I came across a post on Strobist titled "Keep a lighting file, version 2" which got me thinking that I really should start to keep an inspiration file of some description. It would consist of images and probably some text about the images and it would be something I could refer to every now and then when I'm feeling that I need a little creative input. It needs to be something I can add stuff to relatively easily and also something that I can easily copy onto and update on my Windows Mobile phone. So a folder of images just wont work. I could possibly create a Word document, but it could get very large very quickly! I'm not quite sure how I'll work this, but I'll post back when I've decided how to work it. (read the original Strobist article here) Photopreneur recently published a very interesting article titled "Edgy photos sell in the art world" (read it here). The article describes the changes occurring in the art world as far as photography and the influences the emerging markets of the Far East particularly China are having on the market. It has to be every photographer's dream to see one of their photographs changing hands for a six figure sums, but unfortunately for most very unlikely to happen. But if you don't get your work out there, you'll never know.
I just got my Lomo LC-A back from a chap by the name of Roger Lean in London. The camera had developed a bit of an intermittent light leak and was generally in need of some TLC. I found Roger's details from a couple of forums and was seriously impressed with the service he provides. He had it for just over 2 weeks and I received it back with a comprehensive list of what he's repaired/changed or fiddled with all for the meager sum of £30! He can be reached on this number if you require his services - 0208 881 5208. The marvelous PicLens add-on for Firefox that I mentioned in a previous post (here) has been rebranded and upgraded. It's now called CoolIris (not sure why the name's been changed - I prefer PicLens, but hey I'm no marketing guru!) and now has simple sharing functionality added. All in all, its a pretty damn cool product. Get it here :
Just a quick post for today. The wife and kids have gone out and I'm off to the gym shortly followed by the football. The season has started again.... at last!! Anyway, I saw this link titled "60 Incredible Aerial Photos You Must See" in the show notes for the PhotoNetCast podcast Episode 9 which is some fantastic aerial photography from Yann Arthus Bertrand. There are some stunning images on this page and these are definitely a must see. Totally amazed, I then I did a bit of googling on the photographer and found his own site (Click here). This is a truly outstanding project he's been running - he's amazed over half a million aerial photographs taken in some 100 countries! There's a whole host of environmental information on there and some other photography projects he's been working on (which are also worth a view). I was totally overwhelmed by the content of this site - it has to be seen to be believed. There's also another site of his (link here) where there are 2000 aerial wallpapers to download complete with descriptive captions.... FOR FREE! Truly an inspiration! Already googling helicopter hire...
I've added the shots from the wedding that I did a couple of weeks back to my gallery - check them out here. Brian Auer over at Epic Edits is running a pretty cool competition - "The $50 film camera". Yep you guessed it - it's a film themed and you gotta shoot it with a camera that cost less than $50 (or about £25). They've managed to get Ilford and Lomography involved with the prizes. The deadline is the 12th September, so get shooting - it sounds like fun. For more details, go here. On a slightly different topic, my backup regime. I use EMC's Retrospect to run a nightly batch job to automatically duplicate images that I download from a CF card or scan negs onto my pc to an external USB drive. Every other day, I use Retrospect to copy the latest changes to the USB drive over a VPN to an external drive attached to a pc at home. It's all been working fine for months, but lately my office ADSL connection has been getting attacked which causes the router to drop the connection and the backup job to fail. The result is that the data gets copied over the Internet all over again, but they've been failing repeatedly so I've just had a bill from my ISP for exceeding my 50GB a month limit! I got an email warning last month, but an invoice this month. Fair enough I guess, so I've stopped the job that copies the data over the VPN and ordered a 32GB USB flash drive from Dabs and will have to copy the data manually for the time being until the attacks die down. The problem that I have now is managing changes. New files are easy enough to manage, but if I make changes to a bunch of sidecar files in Lightroom how do I reconcile the differences with the offsite storage? Any ideas????
Just a brief post today to let ya'll know that the printers have added the new images onto the Indigo Press and the corresponding thumbnails are on the website - Check it out here. I've still got some updating of the brochure site to do yet (hopefully early next week), and fingers crossed get some standard ones in the shops soon too. We've kept the online price at £14.99, and there's now nearly 100 images to choose from, and as always the calendar can start in any month, and you can personalise as many dates as you like. Order yours now.... 
I'm afraid to say that I'm absolutely mentally busy at the moment, and unfortunately one of the first things to suffer is this blog! I still haven't found the time to finish processing my shoot from London the other week, or go through my images of the seals from last week. I have however managed to find a few bits and bobs of interest to keep going... Inspiration:
If you're in the US, and you're into your Urban Exploration, then this is the site for you - www.opacity.us - it's a great site packed full of great photographs and a comprehensive list of places to shoot. Another great site if you shoot portraits and are after some inspiration is www.davehillphoto.com . If you're still stuck for inspiration, try checking out the PhotoNetCast podcast. Their latest instalment (Episode 9), has "inspiration" as its theme and is worth a listen as always. Check out the shownotes and podcast here. Finally, I've noticed that there is a serious dearth of stock photographs of uPVC doors, windows, gutters, conservatories etc, so if you've got some you're prepared to sell, please contact me ASAP! That's it from me for the time being I'm afraid - I really need some sleep!!
Hidey ho, back again from a fun family week in Norfolk. We stayed in a fabulous converted barn not far from the quaint little towns of Great & Little Walsingham rented through a great company by the name of Rural Retreats. We've used them once before for a break in the Lakes, and I reckon we'll be back to Norfolk with them next year, though probably in a different property. Although I went completely tooled up, very little shooting was accomplished. My 17 month old daughter managed to crack her head on a stone step in the barn on day 2. After a not insubstantial amount of blood loss, a rather fractious hour's drive to A&E in Norwich, we got her head sewn up. She had a large gash above her right eye and was hysterical whilst they tried to repair her. Fortunately, its scabbed over nicely and hopefully there'll be no lasting damage, but the rest of the week was spent watching over her like a hawk and the result was very little shooting. We did however manage a trip out to see the seals at Blakeney Point, and a marvelous adventure it was. They get you really up close to the seals, and there are loads of them just languishing on the beaches with the occasional inquisitive one or two investigation the boats. I popped on the Sigma 170-500mm before we left the jetty, but due to the spray I kept it in the bag until we got up really close. I'd been toying with trading it in for a 2x teleconverter, but as PFD didn't have one in before I left, I thought I'd give it another outing to see if the results really are as intermittent as I remember. On initial inspection I got some great shots, but until I get into the office tomorrow, I can't say for sure. I'll post the results tomorrow. I've got a few interesting links for you below, but before I sign off I've got to point out that I will be starting a new webdev contract on Tuesday and unfortunately its onsite so I'm probably not going to be posting as much as usual. I've got a few ideas for projects that I plan to put into action to keep me sane over the next few months or so and I'll post more details of these when I've finalised them. Links:
1) The Flash Centre (UK-based lighting stores) have created a YouTube channel, where they have been uploading lots of lighting tutorials.
2) Now this is what you call a project! Scott Strazzante's "Common Ground" project was shot over several years detailing the change in land use in Illinois when a farmer watches on as his house is bulldozed to make way for a new housing development and then details the new residents who inhabit is old land. Highly recommended - check it out here.
3) If you're looking for inspiration, check out Chase Jarvis. At just 35, he is the youngest photographer to be named both a Hasselblad Master and a Nikon Master, and his work is fantastic. Check him out here.
4) If you're on Flickr or Twitter or some such social networking site, and looking to keep in touch with some other pretty cool photographers, check out the survey Brian Auer compiled over at Epic Edits.
5) Finally, this looks pretty cool. It looks simple to use and has some nice features. You can import photos and movies, and the finished show can be presented right from the browser or saved in Powerpoint format. Check it out here
 Crikey, what a week! What with the wedding last weekend, my trip to London this week, and the family holiday which starts tomorrow, its all been a bit manic! 
The trip to London revolved around a visit to the Tate Modern to see the "Street & Studio" Exhibition. The trip was worth it for this alone - a tremendous show featuring work from artists ranging from Charles Negres to Philip-Lorca diCorcia and from Brassai to James van der Zee. While I do like a lot of studio work, my heart is really with the street stuff, and trust me there is some fantastic work on show. I was especially taken with Cindy Sherman's Bus Riders series from the 70's in which she photographs herself in a series of portraits recalled from characters she has seen on buses. She makes no attempt to hide that these are staged studio shots, as she has left the shutter release cable evident in each image. Very imaginative work indeed. I didn't buy the accompanying book as I couldn't be fagged carrying it around all afternoon with me, but as soon as I return from my hols, its going straight into my cart.  Whilst in London, I took the opportunity to get as much street and urban landscape photography in as possible - which basically consisted of two 12 hour days! Despite a run in with security and the press office on Canary Wharf (they wanted £200/hour so as I could just get my camera out of its bag), spending the "golden hour" on Wednesday morning getting lost on the tube, getting seriously blistered feet and sunburnt, I had a whale of a time! I filled 2 and a bit 8GB memory cards and I've only just got round to going through them (I've really gotta get my hit rate up - plan to use film again for my next project so as to discipline myself a bit more). I'd post more details of my trip, but I'm quite literally nodding off as I type. Maybe tomorrow if I get the time...  I've been using a trial of Lightroom 2 to process the London and wedding shots, to see if I can really justify the $99 upgrade fee (still quite pissed at this!), and I'm really impressed. The dual monitor functionality, I find is marvelous and makes life a great deal easier. I'm also seriously digging the Adjustment Brush which also improves processing time. It has crashed once on 2 separate XP machines, and there also appear to be some difficulties launching into Photoshop, but its a thumbs up so far. Slightly off topic, del.icio.us have relaunched a new and improved service - see delicious.com/fabfilippini And to finish off the week a few links for you:-
1) Came across this site in Prospect Magazine - guerillaphotography.co.uk. I quite like the concept of this kinda thing, though don't know if I would have the balls to venture into some of the places myself.
2) This week in photography - twipphoto.com - a great podcast and great site.
3) And finally, the Aperture Nature Photography workshops have just been announced, but wait for it, they're invite only..."This is a year-long adventure and TWIP audience members will have the opportunity to enter a contest that might win them more than $2500 worth of prizes and an all-expenses paid trip to one of these parks." Read more here. Can't type any more, zzzzzzzzzz........
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