Ok, so this one's a bit silly, but I don't have any new material, and after playing around with the avatar generator on the Simpsons Movie website I couldn't resist putting this together. I created the avatar of me (which is frighteningly realistic:-)) and Milly did one of her. I did try to convince Libby to do one too, but couldn't persuade her to have a go ;-)

And not that it makes a great deal of difference, but this one looks much better with the black theme.

I'm hoping to shoot some new material over the weekend, which should be a bit less frivolous than this effort, but probably won't be posting much until the week commencing the 23rd (after which I'll have a lot more free time).

In the meanwhile, you might want to check out my Curves tutorial (on tonal range and the Curves tool), which is now finished! Let me know what you think.

If you'd like to be kept informed about what's going on with the tutorials you can subscribe to the tutorials news feed (in RSS 2 format) which is linked from the main online tutorials page. This will be updated each time we release a new tutorial. The next one will be one of the subscription based tutorials, and will be released by mid August.

Anyway, enough of all that, as I'm sure you're itching to head over to the Simpsons Movie website and create some avatars ;-)

Update: I'm away until the 23rd of this month, and won't have access to the internet, so I'm afraid that you'll have to put up with this one for a while longer. When I do get back, I should have a reasonable amount of new material, and will put something else up asap. In the meanwhile, I'll see you all soon.

If I'd processed this one before yesterday's, I would probably have put this one up instead (and may well not have bothered with yesterday's) as I much prefer it.

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6.37pm on 10/6/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/8.0 1/200 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro no

John made an interesting point the othere day, which is one we all know, but can easily forget in the mad rush to find something to post:

"I was wandering around Manchester the other day and was hell bent on finding interesting subjects to shoot.

I had completely forgotten that light should also be a primary concern and looking at how light falls on objects can often, or in fact usually leads to the discovery of a photo opportunity."

And of course he's right, so here's a self-portrait (it's been a while since I did a decent one) taken in front of the blind in one of our bedrooms.

Oh, and because of the fairly low-key feel to this one it looks much better when viewed with the black theme.

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6.41pm on 10/6/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/8.0 1/250 aperture priority -2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro minor

It's been a long week, during which I've felt the need to prop my eyes open with matchsticks on several occasions, of which this shot is an example (minus the matchsticks) ;-)

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the post-processing: I used the channel mixer to 'extract' the blue channel (which radically darkens skin tones), added a vignette, and increased the contrast with the Curves tool.

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2.01pm on 28/4/06 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T9 f/3.5 1/130 'magnifying glass' -1/3 pattern 80 6.3mm no JPEG/fine minor

I had hoped to go out and get a few shots today, but the weather, as usual, has been crap. So I thought I'd go for something a bit different today: taken in the stairwell of one of our local carparks.

Oh, and this one definitely looks best with the black theme.

captured camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter cropped?

11.42am on 6/4/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/25 aperture priority -1 evaluative 800 no RAW C1 Pro perspective corrected

I've taken a few shots of this mirror ball in the past; but it's been a while since I put one up.

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1.41pm on 1/3/06 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f/5.6 1/750 aperture priority -1/2 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro no

I suspect that this may be one of those shots that I like more than you do, but for some reason this is definitely my favourite from recent weeks (if not months).

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5.55pm on 22/4/05 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 31mm (50mm equiv.) f/6.3 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW DxO Optics Pro minor

I know, I said no more Lensbaby shots for a while, but I went out today and came back with a complete load of dross so had to rescue something from the other day.

As for this shot: it's another self-portrait in the world's largest mirror ball (Blackpool, UK).

capture date camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter cropped?

6.30pm on 19/4/05 Canon 20D Lensbaby 2.0 f/2.0 1/2500 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW C1 Pro no

I helped out a friend today shooting a wedding, and thoroughly enjoyed myself – it was way less stressful than doing it on my own – but this was the only one I found time to take for myself. It's not the best of shots, but it does mark the occasion :-)

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12.43pm on 12/12/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 140mm (224mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 800 no RAW DPP no

I was going to go out again this evening and re-shoot a couple of the shots that I took last night that didn't quite work out, but it's cold, I only had four hours sleep, and I felt like a change. Add to which that my wife was quite happy to be photographed this evening, and this is the result.

I should probably take more shots of my wife, but our littlest (two in February) still stays up till about 11pm, so we often don't have too much time to ourselves. Tonight though she went down at about 8.30. I suspect that she'll make up for it tomorrow by staying awake till two in the morning ;-)

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10.00pm on 9/12/04 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 40mm (64mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/60 shutter priority +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX and 420EX RAW DPP no

I haven't been taking part in all the recent Photo Friday challenges but I could hardly miss this one – Reflections.

As for this shot: I tried a version of this one yesterday with our existing decorations which, because they're made out of shatterproof plastic (i.e. they're two and three year old resistant), didn't reflect the scene all that well. So I went out this afternoon to look for a single, large glass decoration ... and couldn't find one. However, I did find these small ones and think the photograph is probably more interesting as a result. So, a festive take on this week's theme which I'm actually quite pleased with :-)

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5.07pm on 4/12/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 168mm (269mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/200 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 580EX and 420EX RAW DPP minor

Here's a companion shot to yesterday's entry that better contextualises the blue square that confused people yesterday. There are a few things I like about this shot but my favourite is the rather disdainful "I'd ask you what the hell you're doing if only I could be bothered" look ;-)

capture date camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality cropped?

1.57pm on 23/11/04 Canon 20D EF 70-200 f/4L USM 140mm (224mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/160 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 400 no RAW yes

Other than the fact that this was taken some time around the 15th of July with my G5 there isn't a great deal I can tell you about this shot as I no longer have the RAW file. As for why I'm putting it up: three reasons. First: this week's Photo Friday challenge is Family, and with four wonderful children and a beautiful wife you'd have thought that I'd have been able to come up with something. But, what with one thing and another, and despite shooting over a hundred shots earlier this evening, it just didn't happen. Second: I've recently been clearing out some old files and came across this one. I'd already deleted the RAW file (note to self: buy new hard drive!) so probably didn't intend to use it, but decided that I now quite like it. It's probably fairly obvious, but in case it isnt', this is a shot of the LCD screen for a video recorder (the one in this shot). Third: I've run out of stuff again. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something tomorrow as I find it much more relaxing when I manage to get a few shots ahead of myself.

I have a couple of other shots that are not too dissimilar to yesterday's entry, but I fancied a change today.

As for this shot: unlike the previous few, this is an attempt to capture the dullness of this season rather than its drama – looking out (in this instance, from St. Annes pier) onto a dull, grey day.

Oh, and my apologies for not responding in any detail to the many wonderful comments on yesterday's shot. The cold I had for a couple of weeks has now transferred itself to my wife and our youngest, both of whom are quite unwell.

On which note I'm going to go and tidy the kitchen :-/

capture date camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality cropped?

3.19pm on 11/11/04 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 40mm (64mm equiv.) f/4.0 1/50 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 400 no RAW no

I don't know what it is, but there's something about this shot that I'm not happy with. I like the colours, and the composition, and the twin shadows, but something about it, IMO, just isn't quite right (and the only reason I've put it up is because I don't have anything else today).

As always your thoughts are gratefully received.

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3.46pm on 10/10/04 Canon 20D EF 17-40 f/4L USM 17mm (27mm equiv.) f5.6 1/500 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW auto no

The bad news is that there's no news on my G5 – whatsoever; I took loads of shots with my FujiFilm FinePix over the weekend – and they're all crap; and the company I ordered my 20D from did have a delivery – but instead of the 25 or so cameras they were expecting they only got three. So I'm not overly delighted. The good news, maybe, is that I found another company who have assured me that they're getting a consignment of 20D's tomorrow, and I can have one of them. Hmmm ... I'm not going to hold my breath though as I know that they're in short supply and all the shops I've spoken to have had deliveries of far fewer units than they expected. We'll see. Anyway, the upshot of the above is that I've been archive raiding again. I took this at the same time as this shot, but didn't post it at the time as I thought it was a little too similar to put up. I haven't put up the EXIF data as, rather foolishly, I deleted the RAW file a couple of days ago. Things are not quite going as planned at the moment ;-)

On Friday, when I said it was about time for a change, I didn't mean that the fates should conspire against me such that I'd drop and wreck my camera; oh well, I guess I should be more careful about what I wish for ;-)

Anyway, I was going to take a more protracted break, but not posting for the last two days has been entirely weird so I thought I'd revert to using my old FujiFilm FinePix 40i in the interim. For those of you not familiar with that model, it's a fixed focal length, 2.4MP (interpolated to 4.3MP), point-and-shoot. I strongly suspect that I'm not going to be able to come up with anything too good with it, but I thought I'd try and work with it for a while until I either get a new camera or my G5 comes back from being repaired. I don't imagine that I'll be posting every day for the next week or so, nor that the stuff I do put up will be all that great, but you never know – I'll see what I can do.

Oh, and thanks for all the kind words on Friday's photograph, they were much appreciated.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length flash image quality white balance cropped?

FujiFilm FinePix 40i 3.05pm on 13/9/04 f2.8 1/160 normal program +0.0 pattern 200 8.7mm no JPEG/fine auto yes

This was shot in the rightmost window of this shot, and it's about my 30th attempt to get this one right. About 50% of the ones I've taken have been fine – at full resolution – but the rest that I've taken ended up either losing detail or appearing over-sharpened. Anyway, I'm reasonably happy with this one, and unless I find a better way of resizing (rather than using Web Presenter Pro) I don't think I'll be able to do much better.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 4.34pm on 17/8/04 f8.0 1/160 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 8.0mm RAW auto no

As with my entry for last Friday this shot was taken near Blackpool's South Pier, and other than the fact that I'm really pleased with the way it turned out (in terms of colour and composition) I don't think I've got too much to say about it.

As always though, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 5.01pm on 4/8/04 f5.0 1/125 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 7.2mm RAW auto no

I don't have a great deal to say about this shot other than that it was one of my many attempts to shoot something for the Photo Friday Sunset challenge. In the end though, I decided that I preferred the shot I put up on Thursday. Nonetheless, I do quite like this one.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 8.56pm on 30/7/04 f2.5 1/50 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 7.2mm RAW auto no

Either this is a cool idea for a shot, or it's a bit silly, or maybe it's both, but I quite like it nonetheless. It's a portrait of one of my good friends taking a shot of the both of us, or ... it's a self portrait of me taking his portrait, or ... it's him taking a portrait of himself, and so on ;-)

And, given that this is considerably less artistic than recent efforts, it might well be worth me (re)mentioning the ways I categorise my images. I have three primary categories: Portfolio (for the stuff I think is really good - there aren't many shots in this category), Gallery (for those shots that I think are pretty much ok but could be better), and Photolog (for shots that are i) limited in some way, either technically, aesthetically or both, or ii) just everyday "here's what I've been up to shots"). This shot falls into the latter category and was taken part way round our waterfall walk (see the shots from the previous two days), more as a bit of fun than anything else.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 5.56pm on 10/7/04 f3.5 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto minor

I went for a walk yesterday lunchtime and came across this display, and while the end result isn't quite what I was after – I was trying to make more of the mannequin's pose as a commentary on my reflected activity – I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out.

On another matter: you may have spotted the new links at the bottom of my main index page and my individual archive pages. These point to a new webring set up by Cameron of aporeality. The main aim of the ring is to bring some exposure to some of the lesser known sites at photoblogs.org, and if you're interested you can take a look at Cameron's post on this topic at blog.photoblogs. Alternatively you can have a look at the list of sites that have already signed up or visit a random site.

Oh, and finally: if anyone has bookmarked my main archive page I've changed the url to ../archive.php rather than index2.php (which wasn't all that informative).

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 1.44pm on 6/7/04 f4.0 1/125 program AE +0.0 evaluative 50 14.4mm RAW auto minor

I don't know why, but no matter which English seaside resort you visit (Southend-on-Sea in this instance), you'll find stalls and shops that sell hideously tacky and cheap sunglasses. Anywhere else in the country, and you'll normally find that they are more expensive and better made. Not that that's overly interesting, but it's all I could think of to say about this shot other than that I quite like it's 'pop-art' feel.

Actually, the main reason I put this one up is that it uses some software that I haven't tried before – Noise Ninja from PicureCode. As all of you who shoot digital images will be aware (particularly those of you with compact digitals like mine), digital noise is often a problem, and nearly always ugly. Noise Ninja is a software solution for removing noise (other products include Neat Image, which I haven't tried as there isn't a Mac version) and it does seem to do a good job.

If you're interested the original noisy version of this image can be seen here. Oh, and the fact that the final version is brighter than the noisy one has nothing to do with Noise Ninja. I did some more work on the image after running Noise Ninja and didn't have time to alter the original too.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 4.32pm on 30/6/04 f5.0 1/640 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 23.0mm RAW auto minor/rotated

One of the presents I got for my birthday last week was a Manfrotto monopod, and this shot started out more as an experiment to see how useful it would be at slow shutter speeds than a serious attempt to take something to put up here (and on the whole I think that it did make a difference to this shot, though it could probably have done with being a little sharper). But when I reviewed this one I decided that I quite liked the combination of colour, detail and blurred reflection so decided to put it up.

I'm still in Bristol but am travelling over to London later today. If I can get to an internet café tomorrow morning I'll post tomorrow's shot, but if not I'll put it up in the evening when I get home.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 9.54am on 13/6/04 f3.0 1/15 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto minor

This shot was taken through the same device that I used for this one, and I was going to try and explain what it is again but there's a photograph of one on photorealistica, which will probably make more sense than another garbled description.

As for this shot: it's one of two that I'm putting up and I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out. That said, I would have preferred a little more detail in the inverted portrait, but on the whole I think it's ok. Tomorrow's, on the other hand, is a portrait of my wife and think it's quite a lot better (though do tell me if you disagree).

Oh, and after today I'm away until Friday. I have shots to put up, providing I can get internet access to post them, but I wont have any time to respond to comments. I'll try to catch up when I get back, but by then there'll only be six days till we move (fingers crossed) so things may be a bit hectic for a while.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 9.42pm on 11/6/04 f2.5 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 14.4mm RAW auto minor

Pressure's a funny thing. When I thought about how much we had to do over the next couple of weeks, and knowing that I'll be away for most of this coming week, it seemed impossible that I'd be able to take anything in the next couple of days that would be worth putting up – hence my comment yesterday, that I probably wouldn't be posting for a few days or longer.

But, ironically, I think that decision removed the pressure somewhat and I took two portraits yesterday evening (of myself and my wife, that I'll probably put up on Monday and Tuesday) and managed to produce three shots that I'm happy with today. This one is hardly spectacular, but I do think it's quite interesting, and is of a mirrored mobile that our eldest two have hanging at their window.

Anyway, I now have enough stuff to keep me going till Wednesday, but there may be a couple of days after that when nothing goes up. I'll be away and am not sure what level of internet access I'll have, and don't, as yet, actually have anything to put up anyway.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance cropped?

Canon G5 5.51pm on 12/6/04 f3.0 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto no

When I first looked at this shot I was quite dissapointed with the way it had turned out as what I was after was a very sharp, clear shot of this reflection. But, and this is probably to do with the fact that these sunglasses were only a couple of pounds (piled up in a rack of similarly cheap and tacky ones), the image is dirty, noisy and lacks clarity (and I don’t look too great either ;-). So, while these sunglasses might look ok, they’re probably manufactured from fairly cheap plastic, and the optical quality is clearly somewhat short of spectacular.

But when I thought about it, a dirty imprecise image seemed more fitting for this shot, mainly because it reflects some of the tackiness of the seafront stalls that sell such items – a cheap dirty image reflected in a cheap plastic lens. All that said, I don’ think this is one of my best efforts.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance

Canon G5 2.26pm on 14/5/04 f4.0 1/320 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto

If I’d finished it in time I might have used this for my entry for the Photo Friday self-portrait challenge, but I don’t imagine it would have faired all that well. Not that I think it’s a bad image (I really like this one) but I imagine that it might not have the same broad appeal.

As for this shot: my wife found ‘the groin’ when we were camping last summer, and at some point we thought we might polish and mount it – but we haven’t got around to it yet. As for what this shot is about: I’m not entirely sure. I guess, on some levels, that it’s a critique of the simple message portrayed by my last two images, but beyond that I’m not sure that I’d care to fix its meaning. I would be interested to hear how others see it though.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance

Canon G5 10.09pm on 23/4/04 f4.0 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto

As Mike Golding notes, photographers hate to be photographed, and I’m no exception. I must have taken several hundred self-portraits this week – and I’ve hated all of them. So, on the basis that today is the last day I can submit something to this week’s Photo Friday challenge, I gave up trying to come up with something ‘arty’ and took a picture of my bum instead ;-)

This week’s challenge was suggested by playapixie, and I was quite saddened to read the commentary on her own entry. In short, she had intended to post a naked shot of herself but, for very obvious reasons, decided against it. So I guess that I’m saddened, not by her decision, but because we live in the sort of world where such decisions need to be made.

On a side note: I’m the guest photoblogger at No Traces today. Bob Smith has taken a trip to Europe and has asked various people to post to his site in his absence – Milo, Emily, Jon, Ian, me, Jim, mprints, Tracey, and Heather. If you’re interested, you can see my entry here.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance

Canon G5 9.47am on 22/4/04 f2.5 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 17.6mm RAW auto

A little while ago I had a discussion regarding the value of running a commenting system, and it was pointed out to me that one of the major problems with them is that they can give you an impression of your work that may well be at odds with the value of that work. Or, less obscurely, that you can post something you like, that subsequently gets little or no feedback, and you are led to conclude that its value is less than you thought.

And while such a view is congruent with the idea of artistic integrity – post what you know is good and hang the critics – I don’t think I’ve reached such a lofty artistic position quite yet ;-)

All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that perhaps yesterday’s entry wasn’t up to much. And I’m not convinced that today’s effort is massively better. This one is the result of experimenting with i) an embossed aluminium door, ii) the reflection of my hand, and iii) around five copies of the image set to overlay blend mode. And, as with yesterday’s entry, I don’t think this is a particularly wonderful image, but I did think it was sufficiently interesting to put up.

camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance optical filter

Canon G5 12.09am on 20/3/04 f3.0 1/60 aperture priority +0.0 evaluative 50 28.8mm RAW auto B+W UV 010