Scot Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk is an event which takes place each year around the world where photographers come together in groups to take pictures within their local areas. Last year I went to the Bristol event, but since moving to London 9 months ago, I decided this year to take part in the Richmond event on this years photowalk day.

Each event comprises a maximum of 50 photographers, with one leader who decides the meeting point and the general area within which we could take shots, although you’re pretty much free to take pictures wherever you like within the location. There are around 1100 walks taking place across the globe all on the same day!

This year I pretty much used one lens. This is the 35-70mm f/2.8 which contains a macro function. It’s an older Nikon lens which means the motor in my Nikon D90 drives the lens. This makes it effectively a 56-112mm lens on my half frame camera. The macro functionality is great for closeups on product and flowers.

I really like the style that this lens almost forces me into. I tend to try and use the 2.8 aperture as much as possible in order to focus on one detail and then blur the rest of the image into infinity and use that space for colour and abstraction rather than for detail.

Using the different lenses in different situations where you might not necessarily use them normally does mean that you get to try new things. Who knows, next year I might try and take photos in a different country, and also with a completely different lens.

These photos are all by me, and available to view with the whole collection from the day, on my flickr page.

Related posts:

1. Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photo Walk
2. London Strobist Meetup – Tom Miles Photography Workshop

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?

Adverse describes something which is acting against or in a contrary direction. So, in the case of a train journey attempting to get from A to B, adverse weather conditions are forces which are acting against these efforts. This is mainly because the weather is abnormal, unexpected, unprecedented and improperly forecast and prepared for.

How long will it be, and how many weeks or months of the year does it have to be snowy, icy and adverse weather conditions, before it’s considered normal. If it snowed every day of the year we’d all have snow tyres. If it snowed every day of the year, I expect the trains would have snowploughs on the front. So why not build it in anyway.

This year, it snowed for around 2 weeks in some areas of the country. That’s about 4% of the year. I would estimate that anything around 10 to 20% could be considered expected. 20 to 40% could be considered normal and 40% plus could be assumed as probable.

So, what can we do about it? My answer is be prepared to spend a little bit of time and money on tools, equipment and clothes to help us prepare for these scenarios. When they come along, everyone is prepared!

Photo by Richard Stowey

No related posts.

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…

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of translating digital ideas into physical reality. The idea of taking a set of data, either made up or recorded from somewhere and representing that in a digital way. The Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition at the V&A is a demonstration of just that. Digital ideas represented in an easy to understand way.

The exhibition was split into three distinct parts: Code, Network and Interactivity. Code simply showed what could be done with raw data and the different ways in which it can be represented. I particularly liked the Digital Zoetrope by Troika London in this section which comprised text spinning on the outside of a cylindrical object, and appeared to slow down periodically in order to reveal certain facts.

Network contained exhibitions which displayed information which used a network in order to supply the information. There were a number of different ideas present here which mainly seemed to aggregate data and provide a visual representation of the data. One of the possibly more well known exhibits is the Exquisite Clock, where users who have downloaded the iPhone app can contribute an image to the clock pool. The clock uses these contributed images to display the time.

The interactivity section was by far the largest, in space and numbers. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Make Out display was one of the most intriguing with a six screen display with lots of videos of people kissing, sourced from the internet.

Other installations which I really liked included the Vanetian Mirror by Fabrica, which essentially recorded a long exposure picture but in a digital form. It was displayed on a high definition screen, almost life size. Because of the long exposure, subjects would have to sit or stand still for a few minutes before being completely and clearly shown.

Daniel Rozin’s Weave Mirror was also extrememly clever using motors, electronics and laminated c-shaped prints to display a reflection of whatever was in front of the mirror. The mirror was constantly moving to reflect what it saw using a gradient from light to dark.

Alth0ugh not by any means the last of the exhibition, Body Paint by Mehmet Akten seemed to be one of the most enjoyable interactive exhibitions with people throwing themselves and everything else they had up, down and around in front of the display which altered the paint on the digtial canvas. A very neat idea, and very well made!

Overall, the exhibition really shows off current trends, capabilities and performance by digital designers around us. The multitude of ways data can be represented, used, manipulated and displayed are seemingly unlimited. This, it seems, is the future – digital ideas which transcend the virtual world and real world boundaries, and bring some of the human elements back into computers.

Human input, digital output!

Related posts:

1. Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams at The Design Museum