Ahoy there.

This has been outside the Red Gallery in Shoreditch for a few...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:29:00 +0000

This has been outside the Red Gallery in Shoreditch for a few days, today there were perfect conditions to get a shot at it while I was on my after-lunch photostroll.

SSDs are amazing

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:50:42 +0000

SSDs rock so hard! I’m in deafening silence now, instead of listening to the tune of 7200 revolutions every minute from my old HDD :))))

Plus, no more funky sounds coming from my hard drive, and data being weird. SSD-joy. Now dry up please, factories in Asia, so we can drive external HDD prices down again! I’d like to get 1TB that doesn’t cost about 90-100 quid.

My Macbook Pro is pretty much good to go for another two years at least! Hopefully more. Thanks, Apple, Conversocial and life :)

This was taken yesterday, while they were setting up the stage...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:11:42 +0000

This was taken yesterday, while they were setting up the stage for today’s London CNY celebrations. Mesmerisingly symmetrical, and lined up perfectly!

Slightly racist message here surely :S

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:31:22 +0000

Slightly racist message here surely :S

RIP Megaupload, you were wrongly ripped apart :(

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Please excuse the horrible title.

We need a freedom of speech equivalent for the web, because if SOPA and cases like Megaupload being taken down get through, then the web will be quite simply a dictatorship. And dark too.

Who will police what?

Surely this will only provoke aggressive acts by those angry with the decisions the “law” make, and this will simply lead to war, whether it will be physical, or cyber warfare (I predict the latter). How about the internet takes a lesson from the real world and sees how these boundaries affect the general populace so greatly, and leads to so much conflict over territories and content.

Here’s the BBC article about the horrible death of a great online service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369

On another note, this makes cloud storage ridiculously moot. If your service can be taken down any day without warning, people will have to start backing up data to multiple cloud services, which kind of defeats the point. Seriously legislation, WTF.

This is pretty damn cool!

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:34:52 +0000

This is pretty damn cool!

I don’t normally post other stuff apart form my...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:09:00 +0000

I don’t normally post other stuff apart form my photography on this blog, however I just saw this video and felt very, very strongly about it, so I had to repost, and share my thoughts (which I accept are my own, and will evidently cause different reactions in everyone, but people are entitled to opinions).

*edit: I also find it ironic how the youtube thumbnail is of a topless orgy… They’re (albeit unintentionally) exploiting the very nature of the values they’re campaigning against to drive views of this crap*

//start rant

Is this meant to be about teenagers and their media consumption or simply feminist crap, spewing out the same old statistics and arguments, simply packaged and presented as teenage media influence? In my opinion, this is a load of spinned, biased rubbish.

If they wanted to talk about teenage consumption of media, they should be looking at both the good and the bad sides of the argument, instead of taking the bad sides, and misinterpreting, twisting and spinning other bits into the message they are trying to get across, which is frankly a thinly veiled feminist campaign.

I don’t see anything about how technology and media is driving and inspiring entrepreneurs, or helping kids in disadvantageous backgrounds learn, yet there are so, so many examples of this and more everywhere on the internet, and indeed life.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree there’s some over-sexualisation in some instances of the media, and violence in some video games, but at the end of the day, it’s down to the values taught to growing people by their parents, teachers and peers, and not feminists brainwashing them that all media is evil and must be abhorred.

//rant over

Pitch a tent, and take a hike. Occupy is still in Finsbury...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:22:28 +0000

Pitch a tent, and take a hike. Occupy is still in Finsbury Square! From my afternoon photo-stroll-break.

Another of my bokeh panorama experiments. I love this technique...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:41:37 +0000

Another of my bokeh panorama experiments. I love this technique because you can be so creative with framing! Plus of course get monstrous detail when it’s set as the background on your 24” monitor :)

London is full of interesting things, and sometimes...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:00:16 +0000

London is full of interesting things, and sometimes they’re in the details.

shootingdave: I gotta have a go on this!!! rozanes: ReCraft...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:34:30 +0000

shootingdave:

I gotta have a go on this!!!

rozanes:

ReCraft Your Bike: Simplicity In Inner Cit Bicycling By Joey Ruiter Studio

Michigan’s Joey Ruiter Studio has a new prototype designed for inner city cycling. Inspired by the hobby horse and the café race scene, this bike’s focus is clearly on the frame. It has been stripped down, shedding many key elements in order to create a new compact cycle. As Ruiter puts it, “The final design came down to a frame system and a really difficult rear hub. Everything else is rider preference.”

This is pretty damn cool!

And so the xmas lights light painting begins…

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:58:26 +0000

And so the xmas lights light painting begins…

Points for anyone who knows where in London this photo was...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:14:00 +0000

Points for anyone who knows where in London this photo was taken!

New portfolio site!

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:37:49 +0000

New portfolio site!:

So I got bored building my own portfolio site, and being too lazy to do so amongst working full time now! So here’s my 500px - click the title of this post to go there :)

I can’t wait to get shooting so I can play around with a new project idea I’ve got in my head! Spoiler: it has to do with squares, and frames. Oh and my D7000 of course.

We got a sofa for the office :) We also have a megadrive, with a...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:44:13 +0000

We got a sofa for the office :) We also have a megadrive, with a projector, so we’re pretty much set for over-night gaming seshes whenever!

Saw this on today’s little lunchtime walk! Looks to me...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:11:32 +0000

Saw this on today’s little lunchtime walk! Looks to me like a crow perching on the rubbish sitting on the bin :)

So I got a new camera using contributions from my wonderful...

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:01:00 +0000

So I got a new camera using contributions from my wonderful colleagues, friends, and paycheque on Friday, and went out for a short stroll down to the Occupy camp in Finsbury Square to take it for a spin.

I love the D7k, it really is such a nice replacement for my stolen D5k! The more advanced controls are much more appreciated, as well as the general better performance. 6fps is nice too, and with a nice large buffer, for longer bursts, unlike the D5k. The double memory slot is also a plus- I have the second card for shooting (very very good) video from time to time!

Having a D7000 has really highlighted to me how much I’ve outgrown my old camera. It really is a pleasure to use :)

Luckily, my 35mm f1.8 and RS5 strap weren’t taken, so my street kit is pretty perfect! I still have my reflectors and tripod too, so I have plenty of kit left to make awesome photo-magic.

A little collection of outdoor portraiture I’ve done, with...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:25:43 +0000

A little collection of outdoor portraiture I’ve done, with a focus on weddings! I haven’t really done enough weddings to have an engagement/wedding showreel, so this is what I’ve come up with so far for outdoor photography at least.

A rather nuclear looking cocktail. Disclaimer: this was from a...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:49:23 +0000

A rather nuclear looking cocktail. Disclaimer: this was from a party, I’m not drinking at work!

Make sure you're covered!

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:31:47 +0000

So my house was broken into yesterday while my housemates and I were all at work. They took laptops and cameras from everyone’s rooms, then they got to mine, and cleaned me out of pretty much all my digital kit, and a couple of 35mm film cameras too.

If I was insured, I’d be able to get at least the digital kit back so I can keep doing jobs to raise money for the other stuff; unfortunately I’m young and stupid, and never thought this would happen to me, so I never got the insurance.

However, it was a further kick in the balls for me, because they also took my backup drives, with the last two years’ worth of photos on them. Literally, tens of thousands of photos were on them, as well as family photos which I really cherished, but don’t have on my laptop (which was with me at work).

Here’s a list of kit that was taken from me, in case anybody comes across a bunch of stuff being sold that looks dodgy. They were bundled away in a brown leather bag that was in my room too like this one:

-Nikon D5000 (the rubber eyepiece on the viewfinder is torn, making it quite distinct, and it may well still have a Manfrotto tripod mount still fitted to the bottom.
-Nikkor AFS 50mm f1.4G (It had a Hoya UV filter on the front)
-Nikkor AFS 24-70mm f2.8 (Again, this also had a Hoya UV filter)
-Nikon SB-700 (They left the case behind, so it’s without the diffuser, gels or stand)
-Pentax Spotmatic F 35mm body (silver)
-Carl Zeiss 24mm f2 M42 mount lens
-Zorki 6 rangefinder
-Yashica Minister III (broken film spool)
-2 500GB external hard drives (2.5” hard drive form factor, both in black cases, one is pretty much empty and has a plastic case, one is almost full of photos and other backups of data I have)

They also took a hacked PSP slim, a white Nintendo DS lite with an R4 packed with games, and a black 30GB 5th generation iPod (the first video one)

I guess the lessons to be learned here are a few.

-First of all, back up your shit to the cloud. If mine was, I’d still have it, unless somebody stole the internet.
-Secondly, insure your shit, so you can at least get some of it back.
-Third, hiding your kit doesn’t do any good- burglars do a thorough search! Instead, never underestimate the power of double locking your front door.
-Fourth, kind of linked to the last point, invest in an alarm system. This helps your insurance quote too.
-Fifth, nobody’s stuff is truly safe. Burglaries happen. Fact.

So basically I have to start from scratch all over again. The first step is to start saving for a Nikon D7000 body, which will be a nice upgrade from my trusty D5000. They didn’t take my 35mm 1.8, so at least I have a very good, versatile lens left which I can use! My technical skills and experience I’ve gained are still there too; they’ve mostly stolen my pride and some of my memories on the hard drives. Expect lots of iPhone photos over the next few months!