As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working my way through the Practical Photography’s DSLR Skills Bootcamp. This month is about creative metering and exposure, and the assignment is to take a long exposure shot of a moving car, but panning it so the car is sharp and the background is blurred.

So I spent lunchtime today shivering in the wind and the rain beside one of the arterial roads into Harrogate honing my skills.

I’m only allowed to choose one as my submission for the bootcamp, and I’m only allowed one for the 365… but I had so much fun I’m going to put all the better shots on here.

I particularly like the bin lorry – I didn’t notice the driver was waving until afterwards!

Managed my first week of 365, and have more or less uploaded a photo every day!

The only doozy was the “bags 2 school”, which I think I can improve with a bit of cropping – see below. [Edit, now using cropped version!]

I’ve also entered a photo competition, but I’m not going to say which one to try and minimise the competition!

So anyway, here’s the first week:

I’ve add a slightly more convenient ‘in’ to the 365 photos, although it does require Flash.

Point a browser at www.eutony.net/365 to see the pics, and that page also has a direct link to the set on Flickr (the less than memorable www.flickr.com/photos/66189293@N00/sets/72157626684135070/).

I’ve also added it to the left navigation panel. Aren’t I kind? 🙂

[22/09/11 Edit – As Flickr only allows 200 photos, I’m now hosting them myself! Check out photo.eutony.net/365/.]

I started a “365” project yesterday. The idea is that you take a photo every single day for a year, and at the end of the year you can look back over the year, and have a record of highs and lows, and changes. You also should improve your photography by taking photos every day!
The photos can be of anything at all, although some people approach it in a time-lapse fashion, taking the “same” photo ideally at the same time every day for a year (for instance to document the changes in a garden). I’m not going to do that, because I think it will be more fun and less effort (and hence more likely to succeed) to just snap whatever captures my fancy on a given day.
People on the web seem to suggest that doing a “selfie” (a self portrait) once a month is a good idea, so you capture how you have changed as well. May 9th is a fairly random day to start a new project, but I seem to be particularly enthusiastic about photography at the moment, and wanted to strike while the iron’s hot. Also, the “traditional” start for this sort of thing – 1st Jan – strikes me as a really bad time to start something now, especially a photography project. There’s the whole resolution thing already going on, and you’re in the darkest, coldest, wettest months of the year.
My self-imposed “rules” are (i.e. The criteria I am using to judge whether I managed the project):

1. It doesn’t matter what equipment is used, but I must compose the shot and fire the shutter.
2. A “day” runs from midnight-midnight, and the photo must be taken on that day to count.
3. … That said I am allowed 5 ‘bys’, where I can assign a photo taken another day to a given day, if for some reason I’ve not taken a photo on that day.
4. The photos will be posted online to photo.eutony.net/365 within 2 weeks of being taken.

I also intended to blog on here once a week or so with the new photos, but I may not manage that. That said, here’s the kick-off photo:

I’ve been taking some random still life photos this evening, and I couldn’t resist posting this one here.

[EDIT: This photo has been lost to the mists of time! It was on flickr, but I can’t find a local copy anymore!!]

Phew, what a week.

Absolutely manic at work at the moment (which is a good thing really – better than having no work), and No. 2 son has been an absolute tinker recently. Here’s when he’s woken up and required some intervention (milk/water/change/snuggle):

• Mon: 04:30
• Tue: 02:00
• Wed: 02:00
• Thu: 06:50 (hooray!)
• Fri: 00:00
• Sat: 06:30 (hooray!)

What this doesn’t include is all the times he’s woken us up and not required intervention – for instance at 4.30 this morning, when he woke up, chatted and bashed around in the cot just enough to wake us up, then went back to sleep.

I’m not complaining (really) – I know we’re very lucky to have a baby. To be fair he is teething, and we still haven’t quite got around to moving him into his own room, so the non-interventional disturbances are our fault really. He’s actually pretty good ‘normally’ (although I’m wondering if ‘normal’ is a sanity-preserving myth I’ve invented). He’s in bed by 18:30, and usually asleep within 5 or 10 minutes, and we usually don’t have to do anything again until 06:30 / 07:00 the next day.

On a happier note, I’ve been inspired by Lorraine Pascale to put foody photos on here. She says that she photographs everything she bakes, and I thought that would be a fun little project. I don’t know if she meant literally everything – I’m chosing to only photograph interesting or noteworthy creations. So you’re unlikely to see baked potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn on here. That said, it might be interesting to photograph every meal I take for a week….

Anyway, you’re hopefully already seen my Treacle Tart, so now I present with you banoffee pie. I sadly forgot to photograph it before I took out the first slice, but I still think it looks good.

Oh go on then – have the recipe too!

Banoffee Pie

Serves 6-8

This is a great “store-cupboard” pudding, as the main ingredients last months, and bananas and cream are pretty easy to get hold off if they’re not in.

Ingredients:

• 200g digestive biscuits
• 100g butter
• 400ml can condensed milk or caramel dulce de leche.
• 3 bananas
• 250ml double cream
• 25g dark chocolate
• 10ml orange juice (optional)

You will need a 23cm / 9in loose-bottomed tin or pastry dish (I quite like it served in a fluted dish as pictured).

Method:

1. Crush the biscuits (I put them in a freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin) into small pieces. Think breadcrumbs rather than sawdust, but try and demolish any large chunks.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Combine the biscuits and butter, and then press into the base and up the sides of the dish. Pop in the fridge.
4. If using condensed milk
   1. Put the can in a pan of boiling water (NB don’t open the can!) and boil for 2 hours. Make it sure the can is always covered in water, otherwise it will explode. This process caramelises the milk and sugar inside the can – do it for long enough and you end up with fudge!
   2. Remove the can, and allow to cool a bit (cold water may help).
   3. When cool enough to handle, carefully open and pour/spoon the contents over the biscuit base, and spread evenly.

      One website I saw suggests boiling several cans at once, as they will store for ages once caramlised, but the advent of caramel tins lessens the usefulness of this option.

5. If using caramel, just open the can and spread on the base.
6. Chill until cold (about an hour or so).
7. At this point, if you didn’t make the base in a serving dish, carefully take it out of its tin and put it on a serving plate.

8. Slice the bananas, and spread evenly over the base. I think it’s nice not to run them all the way to edge, but up to you. If you are not serving straight away, it is probably worth brushing the bananas lightly with orange juice to stop them going brown.
9. Whip the cream to firm peaks, then spread over the pie on top the bananas. Again I quite like a bit of texture, so I don’t smooth it out too much.
10. Now melt the chocolate, and drizzle over the cream.
11. Chill until required. Mine didn’t mind being covered in cling-film either (but obviously don’t press it down on the cream!!
12. Keeps for a few days in the fridge, but tastes better the fresher it is.

I would like to acknowledge the Co-operative magazine, for inspiring me with their chocolate and ginger banoffee pie recipe (even though I didn’t follow it), and The Banoffee Pie page for re-assuring me that I wasn’t mad to boil an unopened can of condensed milk for hours!

Right, have tidied up my ‘Links’ section over there to the left.

Now they are all fine and dandy and up to date. I’ve introduced a new “Photography” bit, ‘cos that’s what I’m into most at the mo, and culled some of the old “friends” links, and added some new ones.

If I know you and you have a blog, I would love to pop you on my list – drop me a line.

I obviously designed that part of the site when I was mad-keen on databases – it used to run from a couple of tables (“categories” and “links”). Coming back to it, I realise that anything other than a trivial update is a PITA. Better things to do with my time then to be writing SQL queries to update links, on both the mirror and live server. Yes, I know, I should do a funky sync thing..

Anyway, they are now pure PHP. Common-or-garden array of arrays. Job done (and easier to edit over SSH).

To save you the hassle of looking, it’s a big hello to Dr Baz (who I was at school with!!), and also Digital Photography School, which has some great tips and technique articles. The latter is also on twitter @digitalps. Come to that, so is the former @DrBazUK.

Was taking some photos of number 2 son at the weekend.

I finally got around to uploading them onto the computer, and realised I need to do a bit of post-processing. While I was sharpening the image, I spotted me taking the photo reflected in his eyes:

I’m wearing a red shirt, and you can see me holding the silver camera up to my face!

Actually they’re not problems – Mr T. is just cutting his first tooth, and is being a star about the whole affair. He’s been unsettled for the past few nights, and dribbling loads, but we’d just put it down to general baby stuff. He was pretty upset this evening, but I think that was down to his daddy trying to cut his nails when he just wanted milk + bed.

His older brother started having teeth at about 6 1/2 months, which makes it pretty much the same time.

As you may recall, towards the back end of last year I had a play around with the focusing screen of my SLR. Specifically I ordered a split image microprism focusing screen as a replacement for what I believed to be a scratched normal screen.

6 months on, and I’ve just switched back to the normal screen (although I may yet go back again).

The split image screen in itself is great – far easier to see when the subject is in focus, and generally what’s going on, and, all other things being equal I would run with it every time. They’re not perfect by any means, and in particular the way they collect light is different, and so at apertures smaller than about f/5.6, or if light levels are low, the middle bit blacks out. Obviously the f/5.6 isn’t a huge issue, as you tend to preview fully open, and if you have stopped down for depth-of-field preview the precise focus point is less critical.

However, there are 2 specific deal-breakers for me with the specific one I purchased (which was dead cheap):

• The provided shims didn’t really do the job.
• The focus confirmation lights don’t show.

The first is the big problem. It came with 4 or 5 bits of thin plastic shaped in the same way as the real metal shim. (I should add that the purpose of the shim is to ensure that the screen is the correct distance from the lens, so the focussing is correct). These were immensely fiddly to fit, and I don’t think made quite the right gap. This in turn meant the focus was ever so slightly off – actual focus on the sensor didn’t match the screen. It was a tiny amount, but enough to shake my confidence in the focus – which makes the whole exercise kinda pointless.

The other problem is the pathetic plastic shims don’t sit flat – they slipped out and are visible in the viewfinder (but obviously not the images).

The second is less critical – and apparently you can draw little pencil marks on to make them show up again.

All of this said, I’ve just fired a couple of test shots with the old screen, and I don’t like it half as much! I may yet switch it back, and persist with the shims to try and sort out the focus point.