New website launch
Those of you that have visited this website over the years may have noticed that one of my great hobbies is photography. Which is why myself and my brother decided to launch a website selling prints in the vain hope that people may want some of our artwork hanging on their wall.
So without further ado I present to you www.black-photography.co.uk
The rainy day tree
Via Flickr:
Figured it was going to be an epic sunset this evening so went out with the camera. After pondering for a while on a suitable location, I figured I’d take the wife back to the tree that we had to hide under during a huge storm a few years back.
This is a little different to how I normally process photos since when shooting I was bracketing exposures, so I decided to blend them together.
Wringcliff Bay
Decided to take a little trip out with the camera in the vain hope of discovering a new photo location. After a three and a half hour journey we stopped just outside Lynton/Lynmouth at “The Valley of the Rocks”.
When we got to the valley of the rocks the sun was just begining to set and we really were not feeling the rocks so we trekked off a little further up the coast and came across a small rocky bay which I later found out to be called Wringcliff bay.
The journey down to the water was a little perilous and we decided to pack up just before the sun dipped below the horizon for this very reason. Out of all the shots this was my favourite and was also the last one, wish we stuck around a little bit longer. Still at least we have now scouted out a good location
Pregnancy Pumpkin
With halloween approaching and my wifes pregnancy belly forever expanding we decided to have a bit of fun with the standard bump photography thats done around this stage.
So we grabbed some face paints and after a painstaking painting session that took around 30 mins we were ready to begin shooting.
We used my interfit EX150 2 light set again with a custom made backdrop stand, which once I iron out the issues experienced with stability I will post up here.
I had a shoot through umbrella to the camera right, lighting both the backdrop and the model, and a softbox camera left centred on the model.
Fashion Boutique Newbury
If you live in the region of Newbury Berkshire you may be interested to hear of a new fashion boutique that has opened in Inches Yard, Lily.
Catering to people who are fed up with the same old, same old of highstreet fashion. With some great designers such as JuJu & Christine and Cristina Gavioli.
http://www.lily-boutique.com/?p=22
Absence…
So I decided to check if my website was still operational, and was glad to see it was despite the last update being back in early 2010.
A lot of things have happened since them, I’m now married for a start and we are expecting our first baby, which unfortunately means I’ve not had a great deal of time to spend on my various hobbies (I.E Drumming, Photography, Radio Control stuff), which this website now seems to be about.
Over the last year or so though I have found time in my busy schedule I have found the time to get some things done such as building a website for our wedding and the photos from our honeymoon in Kenya.
http://www.theblacks.co.uk/
I’ve also found the time to get into studio portrait photography, buying a simple studio kit from Jessops. The interfit EX150 kit comes with almost everything you need to start (excluding a hot shoe adapter) and if I’m honest its a great little starter kit. Now I just need to find people to use as my models that are not my wife (since she can be reluctant at times). The results of my short time of testing can be seen below.
![Freedom!](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6222/6288753025_11c6d99af8_m.jpg "After spending a good hour preparing for the shoot of "the wasp queen" me and the wife decided it really wasn't going to work. Bit of PP though and got a passible tribal portrait :)
1 Softbox camera right 1/2 power
1 white shoot through umbrella behind camera 1/4 power
Canon 500D & 50mm 1.8
1/200
f/11")
I’ve also managed to persuade my brother to take up photography and his work can be seen flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee79/. To that end we have decided to start another website to display works from the both of us which can be found at http://www.black-photography.co.uk/
Now over the years I’ve promised to come back and update this website more often, kind of like a day to day blog but unfortunately I’ve always struggled finding the time. I will endeavour to do better in future 
GPS photo tracking for Free
Preparing for our trip to the lake district I really wanted a way to be able to;
a) See where I was
b) Geotag my photos on my return.
So after some digging around I came across a piece of GPS software called GPSed which is available for download on most mobile devices including luckily for me my blackberry.
The great thing about this service is you can tag photos to the “track” either from the device (for a fee) or from Flickr and assuming your computer and camera have their clocks synced it can fairly accurately tell you where you were when you took the photos. This then enables you to add the geotagging data to your image and services such as Flickr or Panoramio should be able to use this data.
For instance here is my track of our walk up the fell known as High Street in Cumbria.
After some jiggling about you can also export the GPX file and import it straight into google maps so that you can also post them straight to your blog like so.
The following are images that I geotagged for our High Street walk in the Lake District
![Communication](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4659073667_c8b13125ce_m.jpg "After walking all day we found ourselves atop the fell known as "High Street" of course knowing there was only a couple of hours of daylight panic started to set in and unfortunately I didnt get to stay long.
Photo is attached to GPSed track <a href=\"http://gpsed.com/track/4634377919174791369\" rel=\"nofollow\">high street</a>")
Canon Remote Switch for £5
You may have seen my previous blog post about light painting and one of the things that I mentioned was the use of a remote shutter switch.
Now to buy one of these from Jessops for a Canon would cost £25 which for a piece of wire that completes a circuit is just plain silly.
So being the enterprising chap I am I made one myself, for the grand total of around £5, and now I intend to show you how I did it in a step by step tutorial.
All that you really need is as follows:
- Soldering Iron + Solder(I already had these but Maplin sell them for £5)
- Switch (£1.79 – Maplin)
- 2.5mm Adapter(£1.99 – Maplin)
- Required length of Speaker Wire
- Pair of old headphones
Should be fairly obvious what you need to do next, but since this is a “How to” I’ll explain.
- First strip both ends of the speaker wire using wire cutters/scissors/teeth.
- Solder the ends of the speaker wire to the switch (There is only 2 contacts so there is no way you could mess this up… I hope)
- Now you’ll be destroying those old headphones, remove the wire and all the plastic housing around the jack.
- If you managed the above step successfully you should now see 2 solder points, solder the other end of the speaker wire here
- Plug the headphone jack into the adapter
- Plug the adapter into your camera and take it for a spin!
The switch I used above is a locking switch which means you press it down and you need to press it again to release, this is perfect for light painting, but if you were going to be shooting portraits you’ll most likely want to replace this with a “push to make switch”
Obviously I’m a Canon shooter but this tutorial may work with other makes.
Painting with light
It’s a well accepted fact that when it comes to photography its all light, and of course that would mean you need to light your subject appropriatly before hitting the shutter release button right? Wrong!
The technique known as Light Painting is not exactly a new concept but since I’ve only just had a chance to play with it I thought I’d tell the world.
Is this the holy grail?
No it is not the wine cup of a deity’s minor it is infact a faberge egg (not a real one obviously).
Here i’ll describe the process for anyone that’s still reading and not just looking at the pictures.
Needed;
Camera (you will need some control over shutter speed, an SLR set to bulb mode is ideal)
Torch or some other way of painting your subject with light
Tripod or something to sit the camera on
Darkness
Optional:
Sweet wrappers etc to color the light (or filters if you have any)
Shutter release cable (this makes things easier)
To capture the image of this angry knife I set up my camera on a tripod and focused on the subject. This can be done manually or by the auto focus of the camera but you must remember to set the camera to manual before taking the shot. (Otherwise the autofocus will constantly hunt in the low light conditions)
Now if your using an slr you’ll want to set the camera to its lowest ISO which in my case is ISO 100, the reason for this is so that we can gradually add the light since the sensor isn’t over sensitive resulting in an over exposed image. You can adjust your aperture to suit your needs I personally shot these at f10.
For your shutter speed you will want to set the camera to bulb as it gives you plenty of time to play with your torch, on my Canon 400d this involves just scrolling right through the shutter speeds and it is at the end. If your camera doesn’t have a bulb setting you can set it to your longest exposure but remember your now working to a deadline.
Now the fun bit grab your torch and turn off the light.
If your operating in bulb mode you will need to keep your finger on the shutter button which is why I suggested the remote control, the alternative is to set the exposure time. Now you can have some fun by painting your subject with light. Start passing your torch over the subject changing the color of your filter when necessary.
This is where practice comes in handy as you’ll not be able to see what you have already lit so you’ll be keeping a mental note of what colour is where.
Once you think your done just release the shutter button and view your results.
This is a great technique for the winter months since it doesnt require any daylight and anything can become interesting with a little time and effort.
Marwell Zoo
So last week it was mine and Sian’s berfday, and despite both of us suffering with the Flu we did manage to drag ourselves out of the house and get ourselves to the Zoo. I of course had the camera with me and it was a beautiful day.
Here is my favourite (Which is a wonderful sleeping Leopard)
Pool Party.. or should I say Bath Party
So Saturday we all ventured up to James place to take advantage of the swimming pool at the mansion. It was clear on the journey down however that the weather was going to be less than sunny as visibility on the dual carriage way dropped to nothing. It really was raining sideways. Now some people would have just turned back at this point and gone home to their nice warm room with the telly. Not us though.
We arrived and promptly set about checking the temperature of the pool, which was a nice 35 degrees, and it wasn’t long before we were all swimming in the rain. The pool was so warm it was literally like a bath and none of us cared about the weather outside. There were points when you couldn’t see across the pool because of the amount of steam rising from the water.
Here are some of pic’s I captured on the camera phone when I wasn’t busy in the pool, there is generally a pirate theme.
WHO’S A PIRATE?!
Xbox Red Ring of Death…. #2
So around this time last year my xbox decided that it didn’t want to boot up. No amount of coaxing would bring the console out of hibernation and the only sign that it was still alive was the 3 red illuminations on the front. Now if you’ve been lucky (or you bought an elite) you’ve not seen this before but I can assure you its a very common fault due to a manufacturing flaw.
The good news was they had just extended the warrant in light of the fault and all that was required was to log it with Microsoft and get them to pick it up. I was without my console for a couple of weeks while the boffins in Germany put it all back together and eventually I recieved the console back in full working order.
Now I figured that they had actually bothered to fix the original fault but last week I realised that they couldn’t have as to my horror it happened again. The good news is I sent it off at the begining of the week and it would appear its already on its way back, so at least Microsoft have got their turnaround time sorted out.
Still I’ve yet to experience a single fault with my Sony PS3 so perhaps Microsoft were not so wise to just chuck out their next gen console so they could cash in on early sales. If a jobs worth doing its worth doing right my mother used to say.
Hopefully it’ll be back soon so I can get back to playing some Rock Band!
Photos from the Air Tattoo… Part 2
Ok so last time I posted I hadn’t had a chance to go through all of the photos that I had taken at RIAT 2009 (Royal International Air Tattoo) so I thought I would post up some more. This collection also includes some more of the stars of the day. The vulcan bomber xh558 which returned to the sky after 14 years (And over £9 million later) If you are interested in hearing more of the Vulcan I recommend you visit the trust website here
Also included are the legendary Red Arrows. I really cannot stress how much the photos do not do them justice though. I was extremely pleased to have captured the following shot which almost shows you how incredibly close they get (Unfortunately the focus is a tad on the soft side)
Royal International Air Tattoo 2009 (RIAT 2009)
People tend to get their panties in a twist over wars and conflicts but it really is rather suprising the amount of people that turn up at airshows all over the world each year to witness the awesome power of some of the most sophisticated killing machines ever invented. Personally the roar of a jet sends tiny jolts of electricity all over my body and blood thirsty killers or not you have to respect the feat of engineering that is the jet engine as we know it.
I was a little dissapointed however after looking over the display schedule as there were a number of regular visitors that were not on the list, I refer to the F15 eagle, mirage, osprey and even the harriers didn’t get a full set. I can only assume this was because the pilots or the aircraft themselves were tied up in the various conflicts around the world.
The day itself was off again/on again sunny and we all managed to get a little burned despite this. Of course I had my camera with me and I had managed to borrow Flo’s 200mm lense, so I present to you the first batch of photographs that I manage to capture (This is a small collection of the 450 frames I captured so there are more to come!)
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) PostsPhotos from Papa Roach/Buckcherry at the o2
Ok don’t get too excited…
Here are a couple of pictures that I managed to take at the o2 Papa Roach/Buckcherry gig on my phone. They are a bit crap and in no way show my photography abilities since they were taken on my piece of crap mobile phone.
Buckcherry
Buckcherry
As I said, crap. But at least it proves I was there 
Buckcherry / Papa Roach – O2 Oxford Academy
Papa Roach
WOW!
Ok let me just say that again to make my point WOW!
Right lets start from the begining shall we, we arrived at the O2 Oxford and I must admit I figured that this place was gonna be a little on the large side but I was really pleasantly suprised once we got inside and discovered that it was infact a very intimate venue. So we got a drink at the bar and awaited the first act…. Dear Superstar.
No I hadn’t heard of them either, when they waddled out onto the stage I really wasn’t sure what to expect but my god these guys rocked hard, the vocalist had so much energy I was getting tired just watching. I can only really describe Dear Superstar as a cross between AFI, earlish FFAF and perhaps a little of Papa Roach in there. Worth checking out if you haven’t heard of them.
Next up after a short break was Buckcherry, which if I’m honest is who I really really wanted to see. And they were everything that I hoped they would be! Now I’ve been a fan since 1999 when I first picked up a copy of Rock Sound and Buckcherry’s Lit Up was featured on the cover CD and since then I’ve been hooked. As soon as Josh Todd begins singing in that Steve Tyleresk kinda way it just sends goose pimples cascading over my skin (Not in a gay way mind). With 4 albums to cover Buckcherry did a good job of dipping into each and providing the goods, playing Lit up, Crazy Bitch, Sorry and Rescue Me although they didn’t get round to Dead Again which I was a little dissappointed with. When their set was done I honestly wondered how the hell Papa Roach were going to follow such a performance.
Then Papa Roach turned up on stage and all my wondering was done. Now I understood right from the very start that this was a tour to promote their new album, which after listening to a fair few times I condemned to the back burner with such immortal phrases like “Their old shit was much better” or “They were better when they were harder” but listening to them last night they truely are a live band. Jacobys stage presence is a frighting thing and his onslaught against the audience unrelenting I figured that they’d toned down a lot since I first saw them many moons ago following the release of Infest but I couldn’t be more wrong. If I ever get a chance I’d see them again and again, and it just goes to show sometimes albums do not show a bands real colours, for that you need to see them live. Infact I may bring myself to forgive Jacoby for having such a stupid haircut……. Maybe not.
Transforminators
Well if your like me your probably patiently awaiting Transformers: Revenge of the fallen and Terminator: Salvation which are both set to be released next month. Now what if you could save some time and view both films at the same time. Yes thats right I give you TRANSORMINATORS
Some people clearly have far too much time on their hands.
The release dates for both REAL movies are as follows:
Transformers: Revenge of the fallen – 23 Jun 09
Terminator: Salvation – 3 Jun 09
Joey Jordison is Weird.
Ok I’m willing to believe that people will do almost anything for a little publicity but I think the Joey Jordison from Slipknot has taken this a little too far.
He has just released his own Signature drumsticks through Pro Mark and not being content with just having his signature on the sticks he has decided to have his own blood inserted into the ink.
“The first wood stick I ever played was a Pro-Mark, so I’m thrilled to be joining the family! To show everyone just how serious I am about my new signature 515s, I’ve even gone as far as putting my own blood in the ink for them. It’s not just my signature on these sticks, it’s me.” – From Pro Mark
Now I can safetly say that I will not be buying any of these sticks, not because I think its some how unhygienic or the simple fact that its just weird, The reason that I will not be buying into this is because I don’t want to give other manufacturers the idea that inserting bodily fluids into products make them saleable. Next thing you know Lars Ulrich will be releasing his signature sticks with his very own man juice in. What is the world coming to!
Spotified
Hopefully you’ve already had a chance to read my previous article with regards to Spotify if you haven’t check out the previous post here.
As previously stated Spotify is a great tool for finding new music but it also has the benefit of helping you find music that you’ve perhaps heard somewhere else. For instance I really wanted to find the cover of Disturbed – Down with the sickness that was played halfway through the remake of Dawn of the Dead, if you haven’t heard it its like a Jazzy Lounge version of the popular metal track. A quick search of Spotify revealed that this was infact performed by Richard Cheese, and he does another of other great covers including Nirvana – Rape Me and Korn – Freak on a leash.
If you have spotify installed here is the playlist for Richard Cheese
Whilst on the subject of great covers and spotify I feel like I need to mention another album which is Nightmare Revisited which is the soundtrack from The Nightmare before Christmas redone by Various Artists including Korn, Marilyn Manson, and my favourite Rise Against.
Check them out and if you find any other great covers on Spotify post them in the comments section.
Autobots Transform and Roll out….
It seems like only yesterday when I was sat on the floor on my parents house making strange noises whilst trying to arrange various pieces of purple and green plastic to change from a robot into a giant scorpion. I refer obviously to the Transformer Scorponok.
That was a number of years ago now and the transformers franchise has since visited Hollywood rather successfully may I add, and the sequel is about to be released. Revenge of the fallen.
Personally I was a little dissappointed with the range of characters that were included in the original movie and I’m kinda hoping they can bring back a couple more of the classics, such as Arcee, Soundwave and Devastator.
Well it looks like someone was listening as it would appear that all these characters are now in the sequel (Although how much they resemble the originals is open to debate)
In terms of plot its pretty much the same as its always been in the cartoon, the decepticons are up to something devious (Usually involving Energon) and its up to the Autobots to set them straight with the aid the insignificant humans.
Now I suspect like me your keen to get a glimpse of the trailer and of course it pleases me to post it here. Enjoy!
(Make sure you hit the HQ button!)
For more information on the release date of the film check out www.transformersmovie.com
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) PostsSpotify..
Ok you may have seen the blog article I wrote over on the Happiness@Gunpoint site about the service known as Gnoosic which allows you to put in a couple of band names and gives you suggestions on who else you might be interested in.
The problem is where do you go from here? You could search youtube and see if you can find anything by the band in question but the level of success can sometimes be a little poor.
What if I told you, you could listen to pretty much any music you wanted for absolutely nothing. No I’ve not gone completely and utterly bonkers, there is a new service called Spotify which allows you to listen to whatever you like, whenever you like for free.
www.spotify.com
Now I know what your all thinking, whats the catch? Well the service is advertising supported so every so often you’ll get a couple of adverts streaming in between your music and there are a couple of adverts in the application itself.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of the application is to be able to create your own playlists and then share them with other people via your blog or website. Various sources already exist online which allow people to post their playlists here I’ve listed a few:
spotifyplaylists.co.uk
spotifyfriends.com
spotifylist.com
Hopefully this is just the start of something as Spotify has once again made music enjoyable and less like a chore, and lets face it, everyone benefits as a result.
Woodland Photography
Decided since I had the day off and it was such a beautiful day to take a trip out with the camera.
Some how I had forgotten that it was Bluebell season so that was a pleasant surprise.
Here’s my favourites from todays shoot.
Wood Photography & Sienna Wall
So this afternoon me and Sian escaped to the woods as the weather was fantastic, and as we’re walking along she politely tells me to be quiet as she could hear a wooshy windy noise. The sound she could hear was infact the noise that occurs when lots and lots of little legs hit the soft earth and that was when we noticed the ant hill with many ants flowing over it. Words cannot describe what a fantastic sight this was, something straight out of a documentary on the Amazon.
So I got in there with the camera and did my best to capture the moment, by the end of it I was absolutely crawling with ants.
Returning from our trip to the woods we decided to stop in and see Sian’s niece Sienna, and since I had my camera with me I figured I’d try and get some shots. I’ve always heard that photographing Babies and Animals can be a little tricky but I found it was easy to work with Sienna, she was a natural and seemed to play up for the camera.
Anyway enough of my waffling on here are the fruits of my labour.
Electric Drum Kit with Guitar Hero/Rock Band
Now if you’ve been living in a box for the past couple of years you’ve probably missed the huge boom in so called music games. The basic idea is you a scrolling bar with “notes” that you are required to hit in time to the music with your silly plastic guitar.
Things got a little more interesting with the latest series when Rock Band allowed the use of an additional drum controller so now you could play as a whole band whilst enjoying a few cold ones from the fridge. The makers behind the Guitar Hero series quickly followed up with their own “Full Band” version and released their own drum controller.
I started drumming with an Alesis DM5 electric kit a fair few years ago and since I bought my acoustic kit it’s been sat their gathering dust, and I always wished there was a way to connect this up to my Xbox 360 so that the whole experience would be a little more true to life.
Now with the Guitar Hero World Tour drum controller this can become a reality, all that’s required is a simple MIDI cable and a little knowledge on how to set your drum brain up correctly.
The midi notes are as listed below:
Rockband / Rockband 2
- RED - MIDI Note 38 - (Snare Drum)
- YELLOW – MIDI Note 46 - (Closed Hi Hat, Hi Tom)
- BLUE – MIDI Note 48 - (Open Hi Hat, Mid Tom, Ride Cymbal)
- GREEN – MIDI Note 45 (Crash Cymbal, Low Tom)
- ORANGE – MIDI Note 36 (Kick Drum)
Guitar Hero
- RED - MIDI Note 38 (Snare Drum)
- YELLOW – MIDI Note 46 (Hi Hat, Crash 1)
- BLUE – MIDI Note 48 (Tom 1)
- GREEN – MIDI Note 45 (Tom 2)
- ORANGE – MIDI Note 49 (Ride, Crash 2)
- PURPLE – MIDI Note 36 (Kick Drum)
Now it took me a while to work out that you also need to make sure you set the MIDI channel to 10 otherwise none of this will work. As you can most likely tell from just looking at the list above, the Rockband configuration is alot more logical for playing on a real/electric drum kit.
With more and more people developing an interest in real drumming after playing these games it can only be a good thing that such things are possible. Whilst you still rely on the screen to provide you with what your playing and when your playing, you begin to develop muscle memory which you can take with you to the real kit.
I currently drum with Razor Pineapples (Entirely fictional Rock Band 2 band) and Happiness@Gunpoint (real life band) so if you’ve got any questions/comments leave a comment.