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Backlog: June 2018
Saturday 20th of April 2019
June feels simultaneously yesterday and years ago. A lot has changed, not least of all Emily, who back then couldn’t even crawl. We were also still living in a rented house, too, which we knew wouldn’t be enough now that we had Em; plans were in motion, though: we’d decided on our new house and were in the (long, long) process of buying it. Emily trying to undo Zoe’s shoes Normanston Park pipes ne…
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Still here: photos from Hoylake
Tuesday 16th of April 2019
I have been lax updating this, I know. Looking after an 18 month old really takes it out of you, such that I’ve not really had the motivation to write blog posts. I’ve still been making pictures, but for now they exist almost exclusively within my Capture One library. To break the fast, here’s some pictures from Hoylake I took during a visit to Zoe’s parents in Cheshire. I’ll make an effort in the…
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QA Testing
Monday 3rd of December 2018
As a software developer I spend a lot of time writing defensive code: routines to check user input and handle it when it isn’t what’s expected. This blog post by Bill Sempf illustrates the kind of absurd lengths we sometimes have to go to if we want our software to be secure. I’ve reproduced some of the best responses here. A Quality Assurance engineer walks into a bar… orders a beer. orders 0…
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Now with EXIF
Thursday 7th of June 2018
I got to thinking earlier how it’d be handy to have a small popover thing on my photos that shows the focal length, shutter speed, aperture and ISO of the shot. Turns out, there’s a JavaScript library that can read EXIF data, and it’s super simple to use. About half an hour of tweaking later and it’s done. Here’s a picture of my daughter looking unimpressed, to demonstrate: Emily looking unimpress…
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Hugin for panoramas: GW2 edition
Wednesday 6th of June 2018
A long while back I wrote a guide to using the free panorama software Hugin with World of Warcraft screenshots. This guide is basically just an updated version of that, only using Guild Wars 2 as the screenshot source since I don’t play WoW any more. Get Hugin Hugin can be downloaded from its SourceForge page: https://hugin.sourceforge.io/ Install it in the usual manner – the default options are…
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Summer streets of London
Friday 1st of June 2018
My work held its annual “let’s all see how we did this year” meetup thing recently, except this one was much shorter than in previously, running only from 13:00 to 16:00. This meant a) I could get up at a normal time, since my train was at 7:30 and not, like, 5:00 or something ridiculous, and b) I could have a bit of time afterwards to explore London while I waited for my 19:00 train. My colleague…
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Carlton Marshes in fog
Saturday 26th of May 2018
Another post with pictures from long after I made them! Getting to be a habit, although I’m not completely sure it’s a bad one: letting the pictures stew for a bit blurs the experience of when I took them, forcing me to see them for what they are in themselves, uncoloured by my memories of the time. I’m mostly serious, but it’s still partly an excuse for not updating my blog. Anyway. Carlton Marsh…
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Lowestoft before summer
Wednesday 16th of May 2018
Winter didn’t want to let go this year, clinging on until well into April. It’s finally given over to Summer, which is a relief, both to my mood and to our energy bills. cold rocky groyne lifeguard station deserted beach small painted human figures on a fence stacked scaffolding poles abandoned sofa and armchair
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Yarmouth: remainder
Sunday 15th of April 2018
I have rather been lax with my blog upkeep of late – looking after a 5-month-old baby will tend to have that effect. Still, Em is doing great, and even though I’ve not been posting, I have still been shooting. Not that this post is about anything recent: it’s a collection of ‘miscellaneous’ pictures from our weekend away in Great Yarmouth a while back. big G from a ‘BINGO’ sign reflections in ch…
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Yarmouth: fronts
Wednesday 21st of March 2018
A month ago, Zoe and I needed a break: work was stressing me out, and Zoe was having to take on all the housework duties. Since Emily was only 4 months old at the time, we didn’t want to go far, so settled on Great Yarmouth, since it’s only a short drive from where we live. February is not exactly tourist season, what with the freezing wind and frequent gloomy wet weather, but the chance to relax …
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Walking with baby
Sunday 25th of February 2018
Although it’s cold and wintry, last weekend the sun was out so Zoe and I decided to go for a walk in Dunwich Forest. Given the rough terrain we decided against Emily’s pram and instead took the baby harness to put her in instead. yellow flowered bush in cleared forest land trees ready for logging Zoe at the end of the road forest path 1 forest path 2 archery range sign forest pond bench in the woo…
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Night and day, shadow and light
Sunday 11th of February 2018
I didn’t really appreciate just how much of one’s time a baby takes up until Emily was born. It’s not even just things like rarely having a moment alone; it’s the other stuff, like major limits on spontaneity, especially in winter. Zoe and I can’t just decide to go out somewhere now, as we need to consider how accessible it will be with a baby and maybe pram. Consequently this leaves less time for…
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The sea and the sun
Saturday 27th of January 2018
My parents are staying at our house while the purchase of their new house grinds along. I don’t get on well with them and have been feeling stressed lately, so Zoe and I took Em out for breakfast at the Lighthouse Café in Lowestoft, then for a walk along the seafront. A lovely shiny day it was, too! Cold, but good for clearing one’s head. After being up and alert while Zoe and I ate breakfast, Em …
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Further darkness
Saturday 13th of January 2018
As is common this time of year, the sky was quite heavily overcast. Despite the gloom, Zoe and I and my parents went to Norwich, primarily to look at beds for my parents’ new house, but we also went for lunch at Giraffe. We took Em, who was again remarkably well-behaved despite the usual initial upset when we, big meanies that we are, put her in the car seat. Gosh she doesn’t like being put in the…
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Afraid of the dark
Thursday 11th of January 2018
The monochrome preset I usually use for my raw files in Capture One has a small amount of shadow boost applied, and I tend to increase it even more when there are large dark areas in an image. As I mentioned in a previous post , though, darkness isn’t really a bad thing in pictures, depending on the feeling one is trying to evoke. Certainly for these pictures, taken on a dull overcast winter afte…
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