I took some time out to visit the Dieter Rams exhibition at the Design Museum. Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams is in it’s last weeks, an I wanted to take a look before it moved on or disappeared forever. I thought it might be a good place to see some of his products in the flesh and take a few photos.
On Saturday 6th of February I attended a photographic workshop organised through the London Strobist Meetup group on Flickr. This is the second event i’ve been to and from the pattern so far, the events are as broad and wide as you can want in a photographic group. The workshop is an extra event in addition to the tour of universities throughout the country Tom Miles has been doing. Read on to find out more about the day.
Snow in the UK generally means that the country comes to a halt. Planes are grounded, cars stuck in their driveways and trains in the station. During the snowy and icy conditions, the national rail system blames delays and cancellations on ‘adverse weather conditions’. But how long before adverse becomes normal? Read more…
As is usually the case over the festive holiday period, I had a little more time on my hands than usual. After seeing a number of adverts for the Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition at the V&A I decided to go and check it out and see what all the fuss was about… Read more…
The end of the year usually gets me thinking about the future and this year is no different. Current technology and the demands for unique content seems to be growing at an ever increasing pace, and nothing shows this more than the accelleration of mobile devices with their app stores. Apple iPhone App Store, Google Android Market, Blackberry App World, Nokia Ovi Store, and everyone else who is following suit at the moment. But where does this app business all lead? And what does it get us?
I’ve been using my HTC Hero, which is powered by Google Android, for a few months now and really like the jump i’ve taken from my previous Sony Ericsson K810i. It’s quite interesting to use something with such a technology jump, and it’s amazing how easily I have become used to the advances. But there are a few things I would change…
Since the end of July, I have been much more interested in improving my technical and creative skills when it comes to photography. More specifically to this, off camera flash photography. The end goal is to be able to create a wide variety of creative photos which show character, depth and emotion. It’s a long road, but as with everything, you’ve got to start somewhere!
So my first port of call was the internet, and two main resources in particular, Strobist.com and Flickr. Highly useful info on getting started with off camera flash photography, and plenty of examples too.
Joe Mcnally’s book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes: Creative Applications of Small Flashes (Voices That Matter)
After attending a few group strobist events through Flickr groups, and tackling some if my own ideas, the book also helps to bridge the gap between what I’ve learned and where I want to go.
As a professional photographer who has spent the last 30 years behind the lens, Joe Mcnally puts literally tonnes if information into this book. Plus, unlike the free information available on various blogs, including Joe’s own, the information contained within is grouped, well thought about and presented with big colour images of each photo shoot. The other bonus is that you don’t have to spend days in front of a computer screen to get through it all.
The main thing which I have learned is that the creative idea behind the shot is the most important part, the lighting is secondary to the concept. Highly recommended to anyone interested in off camera flash photography, and even worth a browse just for the pictures.
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I have just completed a new project involving the design and build of a new website for Quartz-Lite. The company specialises in providing quartz, granite and stone worktops for kitchens in the south west of England. The quartz worktop is a lighter version of quartz made with resin to provide a thinner and less expensive alternative to quartz, granite and marble. It’s also more durable, scratch and heat resistant. It is designed to fit around existing worktops or can be specified as a new worktop for a new build.
For the website design, I went for a simple design which aimed to include a large number of pictures for visitors to see previously completed kitchens, both new and renovations. The website navigation is simple and the content is aimed at driving visitors through the website and onto a contact page in a logical order. There are a large range of products available to view in detail and a gallery which showcases in detail many different projects.
The website employs a number of different javascript features. These include jCarousel and cyclelite which use the jquery library and lightbox 2. Using these various javascript libraries I have hoped to allow for graceful degradation as much as possible.
If you’d like to take a look at the website, you can do so here: Quartz-Lite – The ultimate stone work surface
I’ve been a fan of Seth Godin’s blog for some time now, and it’s on my daily, if not weekly, reading list. After reading little snippets here and there I wanted to sink my brain into some more volumous text along his lines of thinking. General out of the box, lateral thinking. He’s not always spot on the mark but he definitely helps open up the mind to possibilities beyond the obvious. So I ordered his latest book, Tribes
I found this book a very interesting and motivating read. Seth looks into how Tribes are formed, how they grow and what inspires people to start tribes. It’s full of real world examples which show just how possible it is to start and to lead a tribe. The key it seems is having an idea and a belief. Believe in something and give it 100% and you get 100% back from it.
The book not only looks at tribes but also what it takes to lead a tribe, and importantly what the difference between leadership and management is.
The book isn’t like a regular book. Seth’s disgarded the contents page and just jumps straight into the text. The book isn’t in chapters or any sort of chunky divided content areas. It’s nice and small, and short… but not too short. It’s almost like a series of long blog posts on the subject, a method of writing which Seth is very good at. Perfect to read for five minutes here and there or even all in one go.
I’d like to thank him for writing the book and also recommend anyone interested in innovative leading, marketing, out of the box thinking or just general leadership having a read. An excellent read.
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This is one of my photos from this years Scott Kelby’s world wide photo walk. I went along to the Bristol event along with a number of other bristol photographers and had a very interesting time.
My photos from the event can be found on the Flickr website in the World Wide Photo Walk set if you would like to have a look.
Here is a map of the photowalk:
View Scott Kelbys Worldwide Photo Walk – Bristol EN, UK in a larger map
The walk was made by around 30,000 people in approximately 900 cities all over the world, all on the same day. Peraps next year i’ll go to a different city somewhere else in the world.
