Follow his Progress at http://www.noradsanta.org/en/
Checkout the iPhone App
it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas
Well that’s it. Work is officially over. Not only that but the last Wedding Album is done and on the way to the Happy Couple.
Nothing now to do but eat drink and be Merry.
Whatever religion you are (or not), if your on Holiday, have a great break.
Some Religious Festivals this Month.
5 December Ashura (Muslim)
This is a day of fasting for Sunni Muslims. The day that Nuh (Noah) left the Ark and the day that Musa (Moses) was saved from the Egyptians by Allah. Shi’ite Muslims mark the martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the prophet, on this day and see it as a great festival.
8 December Bodhi Day (Buddhist)
Some Buddhists (eg Pure Land followers) celebrate Gautama’s attainment of Enlightenment on this day under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, North India.
21 December Hanukkah begins (alternate spelling Chanukah) (Jewish)
Hanukka celebrates the miraculous victory over religious persecution in the Holy Land and also commemorates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the miracle of the burning oil.
22 December Yule (Pagan)
Yule is the time of the winter solstice, when the sun child is reborn, an image of the return of all new life born through the love of the Gods.
25 December
Christmas (Christian)
Celebrates the birth of Jesus, who Christians believe to be the son of God.
Black and White or Colour
Back and White?
Colour?
I am always surprised by the strong views some people have. Digital verses Film, Print verses Slide, Back & White verses colour.
Now that last one is a weird one to me.
To me an image either suits colour or suits Black & White.
I shoot a lot of Black & White, in fact once I shot nothing but Black & White for two whole years!
Now in the digital world its a lot easier for us, we can pick colour or black and white, and afterwards if we feel we have made the wrong decision then just switch (at least for us RAW shooters).
Often I ask myself, is colour adding anything to the picture, if not then take it out.
At this time of year, with the dreary weather we sometimes have then I often resort to black and white, as colour would add no interest.
Try some Black & White yourself, you might surprise yourself.
Black and White for Dull Days
A trip into town for a coffee, was also a chance to shoot a few photographs. With the dull weather, I decided Black and White was the order of the day.
This was a quick snap converted to Black & White with the iPad’s SnapSeed App.
Updating Old Blog Entries
No real blog updates today, just some updating of old entries. I am still in the process of transferring entires from my old website.
Heres a few ‘new’ old entries.
Christmas Party Season
In the UK at least tonight will be the busiest night for party goers of the year so far.
Tonight it’s my teams Christmas Party, this is my third of the season so far.
It’s also the day when the local Police start their Drink Driving campaign.
This morning was the start as they stopped drivers heading out of Lincoln to Breathalyser them.
Remember look after yourselves and arrange transport, don’t forget you may still be over the limit in the morning.
Experimentation in the Studio
When I have some free time, and there is local model available, it’s great to spend a few hours in the Studio, just messing about with different lighting affects, brollies, soft boxes, snoots, barn-doors, naked bulbs and even coloured gels.
The other weekend I had some free time so it was off to a local studio to play.
I tried to replicated different lighting effects, from simple portrait setups, the famous page 3 setup (boring) to more adventurous techniques.
The one we had the most fun with, was trying to replicate the iTunes advert.
A white background heavily lit, but no lighting on the model. She then repeatedly jumped in the air, and I tripped the shutter. We got a number of great poses, and the background being a nice clean white, was then easy to photoshop a more colourful iTunes inspired background onto.
Swimming
With everything that’s been going on over the last month, the Gym and our fitness in general had taken a back seat.
Well after an exhausting days Christmas shopping at the weekend we visited our local Gym. Instead of hitting the weight machines, for a change we spent an hour leisurely swimming, and we both really enjoyed it.
We really must do it more often.
The cold sets in
Generally the weather has been fairly mild but finally the thermal underwear came out today for the ride to work.
The deciding factor was the ride home on Friday night. The temperature gauge on the bike never climbed above 0’C.
I encountered one icy corner on that trip but nothing to bad, but the cold now is definitely starting to bite.
I am still wearing summer gloves but with silk liners. I hope to make it to January before the winter gloves and winter necker come out.
Snapseed – iPad App of the Year
One of my faviorate iPad Apps has won Apple’s iPad App of the Year.
Its a tremendously useful photo editing application, but one of the key reasons I purchased it was that it can deal with RAW files.
On all the photographic trips I have undertaken this year, I have left the laptop at home and just taken the iPad. I can backup my photos to it, and using Snapseed tryout some editing ideas.
A great app and well worth it, if your a digital camera shooter and have an iPad.
See Scott Kelby’s website for more details.
Heres a few Photographs I edited with Snapseed on the iPad.
