To The Manor...

Just spent a very smashing night at Charingworth Manor, sandwiched between spending time in and around the really lovely and quite charming Chipping Campden. My wife really is fantastic (she made the booking), and with all that is going on at the moment, it was great to just be away from home.  It made for a very Happy Easter!

Wedding Photography...

...is really quite hard. M&E's wedding last weekend was superb. And I enjoyed taking photos, of which some of them even turned out to be quite reasonable.

But I think to be the wedding photographer would be far too stressful. It is difficult being in the right place at the right time to capture the casual moments, and often I'd see what would make a great photograph, but by the time I'd raised my camera, the moment had gone.  Added to that, quite naturally at weddings you want to talk to people and they want to talk to you. So you keep getting distracted from taking pitures, which I guess is why getting a stranger in to do the job isn't a bad thing.

Still, I enjoyed it, and really like my new flash for taking photos indoors. Wish I knew how to use it properly though....

Tempting...

Just received this email:

Greetings,

With due respect, I am Mr. Wang Kuang Hsiang, Director of Operations and Head Wealth Management Division of Taiwan Business Bank (TBB) Taipei, Taiwan. I have  a  business proposal of about $21.5M USD for you. Should you be  interested in working with me on this, do indicate your interest by sending me your full names, phone number and current residential  address. I would prefer you reach me via my personal email address:

Email: wangkuang888@yahoo.com.hk

Once I hear from you, I immediately will provide you with further information on logistics of having these funds moved.

Sincerely,
Mr. Wang Kuang Hsiang

Not sure what exactly the proposal is, or what I would need to do, but it sounds like there is a lot of money involved...

A Familial Way...

Just spoke to my Dad about his recent hospital tests. "It's okay" he said, "it's sorted"... Move along, nothing to see here... so like me...

Getting There...

It has been 1 month and 5 days since our offer was accepted on the new house. It appears that everything is nearly complete, and we now need to start looking at dates, assuming our buyer has everything in order: the solicitor is just checking that. It is Easter next weekend: could we really have packed, sorted everything and moved by then? It would be good...

Polar Bears....

Snow Patrol last Wednesday (11th March) ... spent too much of the show thinking about work. But the songs that stood out where the last few: the last of the main set was superb (Open Your Eyes?), with the band playing in front of a projection of the tops of buildings as someone travelled through an indeterminate city...

And the first three of the encore were fantastic: the last songs on the "A Hundred Million Suns" album collectively named The Lightning Strike. The first the band played behind a massive sheet with a psychedelic display which continued behind the band after the sheet had dropped and the music continued...

I love seeing live music, but throw in some excellent visuals, and I'm really happy...

Management Speak...

An interesting article here that talks about the rubbish that is management speak... I could write more, but having been a team leader for about a year, I may just incriminate myself...

Find Any Film....

This is a web site I have been looking for:

http://www.findanyfilm.com/search

It allows you to find a cinema based on what film you want to see, not see a film based on what cinema you want to go to: important when your local multiplex is not showing the film you really want to see...

Party like its 1234567890...

Brilliant!

Depth of Field...

After trying to take photos of half the family this morning, complete with kids who wouldn't sit still, I thought I'd better check up on my knowledge of Depth of Field settings: if I had got the correct DOF/ aperture, the speed and ISO settings could have been set better.

So, I now know that I should have used the A-DEP setting my Canon, and I have found a nifty bit of software for a Java mobile phone that calculates DOF, courtesy of www.curved-light.net. It is something I have wanted to put together for a while but not got round to learn enough Java to write it. And it gives a good indication of what should (and shouldn't) be in focus.

Finally, a couple of other sites well worth noting are http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html which has an excellent online DOF calculator, and http://www.outsight.com/hyperfocal.html#math which has a calculator and as much information and equations as you will probably ever need.

I guess I should have done all this checking before I took the photos, but still I thought they turned out pretty well...