Sunrise Collection

Holiday photos

About twenty years ago, I decided that photograph albums were boring. Even worse is having to feign interest when somebody shows you theirs.

(Since the advent of electronic cameras and mobile phones with cameras it has got far worse, because people don't come back with one or two rolls or film, they come back with hundreds of pictures which you are supposed to view on a tiny screen.)

But I had to do something with our first holiday snaps. So I stripped it down to the bare essentials - a few photos of me and Her Indoors, the train tickets, the receipt from the hotel, the entry tickets to a museum, the front page from the a gallery brochure, a couple of postcards etc - and put it all in a 40cm x 50cm clip frame. The rest got junked.

And I have kept going ever since and now have nearly a whole wall covered in these collages:


This has three main advantages.

1. It fills the original purpose of "keeping those treasured memories alive". You can look at pictures of your kids when they were small and cute etc.

2. If anybody asks where we went on holiday, I can just take down the frame and present it. If the person asking was just doing it out of politeness, they can pretend to look at the collage for thirty seconds or so, say something like "Ooh, that looks lovely." and pass it back with no offence meant and none taken. If they are really interested, because perhaps they have been to the same place or are considering going there, we can have a proper chat.

3. It cuts down on arguments over things like which year we went where, how many times we have flown with EasyJet, how many aquariums we ever have visited, whether we went somewhere for a long weekend or a whole week etc. All you have to to is go over to the wall (standing on the sideboard if necessary) and look.

It is a shame, but it has to be said, that is some "but ..."

According to a mini review of the Lytro light field camera, which "allows users to refocus their shots after taking them" and which is about to become available in the UK by Matt Warman Consumer Technology Editor for the Telegraph

"Light-field, or plenoptic, cameras capture more light than traditional models by using an array of micro lenses. They can therefore allow an image to be refocused after it has been taken, or to create ‘living images’ that can be refocused long after they were first captured.

The Lytro camera launched in America last year, and features an 8x optical zoom and f/2 lens in a rectangular (sic). It will be available from next week from £399 for an 8GB model in Harrods, Dixons Travel and John Lewis online. The camera also offers a selection of filters, and wireless connection to an iPhone app. A 16GB version is also available for £469".

The mini review also includes quotes from another longer review in The Verge by one David Pierce in which he states "There’s no doubt in my mind that Light Field cameras are the future of photography, or at least part of the future. Light Field photography gives you photos that are so immersive and manipulable that it’s quickly easy to forget that 2D photos are useful at all."    

So, amazing stuff.  Sadly however David also says "But the first iteration of the Lytro isn’t quite there yet: it’s hard to use, its display is terrible, and outside of a few particular situations its photos aren’t good enough to even be worth saving.”

Moiré interference trousers

Explanation here. Picture from the Daily Mail.

Suffolk Sunrise

Obligatory snow photos

Silly optical illusion spotted on way home

Bizarre photograph in The Metro

What were they trying to hide on the left hand side?

Things I learned today at the swimming pool.

1. The little lass invented a wonderful new game: two or more people put their heads underwater and then one of them shouts as loud as they can. It is just about possible to understand what that person is saying if you are only a few inches away from him or her. I wouldn't describe it as 'hours of fun' but it's certainly 'seconds of fun'.

2. There is a solemn black and white notice next to the ticket desk, which says something like: "For your privacy and security, photography is not allowed in the swimming pool area. If you wish to take photographs, please speak to a member of staff to arrange a suitable time. All unauthorised photographic equipment will be confiscated."

Right above that is a big yellow sign which says something like: "For your comfort and security, the swimming pool area is under CCTV surveillance"

Can anybody spot the empty crisp packets?

From The Metro:

It seems collecting empty crisp packets is quite a popular hobby. Last week Metro reported on Dave Valentine’s impressive 500-pack archive – but this obviously opened a can (well, a packet) of worms. Hannah Conduct has come forward to reveal a whopping 9,000 empty bags in her collection, which she has gathered over the past 30 years...

Those 'offensive' Diesel adverts

I've finally stumbled across them in The Metro, in case anybody was still wondering what they looked like. I think the lion in the background is an excellent flourish.

One for Dearieme

From The Metro, "Roadkill calendar proves surprisingly popular".

Thought for the day

I was standing outside the hall with a fellow Ukipper yesterday, having a smoke, playing the "First they came for ..." game. I said "smokers", he said "hobby anglers" and so on until I got to "amateur photographers". This was a new one on him, so I gave a few examples, i.e. you aren't allowed to photograph police officers, government building or even people in the street (paedophile paranoia and invasion of privacy).

A Fellow Smoker overheard us and said it was more complicated than that (he was a hobby photographer and appeared to know what he was talking about). Photographing police officers is not against the law at all, they just smash your camera out of principle; photographing government buildings is a criminal offence (anti-terrorism - he was aware of one or two incidencts) and photographing people in the street is a civil offence rather than a criminal one (you're allowed to photograph them but not publish them; but this restriction does not apply to the "press", as defined). This all sounded like a bit of a mess to me, and he agreed. (Later in the evening, somebody else regaled us with a tale of somebody who had a visit from the police because he had taken photographs near a police station, I'm not sure how that ended but this is just to illustrate that it can and does happen).

OK, others know more about this topic than I do, but the punchline to this post is that when we told the fellow smoker, with whom we had chatted gaily about the police state, that we were there on UKIP business, he laughed and said that he was a hard-core Marxist.

It appeared to be completely lost on him that the fact he was forced to smoke outside in the drizzle and had to be a bit paranoid about what he should or shouldn't photograph was because the Marxists (or something akin to them) are in power.

More parody singularity

From The Metro:

A photographer taking pictures on a beach for Help for Heroes was banned for health and safety reasons.

Steve Cook was about to start the shoot for the charity that helps wounded soldiers when he was stopped by a council warden. The 42-year-old was told that, under a new by-law, he needed a permit to prove he had insurance to cover any injuries on council property.

Pond life

My sister took that photo' with one of those point-and-click digital cameras. I think it is awesome.