more tall tales..
Posted on April 14, 2010
so, how far did I get?
I’ve been so busy and also sick (with special thanks to my children for their so far unblemished record in handing over the lurgey baton when I see them) that blogging was placed on the back burner.
So, Easter Sunday was spent at my sisters:
Ava is my youngest sister’s smallest child – she’s ever so sweet, very little and smiley
Easter Monday we went for as walk around the duckponds (by popular request) – it was pretty cold still, but we had a lot of fun and it was really nice to see all the spring flowers and blossom starting to come out. We don’t have the same spring flowers here, the English ones are much nicer!
tall tales from the motherland
Posted on April 9, 2010
So, as my one regular reader will know, I’m back in England for 10 days to see my beautiful children.
I’ve had a great week so far, starting with breakfast at Pat and Nicky’s straight out of Heathrow. They weren’t up when I got there, but Nicky and Anna (their cute very nearly 4 year old) soon answered the door and made me coffee and breakfast ๐
Had the best day with them, taking photos and catching up on the last 18 months since I left for Oz. I really didn’t want to leave, but I still had to drive to my mum and dad’s place, go food shopping and get some rest before the long drive the next day.
Went to collect the kids the next day, also took Henry’s presents round so he could open them and play a little before we had to drive the 2 hours back to my parents place. Ella has grown loads (again) and Henry is cheekier than ever!
Drove back to Kent after a nasty road rage incident which I wont go into here, but I did notify the police for them to follow up. There are some advantages to being a photographer – I had the camera on the front seat and caught the guy raging away as he tried to run me off the motorway – he very was shocked to see a camera pointed at him – I suspect the penny was dropping that he was in deep shit. Arseholes that threaten the safety of my kids deserve everything the law has to offer. I still have no idea what his problem was either. Ah well.
Anyway..
Easter Sunday was spent at my youngest sister’s house with her kids and also my middle sister and her 3 kids. Mental doesn’t even cover it. Ella was very quiet as she was still very poorly from the virus she’d had for a week but we all had a good time. I ordered a mahooosive egg for everyone to tuck into
Had a great time, pics from Sunday and more tales tomorrow ๐
leaving on a jet plane..
Posted on April 1, 2010
I’m going back to England for a couple of weeks so I can spend some time with my children, so I expect my blog may well be full of little snippets of what we’ve been up to rather than anything dramatic and amazing.
I don’t really like the long flight – I don’t sleep well on the plane and there’s not really time the other end to recover before I have the kids waking me up at 6am. Mind you, its better than last time when I had to turn around and fly right back again within 24 hours with 2 small and very excited children ๐
So I’m leaving at 4:30 this afternoon – flying to KL where I have a 90 minute stop before taking the next and agonisingly long leg to London.
I’m going to see one of my friends before I get the kids – he’s making me breakfast as I’ll be arriving at Heathrow at a terribly ungodly hour – luckily he has a small child, so will undoubtedly already have been awake for many hours!
So, have fun for the next 2 weeks, I will be – we’re staying at my parents house whilst they are in the Caribbean sailing and hanging out at their house over there – I’ll be blogging and uploading pics if I can remember my their wireless broadband password ๐
Catchtyaalllater xx
first shots
Posted on March 28, 2010
As I mentioned previously, I bought a B+W110ND filter – a wondrous thing which is basically a piece of very dark glass that reduces the amount of light into the camera by 10 stops.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about – a stop on a camera is, for example, like the difference between a shutter speed of 0.5 and 1 second.
So if your camera was going to shoot at 1/125th second, adding a 10 stop filter means you have to shoot for 8 seconds to let the same of light in. Which means you can have quite a lot of fun at sunset when exposures are already down to a second or so without the filter. You have to check the exposure based on the aperture settings you want, frame the shot, get it to focus where you want, switch the camera to manual everything (inc focus), screw the filter in, which is so black you can’t see anything anymore. Then work out the correct exposure with the filter on, set the remote timer and basically leave it to do its thing for the 200 odd seconds that is needed.
Anyway, all this technical mumbo jumbo is all well and good, but the upshot of the camera being open for at least 3 minutes is that the ocean is totally smoothed out and the camera has captured the clouds moving.
Like this:
And yes, I am pleased with the results!
Next step, more location scouting and to start thinking in black and white…
I see dumb people!!
Posted on March 27, 2010
Yes, I feel like Haley Joel Osment in Sixth Sense, only with less creepy 10-year-old girls under the table with poisoned sick coming out of their mouths.
Went out this morning to get presents for Henry’s birthday for when I go back to England next week and also a few other bits and bobs and oh man, the dumb people are out in force today.
We’ve had people taking ages to pull away from traffic lights so they are the only ones to get through, morons not stopping at zebra crossings, blocking aisles in the shopping centre, driving the wrong way round car parks and people blocking roads waiting to turn into a drive through bottle shop.
All in the space of an hour.
What is wrong with you people!
1. Acceleration. It’s the right hand pedal of the two or three that you have. When the lights change, you press the pedal and go. I know this will come as a terrible shock to a lot of people, but the go part of that manoeuvre should happen within seconds of the light changing, not at some point before end of the day. Also, you have to *keep* pressing the pedal after the initial press and continue to accelerate. So many people just stop accelerating once they start going. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world. It can take minutes to get up to the speed limit sometimes behind some cars. I know we don’t have to rush, but I’d like to get home before I have to retire.
2. Zebra crossings. You have to stop at a crossing in Oz, same as in the UK. It’s not an option like in France or Italy, it’s a mandatory thing. So, fucktard in the carpark today where the road rules still apply, almost running us and another couple on the next crossing down means you’re an arsehole. Pure and simple. I hope your knob rots off.
3. Blocking aisles. I don’t think teenagers get taught respectful behaviour any more. 5 teenage kids totally blocking one side of the narrow bit of the mall today so no one can get past. Are you not embarrassed by this? Does it not penetrate into your tiny hormonally challenged brains that there are other people who might want to get past because, wait for it – newsflash – it’s a fucking Saturday at the busy shops. And no, it’s not funny when someone tries to squeeze past.
4. Wrong way around carparks. There are big white arrows on the ground and entry or no entry signs on the end of each row. It’s not really too hard to follow these really simple instructions. Except it is for some people. If you can’t obey the simplest direction, then you need to give me your sorry excuse for a car and take the damn bus. It’s not even funny – I wonder what else they aren’t paying attention to or don’t care about on the roads?
5. Waiting to pull into a drive through. I hate drive through’s. They are a haven for fat and stupid lazy people who can’t be bothered to get off their fat arses and walk into the bottle shop (liquor store/off licence) or fast food joint and actually pick the items up for themselves. I know these places are for fat lazy stupid and thoughtless people as there were several matching just that description today just waiting in the road to turn in to the bottle shop as there was a queue. So rather than drive 10 metres, park, go in, buy the beer and walk back again, you’d rather queue in the road and inconvenience everyone. A lady was trying to pull out of her parking space, but you were in the way – but hey, you were waiting and why should you move? So she just had to wait, trapped in to her space, as did we have to wait behind you in the road. You couldn’t reverse a few feet to let her out, or even realise how much of an obstruction you were causing to everyone and park and go in on foot. Selfish, dumb jerkoff.
So yeah, moronic idiots – how these people manage to earn any kind of living is beyond me. They all have to be on welfare, they are way to mentally and socially challenged to be able to do any kind of paid work.
And now, we’re staying in until 6pm until the dumb people have all gone home.
getting old
Posted on March 24, 2010
I’m suddenly noticing how fast my kids, my daughter in particular, are growing up.
I was looking at photos on Flickr and its really clear how much Ella has grown since I left the UK. Not that much time has passed really, 18 months or so, but in that time, she’s changed loads. I don’t notice it in myself that much, I don’t really feel any different, except my beard and hair are a little greyer than they were, but to see her looking so small brought it home.
I’ll be 40 in just over a year. Thats scary. I remember going to a friends stepfathers 40th birthday party when I was 18. I can’t be that age!! Its insane!
new toys
Posted on March 20, 2010
I just bought some new stuff for my camera as I’m very interested in long exposure shots.
I got a B&W ND110 filter reduces light by 10 stops so enables long exposures during the day (interesting, but not *that* useful) or more importantly, longer exposures at or around sunset.
The longer the shutter is open on the water/rock/beach sunsets that I like, the smoother the water and the sky become. So focus onto something nice and sharp, like a jetty or a bold rock and set the camera to take a shot for 5 minutes, you’ll get (hopefully) amazingly smooth looking landscapes which tend to convert well to black and white.
I had a little go today, but I didn’t get anything totally fab, just the slight oddness of a daytime shot with smooth waves over rocks.
I need loads more practice, but at least I have something to aim for.
take a look at these guys if you have time
http://www.davidburdeny.com/
http://www.silverlandscapes.com
http://www.michaellevin.ca
Some target, eh? ๐
having said I was crap..
Posted on March 17, 2010
…I take it all back. Well, not all of it, but some. back onto the subject of cool black and whites and living the 60’s Parisian cafe shooters dream
I went through some shots of Melbourne again and decided to convert a few to black and white to see if I could get that street photography look, and well I’ll be buggered – some of them look fab, with a hint of abstract (which is becoming something of a “thing” for me)
Now, I’m not claiming some kind of greatness here, but I kinda like this lot.
club night
Posted on March 15, 2010
I go to a photography club every month in order to learn from other people, but also to have my photos judged by some top class judges from locally in Western Australia and also nationally.
I’ve only been going for about 6 months, and so far, I’ve managed to get at least one photo each time I’ve been in the top 3 of the submissions – at least I’m doing something right then!
Last month was no exception – managing to get 1st, 3rd and 4th in the open (non modified) class – I was pretty pleased as I think I’m improving month my month.
The club has a monthly theme, which I aim to have a go at if I can – however I’m normally rushing about at the 11th hour trying to think of something to take a shot of! So, in order to avoid that this month, I thought I’d start early. The theme is “abstract macro” which is tougher than it sounds. It really requires a macro lens, which I do have, although it’s only a 50mm which is really the wrong focal length.
Umming and ahhhing over what I’d take, I had a go with some flowers and a chilli in the garden, but as nice as the shots were, they weren’t abstract.
see what I mean?
Nice, might even do well blown right up onto a canvas, but not abstract enough for me.
So, onwards and upwards, we try again, this time, a different subject
can you tell what it is? I think the first and last shots kinda give it away, but I’m not submitting those ๐
style
Posted on March 15, 2010
I was determined to be a cool street photographer.
I had designs on my camera collection down to a simple Leica M6 or M7 35mm rangefinder and a few tasty lenses, shooting exclusively in black and white and generally taking cool shots a-la Cartier Bresson and his ilk.
Well, the nearest I’ve got is my Trip 35 (which, despite being very cool and unflappable is still woefully underused)

and a couple of second hand autos from the 80’s
You might think I’m a bit gutted, and in some ways I am, but it transpires that I’m actually starting to like landscapes and also, rather incongruously, sports photography. Neither of which lend themselves to the Leica in any way shape or form.
I’m on the save up for an ultra wide angle lens for the D300 plus some very tasty filters that would enable me to take the shots that just can’t quite get with my current setup. Handily, I’d like to use said ultra-wide angle for sports photography too.
Here’s some recent landscapes that I’m rather fond of..
Okay, true, they are all sunsets, but I haven’t invested any time into daylight shots yet (plus I need better filters, mine are fine for sunsets, but tint clouds purple during the day). I have a few location ideas in mind which I think I’ll start to work upto in the next few months, especially as the cooler weather is coming.
So we’ll see how it goes, I might be getting up at the crack of dawn to catch that sunrise yet.
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