The Unexpected Benefits of Vomit

You don't expect too many benefits from the Winter Vomiting Bug. OK, the weight loss is nice but probably not all that healthy. No, in this case I refer to last Saturday when, sadly, my daughter had been sick so we were quarantined from visting people. Because she was quite well and energetic we went to the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Turned out to be a lovely day.

As I'm currently fixated with HDR, I spent the today with the camera permanently on the tripod* (which is easy with so much space). The light was universally fantastic and I got some very nice shots. One of which made it onto the BBC Website (no. 11). I don't mind linking to them, always good to get traffic to new, upcoming sites.



Click to download hi-res images and see others in the same series

The HDR approach certainly helped with handling some pretty severe light at times. The low winter sun is great but some of the shots would have been impossible without the post-processing tonemapping trickery.

So, the vomit bug ain't all bad...

On Friday, I also found out that the BBC had used another of my images for a while. Very nice indeed.




In other news, I won "Best of the Week" for the 2nd week in a row on Ipernity. Thanks to everyone there. One of the Botanic Gardens series is in the competition for the hat-trick!

* I have a monopod now so I'm looking forward to trying that

978-0-9556830-0-8

After a short sabbatical, I finally got back on the publishing bandwagon tonight. Updated the manuscript to add ISBN and publisher details etc.

The more you look into this, the more nooks and crannies you find. When I get the book published I have to send a copy to the British Library, which is nice. But then I discovered the whole CIP catalogue thing. So, I've submitted the book to the catalogue. If you're going to so something etc...

It's all a bit chicken and egg. I'm not sure if I can still submit to Amazon now coz I think the CIP thing will take a wee while. I suppose the good news is that this gives me some time to do a final proof read (groan).

Since it is all taking a while now, I've added a link from The Beatle Man website so you can buy it now. No point in losing sale :-(

Yog-hurt

Much as I understand I may be opening myself to ridicule from some quarters, I thought it important to talk of my first ever yoga experiences on Friday night. So, if you dare risk losing your lunch to imagine the scene, read on...

I have a foot problem which means I'm quite creaky on occasion. My last visit to the podiatrist resulted in a recommendation to do a lot of stretching and a suggestion that yoga might help. Now, given that my wife is a yoga instructor, it does seem like the fates were always ganging up on me to give it a go.

I have resisted for quite some time. It's the all the spiritual nonsense in yoga that puts me off a bit, but the fact that I knew I would find it next to impossible was probably the bigger factor.

So, I finally gave it a go and it was every bit as hard as I thought it would. It seems that I am only vaguely human. Even bits of me I thought were OK failed me horribly. My shoulders, for example (which have never been a problem), were unable to get my arms into seemingly straightforward places. It was a very odd experience. I was essentially doing nothing much, just getting myself into various positions, but it was unbelievably knackering.

It really is very good stuff. You can feel how well the very positions have been thought through as bits of you you had forgotten about start to stretch and wail. So, if I have ever given the impression that I thought it was a lot of WOP then I apologise. Obviously, I can do without the meditation and plinky-plonky stuff, but it might just get me walking a bit better. Which can't be bad. Don't be surprised if my next blog post is with a leg in traction.

In with the new...

Had my first go with the new lens today. Wasn't hugely successful but it was as flat/grey as it gets so I wasn't expecting much. With the hood on, it is a big old beast, that alone makes me glad not to have the 2.8, I think that would be too heavy.

I can see the benefits of having IS though. With it being so dull I was struggling to get a shutterspeed that would stop camera shake. I'm sure the IS version would have helped a lot with that, but would have stung me for a lot more. When I did get 1/125 or so, the lens was sharp as a tack. Hopefully it'll be easier on a brighter day. Or maybe I was just shivering, it was around freezing.

Anyway, looks like it is going to be a good portrait lens, which was part of the thinking when choosing it.

Bloody L

Ever since I started photography again there has always been this strange feeling of pressure. I would see a great shot and then worry about my ability to capture it well. On many, many occasions I have made mistakes, some pretty basic, and missed great shots or, at least, not grabbed them as well as I could have. This is probably more due to my "learn on the hoof" approach than anything else. I'm sure some real learning would pay dividends.

Maybe I need to do more basic learning because as of today, thanks to my lovely wife, I now how some more serious gear to play with. The number of excuses for messing it up have now reduced quite a bit.

Then again, even if I do get nowhere with it, I'll still get people saying "look at the size of that"...