A recent shot taken at the office which I’ve just got round to editing properly. I’m working hard to improve my post processing workflow at the moment and pretty pleased with how this one has turned out. A lot more work is needed but I think it’s worth it. The roof beams are set to falls, but the shot is square on – honest.
T-shirts, they’ve launched fucking T-Shirts! They’re letting an amazing platform die and the only news that comes out of Flickr in recent memory is T-shirts? They have to be shitting me. How about better features like smart sets – based on tags to organise your content? Smart geo-tagging features? A decent mobile app that allows better engagement with your content? Notifications on your phone when someone comments that isn’t via email to further that engagement?
Actually that’s not fair, they changed the individual image page to show the ISO, ƒ stop, lens and shutter speed of the shot. Big whoop.
There’s loads they could do to improve the platform and see off or even engage with competition such as Instagram.
But no, we’ve got FUCKING T-SHIRTS!
RIP Flickr.
One of my colleagues at work brought this beautiful thing in the other day, which although a little Nathan Barley, is a pretty amazing bike. It turns out that this belongs to his Granddad and is just borrowing it for a while to get around town. It’s in immaculate condition and weighs nothing due to the main section being made from aluminium. The company appear to still be going and have a history section on their site showing the original catalogue shots from the 80’s which are well worth checking out.
That reminds me, really must look into another mountain biking holiday in France for 2013. Not sure about those shades though.
Via heytobster
Sometimes riding around really does drive me insane due to the attitude of drivers to cyclists people who are on bikes. The person rushing past you and cutting you up to get to the red light is my particular bug bear or the police car creeping forward in the ASL. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an eloquent rant to date though. It is a little sweary but entirely justified in my opinion.
I have had enough of f*cking motorists. Car drivers, bus drivers, lorry drivers, vans, taxis the f*cking lot of you. Basically you have left me with pretty much no option but to assume that every single one of you is a self righteous c*nt with no regards for the laws of this country who lack the fundamental regard for the safety of other human beings necessary to enable you to be considered anything other than an utter w*nker.
Well worth reading the whole thing.
My love for my little Brompton is well known – especially now it’s got flat bars on. It makes the perfect bike for getting to meetings in Oxford as walking at either end is painfully slow.
Building a Brompton is a labour intensive task. It takes a factory of 115 skilled people, some 1,200 parts and six hours to custom build each individual bicycle.
It’s nice to know that this ingenious bicycle design is still built in the UK just beneath the Hammersmith flyover. This little video and article gives a short insight into their processes. Best to not scroll down to the outrageous comments on the Torygraph though.
I was feeling pretty crap towards the end of last week so intended to have a fairly relaxed time on both days this weekend. Sat I helped Emma sort her accounts, took a few things to be framed, moved a few boxes for Matt, quick walk in the park followed by a beer at The Gowlett. Sunday managed to get a quick ride in at Swinley with Matt and Vaughan. Riding seemed to be just the thing to try and clear my cold and couldn’t have picked a nicer day.
Trying to use a camera of any form more at the weekend and think I’ll start again with these kind of posts as it’s nice to look back at a bit of visual diary.
This is so much better than watching TV. Four kittens in a pen with toys, things to jump on and each other to play with. It reminds me of the farm cats my sister and I got when I was 10. Unfortunately mine got hit by a car but my sisters lived to the grand old age of 22.
Who knows how long this feed will be up for but catch it whilst you can. It’s completely mesmerising. Careful you don’t waste too much time though.
Details of this ruined island off the coast of Japan have been doing the rounds recently due to it’s inclusion in the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. Apparently the actual film was shot at Pinewood but the wider opening scenes of the island were shot on location.
Although I’ve often posted about photos showing urban decay or “ruin porn”* before I have slight problem with the glorification of the subject matter. However I’m posting this as the short documentary offers a moving account of someone returning to the island after growing up as a child there as well as it being such an unusual context.
*Not my phrase or choice of words.
Working as an Architect and occasional photographer I find that graphical representation comes far easier than words. Sure I can write formal emails, structure planning reports and minutes of meetings, but being any way creative with words isn’t something that comes easy to me really or that I have much practice at. One of the reasons for re-designing this blog was to find an outlet for longer pieces of writing and to maybe think of longer more structured pieces. Choosing the font and space surrounding text was a big part of the re-design. I often find it hard to think of things to say when it comes to writing pieces here and to avoid the temptation to simply use superlatives and then add a picture then hit post.
So when I had some time off in lieu recently I went for a ride along the river east and found myself taking a series of pictures recording my trip. I got back and then processed and wrote a hurried description including superlatives and added pictures. Done. What I had actually wanted to do was write an account of all the fascinating things I’d seen along that route, with carefully inserted pictures illustrating my points, and showing a thoughtful account of an interesting context.
Fortunately a few days later Building Design magazine Tweeted about wanting people to write about cycling and Architecture so I pitched the idea of re-writing my existing post for them which they accepted. The hard part was actually writing it which I procrastinated about and delayed until I had to just sit down and just do it. As usual I also thought about how I would use technology to help me achieve it and found a great little writing application called IA Writer which cuts out all the distractions and even lets you focus on the text sentence by sentence which I found invaluable, especially in full screen mode.
So armed with this and Google Maps I went along plotting all the interesting things I’d seen and working out how my pictures fitted in with the story. I was also keen to make sure I didn’t bitch or moan about anything that might upset anyone reading (and be attached to my name) but write it from the perspective of a guide book and let people make their own decisions. Three hours and 690 words later I found something I was happy with. I read through it another three times and then hit send on the email.
Fortunately BD liked it and published it a few days later. Even better was that it didn’t attract any nasty comments!
