365 to 42

I work part time in a large office, I share this space with around 80 other people and on the whole they are amongst the brightest people I have ever worked with, until they mix with alcohol. Now in their defence I must start by saying most of them are quite young (at their age I would have never held such a responsible job, in fact I’m surprised I do now) and given that life is short who can blame them for going out and having a good time, but there is a price to pay for all that fun and the next morning when you have to face you workmates is when you pay it. Take Mr X, a man used to spending late nights in the arms of a pretty girl, but when that girl works in the same office, regardless of how desirable she is, he just knows he will have to face a day of comments befitting of the best carry on films and also know’s it will only stop when someone else succumbs to the daemon drink and over shadows his latest exploits. This relentless cycle of drink and regret serves only to provide en...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to represent more accurately the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs, which in turn are known as low dynamic range (LDR) or standard dynamic range (SDR) images. Tone mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect. Well that was easier than try to explain what it means, but what does the tec...

Blog of the week for this week is the wonderful a Tykes progress ; it’s a very girly anonymous blog, which means that reading it from a male point of view is like getting the daily news from a different planet. She has such a way with words that I feel drawn in and can picture the scene without really having to make any effort, for me this is the best sort of writing. My favourite post by a long way is this one , be warned it has an adult theme but should not really upset any one, but do not read at work unless your colleagues are used to you crying with laughter at your desk. Picture today yet another HDR shot, a lot of people asking about these so I will go in to more detail on them and where to find more information on Wednesday, this shot is of 3 shires head, but taken from a way down the river. ---------------- Now playing: The Beatles - Hey Jude via FoxyTunes

Years ago I trained to do a parachute jump and for weeks afterward went down to the airfield to try and get the jump done, only to find that the weather was too bad to jump. This gave me an exaggerated heightening of the senses where wind was concerned, as high wind speed was the reason we could not jump. When I took up photography the same thing happened as regards light, I started to notice light levels and the way light fell onto everything, it changed the way I look at the world. Now it’s happened again with my discovery of HDR pictures. It started last Friday when I was choosing the blog of the week for this week, I had a site book marked and spent some time checking out the wonderful HDR pictures on there, come Monday I again found myself looking at those great images and thinking that I should give it ago, so I did. My first attempt went on to the Leek blog on Thursday and now it’s the time for this blog to get the HDR treatment. This image has already appeared on the blog as a ...

What colour are you, are you male or female, gay or straight, what god do you believe in (if any) and why the hell should the answers to any of these questions have the slightest relevance to me. To be honest I don’t care one bit what the answers are and would rather you did not say, you read this blog and even sometimes comment and as far as I’m concern the fact that you do the first qualifies you to do the second as well as any one else. The reason for the questions was to high light the fact that it really does not matter who you are, you are you and that’s fine by me. But some people think differently, take this article on the blog Duckrabbit , its all about the fact that they perceive that the photographic industry is inherently racist and highlights a photo competition judging panel as a prime example, mainly because they are all white. They claim that it should more closely reflect the ethnic makeup of the society that it is in, this from a uk based blog that’s header picture ha...

Blog of the week this week is Wood and Pixels , it’s a photo blog is a similar vain as this one, by that I mean that unlike some photo blogs the words are just as important as the photos, but that just does not make it an illustrated blog as the photos are far more than just a side show to the writing. Photography comes in many different styles, some are well received by nearly everybody, take a good landscape shot for example or a good black and white portrait, but the bulk of the images on this site may well split the vote as they are processed as HDR photos. Now HDR images seem to have taken the place of digital images in the “must hate” category by that group of photographers whose ancestors clung on to glass plates while the rest of the world moved on to film and they themselves clung on to film while the rest moved on to digital. HDR (high dynamic range) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than ...

Climate change, I have to admit that I’m very skeptical about the existence of climate change and the whole global warming thing. My basis for this is that we (humans) have only been here for such a short time and for a large period of that were not really in a position to judge what was happening around us. An even smaller period of time is the length of time we have been able to accurately measure things like temperature or the size of the ice caps, so to be able to say that things are changing outside of the norm, when we really have no idea what the norm is, is like seeing a snow flake and predicting the start of an ice age. Now I known that lots of very important people seem to have been convinced that there is a problem but remember past world leaders and experts also had some strange ideas (flat earth, virgin birth, communist ruling the plant, woman’s heads over heating if they learn too much). Are they right or are they wrong, I really do not know, I personally think that we do...

I was not going to post today as tomorrow is Blog action day and I’ve signed up again to do a special post, but the post arrived and I had a reason to blog. Customer service and customer satisfaction, lots of companies strive for these two, but very few manage to get any where close. For companies that compete in an area with very similar product, service and satisfaction can be the only difference between them and for those companies I would expect a lot of effort to do them right. But what if your product is unique, the only one of its type and of a very high standard, why then should you bother to go that extra mile, I know that I would be tempted to let things slide a bit, so when I got both excellent service and satisfaction from a company that really does not have to try at all to impress me I had to let the world (or at least my small part of it) know. As you all know I walk a lot and spend a lot of that time getting wet, I am in England so what would you expect. So for me the m...

For the first time in ages I was out before the sun was up and the reward was low mist, blue sky’s and wonderful colours, but as I’m still working on those shots you will have to wait for them to appear on the Leek daily photo blog. Talking of daily photo blogs leads me very nicely on to the blog of the week. This week’s blog of the week is The Olympia daily photo , now I know there are loads of these types of blog around so what makes this one stand out? First off there is the photography, it superb; sharp, well framed and interesting, day after day, something I know is very hard to keep up. Second and by no mean any less important, it is well written, the style is friendly and informative, after a while you start to feel like a member of the family. Good images backed up by good writing, it all adds up to a great little blog and one well worth a visit. Now the result of the competition’s, although load of you visited only 2 left an entry so Suburbia and Wiicheat win 2 of the 3 vouche...

The very short competition is over and it’s small time scale was only beaten by the smaller number of people that entered. So the vouchers go to Suburbia and Wii cheat (I will be in touch). Those of you that were paying attention will notice that it still leaves £30 of Blurb vouchers up for grabs and I would hate to see it go to waste, so very quick quiz and the nearest to the answer I have got wins. What is this a picture of? You have till Monday when I need to send off the winners details to get the vouchers sent out. ---------------- Now playing: Foo Fighters - PurpleRain (Prince Cover live) via FoxyTunes

Where are you all? With only 2 days left of the competition and only one entry I can see who the winner will be, its not as if it going to be that hard to find a funny post as most of you are bloggers that I read and most of you have made me laugh out loud at one time or another. It’s a genuine prize of a £30 voucher off the cost of your own (or some one else’s) Blurb photo book, you don’t have to enter Blurbs competition , but if your book is on one of the themes then it does not hurt to have a go, so come on and have a go (the more that enter the more likely that they will do this again). Here are the details again. Those wonderful people at blurb have given me 3 vouchers worth £30 each to give away, to help promote their latest book competition in which you could win $3,000. The book competition ends on the 22/10 so to give the winners of the vouchers time to do their books this give away ends on Friday 9th. To enter you just need to follow one of my blogs and tell me your funni...

Free competition time again, those wonderful people at blurb have given me 3 voucher worth £30 each to give away, to help promote their latest book competition in which you could win $3,000. The book competition ends on the 22/10 so to give the winners of the vouchers time to do their books this give away ends on Friday 9th. To enter you just need to follow one of my blogs and tell me your funniest pet, travel or family related story. If you already have a post on your blog just link to that in the comment and I will read it there. Why have I chosen those categories well they just happen to be the themes of the books for Blurbs competition , Pets, Travel or Families, so get your thinking caps on as this competition for the £30 vouchers ends Friday. Photo to day is of Buachaille Etive Mor taken from the road at the top of Glen Coe. ---------------- Now playing: The Soup Dragons - I'm Free (featuring Junior Reid) via FoxyTunes

Back to Skye, and I wish I was going straight back, the whole reason for our journey up north was to get to the fabulous island of Skye and after 4 days of travelling we reach our destination, Carolyn’s god parents in the small village of Luib just outside of Broadford. Their house is sat right on the shore (they have seen otters playing from their windows!) and it has fantastic views down the loch, in fact the only thing to beat the location was the welcome we both got, it was like coming home. The first thing that you realise when you start to explore Skye is that its much bigger than you think, part of this is that the roads have to go round so many large mountains and also follows the coast which very rarely goes in a straight line, so it takes forever to get any where. The other part is that there are not that many towns on the island so coupled with the long road journeys it gives the appearance of being much bigger. The second thing you notice are the mountains, again they are m...