18th January off visiting

Spent the day at my sister's near York, she gave me a camera (Pentax ME super) that had been in the loft since her husband died many years ago: It will be interesting to put a film through and see how it performs.
Todays effort for Ephotozine was this.
I had sketched one of the rather good entries from the week earlier and so.......

17th January Still setting up the computer

I have been busy installing OPENSuse
linux 10.3 on one of the drives, and it just keeps getting better and better.
I put a very simple, but I thought rather nice still life on Ephotozine, but only a couple of people liked it!
(May delete it and try another less subtle image later today!0

15th January Wet and windy

The weather was so wet today that the first time I got out for a walk was half past three in the aftrnoon!
I tidied up a shot of Mousehole taken last July for Ephotozine, it got 19 Votes!

14 January 2008 Good old Windows Vista

Last Friday I ordered an 80 Gbyte hard drive off Ebay, and to my amazement it arrived this morning, and was instantly installed in the desktop computer.
I put a new drive into the computer today, initially I installed Freespire to see how much further that Linux distro had got, and was rather disappointed when it couldn't even see my USB connections, no matter what I tried, I never had a problem with Suse 10.2!
Any way I decided that as time was pressing I would have to install Windoze again, quite a lengthy operatotion, as my Vista is an Upgrade , so I have to install XP first just to run the Vista DVD.
Then to make matters worse Vista decided that it couldn't start, and I had to format the drive and start again from the beginning formatting XP.
Even then when it was installed, I had a couple of "Blue screen of Death" crashes over the Nvidia and Soundmax drivers!

13th January

We had intended to go for a decent run out today, but the weather was cloudy and promised rain so we got as far as doing some shopping and having lunch at McDonalds.
I wrote a tutorial for the Bridge Camera forum on combining two images and put the resulting image on Ephotozine as today's submission.
I was pleasantly surprised when it got 15 votes.
The chap who adminsters the forum used the tutorial and produced a very capable first attempt, using the posted images, and we had a friendly debate over the reasons for altering images: we see them as a way to generate images of a type that we don't have the opportunity to catch "in the field", and by creating them learn what makes a good and effective finished result.
During the afternoon I had a short walk, but soon headed back as it was cold and windy.

12th January

Well here's the day's Ephotozine entry, composed of four separate images, the sheep, then a stream off the moors, the bridgeand houses in Hutton Le hole, and a sky from last summer.
We drove as far as Wetwang and had lunch at the local Chippy, but didn't stay out very long as the weather was dull and wet.
This entry scored 14 votes, not too bad

11th January Weather rather damp

Because it was a rather foggy day I decided to look back to last year's images to find something appropriate for Ephotozine, and came up with this one of Haweswater, it had the tones augmented with the LOMO filter in the GIMP and achieved 14 votes, not bad really.
We had a day out to Castleton and though it wasn't exactly sunny, it was pleasant to drive over the moors and meet some old friends at the "Friday Pensioners Special" in the Castleton Tea rooms.
I took something like 15 pictures while out, including some on 35mm on the Dynax, and created a composite of Hutton Le Hole as tomorrow's Ephotozine submission.

10th January A windy day

Since it was too windy and raining too, I had to look back at last week's photo's to find something to submit to ephotozine, and had picked out two: one of a roadside pond on Blakey Ridge, and the other of farms near the end of Fryupdale.
Since I couldn't make my mind up I decided to compromise by combining them into one image, I rather liked the effect, as the warm colours around the cool pond seem to create a feeling of depth, seemingly bringing the farmhouse in the foreground closer.
Good and orginal? heh heh!

9th January :Today's ephotozine entry

Taken yesterday near the Humber Bridge, the weather turned a wee bit nasty!
It didn't do too badly, getting 8 votes.
At this time of year it's hard to take new photo's to put on ephotozine, most of the time you end up looking back through the stuff you took last summer.
I have my desktop computer partitioned so that I can boot either XP or Vista, as I don't trust the latter: I was proved right today when Vista simply refused to startup, and the repair sytem on the DVD failed to resurrect it. Currently I am reinstalling it, but the day when I trust it enough to use it for anything serious has receded further into the future!
It still needed the sound card driver re-installing every couple of day or so.....
Time someone toppled the oh so mighty Microsoft off it's perch and replaced the Windows system with something more reliable!

Curioser and curioser!

I visited a favourite of mine again today, "The Deep" Hull's aquarium: and dicovered that even here the Marketing Executive can't leave your dinner alone....
I went into the cafe and ordered a Pannini (bacon and mozzarella). As I lifted it to take a bite a friend said "Here! what's on the bottom of your sandwich?"
Turning it over I couldn't help but laugh.....
Then I began to wonder how long it would be before they print a message on your butt when you sit down?
A sobering thought no doubt!

Using film in 2008

I had a good look at using a film camera and realised that I didn't really want piles of prints, what I need is images that are good enough for the web. The local Photo processors confirmed that they would provide a developed film and the images on a CD for £2.98, which is very reasonable, and our localAldi superstore sell Koday VR100 135 36 exposure film for 2 films for £1.98, which gives the following cost:
film cost 2.75 pence per frame
Process cost 8.28 ditto
Total 11.03 pence per shot..........pretty cheap!
The other good point is that the processing only takes half an hour; the CD is ready when you come back from shopping, and each CD even has viewing and printing software on it....plus you can order prints over the net from it.
Naturally you an use your image editing software and printer on the stored pictures, and have them already on a permanent storage medium.. by the way you can have up to five films on a single CD at additional cost.
The scanned images are only 2 megapixels, but boy are they sharp! see attached pics: and they print surprisingly well, you only need the negatives for really large (10"*8" or above) prints.
So now I have to carry both digital and film cameras! (must be a glutton for punishment....)

Turning the clock back

Having been converted to digital photography for some years, using compacts and bridge cameras, I rather surprised myself just before Christmas when I spotted this camera on Ebay.
A Minolta Dynax 5: and decided I must have it...
The rationale was that I intend to upgrade to a Sony DSLR this year and the lens would fit......
When it arrived I was amazed at the absolutely perfect condition it was in, it looked new. Considering I only paid £63 for it I was very pleased.
compared to my bridge camera?
Like a ferrari to a citroen 2CV!
The first shot I took was of a seagull flying over me, I just raised the camera and fired....I was shocked at the blazing speed of the camera, it stopped the bird smack in the frame where I placed it, and pin sharp too....this would have been impossible with the bridge camera.

January 8th And now for something different!

"An Alcoholics damaged DNA.Shocking evidence from the Electron Microscope of the damage done by the demon drink"
Er no, not really, just me monkeying about with pictues of a full glass using the flash gun with coloured beakers placed over it, then cloned and arranged in patterns.
The story behind this was that when looking on a great site
http://www.diyphotography.net/
at the range of brilliant flash and lighting ideas that can be done for free or very cheaply, I suggested the method I had of slipping a beaker over the flash head, and in response Udi (The clever chap that runs the site) suggested that I try putting different couloured beakers over the flash gun...
This is the first real attempt , I'm sure that it can be improved on... anyway it got 8 votes... It's hard being a trendsetter!

January 7th "Oh I do like to be beside the sea side"

Scarborough, north Yorkshire January 7th...Brr
I liked the number of triangles in this shot, and the feeling of space.
It didn't seem to appeal to many others, however, as it only scored 4 votes...
If I'm going to be famous it looks as if I'll have to cut my ear off!...on second thought, who needs to be famous?

January 6th Of course it couldn't last!

This is Fryupdale in North Yorkshire, one of my favourite places, and at this time of year the low angle of what sunshine you get (if you get it!) really picks out the dry stone walls and the contours of the land...
Where possible I do like to get out and "do" photography right through the winter,but you rarely get days as nice as this one was..
Alas it only scored a measly 5 votes.

January 5th Mounts Bay and reflections

Fame at last... well perhaps not fame exactly, but this did achieve what for me was a very rewarding 40 votes!
Of course as the great W.C. Fields would say it was "Good and Original"
(Meaning that the parts that were original weren't good,
And the parts that were good weren't original!)
I like to think of digitally manipulated photos as
Paintography
There you are, remember you saw it here first!
For the record the manipulations were done in the GIMP . The open source image editor that everyone should have, 'cos it's free!

January 4 2008 A bit of digital fun

This bit of nonsense came about because I had an image of a kite that broke free and crashed, but the sky was empty of detail, and I though it deserved something a bit more spectacular, so the background shot of an oilseed rape field in full bloom at sunset was used.
Simple really, the kite was cut out and copied onto a layer then blended in using the eraser tool.
Anyway, it got a few laughs and 17 votes!

January 3 2008 and the First Snow

What a difference a day makes! I couldn't photograph the same group of fungi, as they were buried under the snow, but this group on the other side of the stump were partially exposed, and I ad taken my own camera with me this time, (Fujifilm S9600)
Using the built in flash and shooting in raw, under-exposing by a stop I was able to capture the full dynamic range of the snow to the deep black shadows.. as you can see the "snow" was mostly composed of large hail particles..
This one only scored 7 on Ephotozine...looks like I'm never going to be famous!

Continuing the update...January 2 upload

While waiting for a bus I spotted this little group on a an old tree stump. so out came the trusty Sony DSCW100 (belong to my wife!) and this was the result ..it achieve a modest 11 votes

Back at last!

After a couple of years absence I remembered this blog and resolved to contribute again, starting with my Ephotozine goings on..
This was my entry for January 1st, to remind us all that hopefully we can expect better weather soon!

Last day in Crete

Here it is at last, we are picked up by the coach at 4:50 AM! for the flight home: I have mixed feelings about Crete: the place is rather backwards for an EU country, the road manners of the drivers are APPALLING, motorcycles and scooter often have Three passengers (all without crash helmets!) Speed limits are regarded as joke, and parking is anywhere you fancy!
On the credit side the scenery is good, and the Minoan ruins are not to be missed.
It was worth coming, but we will definitely not be coming back, once is enough!

Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Wednesday 27th Sept Visit to a Minoan town

Today we drove along the old national to visit a complete Minoan Town at Gournes: this was on top of a hill overlooking the sea and very scenic indeed. We have been amazed at the size of the ruins of these ancient monuments, it's a great pity that so little is known about them.
We continued along the lower coast where we found the beaches were rather stony before coming back through the mountains and the village of Kastelli.
Travel is slow in these parts and it was quarter to three before we got back to the hotel

Tuesday 26th Sept visit to Phaistos

We drove across Crete to visit the second largest Minoan Palace at Phaistos today, and it was well worth the considerable journey to get there.
It was obvious that a great deal of the site is still undiscovered and buried in the hillside, I shouldn't be surprised if it isn't at least as big as Knossos once it has all been revealed.
We had lunch in the museum cafe with splendid views out over the valley and the distant misty mountains.
The big problem with Crete (apart from other drivers) is the sheer scale of the place, and the narrow winding roads, not to mention the fact that we were on a new motorway section that suddenly turned into a very rough track as the road wasn't finished over the top of the local hill!
Still we had a good day out and arrived back mid afternoon ready for a rest.

Sunday in crete

We had a good day visiting the Malia minoan palace, followed by a drive over the mountains to Agios Nikolis and along the coast to Spinolonga island, followed by a rainy trip over winding mountain pas roads back home

Drving in Crete

Yeasterday was our first day of driving in Crete. It was an experience!
Driving on the "wrong side of the road" isn't too bad, but dealing with lunatics at the same time makes it very interesting! If the British Traffic police were drafted in to improve the local driving, most people would end up in jail, the Taxi drivers would end up being either hung or jailed for life!
(Joking of course) but boy, I have never seen worse and more dangerous driving, nor drivers that are more impatient!
Knossos was an absolute wonder, we were so impressed, and today we drove across to the other side of the island, this wasn't easy as the maps are unhelpful, and most road signs are in Greek!
Nevertheless we ha d a great day out. The scenery wa beautiful up in the mountains.

Our Crete Holiday

first day in crete and a new experience, we hired a Quad bike and explored the seafront at Gouves, it stretches for miles in all directions, and ends on a beach in both directions.
Naturally it rained aty one point, but it was a new experience and we enjoyed it

Northumberland and Scottish Borders Holiday

We just got back from a glorious week up North: here's a couple of the 500 plus photo's I took!(Click the images for a larger picture.)

Panorama of the Humber Bridge

This is composite of five separate photos, please click on the image for a full size view

More photos

Out on my scooter today and in between showers (including hailstones!) I spotted this view looking back towards the city.
Simple, but I thought it very appealing.









Here's our cat about to consume the grass stalk in front of him: he's 14 years old now, but still quite a kitten at heart.
Garfield by name and Garfield by nature!

Had a great ride out on the scooter

At last we have better weather, and today I took advantage and rode out to the coast, along empty roads. The oilseed rape fields were giving off in enough pollen to block the intakes on a jumbo jet, otherwise it was great.













Back Home I have been experimenting with composite photos in GIMP, here's the latest example

Still awful weather

After a bad weekend we had hoped the weather would be better today, but no, it rained,rained, rained and rained!
The only time it stopped was mid evening, and I was able at last to get out for a short walk.
Still, it gave me the chance to take some bad weather photos of the wet flowers, etc., the rain had been hard enough to bring complete florets off the cherry trees, not just the usual petals, so that means less cherries later on in the year!
At least it's mild now, not freezing, and the fallen blossom is at least scenic!

Crazy weekend weather!

Aftr a glorious almost summer week, as usual the weather kept a surprise up it's sleeve for the weekend, and we had a eturn to winter temperatures and driving rain, helped along by a srong east wind.







thankfully thisdidn't stop us having a good weekend away with the caravan and I was out snappinf away with the new camera.
Sunday morning the dawn came up rather black and sombre, but at least it stopped raining and we were able to get the caravan packed up in the dry.

After the long winter, spring is rocketing away at high speed: here in the East riding of yorkshire the fields of rape seed colour the landscape bright yellow, and the huge amount of pollen is so thick in the air you can taste it!
This is a hard time for hay fever sufferers, even in the city, out in the country the air smells perfumed.


The city council are mad keen on gras cutting, but in the few areas that they've missed, the dandelions have completed one full growing season already, and started a second! this will be a record year for them, as you can see.






These are heading for the sun in the local graveyard!

A quiet moment in the mall

I couldn't resist this candid shot in the Prospect Centre Shopping Mall in central Hull.
a mother and daughter had just bought a "girls Vanity set" in the pound shop, and couldn't wait to try the rings and bangles.
There in the middle of a busy mall, they found a clear space and time stood still for them, I just loved the way they both mirrored each other, admiring the plastic rings they were trying on.
Truly a timeless moment, surrounded by crowds of shoppers, peace in the middle of chaos.

Its the local council elections today

And I won't be voting: what diffence does it make to me which bunch of rogues are elected?
I won't vote as I have no wish to legitimise the phoney "Democracy" that we have.
When the day comes when politicians have to respond to YES/NO buttons on consoles in our houses after the public have decided what they want doing on the political issues currently being discussed, then I'll vote again.
Till then forget it: don't expect me to endorse the status quo, it's phoney!

Mayday Weekend

We spent a few lovely days caravanning near Harrogate, Yorkshire

At a place called Pannal, in some lovely scenery. Despite it being the Bank holiday, the country roads were surprisingly free of traffic, so touring was a pleasure









There may be a water shortage in the South East of England, up here in the North we have flooded fields!





Not far from our campsite was High Almscliffe Crag, a popular spot for an evening stroll, or even for something more energetic





This chap ot himself into some trouble, but after a long struggle he made it to the top, to the relief of all concerned, especially his girlfriend watching from below!

This is a real dead end!

Here in Yorkshire when the road sign is "dead end" they aren't kidding! coastal erosion is terrible and as you can see from these pictures, quite a lot of land slides into the sea every winter.
This is as far as I can go on my scooter.







This is the end of the road and when I was young you could cycle a further mile and a half further out to sea, there was a church, several houses and even an amusement arcade, and of course the process continues.
The amount lost since last Christmas is the distance between the front and rear barriers, this is by no means an exceptional amount, some winters are far more destructive.

In at the Deep end

I went to "The Deep" yesterday, Hull's premier attraction, a superb aquarium, where you can easily imaging you are under a tropical sea.
This is one of the reef sharks, not something you would like to encounter while out for a paddle!
As usual the place was very busy, it attracts coach loads of Schoolchildren, and other groups from all over the region and beyond.

My wife and I have a season pass, and spend many a dull wet winter afternoon in there, ending the visit with a coffee in the cafe that overlooks the River Humber

This is the shallow pool that introduces you to the main aquarium, a junior school class are totally absorbed with the new experience, the looks on their faces and the general excitement makes us smile very time we visit.






As well as the enormous main tank there are set piece smaller aquariums set into the walls, they are absolutely superb!









Finally a view of one of the main windows to give you an idea of the scale of the main tank, it's abosolutely huge, about 20 metres deep!

Been a while, but..

After quite some time I remembered to blog, just got a new camera, so now taking lots of photos, trying the various settings.
First a closeup of my watch to show the image quality on the macro setting




Heres a composite of the kid next door:







Over the next few weeks I expect to add more photo's

In the budget

Listening to the chancellor this afternoon I was very alarmed at the notion that in the next couple of years there will be millions more high tech jobs, and millions less low tech ones.
Not to worry! says the chancellor, they will be re-trained! we are pouring huge reserves into education and training!
What utter rot!
There exists in this country, as in all others, a huge number of people who will never be trainable through no fault of their own, and therefore will become scrap, victims of a profit making machine.
This is criminally insane: all citizens regardless of their intellect deserve the opportunity to contribute to society and achieve self respect and happiness, otherwise why bother having a society at all? we may as well go back to being vikings!
The government should institute a program to provide an extension of provided social services to generate jobs for these people. The expense would be little different than having them live on handouts, and they would at least feel self respect as functional members of society.

Completed installing Suse 10.0

Today I managed to finish the addition of drivers to the software to permit the playing of DVD's and mp3 files, also additional updates to the internet browsers and Java.
The result is that Suse 10 can now cover more tasks than windows XP .

Nearly spring this weekend

We went for a pleasant drive through the countryside today, avoiding the main roads where possible, and saw the first daffodils out, and large numbers of spring lambs in the fields.
With the wind dropping, the temperature (7 Degrees Centigrade) felt very mild and springlike.
This is the last weekend before the caravanning season starts, so we've been round to check out the van in storage, and found it was all OK.
Roll on next weekend!

More on OpenSUSESLICK

"Strange name, 'innit" but excellent software for all that. This morning I succeeded at last in gettting the scroll wheel on the mouse to work, now all that remains is to get the system to recognize a USB floppy drive, then all operations are nominal.

Can spring start now please?

Went for a drive in the car through Holderness and ate lunch on the crumbling clay cliff top at Barmston, then during the afternoon went out on the Honda Dylan scooter, and for the second day running, ran into a blizzard (slight exaggeration as despite seeming to be heavy, it didn't lay.)
Still, it was bl***y cold!

Got the car back, and...

everything seems to be OK, so I shall be keeping an eye on it for the next few days!

OpenSUSE SLICK Linux is the Give-away on the front cover of the April issue of LINUX FORMAT

I installed it as an upgrade over Suse Linux 9.2, and apart from having no mouse when first installed (soon fixed) it is running very nice and very fast!
There is a new package manager called "SUPERAPT" and it is really first rate, in about three hours I had built a first rate system up will all the apps you could want.
What a freebie! it does everything that windows will do (with one exception, for legal reasons it won't play video DVD's)
It really is first rate, give it a try!

Call this service? I dont!

I took the car in for it's 90,000 miles service on March 9th 2006 at 8:30 A.M.at the Main dealer.
A telephone call from The main dealer at approximately 10:30 informed me it was ready for collection.
I arrived about 11:30 AM. paid and received the key.
On entering the car the engine started normally, first turn of the key, but I found to my surprise that I could not shift into any gear.
The clutch pedal felt normal under foot, and there was no sound involved, but the gear lever could not be moved forward or back into any gear position.
I stopped the engine, then attempted to restart it, but there was just a light spinning noise, as if the starter motor was spinning without engaging the flywheel (no grinding noises.)
At this point I went back into the showroom and reported that I had a problem.
A gentleman named Paul went out, and returned saying that the engine had started without a problem.
When I asked if he had tried the gears he replied that he hadn't, at which point we went out and Paul got into the car and started the engine without trouble, and selected the gears, again without trouble.
At this point I said thank you for your efforts, perhaps it was my imagination?
Paul went back inside and I started the engine and pulled out, but had to stop as there was a small lorry in the way.
At this point I shifted into neutral, and found I couldn't get back into gear again.
I spotted that Paul had come out and waved him over. He got into the car and at first was able to shift into gear, the stopped the engine and it wouldn't restart, just made the spinning noise as before.
On the next attempt the engine started, but then Paul had problem selecting gears, this did eventually clear, at this Point Paul said that he couldn't risk me driving the car in this state as it may break down, I would have to leave it.
Late afternoon I received a telephone call from the young lady in the office saying that the diagnostics had revealed that the A.G.R. valve had failed and this was why the engine wouldn't start: (This is a gas feedback valve from the exhaust to the Turbocharger.)I asked how could this have affected the gear change, and was told that the mechanics could find no fault with the clutch or gearbox.
I was informed that the part would have to be ordered and would cost about £195 including fitting, which I had no option but to agree to, and that they would ring me tomorrow when the work is completed.
I repeated that while I was perfectly happy to pay for replacement of the A.G.R valve I could not see how this would affect the gear change, and asked that the mechanics be requested to ensure that this was tested and rectified before the car is returned to me.
I find it very odd that it had never failed to either start or select gear until it was brought in for servicing this morning, and while I accept that things can go wrong without prior warning, the odds that two such unrelated things can fail between me handing it over and collecting it three hours later, and the gear selection fault being beyond the capability of the diagnostics or the mechanics to trace is very hard to accept as a reasonable explanation.
The odds against this happening must be astronomical!
I have been put to a great deal of inconvenience, not to mention expense over this matter, if the car is not correct when returned then I shall clearly have to seek a different source of servicing and or future vehicles.
Needless to say I shall create one hell of a fuss if it isn't fixed tomorrow!

First day of spring!

And what an odd combination! We drove through to visit my sister,who lives in the village of Strensall, just above York, and had sunshine all the way, even seeing the first open daffodils this year, yet a few miles to the north at Malton, and a few miles to the east at Scarborough (Whitby too) they had thick snow!
Admittedly the temperature where we were never rose to more than 2 Degrees centigrade, but at least it was sunny.