Photos!

Today has been an absolute scorcher (as has the whole weekend really), and I took the opportunity to go into the garden and Richmond Park to wave my camera around. I had a £2 off 1hr processing voucher at Snappy Snaps so I bashed the film in there in the afternoon, and here are a selection of pics I got.

From my Mum's sweetcorn plant. This little anemone is, believe it or not, the part of the plant that will grow into the cob.

A ladybird I spotted while patiently waiting for a damselfly to land on the patch of grass by my feet.

Another silly photoshopping escapade


This photo is less focused than I had expected. I used a macro lens at 70mm, 1/1000 sec, f/32. Should have had enough depth of focus (maybe a few cm anyway, which is all I needed!). I'm not sure why it's so blurred!

My lab coat out drying in the sunshine a few days ago.

Diving geese.

Warmth and Rain.

Today has been a beautiful day. It was sunny, warm, and yet just cool enough to be bearable. And it had that sort of rain that comes when it's hot, and the sky still remains blue. You can just stand outside, hold your hands wide and enjoy the cooling drops of water falling on your face, and evaporating within a second; like natural air-conditioning. I didn't enjoy the rain as much as I should unfortunately, as I was trying to get my head around my elective project. As part of the initial research, I'm trying to fathom how farmers might perceive risk... relative? Economic? Not quite sure yet, but hopefully some pubmed scouring will be revealing over the next few days. Unfortunately, the few papers I've wanted to read have been just outside the university library's dates of subscription, so I haven't been able to read them. Grr.

Other than that, Dad and I cleared out the shed today, as we had a few cwt of sand to squeeze inside. It's always a very cathartic experience cleaning it out, removing piles of dust and rearranging everything at right angles, and in an organised fashion. A little bit of an OCD pleasure. I also had a little bash at photoshopping an old photo I took in Norwich a few years ago. I've made the foreground black and white, and changed the colour of the sky. It's not perfect, but let me know what you think.

An Afternoon in Camden

Yesterday I cycled to Camden. I'm feeling it a little this morning, but nowhere near as badly as I expected to. I left Richmond Park at Sheen Gate, then headed up Castlenau to Hammersmith Bridge, then through Kensington, past Hyde Park, then through Regents Park to Camden; It's about a 25 mile round trip.

I found myself sat in the window of a coffee shop slowly imbibing the days coffee and devouring Heller's Catch 22, but my literary meal was regularly interrupted by the sights, sounds and smells of the street.
My nose was assaulted with a strange combination of roasting coffee, exhaust and the sickly aroma of caramelised peanuts from a street seller just a few paces up the street. It's probably the last job you'd want to do with a hangover (besides being a wine taster), particularly if you had a nose as large as this chap did, yet somehow he showed no signs of nausea from the warm toffee aroma surrounding his head.
From the back of the shop, the wailing of a small child was all but drowned out by the sound of the road, but when I moved further into the shop, I realised that the child's mother was engaged in a vociferous argument with someone over the behaviour of her child - "Don't you have children?". Ironically, the kid was so fascinated by this exchange that she was entirely silent while they shouted at each other, only to recommence her wailing when they stopped. Thus the piercing sound of child-scream was replaced by deeper adult-bark, and then back again, oscillating like this for what seemed like an age. Neither adult seemed prepared to step down from the argument, presumably because they both realised it was the only way to keep her quiet.
The street itself was a 3 lane one way high-street which led into a 5 lane junction. The front of the coffee shop was open, and so I was all but sat on the pavement. My first observation was the melting of the paint on the road, which resulted in small tyre prints being left in the red-zone line as cars squeezed too close to the kerb. This was followed by the sight of a man sat on a 1 foot wide ledge, 2 storeys up, in an apartment across the road. He wasn't planning on jumping, just happily sat there reading and enjoying the sunshine. I imagined an elaborate system of hoists within the room helping him to balance so precariously, and yet so nonchalantly, perhaps just to salve my conscience as I did nothing to stop him falling, merely took a photo on my phone.

Tee hee

Bike tinkering complete!

The bike has now been tinkered with, and is new and improved. Here's a list of the adjustments

• New lights added as old bracket had broken
• Brakes adjusted so both rear levers have action, rather than just one (thus removing irritating squeaking)
• Wheels added (as they had to be removed for transport) and tyres pumped
• Gear lever secured (as bolt had been lost)
• Washed and hosed down
• BOX ADDED (very exciting). I've attached some pictures below so you can see. I've used an old recycling box - if my parents need it they can have it back (I'm sure they wont mind that I've drilled a few holes in it) and I'll get a proper box. A really useful box would be good (as they have water-tight lids), but I'm not sure how to make sure the lid doesn't get stolen. I'd need to attach it to the bike with a chain or something. It's attached using an ingenious combination of holes and cable-ties, with another hole drilled to take the light bracket.

I'm back home. The car took a long time to cram, mostly because I decided to bring my bike home. This involved pulling off its wheels (easier said than done, as some of the screws had rusted), and then balancing the frame on the back seat. The chain had to be wrapped up in a plastic bag to stop the seats getting oily, and then wheels were balanced on the middle of the frame. It needs a lot of work doing to it (cleaning, gear lever broken, rust removing, mud guard filing etc), and I'm most likely to do it at home.

The Golem has gone well - we're all rehearsed up now until we begin before the performances in August. I've written out a full score and musical prompt sheet, and must remember to keep practicing this holiday, both so I remember it, and so that I maintain my callouses.

My room in London is now impassable for boxes - it's amazing how much stuff you accumulate over a few years. Today will see a massive unpacking session, and also some bicycle fixing.

In other news, I've put some new pictures up on deviant art

The Golem

The Golem rolls on. It's all slowly coming together. All the scenes have now been rehearsed, and the next few days will see the slotting together of everything into a continuous piece. I'm very excited about the music now, having written myself a short prompt sheet and the whole score (in mandolin tabulature). I'm managing to use the mandolin in a number of diverse ways on top of the usual string plucking or strumming. The body makes a perfect percussive drum, while the strings behind the bridge sound almost like clanging metal when plucked, all of which are proving invaluable in the performance. It's thrilling to hear such a range of sounds coming out of one small instrument, and really is putting it to its maximum use. The last few days have also seen the creation of the publicity flyer, and soon the poster. My recent discovery of photoshop, and the wonders that can be performed with a few mouse clicks have made image design much easier, and the flyer is looking very good. Alex's brother has designed a very classy image, which, with a little digital juggling, has fitted beautifully. Hopefully it'll be online soon.

If you want to see the play, it's being performed from Thursday 13th August to Sunday 16th August at 7.30 pm at the Studio Theatre, Roundhouse, Camden. Click here for more details, or here to buy tickets.

A few weeks ago, I took my Grandad's old Minolta SLR to a repairers in Ilkley (Annings), to fix the shutter (which would open but not close), and to replace the blackouts on the film casing. I took it along to Derbyshire earlier this week, and also waved it around on our trip to Coton last week and really enjoyed playing with it.
I finally took the films to Boots to be processed, and there are some lovely pictures. However, I opted for a boots photo CD only, as I didn't urgently want the prints as I usually store my pictures on my computer, and it was much cheaper to just get the CD. When I got home I excitedly opened the CD, and the pictures looked great. That was, however, until my eyes got attuned to the photos. Within a few seconds the photos appeared incredibly grainy, and extremely poor quality. In fact, the whole CD (24 photos) is only 22mb in size. I've put some up here - they're fine for the internet etc, but they're nowhere near as nice as the originals would be (even if scanned from a print), so I'm going to go have to go back and get some prints made. Will not be using the photo CD service again!

Returned.

I've just returned from the 5th Year Holiday in the Peak District. It was incredibly beautiful, and presented the opportunity for much walking (we must have walked 20 miles in 3 days), and picnics, barbeques, ball games and sitting around drinking beer. The perfect way to celebrate the end of exams. It also gave me chance to wave my camera around and take some snaps, of somewhere completely different. Every corner presented something picturesque, which made it quite difficult to select what to snap. I'll put some pics up over the next few weeks. I've recently made a deviant art page, where I've kept some of my favourite photos for the world to see. If you like, please add a comment or favourite one of the pics! T'would be fab.