Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 8:49 am
There is an important rule of thirds, regarding the composition of pictures, you can read about it here
Unfortunately today’s post relates to the other rule of thirds, which states “If at any time Paul boards a train with three or more bags he will lose the third one”. Usually I lose inconsequential things which is usually helpful as it lets me buy new ones, today however I was not so lucky as I was finally on my way, with nice weather, to take the remaining pictures for ‘that assignment’. Unfortunately taking pictures is kind of hard when your camera is no longer in your possession. Hopefully the awesomeness that is the Tokyo lost property system will work it’s magic and I will have it back again, otherwise some lucky soul will have acquired quite a nice photo outfit in the shape of a D200, 85mm 1.4 lens and a 2 Gig memory card…..
I just hope the backup body doesn’t fail over the next day or two as I have a bunch of things to shoot and am always a bit nervous about not having a spare…
*le sighs* Does anyone know of somewhere which offers careless idiot insurance??
Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 1:03 pm
Went to see my German friend DJ Shokkaboy Play last night, the pictures can be seen here. I will write more later, but I’m on my way out again (made a little progress with the assignment from the last post).
I will eventually get some serious sleep, but not till Monday night most likely….
Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 9:41 am
Today I am a grumpy camper…..
I have an assignment which has been troublesome from the beginning, I have worked with the client and finally have a specification which we are both happy with and I finally have a good grasp of their needs and desires (I’d talk about it in more detail, but am bound up in non-disclosure land).
There are however two salient points to the job, firstly that the photographs need to be taken in the dry, secondly due to the location involved, the best (only) time to take them is very early in the morning. As a result I have had a 4am alarm call the past two days.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to wake up to the sound of rain, and so could roll over and go back to sleep. Today I was not so lucky….
The precipitation waited until I was fully dressed, caffeined up and on my way to the station……
My life sucks
Hard
I may have to cry
*Coming up, more adventures at the apple service centre…*
Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 2:18 am
On sunday I got invited to my good friend Ollie’s Girlfriend’s Birthday party, I took the camera, some flashes and some radio triggers and had some fun playing with them, I got to try out some new techniques which was nice as there was no real presure to capture every moment. I still need to nail down a solution to people being too close to the flash head, leading to them getting blown out,I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is a frustration. The fact that the “flash off” button on the nikon D200 doesn’t work when you are shooting with pocket wizards is a bit annoying, though there really must be a work-around. Does anyone have a good method to keep the contrast in the image when it starts to get smokey, yet you still want to use the flash? Answers in the comments please….
Click the image or here to see the rest of the pictures from the party…
Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 10:01 pm
This week has had it’s ups and downs. The downs have mostly been related to technology failing on me. Firstly came the death of my 85mm lens which seized up making focusing very difficult, then my Macbook power supply cable caught fire which is a surprisingly common complaint, finally today I also discovered that my macbook CD drive will not accept audio CDs (can you feel my love for apple….).
On the upside all of the relevant service centres have been reasonably helpful in particular Yobodashi Camera who I expected to try and return my lens to be repaired, just offered me a replacement straight off the bat, which I expected to have to fight for. The apple-care people have been reasonably helpful so far but seemed to imply this is only as I have a warranty with them and that this helpfulness will cease once this expires and I shall have to resort to being an angry customer.
I have also been having problems with my mail arriving, this has caused problems as things like my phone bill have not been delivered. I eventually gave in and went to the post office and had a whine and moan about it, they pleaded innocence, however later that day I received a whole stack of mail . This may however have been a coincidence, but I’m sceptical….
On a more positive note last night I went to see Shokkaboy DJ at club Lush, which was very very fun indeed, a nice small venue with shades of the Asylum which is always a good thing. Putting a live performance were “Electro/New Rave” band Reloaded 21 Film who have some great tunes and come thoroughly recommended. I ran into a couple of fellow GYBO posters and ended up going to an after party with Mr.Mu$ic which resulted in me being quite tired when I arrived home at 9am this morning. Good thing I didn’t have any work to do this weekend (aside from finishing up the Shooto pictures, sorry to those of you waiting on them, they are almost finished….).
Shokkaboy is DJing again next Saturday at club Oto in Shinjuku, I will definitely be there so if anyone is in town and wants to party hard, give me a shout…
Filed under: Uncategorized — Paul @ 2:02 pm
Yesterday I attended the Shooto All Japan Grappling Championships, I would have been competing if not for the knee but I was cornering my friend (Ollie Jones, who won the Light Heavyweight category). I have a number of pictures which will go up in due course, look for them here sometime today.
It was a good event for WKs winning 3 of the 6 weight classes, which is even more impressive when you realise we only had 4 entrants. I really wish that I had been fit to enter as frankly the talent pool at my weight class was pretty shallow indeed….
I was unfortnately hampered by a lens failure, so tomorrow I shall be practicing my “it’s broken, I need a refund” Japanese. I hope they do not try to ‘send it for servicing’ as frankly I expect a little more than 2 weeks life from a $1500 piece of equipment, and do not want to be without it for however long the “servicing process” takes…
