A cabinet, actually - a yellow and black cabinet. A new yellow and back cabinet at the Stirling street shop. My weekly enquiry of the staff about anything new was finally rewarded when they told me that the new Nikon cabinet was full of S-line lenses. Don't get as confused as I was by the revival of the historic " S " designation...
I have often been asked whether there are security cameras watching. I always assure people that there are. The heading image is one in operation. It is checked once a week after the films come back from the chemist. For some reason the burglars all feel compelled to line up and smile for the lens. There have been no instances of red indian fingers in the group shots. The police have asked for 8 x 10's and a selection of wallet-size...
Or perhaps that should be " selfie-ness ". The business of letting people see just how good you really think you look. I don't take many of them, not being over-confident of my ability to dazzle. It's not consideration for the viewers so much as a sort of fatalism. Like Cromwell, I would show warts and all, but unlike the Lord Protector, I cannot put my detractors in The Tower. You may be different, and if you are looking for a good way to illuminate yourself to illuminate others, have a look on the lighting shelves at the array of selfie ring lights. Most of them are designed to use the mobile phone as the capture device but there is no reason a small conventional camera could not be adapted for the purpose. Indeed, some of the purpose-built vlogging cameras from Nikon, Sony, and Panasonic would be a delight with the ring illumination. At this point you would do well to go off and google what ring-light illumination looks like on the human face and decide whether it is the light for you....
Don't hire me. I love colour and am a menace with a watercolour paint set. Nothing is safe. But there are those to whom art and taste come naturally, and they may well be employed by major agencies to make the logos and advertisements look good. We can be more beholden to them than we know, seeing clever and striking designs that firmly fix products in our minds - and hopefully take dollars out of our pockets to pay for them. If you want a fascinating hour, go to the graphic arts section of the public library or the same area of a book shop and have a look at the texts that teach the subject - and the font books and advertising show-books that the trade uses to sell itself to itself. Don't feel sad that they all seem to be much cleverer than you on a page - there's been a very great deal of agonising gone into the advertising campaigns and client proposals. And there may also have been a good deal of in-fighting as one agency seeks to...
Do not write in. I meant to type that. I have a prime lens for my Fujifilm cameras that is just about standard focal length for the APS-C sensor. It has a wonderfully wide aperture that produces great out-of-focus backgrounds for studio shots. So good that I even stopped myself from buying an even better Fujinon portrait lens that goes to a wider aperture. It was a struggle, but I resisted*. Having this prime - one of the original big three that Fujifilm released for the X-Pro1 camera - and just starting to try my eye at video work, I figured it would be a natural star for stage work. The focal length was good and the big aperture would let me work in some of the dimmer venues. So I put it on the X-T2, attached the Røde microphone, and pointed it at a dancer. Middle eastern dancing can be a loud affair - particularly if there is stage amplification in operation. But even the most robust tabla solo could not disguise the fact that my dear old prime lens made more...
Or how to post-process without tears. Or as few tears as possible...
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Currently, if you are getting your emails from a particular telecommunications giant, you may be getting them really, really slowly. They stick, as you cannot get rid of them. Using the service is an exercise in philosophic patience...
I've lost the little card the council sent me to tell me when the verge collections are. I'm stumped - I know there was a white goods day and a green waste day but I can't remember the day they wanted us to put our old photographic lenses on the side of the road. I'll have to ring up for another - there are fresh lenses coming out from the camera manufacturers and the shed is starting to fill up with the old ones. You let it go a year and there won't be enough space in there for the lawnmower and the folding garden chairs. I had no idea this would be a problem when I was just starting photography. I had a Pentax Sv with a 55mm Takumar lens that I never unscrewed - because there was nothing else to go onto it. I was so poor at the time that I took all my pictures with that one lens and they are still in my collection. And fool that I was, I didn't realise that you shouldn't do it...
Okay. Can do. Here's your Bitumen of Judea and your lavender oil. I'll meet you up on the roof...