Here’s the little camera that prompted me to register the domain vintageviewfinders.com. It was a bargain all round. I’ve not taken many TTV shots lately, but will soon…
If you’re reading this on the site and not via email, I spent a couple of hours trying to make it so you can click on the main photo to view the next image. It was surprisingly tricky but I managed it in the end. Now you don’t have to fiddle around trying to find the link each time. There’s never been a better time to have a look through the archives (this is photo #251 😀 )
Also on the cards is a button to switch the background to white or grey depending on your mood. Don’t hold your breath for that one mind, but I’m on it.
Nothing like nature taking hold to illustrate that I’ve left it far too long between postings again. I’ve added my Facebook status to my Lifestream page, so that’s a little extra tidbit of information about my online life should you fancy reading it. Facebook seems to be where it’s at at the moment, though once again everyone’s up in arms about the privacy and copyright implications of their latest automatic update to their Terms of Use. Stu reckons he’s been proved right about it being a dark force, I replied:
Weeeeeell, it’s a free service, innit. Anything I upload can get shared around and that’s fine by me. And if they use my info to put adverts about the latest Morrissey album rather than crap about SUVs or pharmaceuticals or summat, I’m happier for it. I’ve even used the thumbs up/down thing on adverts I get served. Now I just get ads for cameras and music and coffee and stuff.
When they release a best-selling book called “Gwyn’s status updates and wordscraper scores 2006-2009” then I might start complaining, but frankly I reckon it’s a bit self important to think anything I’ve ever uploaded to friendface is worth more than bugger all. If they can make some money off it, good luck to em.
Anyhoo, busy week as ever between L&C, site updates, a pending translation and the demands of a certain schipperke… I’ll be back soon. And if not, click on over to me Lifestream, photoblog or Flickr
Lovely word that, catkin. While doing some (brief) research on wikipedia I found out they’re called amentos in español. I was wondering whether catkin was a UK English thing or not, I’ve not heard it crop up in conversation in the States, but then again, I s’pose it wouldn’t really…
This was taken within 10 minutes of the teasels one from yesterday.
I’m not sure where my obsession with photographing teasels springs from. Maybe because they were omnipresent on walks in the country when I was little. Maybe because my Grandma used to make little figures out of them. Maybe because I got read Mrs. Tiggywinkle & other Beatrix Potter books from an early age. Or maybe it’s because you don’t have to bend down and contort your body to get a decent angle, they don’t reflect the sun too much, and the way they grow lends themselves to basic composition rules…
Anyroad, please find attached some teasels. Hope you like’em.
I think I’ve got enough photos to get through this week… but let’s start with the minimalism to your left and get more maximal as the week plods by, what do you reckon?
Also, from now on, if you’re viewing this on the actual website rather than via email/RSS there’ll be a link to Flickr at the bottom of each picture just in case you’re into that kind of thing.
I’m loving this new lense. It means I can finally shoot decent shots indoors among other things… You’ll have to take me word for that though, here’s a candle and I think it’s a window reflected on the countertop? Abstraction…
We used to live in Santa Cruz. UCSC has the banana slug as its school mascot (“No known predators”). This sign is from yesterday’s wanderings about Lewis & Clark campus in the snow. It’s all melted today. Weird weather… weird signage…
Anyroad, a few business items… First off, one of my mates who is a proper, professional photographer, Mr. Joop Rubens has started a photoblog to go with his flashy pro site, and I urge you to check it out. He’s been into photography for donkey’s years and got into digital about 5 years ago and has enviable portrait skillz.
Next off, I’m considering consolidating my RSS feeds so that if you’ve signed up for photoblog emails, you’ll get my blog updates too. If that sounds like a bad idea, contact me in the next day or two and I may well reconsider. I try to put photos in all my blog posts too… If you’re signed up for both already, you can still unsubscribe from one or t’other.
Thirdly, I’ve still not printed the photos I promised you and for that, I suck. I’m on it, it’s always on my mind and maybe this is the week I’ll make good on my promise.
Fourthly, I got ebaying over the weekend and should have a 50mm 2.0 prime lens to play with in the very near future which is a whole new area to me and I’m looking forward to experimenting. I’ve another vintage viewfinder on its way too, a Kodak Duaflex II, hopefully full of dust, scratches and blemishes all ready to have a Pringles tin strapped to it.
I won’t write any more here cos it puts the whole balance of the design out when there’s tons of text. I’m offski 🙂
Luckily this time I read the backs of the packets of seeds and a lot of them could be started indoors then transplanted, so I felt slightly smug this morning when it was whiter than usual outside. Not enough snow to cancel work though, but enough to make the place look suitably festive. Hopefully something’ll sprout soon… and ideally produce vegetables before we move to another timezone
You're going to reap, just what you sow
Since it was already snowing when I headed to work today I took me camera in on the offchance there was something photographicable, to coin a word. I submitted one of them to this here Portland blog and they published it. I get the impression they’re not inundated with entries… On Flickr one of the comments was “Best watch where you put the rock salt down.” which I liked.
I got fed up with not being able to watch On Demand offerings on cable last night so I finally gave up thinking ‘it’s probably just snow on the lines, or flooding, or high winds, or volcanic/seismic activity’ and phoned Comcast to sort it out. 40 minutes of classical music later, I hung up before my mobile phone died. Then I tried email. Today I got a reply suggesting using their ‘live chat’ . Click on the ‘more’ link or whatever it’s called if you’d like to read the conversation between John.Michael.37920 and Ms. Fisher in its entirety. Basically I’m waiting the proposed 15-30 minutes now and thought posting about Comcast would help pass the time.
Last night we ordered some Mexican food from the local El Salvadorian restaurant (I know…), and since the line was bad and there was a lot of background noise, rather than spending the usual 5 minutes spelling gwyn, I gave my name as Paco. Unfortunately this led to even more confusion and thus we ended up with Tacos de carne asada rather than burritos.
I’d like to say more has been happening of note but not really. Lots of work. Lots of walking the dog. A fair bit of reading. Countless hours on the internets… Half my family appeared in Taunton’s Gazette last week. That was probably the highlight… Doesn’t he look happy? I think I inherited the “Yay-It’s-snow!” gene…
All the news that’s fit to print
Ah well, I’m off to check if I can watch The Soup on demand yet. If not I’ll be live chatting again for a substantial chunk of this morning.
This rum customer stayed staring at me for quite while, calculating his escape no doubt. I’m not used to such attention as Atticus usually frightens off anything alive and under 15 kilos within a 2 mile radius…
Sorry about the absence of posts of late, you know how it is. A new season of Lost starts and everything goes to pot. What with the surprisingly decent weather at we’re enjoying at the minute I should get out more and spend less time on facebook. Talking of which: :O
Plan A was to take a high ISO shot with a very fast shutter speed of this breaking when I chucked it at the concrete, but I decided I wasn’t well coordinated enough to pull it off. Plan B was to hold it aloft like a mighty jewel and shoot the sun’s rays glinting off its imperfections. Behold, plan B.
Strike me down if it didn’t only go and snow again this morning. ’bout time too. I don’t mind putting up with icy temperatures as long as there’s something to show for it other than frostbite. It more or less all melted by the afternoon though.
The photos this week might well come from the archives rather than fresh off the SD card, apologies in advance
DrSita comes back late this evening and in the meantime, I’m baking bread. Sudarat gave me a bread baking stone and it’s getting it’s baptism by yeast today. When DrSita rang yesterday she seemed to be reeling from culture shock from visiting New Orleans, and this morning I turned my computer on and got this Skype message:
[6:21:11 AM] WIFEY! says: i can’t believe i forgot to tell you: i ate alligator!
I dunno, you let her wander off for 48 hours and this kind of thing happens…
What else? I went to Bertie Lou’s this morning for breakfast, had a long chat with Stu & Anne yesterday, watched Cloverfield last night, Hancock the night before, and life’s pretty quiet all in all.
Bertie Lou's- Best Mediocre Breakfast since 1964
I got tagged by Colibrà and El Charro Negro for an “upload a photo and say 16 things about yourself” Flickr meme thing, so i have to do that. I didn’t realise it had to be in Spanish though, and thinking of 16 things to say was harder than I thought so I just googled about for ’50 questions’ type posts and came up with the following:
1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? Jesus, that’s a lot of white hairs in me beard. Time for a shave…
2. What is your favourite ringtone on your phone? Any of them are fine EXCEPT the one that I used to have as an alarm at 6am meaning it was time to commute to Sunnyvale for Yahoo(!). Still gives me shivers when I hear it.
3. What were you doing at midnight last night? Hoping DrSita was alright in her haunted hotel in Louisiana. Wishing the Colbert Report would go on a bit longer, and mulling over the implications and repercussions of time travel in LOST.
4. What’s a word that you say a lot? In English, anyroad In Spanish, orale
5. Favorite age you have been so far? 23 was a good vintage.
6. What is your current desktop picture? Laptop: That Ubuntu heron thing Home PC: Bokeh-y grass Work PC: Yes we canine. On black.
7. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Pump the return me money button, rock the machine a bit, send another coin in after it, swear, weep.
8. Last magazine you bought? Word magazine. Best music magazine on the planet. If we lived in the same country for more than 10 months at a time, I’d subscribe.
9. Can you cook? Now and again. I can follow a recipe if it has pictures of what the result’s meant to look like. The House Speciality is Shepherd’s Pie. And right now I’m 6 hours into a bread recipe.
10. Last movie you watched? Cloverfield, 2 hours ago. Monsters rock!
11. Do you like marmite? Hellz yeah! ‘cept nowadays it gives me terrible acid indigestion.
13. Do you own a donor card? Yep. Help yourselves.
Sellwood Park in the mists
14. Are you a collector of anything? We move too often to amass a serious amount of anything, I’ve 11 and a half thousand photos on Flickr though and I think my two dual lens vintage cameras might be the start of something bigger….
15. Do you believe in ghosts? Nope.
16. Have you ever done anything more self-obsessed than this? Can I interest you in my blog..? agaveweb.com/blog
Now I have to translate all that…
The Continuing Adventures of Me’n’Mario’n’Ange:
Last Thursday. I shifted my hours at L&C to a bit later so we could explore the area a tad. It was a misty morning & Atticus was full of beans and came with us.
I thought the park by the Sellwood bridge would be pretty atmospheric what with all the fog so we had a little wander round there before heading up to Tryon park next to where I work. We managed a fairly large loop of the trails there, the mist had more or less disappeared but the sun was low in the sky and casting some nice beams through the trees. I also took advantage of having two experienced dog handlers to pass Atticus over to so I could use my TTV contraption. Here’s one I liked:
Non-native invasive species
We walked briefly around the L&C campus then I went to a meeting about the new CMS we’re going to be adopting at the law school. It’s an impressive system and will eventually make everything run more smoothly… but I think the changeover is going to be a little bumpy. Nothing too severe though, and I likes a challenge.
After than we went CD & poster shopping round Hawthorn way. Word Magazine cost 17 bucks. But it’s rarer than hen’s teeth in Oregon so I bit the bullet and paid up. I shall read it very slowly…
25% of Millennium Music
In the evening, ‘tapas gringas’ and beer in Clinton with everyone + a Spanish friend of ours.
Lovely. Anyroad, off to try step #5 in Leif’s recipe…
