It's New Years eve and there's less than 20 minutes until 2009. I'm staying in. I haven't even had a drink. I'm watching Jools' Hootenanny. I bought myself a little Canon G10 to carry in my pocket. I'm going to use it specifically for all those little missed photo opportunities. I'm saying this now but by the end of the week I probably won't have done anything with it, and it'll be in the camera bag with the rest of those expensive paperweights I've got. . . :) But if it isn't in the bag it'll be providing photo's for my new photoblog http://expose.me.uk
Seriously though, 2008 has been a bit crap and I'm going to make sure 2009 doesn't end up the same way. So I've got my positive outlook head on and that's the way it's gonna be. Happy New Year Everyone.
I got sent a copy of "LIVERPOOL The Souvenir - An amazing city through your eyes.". It's a new book of photographs published by The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo and amazingly they have chosen one of my photo's to be included.
In the summer I took a few photo's of Sense of Sound choir when they were performing at Liverpool ONE. The Post emailed me last week and asked if they could use one of my pics of Dave O'Grady - "The Guy With The Hair" So I said yes.
The rest of the photo's are amazing. It's a really good book and excellent value for money. I know what I'm giving people this Christmas. It's only £4.99 and you can get it from Amazon. Click on the link in my post and buy one :)
The creator of some of my favourite childrens TV shows died yesterday.
If you ever watched Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss or the Clangers, you'll know Oliver Postgate's work.
When I was a kid my favourites were 'Pogles' Wood' and later on 'Ivor the Engine'. I think I was drawn to his work by his fantastic voice. He provided the narration for all of his programmes.
I recently bought the Audio Book of Neil Gaiman's 'Stardust'. Neil Gaiman reads the book, himself. I really enjoyed his reading because he reminded me of Oliver Postgate. . .
It's freezing cold, the frost is thick on the ground and I'm off work sick. I'm watching the best Christmas film ever: Scrooge - The Musical. The one with Albert Finney.
I went to see this on the pictures when it came out. I was seven years old, and I've loved it, ever since. I might watch "A Miracle on 34th Street" (1947), this afternoon. The first time i saw this film, I was off school, sick. I remember being tucked up on my Nin's couch.
There's nothing better than being off sick. These days off are far more satisfying than holidays or weekends. They're great.
I had to get my cat "BIG CAT" put to sleep. He was ill for a few days and lost about a quarter of his body weight. Then yesterday afternoon he had a heart attack. I had to take him to the vets and he was put to sleep, painlessly. He was 14 and a half and up until last week you'd have thought he was still a kitten.
I've just ripped off the Classic 1967 Casino Royale poster for our works do in January.
The Original Casino Royale Starred David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen and wasn't quite as serious as the new version with that weird looking James Bond they've got now. It also had that classic Burt Bacharach Soundtrack.
I've even added a link to it on Amazon for you. It's going mega cheap. Probably because it was the worst movie ever made. I think Peter Sellers walked out half way through shooting, leaving the movie in chaos. It's the first James Bond Film I ever saw and my favourite. Oh and It's the only James Bond Film that James Bond dies in. Hope I haven't spoiled it for you. :)
My version of the poster is on the left and the original is on the right. Spot the difference. :) Click on mine to download the pdf file.
I just spent a few hours designing a poster for a Ghost Walk we've booked for work. After the success of our last one "The Hope Street Shivers" which was rather good. We're going to do Shiverpool's other tour "The Auld City Shivers" If it's half as good, it will be great.
My life is a bit boring. . . Well OK it's very boring. Everybody else seems to have a cool existence doing exciting stuff and going to exciting places. All i seem to do is; Go to work; come home to eat and sleep, go back to work, go to ASDA, go to work, go to bed . . . you get the picture.
Anyway, here's a little rundown of what things have happened to me in the past four weeks or so. OK when I say happened to me, what I really mean is things that have happened. . . and I just happened to witness them. Most of the exciting stuff doesn't really involve me.
This next bit did involve me, I was actually there. I was invited to a Secret Gig a few weeks ago by Stephen Langstaff. It was in The Mocha Lounge in Sir Thomas Street, Liverpool. It was a great little acoustic gig, Just Ste and his Drummer Ste who used to drum for Mesemenie (one of many great Liverpool bands that just faded away, when they should have really went somewhere). Mr Langstaff was great, as usual, performing most of the old favourites and a few new tracks. It was like a mini MTV unplugged session, without the TV cameras. Linzi took a few photo's. The light was pretty bad and got worse when they turned out the lights. . . Ever the perfectionist Linzi has decided that all her photo's from that night are not worth looking at and to date she has only shown me one frame. The night ended with me meeting up with a few people from work at The News Bar and then a Kebab.
The following evening Sense of Sound were through to the final six in Last Choir Standing on BBC1. Being totally unbiased :) I can honestley say that SOS were the best choir on the night. The other fve choirs performed to backing tracks and did dance routines. Only Men Aloud (Who incidentally won the competition last night) Actually performed a routine that I could only describe as a Black and White Minstrels number. It measured Gorgonzola on the cheese-o-meter! Sense of Sound performed "Smiley Faces" by Gnarls Barkley.
They were the only choir to perform completely a-Capella. They were that good that it actually sounded like there was a backing track. (Maybe that was the problem). At the end of the show. It went to phone votes. I voted about 100 times for SOS but at the end of the show Sense of Sound and Revelation had both got the LOWEST amount of votes and had to go into a sing off on the next show, the following night. OK with a bit of TV magic the show was recorded straight after the Saturday night show and the judges made a decision based on one song. SOS performed Gabriel by Lamb and Revelation did Lovely Day by Bill Withers, again with a backing track. Judge who's best yourself. Here's the vids.
Jo phoned me at about a quarter to eleven to tell me that they had been knocked out. I lost all interest in the competition after this. It was definitely a fix. Even last night's fnal was a farce. Ysgol Glanaethwy out-performed Only Men Aloud by a mile but OMA won. When they performed their B&W minstrel act as a closing for the show. "Don't Rain on My Parade". . . Sparkly silver ticker tape rain fell onto them. Seems the BBC already knew they would win and had it waiting in the studio ceiling.
Back to my boring life. . . Work has been a bit weird. I've gone from being a hands on , manual worker, running a Spray Drier, to an office waller. spending 8 hours a day doing Excel stuff which I've had to teach myself seeing as the training matrix is a bit of a farce. Anyway I'm back on the drier for the next few weeks.
Another exciting (not) thing that happened was my Huey Pro decided to stop working. So off I went to Apogaeum in Warrington to return it. True to form It worked perfectly in the iMac they plugged it in to. So off home I went and yep, it's still working.
Last weekend was The Mathew Street Festival. This is the first time I've been ever. I'm ususally away in Scotland or Wales up a mountain, on my bike. But this year I haven't been out on my bike at all. So I decided to go and see, what I have been missing. Sunday was great. I can't believe it was so well organised. I wandered between the stages with Dave D and Gill, Neil, Wardy and Claire gradually getting drunker and more sunburned on my head. Highlights of Sunday were Kappa on the Superlambanana Stage and Chas & Dave on the Tunnel Stage. I danced like a dirty Cockney while making dirty Cockney noises, all of which I can't spell otherwise I'd have written them here. We ended up in the Metro Bar. By this time everything was becoming a blur. Somehow I woke up at the right station on the train home. I was in bed by half nine. At about 1 in the morning I was wide awake. My sunburned head, had given me sunstroke. Hot and Cold sweats and the shivers in the middle of the night is not fun. Especially when you have got to be up at 7 the next day. I took a couple of Nurofen and drank a couple of pints of water and went back to bed. By 7 I was feeling great and it was back to the station and on the train to do it all again. I took it easy on Monday I drank only Lucosade and water and put factor 30 sunblock on my poor head. My legs were killing me from all that Dirty Cockney Dancin' the day before. Amy Wynehouse and God Save The Queen were fantastic. Finally we went down to the Water Street Stage to see Vogue a Madonna tribute act. She got changed about 20 times in 45 mins wearing every madonna outfit you could imagine, from the pointy tits thing to a little pink swimsuit. And that was it. End of the festival. Liverpool town centre was full of drunks and heaps of rubbish and amazingly I didn't see one fight or anyone unconscious on the floor. :) I had one of those moments when I thought I recognised someone in the street and then thought it wasn't him, so didn't say hello. then I thought that it was him and felt guilty for ignoring him. This happens to me a lot. i really should wear my glasses more often. Claire decided that we were going to the Metro again, She said she had noticed a poster announcing that, Kappa were going to be playing there when we were in there the night before, or she had dreamt it. . . She was right. Kappa made me deaf! My ears were still ringing the next day. I think The Mathew Street Festival is on my list of to do's every August bank Holiday from now on.
This weekend I've done nowt. I'm totally skint and I still haven't paid my mortgage. I definitely need to start selling stuff. Anyone want a print or a painting?
I was going to make this a rambling blog about the last few weeks but I just saw the time and I'm going to have to leg it to work . . . . So See ya later
Yesterday was an historic occasion! I actually took some advice and got out ant took some photo's. I got a text off Jo, asking me to come down to Liverpool ONE and take some photographs of Sense of Sound. They're trying to get as many people as possible, to vote for them in Last Choir Standing, next week. They were amazing, as usual and the crowd really took a shine to them. Later on when SOS had gone off to perform at the Brouhaha festival. I could hear various bods suddenly breaking into "Cry Me A River" :)
Then I went on a little walk around town and took a few more shots.
By the time I got home, last night, I was in photographer mode:) I spent most of the evening editing shots and uploading them to Flickr.
I don't do that many "People" shots so I was pleasantly surprised that most of my "Sense of Sound" shot's turned out so well. I could really get into this photography lark. . . . Pete Carr, LOOK OUT! :)
I know i should have been Blogging more, but I have had a bit of a mental block. So here's a biggun to tide me over until next time. Last week i went to see The Bangles at the Carling. They were great. They were all pushing 50 but looked fantastic and the sound was spectacular. The bass player was a bit on the scary side though. A proper Stepford Wife. The fixed grin was almost as stiff as her boobs, which didn't move at all, even when she was really going for it. Well when i say going for it. I mean she actually took a couple of steps forward from her mark on the stage. The support was Stephen Langstaff and he was great as usual. He was hoping to be signed up by the manager of the Kooks but he never turned up at the gig. Hopefully he'll realise the error of his ways. . . If you're reading this Ste, I'll send you the cash I owe you next Friday (payday) as I'm skint until then :) Afterwards We strolled down to the Cavern to see some Beatles tribute band The Mersey Beatles. They were beatle-tastic.
On Saturday Jo was on TV in "Last Choir Standing" There was only one choir really in the same league as Sense of Sound so I think it will end up with a "Sing Off" between Sense of Sound and Revelation. Watch em this Saturday BBC1 Saturday at 7PM.
Back in 1992, when i was sleeping on my mates floor in his spare room I used to go to sleep to the sounds of birds tweeting. There was a test signal for ClassicFM which was a recording of birds tweeting and other country sounds. I loved it. I'm a bit of an insomniac and there's many a time I've gone to bed and got back up again without a wink of sleep, Only to fall asleep after about 2 pints in a pub. . . When I used to listen to this tweety radio show back in 92 I had no problem dropping off. It was just so soothing. To cut a long story short, I couldn't sleep on Sunday night. So I turned on my DAB radio and did a bit of a trawl, I tried Radio3 at first but It was too depressing so I just carried on searching for something soothing. And suddenly there were birds singing. Yay! The DAB people have given a whole station to my favourite birdy sounds. I listened for about 10 mins and i was off. The next morning I woke up to the same birdy sounds and some real ones from outside my window. It's worked every night this week. They'd better keep broadcasting it. It's my second favourite radio station . LINK
I had to take Tuesday off work because of a reallly weird incident. I'm either going mad or I've got a ghost in my flat. I got home from work on Monday night and put my bag, phone and keys on top of a holdall, in my living room. The holdall has got a load of clean washing in it, socks, undies and the like. . . Well the next morning. I was getting ready to go to work and I picked up my bag and phone but my keys weren't there. I looked in my bag, coat pocket and kecks but I couldn't find them. So I emptied all the washing out of the holdall and they weren't there either. But here's a weird thing. In amongst the washing was a part used ream of printer paper???? How that got there is a mystery. It got weirder than that though. I felt something inside the ream. I found a Wacom Pen, that I had lost about 3 years ago. SEE LINK How did this ream of paper get inside my clean washing bag??? There was also a screwdriver.
So the search carried on. . . No keys on the desk, chairs, couch, fridge, sink, oven, toilet, bed, telly or any of the other 1000 places I looked. Then I thought that I must have left them in the door. Nope! My van was still on the drive and the keys are all on the same bunch, so surely, if anyone had seen them in my door, they would have taken the opportunity to nick my van. There was nothing I could do. I was already late. so i phoned work and explained my predicament and booked the day off. Afterall I couldn't leave my flat without my keys. The search went on for another couple of hours. Nowt was found.
So I started looking for my spares. I found a spare key for my van and i found a spare key for the mortice lock, but no spare for the Yale. My only option was to buy a new Yale lock. . . So I put my Yale on the snip and locked the door with my mortice lock. And it was off to B&Q. Sixty five quid later I was back home with a replacement lock. It's a simple job to replace a Yale lock, you only need a screwdriver. I'd spotted one in my holdall earlier on so I popped upstairs to get it. I put my hand in the holdall and rummaged round and found it. As i pulled it out I felt something else. I pulled out a sock. And INSIDE my sock were my keys!?! How did that happen? I can see how they could have slipped into the holdall, but INSIDE a sock INSIDE the holdall is a bit weird. . . Or have I got a magic bag, that helps me find lost things??? I haven't seen my driving license for a while, I afraid to look. . .
Anyhoo, luckily I hadn't opened the the packaging for the lock, so I took it back to the shop for a refund :) I drove straight to Tesco's and bought a load of food. It's got to last until a week on friday. . . skint again.
My mate Jo is currently at Glastonbury, with the Sense of Sound Choir. She'll be performing on the Jazz stage sometime now. . .
(edit:- The coach never turned up which meant Jo didn't get there. . . Only about 5 of the choir made it :(.. . )
Sense of Sound, have also got through to the finals of BBC's Last Choir Standing. It's a sort of Pop Idol for Choirs, if you know what I mean? You check out the BBC page HERE The show will air every Saturday night from 5th of July, That's next Saturday. The show is hosted by Myleene Klass and Nick Knowles, So tune in to BBC1 at 19.45. It's not all Hymns and religious standards. . . I've just taken a look at the audition & application videos and to be honest, I think Sense of Sound will walk it, they will change the way you think about choirs.
I went on a ghost walk on Friday night. The tour, entitled "The Hope Street Shivers" is one of three ghost walks, run by the Shiverpool Tours company, based at The Albert Dock. We met at The Philharmonic Pub and were taken on a walk by two masked characters, who entertained us with tales of tragedy and murder from Liverpool's darker past. The whole thing was really well done. Both tour guides were actors and never came out of character for the whole tour, which lasted about an hour and 15 minutes. There were a few surprises thrown in for good measure. It was a lot better than the tour, i was expecting. I'm not giving anything away cos i don't want to spoil it for you.
They also do two other tours; The Auld City Shivers, which is based in the business quarter and starts and ends at The Slaughterhouse Pub and the Shiver Me Timbers tour which starts from Anchor Courtyard at the Albert Dock.
I still can't believe that Derek has gone! It's weird, I was just talking about him a few days before it happened. I got the news by text, which is not the way you want to be informed about a friends death. (thanks Phil). I found a christmas card that he had sent me, but i never received until March or April. He asked me why I didn't turn up to his wedding, I felt really guilty, I kept meaning to phone him, but i never did. It's his funeral tomorrow. Maybe it will hit home, then?
I went back to work after having a week off. I'd spent all week in "night mode". My body clock is back to front. I'm sleeping during the day and I'm wide awake every night. Anyway, when i returned to work at 10 pm, on Tuesday, to start another week of nights. I found someone else sitting in my chair. While I was off work, the powers that be, decided to transfer me to a completely different job in a different building. So much for communication. I start my new job today at 2 pm. I also applied for another position, I applied for the same job last year. Maybe this time I'll be lucky.
To get myself out of my weird sleep pattern, i stayed up when I got home from work on Saturday morning at 7 am. I decided to spend the day fiddling with my website. I added a new "gallery" page. You can access it from the sidebar of my photo blog page. There will be more gallery pages added in the future.
By about 2 pm i was knackered and had to go to bed., but I forced myself to get back up at about 8 that night. It seems to have worked. Sunday was the same as Saturday. I was washing my mini at 6 am. I got up at 5 am today and added another page to my site. It's a downloads page. I've decided to make some of my photo's available as desktop wallpapers. And that's that really. I might go out for a walk. The weather's fantastic today.
My mate Degsy - Col de la Faucille - Friday 4th November 1995 - Here he is, with probably his third or fourth Grolsch of the day.
I did the Italian Job charity run three times. The second time I did it I took Degs as my co-driver. It was the most memorable of the three. He was the worst navigator, in the world. Although he did manage to direct us out of Paris using a street map of Milan!!! He also managed to save my life quite literally. . . But that's another story.
We left the Dieppe ferry at midnight to drive through the night via Paris. We stopped in a rest area on the motorway for a kip and then set off, in the rain at 6.30am for Switzerland. By about 9 we were descending the Col de la Faucille and the sun was shining. We pulled over, by the side of the road, to take in the view of Lake Geneva, below us. All was going well and we spent a leisurely day driving the Swiss alpine roads. We shared a ski lodge with the rest of our convoy and got smashed in a little alpine bar. I was feeling generous and got everyone's meal on my credit card. By the time we reached Italy, the following morning, we had both run out of money and my credit card bounced at an Italian service station. Derek had spent the last of his cash on beer. We were both banking on our wages being paid in, the Thursday before, but they hadn't been. Either that, or we were both completely overdrawn. (This is more likely). We borrowed about £20 off Phil Sullivan to pay for our tank of fuel (I'm still not sure if I paid you back Phil?) So we were without cash until Monday. But on Monday we discovered that we couldn't use a British switch card abroad. Luckily for us we were staying B&B in our pre-booked hotels. We were guaranteed at least one meal a day. But we needed money for drinks in the bar and fuel. I phoned up my credit card company and got my limit upped to £1500. When I got home, 10 days later, I had lost about a stone and had a credit card bill for about £900. Most of it was for hotel bar tabs. It took me another couple of years to pay it off.
Everyone who met Degsy on the Italian Job in '95 has never forgotten him. As Tony Fidoe put it; "Degsy's a star!".
My sigma 12-24 f/4.5-5.6 zoom wasn't wide or fast enough for me :). So I've invested in a Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 , which is both; faster and wider. Lookout for a large number of superwide shots appearing on my photoblog. So if anyone wants to make me a sensible offer, for the Sigma. Please do. It'll be on ebay at the end of the month.
I spent most of last night re-designing my website. Then i spent the rest of it tweaking and fiddling until I got it looking just right. Now I'm very happy with it. :)
I'm also off work until next Tuesday. i was hoping for more of that fabulous weather we had last week and the week before. But it's just been crap... :( I'm freezing and I feel like I'm getting a cold.
And to cap it all: Because I've been doing a lot of nights recently, I'm finding it impossible to sleep at night. So I've spent most of this week in bed during the day. I went to bed this morning at 0730 and had to force myself to get back up at 1130, to try and get back in the swing of things. But I know I'll be knackered again by 6 tonight and I'll fall asleep in the arm-chair and wake up at midnight and I'll be up all night again.
Just to rub it in, I'm back on nights again next week...
I just watched One Hour Photo [2002] with Robin Williams. Erm, what I mean was I watched the DVD starring Robin Williams. He wasn't actually in my flat.
Anyway should I really be identifying with his character??? A sad & lonely weirdo living on his own, obsessed with photography?
What's so weird about having your living room wall, plastered with your neighbours family snaps? I have my ceilings plastered too. . .
I've finally got round to doing a photo page. It's going to be a photo blog, not a gallery. I'll post new photos as and when I can. If you want to see more of my photography, take a look at my
I'm also getting a bit bored with the layout of this site. So I'm thinking of doing another complete overhaul. It has been nearly 9 weeks since the last re-design after all!
I got home from work at about half three, and broke out the beers. Ice cold lager on a hot sunny day is a killer. By 5pm I was dizzy, by six I was mashed. By seven i had ran out of beer and went to bed for a lie down. Now I'm wide awake and starving. . . So i thought I'd do a bit of blogging.
Seeing as the weather is crap and I seem to be working constant nights, at the moment. I haven't been able to get out and take as many photo's as I would like. I've always liked the look of HDR photographs and have done some in the past, by just fiddling about with Adobe Lightroom. But I've never really took the time to learn the techniques and do it properly.
So ...Yesterday I downloaded the latest version of Photomatix and set about learning how to use it. First port of call was Pete Carr's website, for a refresher. He is the master of HDR photography, after all. Hang on? The last time I read his tutorial, it seemed like a really complicated process. But, reading it again, I found it was a really simple technique. Your computer does all the complicated stuff. All you have to do is the arty stuff. You can make a HDR image from one exposure (preferably a RAW file as it contains a lot more data than a JPG) but to get the, High Dynamic Range, to give it it's full name, you need to start with at least 3 exposures or more.
The Boat shot above is a single exposure and heavily "tweaked" in Lightroom. I wanted to take some multi-exposures and do it properly in Photomatix. But it was pissing down and I didn't want to get my new Canon 40D wet :( . Well the rain stopped... eventually! It was about 8pm on Sunday night, and I drove around a bit looking for suitable subjects. First stop was Burtonwood Airfield. I parked up and left the van. The sky was clearing and the sun was just going down. I set my camera to bracket three shots. The first was 2 stops under exposed, The second was correct and The third was 2 stops over exposed. I turned and snapped the van. . .That was it really. I drove about a bit and ended up at Runcorn to photograph the bridge. I waited and waited and the lights on the bridge never came on.
Luckily for me, there was somebody there with the same idea. We had a little chat about photography, but by 10 pm the lights had still not come on. So i went to MacDonalds, for a Big Mac and went home. I had a little twiddle with Photomatix when I got in. But seeing as I had crap photo's to begin with I wasn't expecting anything. I was surprised at the results. Well Photomatix certainly works. Even if this Photographer(?) doesen't. I know I've got a lot more to learn and I need to take some time off work and do some proper photography. When I do, I know I'll start using HDR for everything :) . Next things on the shopping list are a decent tripod and head and a cable release with timer and multi exposure capabilities.
I found a new Mac Reseller in Warrington today. Apogaeum is a nice little shop, you'd swear you were in a proper Apple Store. So no more driving to The Trafford Centre for my little Apple fix. I can just take a stroll into town instead. While i was there I noticed they stocked the Pantone Huey and Huey Pro colour correction devices. What these little gadgets do, is correct your computer monitor's colour profile. Basically they make your monitor show colours as they should be. I had a bit of spare cash burning a hole in my pocket and i left the store with a Huey Pro. I usually calibrate my Mac by eye, using the display adjustment tools, in System Preferences. And I thought I was doing a good job, until i let Huey do his stuff. You can switch between your previous profile and your new Huey profile with the click of a mouse button. Scary stuff, my profile was way off. Far too blue. The upshot is, if you do a lot of photo editing and you want your prints to look like they do, on your monitor. You're going to have to make sure your monitor is calibrated. The best feature is the built in ambient light sensor. Huey is constantly monitoring the room's ambient light and adjusting the monitor to compensate for any changes, on the fly. So, if the sun comes out and the room lights up, your monitor will adjust itself accordingly. Very cool indeed. Looking through some photos, that I thought had been taken with the wrong white balance. I was surprised to see, that they looked pleasingly perfect.
I've just been building a new website for my mate Jo. She's a photographer who specialises in portraits and casting shots. She works almost exclusively in Black & White and her work is really good. So if you need a portrait or casting shot. You know where to go.
I've just visited the new BBC website. I don't know how long this new version has been online but it is very cool. You can fully customise it. You can move all the categories about and lay it out, so it's convenient for you. I don't watch telly that much. But when I do it's usually via BBC iPlayer. You can watch lots of BBC shows from the past week or so on your monitor, instantly. The days of broadcast TV are numbered. As well as links to BBC iPlayer (tv) there's a link to BBC iPlayer radio so you can listen to BBC radio while you browse the web. You can input your post code and it will adjust its self to display content that is relevant to your locality, local radio, weather and local news. I've just changed my homepage to bbc.co.uk :)
I was asked on Monday, if I would change my shift pattern from 2-10's to 6-6 nights. Effectively that means, change from a 40 hour to a 60 hour week. I'm sorry I agreed to do it cos i'm absolutely knackered. I was stuck on the M62 this morning for about an hour, and by the time i got home i was wide awake. So I haven't slept much. I've got to leave at 5 because the traffic will be terrible again. On Monday it took me an hour and a half to travel the 14 1/
2
miles to work. a journey of 20 minutes or so, on a normal day. The same thing happened on the way home today. So my 12hour shift could end up being 15 hours, leaving me 9 hours at home. eight of those are spent in bed. the other hour is for everything else. eating, washing, blogging. . . Oh and I'll lose most of Saturday because my body will decide to try and catch up on the lack of sleep and I'll be in bed till about 7pm. Then I'll have to try and adjust my body clock, so It gets into 6-2 shift mode, for Monday. this means a totally sleepless night on Sunday. Dragging myself out of bed on Monday morning, as late as possible. An 8 hour day in work, like a zombie. Then when/if I get home on Monday afternoon. I usually fall asleep in an armchair and wake up about 9 at night, just in time for another sleepless night.
Although the money is great. I think I have aged about 10 years in the past 5. And the sad thing is, I'm not seeing any of the cash as it's all allocated to various loan companies and mortgage vendors. . . Ah well, If I survive another 5 years of this, I'll be debt free and be able to leave my job and live on the wages of a paper round, I'm that used to living on ten quid a week. . .
Ten years ago, you wouldn't believe that you could access satellite photos of any part of the world from any computer or mobile phone connected to the internet. But after all it IS the 21st century. And you can. Here's an aerial view of my house. And that's my mini on the drive.
Me, Ste and John went to The Carling Academy, last night to see them on their comeback tour. What a night. They were supported by AMSTERDAM who were very good indeed. The Gig was opened by Mark Morriss from The Bluetones, but we missed some of his set cos we were in the pub. The gig was in the little room on the first floor, We had a really good spec, 12 feet from the bar and 6 feet from the stage. Everyone was invited to The Cavern for an after show do. But Ste and John had their sensible heads on and decided it was time to go home. So We Did:( !!!
Today I found out that they did an acoustic set in The Cavern. I'm gutted!
But in hindsight, it's a good job I didn't go. I was in work at 6am this morning. I probably wouldn't have made it. Here's a couple of drunken phone pics
I decided to do a new TeamLard Website. More out of guilt, than anything else. I'm off work today and theoretically I could have driven down to Beddgelert for the day and drove back, this evening. But it's bloody freezing, and i didn't fancy doing anything strenuous after doing a night shift. besides, I'm back in work at 6am tomorrow for a week of earlies. So to make up for it, I decided to give the Team Lard site a new look. I've moved it onto my 1and1 webspace and I've ditched the iWeb software and used Good Old Rapidweaver. So hopefully It will be able to do a few more things, that the old site couldn't do. And a bit faster too. All that remains is the help of the Lardy Boys, to feed it some content.
While everybody's off having fun, on their bikes, and I'm sitting here, waiting to go to work. I started thinking about the first time I got into bikes. Not 1989, when I got my first Mountain Bike, but about 1977, just after the skateboard thing was dying out.
Me and Ste built ourselves a couple of cool bikes. Ste's was his dad's Raleigh Wayfarer with the biggest pair of cow horn handlebars, in the world. Mine was some little 20 inch wheeled thing which i found dumped in the back entry. I took it home and sprayed it Ford Escort Lime Green. I put the rear wheel from my Raleigh Chopper on it and my chopper handlebars. We used to ride them for miles. We took em into Liverpool town centre and had riding in places we shouldn't have. I particularly remember riding down the escalators in Lime Street Station and then through the underpass to St Georges Hall. We rode up and down the famous steps and then proceeded to head for the Pier Head. There was an enclosed footbridge, across The Strand at Brunswick Street. We spent a long time there. . . . . there were escalators at one end and we just rode up and down them, all day.
We were limited to where we could ride them, only because we were 13 and 14 and obviously couldn't travel anywhere by car. But in a way we were mountain bikers, even then.
I remember reading Motocross Action a couple of years later (when I had left school and was working), and there was this piece in it about Mountain Biking the new craze. There was a picture of a bike that looked remarkably like Ste's Wayfarer. Mountain Biking was being born, But now I was "Too Old" to be doing that stuff. It took me another 10 years before I was (im)mature enough , to take the plunge and get myself a bike again. I wish I'd done it earlier.
A couple of nights ago, Ste put me on to this film that has just been released on DVD "Klunkerz" It's a documentary about the birth of the mountain bike in California. But it was happening all-over the world at the same time.
I'm sure we invented the mountain bike in the UK :)
This Easter will be the first time i've ever missed my annual mountain biking trip. Due to work commitments (I never thought I'd be writing that in my blog!) and the lure of mega bucks (That's a given) I'll be happily(?) Spray Drying stuff and generally saving kid's lives!!!
So Here's a little vid for you Lardy Boys, who will be missing me loads, especially Spike, you had better go!!!
John, just give Beerdy 40 quid (each) for those pedals. I'll take no less.
Ste, drink a box of wine for me, on Friday
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN! p.s. The rabbit skates might catch on :) Cab Calloway was the coolest man around. This proves that Bohemian Rhapsody wasn't the first music Video, by about 40 years. Look at that drummer in the background! You can see where Keith Moon got his tricks from. I really do wish i was going too :(
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN! p.s. The rabbit skates might catch on :)
Go and Visit MAGNUM PHOTOS and have a look at some of the photo essays. The site is great and is full of the works of some of the worlds most famous photographers.
I've changed the front page too. But you've probably noticed that already :) I'll change the photo on the front as often as I can. I've been up since 4am doing this , so I'm going back to bed for a bit.
If you are a subscriber to my Blog. You will need to re-subscribe to my RSS Feed. As from today, the new address for my blog is: http://mikeys.org.uk/blog/files/blogRSS.php. You'll know if you need to re-subscribe because you'll get an error 404, if you're still subscribed to the old feed.
Sorry for all that geekery, for all you normal people.
I updated my site design again. Twice in one month!!! Now there's a selection of my photo's and digital art, as the backdrop. I've also added a newer links page. This page contains links to sites I like to visit and I hope you'll visit them too.
There is a Store page built and ready to go. All I need now is some stuff to sell. :)
This is Beach Lawn in Crosby. It's a row of Victorian villas that were built overlooking the Mersey estuary. The one slightly off centre, to the right, with the arched attic window was once owned by Thomas Henry Ismay, 1837-1899. He was the owner of The White Star Line. Sadly the villa's have lost a lot of their Victorian elegance.
Forget Facebook. It's a pain in the arse with all those apps. If you just need to get a message across to your community of friends, use Twitter. You can update your twitter messages (tweets) from your Twitter Home Page, your instant messenger or via text from your phone. Your "tweets" will instantly be forwarded to your Twitter buddies. If they have registered their mobile number, they'll receive a text message. Webmasters can also display twitters on their websites.
I've added twitter to my site. All I need now is some twitter buddies. :)
One of my cats died today. "little cat" was the littlest cat ever. Even littler than me. She was 14 and I've had her since she was six weeks old. To say I'm very upset is an understatement. I want to write loads of stuff but I cant think of anything to say, that would make me feel any better.
I bought the album a few months ago, and I've been waiting for the DVD to be released ever since. I bought it today. . . :) This is the best film I've seen all year. And Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have just won an Oscar™ for best song "Falling Slowly". Here they are performing it at The Oscars Ceremony.
I took this at Crosby a couple of weeks back. This is the first image I have processed using the HDR method.
I think it came out quite well. I purposely didn't bring out the detail in the foreground as it was very noisy. Although it is a HDR I processed it from one exposure. First I opened The RAW in Lightroom and saved it as three separate files. Each at a different exposure. -2 stops, normal exposure and +2 stops. then I imported all three files into Photomatix and fiddled about until i got this. Far easier than it sounds and all in my first attempt.
I've been sifting through some old photo's from last year, and I found this one. I thought I'd give it the B&W treatment and I think it's turned out rather good. The work was made by Mark DeGraffenried at a studio 4,000 miles away in Utah, and donated by the Mormon Church. An eight foot high statue was cast to mark the 85,000 people who passed through the port of Liverpool from 1851 heading for a new life in America. The sculpture features a family group with a child stepping forward to symbolise the migration.
Apparently there was an earth tremor last night!?!?! I was was sat at my mac at about 1.00am, when it happened and I didn't notice anything strange. No shakey floor , No shakey table nothing in fact!?!?
So how come everyone in work was talking about it? Apparently it was the biggest one in 25 years. 5.2 on the Richter scale. Come to think of it, the one in 1984 didn't affect me either. i was driving home at about 12 in the afternoon and didn't notice anything strange then. . . I remember my mum was waiting for me when I got home. I think she thought a bomb had gone off somewhere.
I've changed the look of my site today. I'm trying to out-geek Linzi but I know I've failed miserably. The Photo in the background was taken at dusk on Loch Eil, last year.
On another note. I'm turning into a space hopper. So. . . I'm on a diet. As I type this, I'm desperately trying to fight the urge to go and make myself a pork sausage and French mustard, toasted sandwich. I started this diet thingy, yesterday when I weighed myself and had almost touched the 80kg mark. . . i jumped off quick, incase I broke the scales. I'm starving . .. . . . :(
How weird is this? The top photo in this pair was taken by me on the 18th of Feb at 17.55. The photo Below was taken by my friend Linzi on 19th of Feb at 17.40.
We haven't seen each-other for yonks and didn't know either of us had been taking photos at the Albert Dock. I didn't post any photo's on here until the 21st and i emailed her to tell her about my new site. She spotted the similarities on Saturday and sent me her photo for comparison. Apart from her's being far sharper and having better colours than mine, they are almost identical.
I went to The Albert Dock yesterday, to see Pete Carr's exhibition of photographs - Port of Culture.
If you follow his Photoblog "Vanilla Days" you'll know his work. He's had photo's published in magazines and newspapers.
He is one of the few photographers who use HDR (High Dynamic Range.) That's the method where you combine 3 or more images, all exposed for different areas of the final photo. Basically you use all the correctly exposed bits of each photo, to make the final photo which contains amazing detail in every area. Highlights, Midtones and shadows all contain amazing detail. HDR images have an . . .erm . . . other worldly look about them. You'll know what I mean when you look at them.
I decided to go down to The Albert Dock today, and take some photo's. There have been some spectacular sunsets over the past week, so I decided I should make the most of the sunny weather and test out my new lens, aswell. Typically, I left it a bit late and arrived , just as the sun was dropping below the horizon as I sat in a traffic jam on The Strand. Still, i got a few good shots. It was bloody freezing but I took a flask of coffee and that help keep the cold out when I went back to the van to get my tripod when it got to dark to shoot hand-held.
Today I visited the Wensley Gallery, in Ramsbottom, where my friend Mike is holding his first exhibition of paintings.
Mike's paintings remind me of Kandinsky and Picasso and are far more interesting and contrived than the splashes I produce. His work will be on display until the 6th of March. Click on the photo above to visit the Wensley Gallery website. I'll add a slideshow of photo's I took at his preview very soon.
I was bored, this afternoon so i decided to buy myself a new lens for my 400D.
Last year I gave my 70-300mm Sigma to Lloyd and i've been without a telephoto since.
So I decided I'd get myself a replacement. I picked the new Canon EFS 55-250mm IS (Image Stabiliser). I'll stick a few shots here, when I get a chance to use it. Maybe tomorrow . . .
with Robin Williams. Erm, what I mean was I watched the DVD starring Robin Williams. He wasn't actually in my flat.
