My 2004/05 Travel Photo Diary

In October 2004 I left the UK with a rucksack, a one way ticket to Sydney, Australia, and no idea what I was going to do for the next 12 months.

Each day I took one photo on my 35mm Fuji compact camera with the date function turned on.



I have now, nearly four years later, decided to re-live the experience by scanning these daily photos into the computer and gathering together in a set on Flickr.

With a bit of luck it won't take me as long to scan them in as it did to take them in the first place.

Flickr goes video

So, the "...best online photo management and sharing application in the world." has now introduced the ability to upload video.

Admittedly you are currently only able to upload 90 second clips and, according to the video FAQs, there are two ground rules:

1. Only “safe” and “moderate” video content is permitted. Your “beautiful wife” should not be moving. (Read more about content filters.)
2. Only upload videos you have created yourself.

With the wide spread availability of video recording functionality on compact digital cameras and mobile phones I guess it isn't surprising that the divide between still and moving images is starting to disappear.

However, maybe I'm too much of a purist, but surely there are already plenty of sites on the internet for sharing short video clips? Apparently there's a site called YouTube which is already quite popular.

I really like Flickr. I love the fact that it does a simple task very well.

I hope that this latest move is not just an attempt by Yahoo owned Flickr to try and impact on the success of the Google owned YouTube.

Band Photos

Blimey, it's been a while and there's plenty been happening.

However, more of that very soon. In the meantime, check out The 20 Worst Band Photos from Spinner.com.

My particular favourite is the Freedom Fighters at number 19 (left).

"First we form a band, then we get a dented van ... then we'll get the girls."

Maybe we can use this as inspiration for our new set of Satchel Blue band images? Answers on a postcard please.

Christmas in Birmingham

Take 4 of the cheapest disposable cameras available in Sainsbury's, which happens to be a model in the Sainsbury's Basics range, cover the viewfinders with plenty of parcel tape, scratch the front of the lens on two of the cameras with a wire scrubber and on the other two use fluorescent highlighter pens to colour the lens.

Add 2 grown men who should know better, a healthy dose of magic juice (otherwise known as Diesel or Snakebite and Black, an afternoon in Birmingham that turned dark rather too quickly and a last minute trip to Boots photo centre.

What do you get?

This of course...





...and there are more.

Iceland, it's fantastic!

No, not this:



...this:



Plenty more of my Iceland photos on Flickr.

Spell with flickr

Some time ago I had what I thought was a great idea. It centred around trying to give a bit more focus to my photography whilst being more creative at the same time.

Without going into all of the boring detail it basically involved taking pictures of a whole variety of typography, signage, lettering etc and then using the captured images to create words, sentences and so on.

As with most of my ideas I never quite got around to trying it for real. Then today I stumbled across this extremely simple, and very clever, app called Spell with flickr which will take any word or sentence of your choosing and create a visual representation using flickr images.

For example:-



The fun part is that, once the initial word has been entered a straightforward URL is produced - e.g. http://metaatem.net/words/james - which can be used to recreate the word many times over using different images.

If you wish, individual letters can even be switched to alternative images bearing the same letter with the simple click of a mouse.

I think it means my idea is now pretty much redundant - must be time for another one.

Found via Ventnor Blog.

Birmingham, B29

After living in the B29 postcode district of Birmingham for a cumulative total of around 8 years now I've always been struck by the amazing diversity in landscape, wealth and general surroundings.

Recently an idea had been growing to get out there with my camera gear and spend a few months attempting to document this diversity of society in photographic form for all to see.

Then I had an even better idea - or I think so at least! Using the power of Flickr and, hopefully in the future, numerous other web services, I'll build a representation of B29 that anyone can contribute to and participate in.

So... here goes.

It's early days - only the Flickr group is really in existence at the moment and I haven't taken any new photos as yet - but hopefully there will be plenty more to report on soon!

For those not overly familiar with this part of Birmingham, here is the B29 area (click on map for larger image).

...and then it really started to rain.

...and then it really started to rain.
Originally uploaded by thornj.

Welcome to the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, pretty much midsummer (not Midsomer to those TV detective types out there!), and the day referred to as 21st June 2007 according my calendar.

Doesn't look like any of those outside my window.

My photos in action

Following on from my previous post about who is linking to my Flickr photos I decided to use the crawling power of Technorati and the storage of del.icio.us to take a closer look.

It only took a matter of minutes to perform the search on Technorati, store the pages within del.icio.us tagged with a specific tag, and then find the code to export the results onto this blog,

Voila! :-


This method does assume that wherever a photo is used there is an accompanying link to my area on Flickr. Generally it is a link on the image itself, or on the accompanying credit.

If anyone should wish to steal an image of mine and not link back to my Flickr stream at all then this isn't going to be any good at catching them out.

However, that's not what it's for at all. I'm not in the photography game to make money (not yet at least!), and I'm more than happy for anyone to use my images wherever they please (provided they follow the terms of my Creative Commons License).

This is simply to bolster my ego (wow, someone has actually decided to use one of my pics), and to provide moments of interesting serendipity, such as finding this interesting piece on innovation simply because they happened to use one of my pics.

Oh, and because it's fun and easy to do!

Who's linking to my Flickr photos?

While trying to work out why my picture of Morecambe fans at Wembley on 20th May has had over 400 views on Flickr and my picture of the Exeter fans at the other end less than 100 views I stumbled across an interesting trick.

Using Technorati's search feature, enter your main Flickr photo page URL, in my case www.flickr.com/photos/apenguincalledelvis/.

From the results I discovered a number of things I never knew before, including the fact that a random photo of a lego flower I took last year has found its' way onto a german blog.

I've tried Babelfish but it's not really helping me understand what this is all about!

This trick also demonstrates why it's not a particularly great idea to delete your photos from Flickr either (unless you have good reason of course!).

All good fun, but I'm still struggling on why more people are looking at Morecambe Fans at Wembley.

clingfilm Photography explained

Following on from my first post, and after setting up a Flickr group dedicated to clingfilm photography, here's a little more explanation of my initial 'clingfilm' images.

The camera used was the one picture below which was left at my house after a Christmas party last year. An under five pound secret santa gift of a Pirates of the Caribbean (Dead Man's Chest) Camera set including 35mm re-usable camera, 35mm colour film and a 16 page photo album.



A piece of standard cling film was then secured in place on the inside of the camera, between the shutter and the roll of film, as below.



Hey, presto. Simple as you like.

Now simply take photographs, process as normal, scan into computer and upload onto Flickr.

clingfilm Photography

Hmm, not sure if they teach this in any of the manuals... ...but... take the cheapest toy camera you can find, place a screen of screwed up cling film behind the shutter, slot in some very cheap colour film, and snap away.

The results of my first attempts in Wales a couple of weeks ago are surprisingly interesting. I wasn't sure at first but I'm growing to like the vignetting around the edges and the lack of sharp focus almost anywhere on the image.

Definitely something to play with even further and next time I'll post up a photo of the clingfilm camera itself.

...and absolutely no photoshop whatsoever.

So I went to Wales...

... for a week and did some sightseeing (most impressively, Harlech Castle and Criccieth Castle), play a round of golf at Pen Y Berth (well, 9 holes anyway), walked up the 59th and the 40-somethingth highest peaks in Snowdonia (according to a book in the house we were staying in at Croesor), spent far too long recording vocals and harmonica for the forthcoming Satchel Blue album, and then mixed the first version of the album onto minidisc (remember them?), played lots of scrabble and an interesting new game called 'Mensa Connections', and now I'm back to work and, quite frankly, exhausted.

I need a holiday.

PS. Some pics on Flickr - when I've had more sleep I'll put some more up.

Paris, at last!

I can't believe it took me so long to visit Paris but I'm definitely glad I have and it looks like it will be the first of many visits.

Not only is it extremely easy to get there from Birmingham - particularly if you live within easy reach of Birmingham airport - but it also provides the kind of relaxing atmosphere that is hard to find in England.

Maybe it's simply to do with being 'on holiday' and not being constantly reminded of the ever-increasing to-do list that seems to stop easy weekends at home being as peaceful as they should be. Even so, the plethora of sights available, interesting places to visit and things to do, and the abundance of street cafes selling great food and drink don't half help.

Personally I enjoy spending time in London (when not on work duty anyway!) and, for me, Paris is very much like a more spacious, more relaxed, less populated version. It still has the hustle and bustle of a capital city, but with room to breathe at the same time.

One day I'll definitely be returning with full camera kit to make the most of the sights - in the meantime I'm still quite happy with these holiday snaps taken with my Canon Ixus 50, the perfect travel companion (as long as you have a spare battery to hand as well!).

Let it snow, let is snow (etc...)

From a sunny day at the beach to a snow covered winter landscape in just a few days - isn't weather absolutely fascinating. It's no wonder that we spend the majority of our time talking about it.

It did also provide the opportunity for me to take yet another photo of Selly Park from (roughly) the same viewpoint to compare different conditions.
So far we have autumn, frost and now snow.

Looking briefly at the stats for this site the other day made one point very obvious. Thanks to my ongoing survey of different cider brands, and therefore the number of cider related posts, the majority of people who appear to stumble here by way of a search engine are doing so whilst looking for cider related content!

...and now I feel guilty for not having reviewed any cider recently - don't worry, I'll be back on the case soon.

Finally for now, after reading this post on View From The Hill about using public transport I thought, yes, good point well made. So isn't it a shame then that this year saw the bus prices in Birmingham rise by 17%, way above inflation, from £1.20 to £1.40 standard fare.

Now I'm not necessarily saying that £1.40 is a bad price for a bus fare, particularly for those that live a good distance out of the city centre (not me!) - but a sudden rise of 17% isn't exactly going to encourage people to jump onto public transport and save the environment now is it?

Kylie in Manchester

Kylie was fantastic and so were the colourfully and creatively dressed members of the audience - but what a shame that there were too many men and women in yellow jackets stalking around and stopping anyone from taking photos.

The venue website was even at pains to point out that even photos taken with mobile phones were unacceptable - I mean, please, come on... will someone tell me what harm it does to let people enjoy their night out (which was hardly cheap at £50 a ticket) by taking a couple of photos away with them to show friends and family?

My new camera

I've finally given in and bought myself a digital SLR camera - namely the Nikon D80 (left).

As I've already got a few Nikon lenses from my current film SLR (Nikon F50) and didn't fancy any of the kit options I also purchased a nice looking Tamron 28-300m zoom lens to go with my new toy.

Sadly the weather has been too awful, and I've been too busy watching football on the tele, to actually take this outside yet and put it's through it's paces.

In the absence of any new photos (and the pressure is certainly on after spending all that money) I've been uploading some more random photos to Flickr from a visit to Torquay on Boxing Day and previous pics from Selly Park and London.

I've also decided, call it a New Year's Resolution if you like, that I should spend more time browsing other people's photos on Flickr and taking more notice of what everyone else is doing - maybe I might even learn something.

For example, did you know that there are 1,528 photos on Flickr tagged with 'armadillo'?

Well I never!!

I know I shouldn't really be surprised when a photo I email to a website eventually finds its' way onto the website in question, but I was definitely slightly taken aback to visit the Singapore section of the Guardian's recently re-launched travel section to see my photo fill the frame.

I guess I should attempt to remember where, when and to whom I email my photos in future. Hmm, but where's the fun in that!

You can also see the photo on Flickr.

My new camera

For the un-initiated, this is an Ilford Sportsman mark 2 which was first introduced in 1959. Despite the fact that it's approaching 50 years old, it has been very well looked after and, apart from the viewfinder which is not the clearest in the world, does not show it's age at all.

It is, however, completely manual in operation so lots of guessing/calculating shutter speeds and apertures will be taking place in the hope of getting some interesting shots.

Watch this space!

My photo in a magazine

I'd completely forgotten that i'd sent this photo off to Photography Monthly to be considered for their review section about 5 months ago.

I was therefore very surprised when a copy of the magazine arrived in the mail this week with a congratulatory letter informing me that it had been used in the November issue (on sale now from all good newsagents!).

Not that I particularly want to be known for flower photography, but they were quite complimentary about my pic. Take a look at the judgement and see what they said.

Satchel Blue TTV

Much to the confusion of everyone in the band, I took my red striped contraption along to band rehearsal on Thursday. The results aren't overly impressive but still vaguely interesting. All were taken with a shutter speed of 1 sec due to the low lighting in the rehearsal room and quite a few suffered from severe lack of sharpness.

I ended up finding one each of Rob, Andy, Mark and Ian to stick on Flickr to add to my growing collection of TTV pics - time to venture outside next time I think!

Through The Viewfinder

Until recently I had no idea what Through The Viewfinder photography was.
Then a photographer by the name of Pete Ashton posted some images on Flickr and I was intrigued by the simple yet fascinating results.

Some quick research on the web revealed this very useful website with all the details, www.throughtheviewfinder.net, and before I knew what was happening I'd purchased a Kodak Duaflex from eBay for under £10.


Some double-sided tape, duct tape and cardboard later I had transformed the camera into the rather bizarre looking contraption on the left.

Sadly I only started my Blue Peter-esque exploits after the sun had gone down so was restricted to inside the house for my first TTV shot - still, I'm quite pleased with the results and there's plenty more to come!