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Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

The other Saturday I attended the 80th birthday lunch of an old friend of mine Simon Mayhew which was held at a riverside restaurant, “The Depot” at Mortlake in West London and was a truly splendid affair attended by his 4 children and numerous grandchildren, I would certainly recommend the venue, both the food and service were excellent.

For a ‘present’ birthday card, I did a framed photo-montage (thank The Lord and Adobe for Photoshop), as the scaled down picture below which was great fun for me to do. The amazing thing being that I used a picture of him from almost 16 years ago when he came to my 50^th birthday, he looks no different at all, good for him and it set me to thinking around age and getting old.

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“The longest way round, the shortest way home ?” I was reminded of this saying recently as I reflected on my recent stay in the US with my Uncle. That unbeknown to me, I really needed that break but mainly to “break my past trail” to free up future progress, became obvious to me by just having made the trip but there was/is more.

Since my return I have had various things to do that were set up before I went on my trip plus and due to the weather whilst I was away, a veritable jungle of garden weeds to tackle in a town where the use of napalm is frowned upon so…

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Recently as I am working on a major redesign of this particular we site, a task made rather more complicated by having to master the unfamiliar technology of database driven content management systems which is really what blogs are all about, I have been looking back at my past entries.

One of the things that you can do is that although this site is hosted “Out there on the Cloud”, I have a local WordPress site on my PC which I’m using for development purposes and I can use a copy of my existing bog entries as ‘data’ to populate my design experiments and doing so led me to some interesting ‘discoveries’ and realisations of the changes I’m personally going through.

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I was born in Hackney Hospital but bought up in South London and although I have lived away from London, the City of my birth, I have always returned to it frequently indeed, for many years and no matter where I was then living, I always insisted on meeting up with friends and having my birthday celebrations there which fall just after Christmas.

I suppose that either you are a “city person” or you are not, I have always been a “city boy” and consequently have always felt at ease in cities both here and abroad. Apart from one fleeting visit, I have not been to ‘my London’ for the six and a half years I have spent in Somerset, nursing my Parents through the final stages of their lives. However, this week I took the time to do so…

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I usually rely on the Media to provide me with ‘stories’ that I can look at, think about and then do a ‘personal take’ on but lately, the whole media has been distinctly boring and dull, even the party conference season has not perked them up and the Labour Leadership Election has hardly caused a ripple in a very stagnant pond.

The only thing I have noticed browsing the broadsheet comments boards is that the people who write in these days seem on the whole to be rather nasty and mean of spirit. I thought this was just the militant Dawkins followers or “Dorks” as they are known, fuming over a successful Papal visit but it is not just them. Even on quite trivial news stories, the moaning ninnies are out in force and able to inject some pointless invective on any subject, mass therapy clearly required. So I have decided to do a Baldy’s Ramble…

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This story concerns photography and in particular, a ‘back up camera’ I bought towards the end of 2003 called a Canon G5 which is a rather chunky “compact camera” but certainly not something that you could slip in your pocket easily then or, even today’s versions of the same camera such as the G10 and G11, chunky they remain.

At the time I had my original Canon D30 DSLR camera and there is nothing as flexible for ‘serious’ photography whereby you can change lenses and add external flash units however, it does mean carrying a whole bag full of kit around with you which is fine if you are going on a ‘shoot’ but less so if you are carrying a camera on the ‘off chance’ that you might come across a good picture opportunity whilst you are out and about.

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The film “Groundhog” starring Bill Murray is one of my favourites and in some ways, we all have Groundhog experiences in life, mine and for over a year has been a personal saga of in-growing toenails which hardly sounds that exciting which, it isn’t to an outsider but both painful and crippling to the person living with them.

The truth is, like a latter day Boston Tea Party, my two Big Toes have risen up in rebellion against the rest of my body. They are demanding one to one attention on an unprecedented scale and will brook no negotiations upon the matter, their war of attrition continues unabated as they take it in turns to cause aggravation !

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So here we are again, the end of another year and decade, the start of a new one and what an odd year 2009 has been. At a personal level I am frankly amazed that my Mother is still with us, bits fall off and yet she still struggles on ! My own year has been dogged with repeating ingrowing nail problems and as a consequence, repeating infections and my immense frustration with Doctors ! But having said that, I close 2009 with the best photographic kit I’ve ever had and a very clear mind.

On the political front, Gordon Brown has stumbled from one crisis to another, all Members of Parliament have been bought low by the “Expenses Scandal” which I have always thought rather overblown but the public have used it as a stick to beat with in terms of “payback time” and a General Election must be held within 5 months… good fun all round.

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Today is my birthday so that I have now reached the great age of 64 which is probably equivalent to 54 compared with my Parent’s generation so I do intend to make the best use I can whilst I can enjoy good health and to be as physically active as I can.

My wish is not so much a long life as a fully active one that finishes suddenly rather than peters out in poor health and dependency, God willing. To my mind, continuing to live whilst you can do the things that you enjoy doing and still make a positive contribution of some kind is fine plus keeping yourself physically active makes good sense. You may not live longer but you will enjoy a better quality of life until the end.

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There was an article in today’s Independent about photographers being harassed by Police when taking pictures in a public place under something called Section 44. For a more detailed explanation, please read the article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/warning-do-not-take-this-picture-1833127.html

However in simple terms, a “Section 44” is in fact an area deemed to be a potential terrorist target so all Main Line Railway Stations, Airports and so on could reasonably be expected to be “Section 44 Zones” however, the Government will not admit where these zones are “because it might help terrorists”. In such a zone, the Police have the right to “Stop and Search” anyone they deem to be acting suspiciously, from this some “Plods” have decided that taking pictures is “suspicious” – wrong !

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