A bit of a play on words, I suppose.
This caption was going to contain much detailed, frustrated yammering, but you don't want to read that, I'm sure.
Suffice to say that today has seen plans chopped and changed on top of frustratingly slow progress on everything.
Never did the phrase "more haste, less speed" seem more appropriate.
An old neighbour once said that his work felt like constantly fighting fires with a water pistol. I know how he felt.
A backup photo today, as I'm worn out!
I walked past this interesting little bar while I was waiting to collect my takeaway the other night. I've never been in, but I thought it looked rather cute and cosy - I think I need to try it out at some point.
It looks like there are only a handful of tables in there, which I deem to be approximately the correct amount.
One more after the jump.
This has ended up looking like a thermal image, but it is in fact a 5x macro of some foam handwash with some slightly silly lighting applied.
I've included an earlier shot, and a quick behind-the-scenes snap of the contrivance I shot this with after the jump.
I have felt oddly unsettled today, and haven't been able to shake it all evening. I think it's mostly work related, but it is getting a bit old.
This is the same plant I shot a few days ago, but properly out now. It smells remarkably strong!
A couple more after the jump.
This is my submission for this week's 52frames challenge "Motion Blur"
I've been planning this shot for a few days, and got round to doing it this evening.
I was initially caught out by the R5's IBIS (internal image stabiliser) on this setup. I set the camera up on a tripod in the back of the car, but didn't turn the IBIS off. As a result, the IBIS was desperately trying to compensate for the car's motion, which resulted in the inside of the car becoming extremely blurred. Once I disabled it, the sensor was locked to the movement of the car, and the pictures sharpened up nicely!
Finds it acceptable, and remains seated (not that he's in a position to do much else).
The big one. Yes, the one that's carved into the side of the bridge.
A backup photo today from a couple of nights ago.
Quite a busy day today, as seems to be typical lately.
I started some "minor" modifications on one of my bits of software when my colleagues knocked off for the day, and ended up finding that two hours had done a disappearing act on me. I find it's very easy to end up hyperfocusing on software development if I'm enjoying it.
I still have more to do on this project, but I think I know where I'm going with it now.
One flash directly overhead, plus one flash low down to lift the shadows slightly.
I thought this pair of weeds looked like someone squaring up to a tree!
I had another play with bubble photos this evening.
I wasn't that pleased with the results on the back of the camera, but when I got them on the computer, I found a few I liked.
I particularly liked the dreamy, abstract effect in this shot, it feels like a different side of bubbles than I've captured before.
I've been inspired by my recent discovery of @clemdb.raw, who's on a mission to take an abstract photo every day. His page is worth a look if abstract is your thing.
He makes a video about shooting and editing each photo too, which can be quite interesting.
It felt colder!
A backup image today, shot last night.
This is my submission for this week's 52Frames "Puddle" challenge.
Another backup photo today - I'm feeling disproportionately tired this evening, and just fell asleep watching a video that would normally hold my interest - Hopefully I'm not sickening for something, but I think a rare early night might be in order in any case!
I took this one a few days ago.
You may be old, a geek, or quite possibly both!
In case you are neither of these things, congratulations - It's a serial port connector, one of the primary ways of connecting computer peripherals before the now-ubiquitous USB appeared on the scene. It still sees semi-regular use in older designs of industrial or other specialist equipment, although it's slowly fading even further into obscurity these days.
Out of nowhere this evening, this line popped into my head, and dug its claws in. It must be years since I heard this song last, but my brain evidently decided that I was going to listen to it!
As the song played, I was looking in the kitchen cupboards, where I spotted the jars of sugar and sweetener, and presto, we have this photo of real and fake.
By some coincidence, today was a day with two musical rediscoveries - Point Of View by DB Boulevard popped up on the radio as I got to work this morning, and this one - Politik by Coldplay, materialised out of nowhere this evening.
Odd.
This is a stack of 115 frames.
A couple of backup photos for you today, taken at the weekend - because my boss would be very, very cross with me if I shared the technical photos I took at work today, and you would also be rather bored by them 😁.
These were shot in my quest for last week's 52Fframes "Blue" challenge.
One more after the jump.
I went for a bit of a mooch round the park after work this evening. I liked the dreamy look of the defocused storage sheds behind the seed pods.
While I was wandering around, I noticed an electricity pylon making rather a lot of discharge noise, and went to have a bit of a look, as I've never heard it quite like this before.
I managed to capture the light from the corona discharge around the bottom few segments of the string insulators (it's the purple fuzzy stuff in the second photo, after the jump).
I was initially going to report it to National Grid, but when I got to the next pylon, that one was doing exactly the same thing, so I think there must have been some atmospheric effect exacerbating the discharge - which makes sense, because temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure all go into the correction calculations for the high voltage testing I do at work.
It was certainly fizzing like a good'un though.
This is my submission for this week's 52Frames challenge "Blue".
We got a lovely sunny day with brilliant blue skies today, so I went out and made the most of it.
I didn't realise that I'd caught the plane in this shot until I got it downloaded onto the computer for editing, but I really like the little detail it adds!
A backup photo today, taken a few days ago. I liked the mixture of curved and straight lines in this one.
I grabbed this shot as I was leaving home with the dogs this afternoon.
If I'd not gone minimal with just the camera body and one lens, I'd have reached for a longer lens, but in hindsight, I think the extra lines in the foreground add something to the composition that would have been cropped out otherwise.
Dog tax is duly paid in the second frame, after the jump.
I will be very glad to see the back of this work week.
I had an incredibly frustrating day today, wherein a constant string of things went sideways in various irritating ways.
I went to pick up a takeaway with my friend this evening, and while we were waiting, the layers in this scene struck me as interesting.
I'm feeling a bit overworked and a bit stressed, and it's manifesting as poor creativity.
I hope this improves soon, it's rather tedious!
Why do they say that? I'm certainly not right, and rain is unpleasantly wet!
It does make for a dreamy abstract sort of look though, which suits my current mood.
I went for a walk at Beacon Hill this afternoon, and this tree caught my eye.
Dog tax after the jump!
I went for a walk with the dogs in Highfields Park this afternoon. As I was heading back to the car, I caught sight of this view and grabbed a photo.
Dog tax in the second picture (after the jump)!
This week's 52Frames challenge is "Something Old" with an extra challenge of focus stacking.
I thought I'd shoot some of my Grandpa's old tools (which I still use quite regularly!)
This is a focus stack of 30 images.
I went out for a walk this evening and the window reflection on the road caught my eye.
Rather conveniently, this bus rolled through as I was shooting, and I think it made the picture.
A day late posting this backup photo of a salt lamp. I find the textures in these glowing blocks of salt quite interesting.
A backup photo today, taken Saturday.
I've tried a few different processing options on this photo, but I ultimately decided I liked this effect with a green cast in the mids and highlights, and some extra warmth in the shadows.
It feels a bit like an old film photo under fluorescent lighting without the proper correction filter.
I've not been to London for ages until today.
I went for a little walk with my brother-in-law, and this couple sat at the viewpoint on Parliament Hill caught my eye.
A couple of very different shots today - the second one's after the jump.
Another go at the daffodils.
I'm not overly happy with this photo, but I'm too tired to think about how to make it better!
It's been a full-on few days with work, culminating in a test run today that went on until 21:30, so I'm quite tired now!
I can't show you what I was testing, but here are a few pics I took of some of our instrumentation while I was waiting for the run to finish.
This kit measures and records electrical current and many different temperature points while we exercise our test object electrically.
We learnt some useful things today.
A couple more after the jump.
Unless, perhaps, you are of exceptionally narrow stature.
I took a little walk around the village tonight. It's been another hard day at work today, and I was both tired and in need of fresh air.
Fresh air (and the chance of getting a photo) won in the end.
Work, and a repair project for a friend ran away with my time this evening, so I'm afraid it's a backup photo again today.
I quite like this one, taken back on the 10th, when we had a cold snap. It's been around 13°C warmer today than when this photo was taken.
A macro shot of a grater (of all things...)
I've got started on the daffodils very early this year! I didn't know you could get them in the middle of winter, but my Mum found some.
This is a focus stack of 15 photos, although there isn't a great deal to choose between this stack and a single frame shot at f/22 - this stacked one is a little sharper overall, so I went for it.
I went for a drive this afternoon.
The light was lovely. I was quite pleased with the results of this little stop and stroll.
It has come to Willow's attention that an un-licked yoghurt pot has been left on the counter.
You are directed to present it for a thorough CAT scan immediately.
They know your weaknesses better than you know them yourself, so they know how to hurt you.
A backup photo, taken last night.
I feel a bit worn out this evening for some reason, so I didn't shoot anything today. Slightly irritating, because I saw an interesting potential abstract shot in the form of my skylight catching the morning sun, but I was busy working, and didn't take the minute or two it would have taken to grab the camera and shoot it.
I should have channelled the spirit of Carpe Diem, instead of Carpe Null. Silly boy!
First day working this year. Not a terrible start.
This is my second crack at taking a photo for this week's 52Frames self-portrait challenge.
My initial shot had me leaning on a farm gate against the sunset, but I was unhappy with the framing once I got it home (I'd chopped part of my feet off, for a start!)
I played around with a few options, before eventually settling on this, in a nod to the countless cups of coffee I will drink, and the scenes that I hope these lenses will capture for me this year.
This was lit by daylight coming through my skylight, which put parts of my face into rather deep shadow, so I used a notebook as an impromptu reflector.
The 85mm f/1.2's extremely shallow depth of field was a bit too extreme wide open, and blurred the cup and lenses into oblivion, so I stopped down to f/2 to bring them back a bit.
This is the first outing for the MP-E 65mm macro lens on the R5.
I have been a bit bait-and-switched by this virus today - I woke up feeling quite a bit better, and a couple of hours later, my temperature shot up again.
One more after the jump.
Still feeling pretty rough today, but I did eventually manage to drag myself out for a walk in the late afternoon to escape the cabin fever.
I rather liked the way the Moon and Venus fitted into the crook of this street light.
I'm suffering under the cudgels of some particularly nasty virus at the moment, so this seemed an appropriate subject today - if it wasn't for the invention of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen, I think I'd be confined to bed in some kind of delirious fever dream state.
I snapped a quick pic of these lichens on a fence yesterday, and went back today to try and get a better shot with some lights and focus stacking.
The R5 has an internal focus bracketing function that operates at quite high speed, reducing the chance for movement or lighting changes to spoil the shot, so I used that instead of dragging the WeMacro rail out into the middle of a field.
These little trumpets are evidently Pixie Cup Lichen (Cladonia asahinae). I thought they were rather interesting.
One more after the jump.
