusing for them, as I don't know the specifics I wont comment too much, perhaps you have to use what works for you; to be frank, lol.
After they finish at Vaughan Systems, they are off into the 'real world', I sincerely wish you all the best in your future guys and hope you achieve what you want for your lives.

The other Spaniards on the program worked hard, I saw during their freetime they were working on their presentations - this I like! It is always more rewarding to know the effort you put in was appreciated, there are occasions when you can 'blag' a presentation or 'wing it', but usually people can tell; I can, afterall it's my job.

The Karaoke was enjoyed by some special ladies who rocked the mic in private to several 80's memories and good for them.

The food was... ...well standard - a lot of fish; which I don´t like personally. However back to wickedly nice desserts: so dangerous!

As for the party, ohh my head! It finished late or early depending on your point of view. The masters tried to break me, I think they managed it. This morning I was good for nothing.

Good luck to you and thanks to the Anglo's too ;)
The weeks memories can be found by clicking the photo below

Vaughan Town - Salamanca - Program 159

Microsoft going down

When I first got into using computers the thing I liked was configuring it to make it mine, the Amiga allowed to you to do just that - with a little hacks here and there.
Then I moved onto PC's and Microsoft, going from 3.1 to Windows 95 was a wonderful advancement - no hacking needed, friendly User Interface. Then came 98 and XP; I'l not mention Vista or Windows 7.

XP was good and very stable for the most part, but the demise of Microsoft was looming as they starting locking you into their way that they wanted you to work and operate. This gave rise to Apple and of course UNIX; the Ubuntu system is growing rapidly and very successful.
I have always liked Apple, no, I cant tweak everything but I dont have to, it works, its that simple. No blue screen of death, no unknown problem, no viruses.

So the switch was very painless for me, however I continued to use my Hotmail account as I liked it and it worked. (do you notice the past tense there) IT WORKED! Now Hotmail have forced me to go via a pop3 account which I have done, now I can only check my email every 15 minutes and ALL of my email have gone?! Deleted or moved I dont know but they aint there, years of emails just dissappeared - a case for Mulder and Scully methinks.
Why do they mess with things that aint broke, I never asked for improvements and I'm sure we could all do without them sometimes.

So the last part of Microsoft that was working for me, now has lost favor and it seems after a few looks on Google others are jumping ship because of the similar issues. I tried a quick work around to get Hotmail to forward my emails to another account, but Microsoft are obviously afraid of the competition as they wont let you, lame!

So now to switch to either my Gmail account or I may choose the Apple .Me account and get everything synced in one go (cloud) seems the simpliest option.

Smoke and Water

I have recently being playing with smoke and water in order to add some variety in my photography and also to help hone my skills a little more.

The process seemed simple enough but the setup was from it. I used tables and chairs and lamps from everywhere around the house. The shots look amazing - if only you could see the chaos behind the lens, lol.
I used a few incense sticks for the smoke pictures, a lamp and got in close.
For the Splash pictures I used water, milk and even a drop of wine.
Both effects took some setting up and practise to get what I was after, once I had the general idea it was playing with different items to make it even better, more water, less water, more light, without flash etc.

Well needless to say I managed eventually to get good light onto the subject and perfect my timing a little more without the added expense of additional camera lenses, remote flashes or that's what matters.

If you want to see the spoils of my labour check out my PHOTOBLOG or my Flickr page which hosts a few more of my photos