Busy...
Hmm... Sat I went to A's birthday and had a good time. We kipped up in London that night as well, which was rather posh to my mind. Sunday I came back and taught my student about aperture and polarisers (last week we did shutter speed and nd 110 filters), but I was rather tired. Then Katori, even though I swear I was falling asleep on the mat. It was Ok though, as J-sensei wanted us to go slow and concentrate on getting the moves right, I doubt I could have gone fast. Still, forms 1-4, plus bo forms 1-2 and both sides of three (which I'm learning) ought to have been quite a bit of brain work. I guess my body was tired, not my brain.
So once Monday rolled around I was exhausted, quelle surprise. I moseyed up to London for a friends birthday way out in Acton. As I got on the tube I thought, White City is like the end of civilization and when I got off at Acton it really felt like it. Why is suburbia so dark? It's not dark enough to see the stars (I had an argument about this at writing group) but it's just dark and depressing. Still, I went, I drank, I chatted. Then I had a journey of hell to get home. My bloody e-book reader had been plugged into the wrong USB socket (my puter comes with a few broken and powerless usb sockets) so instead of reading manga to keep me awake, I had a choice of The Economist or a book about contemporary art (why do people think art is easy? This book is full of very long words and difficult concepts). So I listened to my i-pod, which wasn't quite enough to keep me awake. I arrived home past 1am and found my darling husband at the station. Nice. Though I felt a little guilty as he had to work that evening. Incidentally, the future is here. It's 2010 and to use either my book or my cigarette I need to plug it in and charge it up. Isn't that weird? (I bought an e-cigarette, I figured that even if I don't smoke very much, it's better to smoke a poisonous but non-carcinogenic cigarette than smoke a poisonous and carcinogenic one. Also, I don't end up smelling, which is nice.)
So on Tuesday I was happy to not have to go to London. I drank a lot of coffee and met up with G from the WPS to go out photoing. I finally got the chance to try out my new b+w110 nd filter. This is a filter which means that 1000 times less light gets to the lens, so you can take 1000 times longer exposures. Confusingly, it is an nd 10, nd 3 and nd 1000x as nd filters are labelled in three different ways. It's a 10 stop filter (hence nd 10), which reduces light by three orders of magnitude (hence nd 3) and three orders of magnitude are 1000x. It's confusing to buy as I also have an nd 3 which is a 3 stop nd filter. Sigh. The nd stands for neutral density, which it isn't, it has a warm cast (which is photographer speak for it makes things more orangey-red).
Anyway here's the same shot taken with and without the filter:
Without:
With:
See? I don't think I got any great photos, or even any real keepers, as I was really bloody cold and not dressed for it and I didn't want to bore G. That, and I didn't know the effect of my new filter. Only my student had gotten to use it!
Here's some OK ones:
Still, I need to take it to the sea-side I think. That's what I got it for!
Anyway, here's some recent photos I am proud of (recently developed, they were taken in Washington):
These were taken in the museum to American Indians, which is a lovely building. It obviously designed to look like something an Indian might have built, in that it looks rather different to all the other buildings in the area. But there's not much in it and all the stories are depressing stories about peoples wiped out or a few survivors trying to rebuild or retain their culture. I think the building is the most moving thing because it's very emptiness shows you what was lost.
Anyway, I'll put some more photos from there up later.
Yesterday I won the WPS Intermediate photo comp with this photo:
I had people come up to me and tell me it was good and that I should be in the advanced class! The thing is this is the first time I've won this year, so I don't think I'm doing that well. I was rather aggrieved in the last competition when this didn't win:
I thought that was a sure-fire winner. Still, it's nice to have my print appreciated.
The photo ended up looking more greenish-grey than I expected. I did it before I'd calibrated my monitor, and don't get me wrong, it looks good in green, but it was supposed to be yellowy-cream. I didn't tell anyone that!
So once Monday rolled around I was exhausted, quelle surprise. I moseyed up to London for a friends birthday way out in Acton. As I got on the tube I thought, White City is like the end of civilization and when I got off at Acton it really felt like it. Why is suburbia so dark? It's not dark enough to see the stars (I had an argument about this at writing group) but it's just dark and depressing. Still, I went, I drank, I chatted. Then I had a journey of hell to get home. My bloody e-book reader had been plugged into the wrong USB socket (my puter comes with a few broken and powerless usb sockets) so instead of reading manga to keep me awake, I had a choice of The Economist or a book about contemporary art (why do people think art is easy? This book is full of very long words and difficult concepts). So I listened to my i-pod, which wasn't quite enough to keep me awake. I arrived home past 1am and found my darling husband at the station. Nice. Though I felt a little guilty as he had to work that evening. Incidentally, the future is here. It's 2010 and to use either my book or my cigarette I need to plug it in and charge it up. Isn't that weird? (I bought an e-cigarette, I figured that even if I don't smoke very much, it's better to smoke a poisonous but non-carcinogenic cigarette than smoke a poisonous and carcinogenic one. Also, I don't end up smelling, which is nice.)
So on Tuesday I was happy to not have to go to London. I drank a lot of coffee and met up with G from the WPS to go out photoing. I finally got the chance to try out my new b+w110 nd filter. This is a filter which means that 1000 times less light gets to the lens, so you can take 1000 times longer exposures. Confusingly, it is an nd 10, nd 3 and nd 1000x as nd filters are labelled in three different ways. It's a 10 stop filter (hence nd 10), which reduces light by three orders of magnitude (hence nd 3) and three orders of magnitude are 1000x. It's confusing to buy as I also have an nd 3 which is a 3 stop nd filter. Sigh. The nd stands for neutral density, which it isn't, it has a warm cast (which is photographer speak for it makes things more orangey-red).
Anyway here's the same shot taken with and without the filter:
Without:
With:
See? I don't think I got any great photos, or even any real keepers, as I was really bloody cold and not dressed for it and I didn't want to bore G. That, and I didn't know the effect of my new filter. Only my student had gotten to use it!
Here's some OK ones:
Still, I need to take it to the sea-side I think. That's what I got it for!
Anyway, here's some recent photos I am proud of (recently developed, they were taken in Washington):
These were taken in the museum to American Indians, which is a lovely building. It obviously designed to look like something an Indian might have built, in that it looks rather different to all the other buildings in the area. But there's not much in it and all the stories are depressing stories about peoples wiped out or a few survivors trying to rebuild or retain their culture. I think the building is the most moving thing because it's very emptiness shows you what was lost.
Anyway, I'll put some more photos from there up later.
Yesterday I won the WPS Intermediate photo comp with this photo:
I had people come up to me and tell me it was good and that I should be in the advanced class! The thing is this is the first time I've won this year, so I don't think I'm doing that well. I was rather aggrieved in the last competition when this didn't win:
I thought that was a sure-fire winner. Still, it's nice to have my print appreciated.
The photo ended up looking more greenish-grey than I expected. I did it before I'd calibrated my monitor, and don't get me wrong, it looks good in green, but it was supposed to be yellowy-cream. I didn't tell anyone that!