Blur….

All those dirty words
(Jusqu’ la fin)
They make us look so dumb
(En plein soleil)
We’ve been drinking far too much
(Jusqu’ la fin)
And neither of us mean what we say
(En plein amour)
Well you and I
Collapsed in love
And it looks like we might have made it
Yes, it looks like we’ve made it to the end
What happened to us?
Soon it will be gone forever
Infatuated only with ourselves
And neither of us can think straight anymore

Well here we are at the end of NaBloPoMo, it’s been remarkably enjoyable posting every day however I’m not entirely sure I shall keep it up. I will however be posting far more in future than I ever have done in the past.

Tomorrow I shall be producing another version excursion as this is one of favourite sections, feel free to let me know which of the columns you have enjoyed and I’ll be sure to make the effort to keep it going…

Nikon D200 200mm f/3.2 1/320sec ISO400

Nothing really exciting to say about today’s triptych as it is pretty much self explainatory….

My workload is getting back under control so I think I shall make a concerted effort to actually train regularly between now and the end of the year as otherwise I shall have to make it a New Year’s resolution and we all know how that turned out last year….

Via MSN:

Marie said:I request the ugly bird….

The bird in question truly is a curious animal and I can honestly say I had never seen one before last week…

*Update* I have been reliably informed it is a Shoebill Balaeniceps rex and is apparently quite rare…

Nikon D200 105mm f/2.8 1/320s ISO 400

My friend Elizabeth is a member of a re-enactment group who took part in an event in Gyoda last year which I attended…

Nikon D200 80mm f/4 1/1600s ISO 800

The day featured some really impressive armour and was an hugely enjoyable day out. I’m unsure how long Japan will be able to retain it’s historical roots, I fear that within the next generation or so many traditional customs will have been lost to the ages which is sad.

Growing up in England it is easy to see the risk of letting your customs disappear as it can cause people to lose any concept of what it mens to be “English”. Then again in England, and for that matter Britain as a whole, we have gained so much from being open to foreign influences I am very glad that we do not have an insular and closed community which sticks rigidly to traditions, I just find it remarkably hard to answer questions such as “what is England known for?” or “what English foods are good?” and so forth which I get asked by people pretty regularly as I travel in Asia…

This is the last call for requests for tomorrow’s wishlist Wednesday, and this might be the last one ever as the feature doesn’t seem to be getting much traction and the month of November is nearly over, so if there is something you want to see, leave a comment…

Nikon D200 38mm f/2.8 1/40s ISO 100

Today I am under the weather so I shall just leave you with a picture so I can get back to my lemsip and napping. I shall pump myself full of stimulants and will survive my afternoon which is super routine…

Nikon D200 10mm f/9 1/15s ISO 100

This week’s sunset was taken from atop the Metropolitan Government Buildings in Shinjuku. The MGB are one of Tokyo’s best kept tourist secrets as they offer a view on a par with any of the other view spots with one major exception, it’s free…

On an unrelated note I’m having a nightmare finding sensor cleaning swabs so if anyone knows where in Tokyo sells them, let me know, if not I’ll import them (go-go-go gadget credit card…)

Nikon D200 35mm f/4 1/6s ISO 100

Today we get to take a look at this image taken at “Unit” in Tokyo where I was going to see Australian DJ group “The Bang Gang”. Once again I shall walk you through the processing that happened with this picture…

Iwas pretty happy when I opened the original image that came out of the camera as it was pretty close to being fine. This is always a good thing to have as it cuts down on the time spent in front of a computer, allowing me to umm spend more time in front of the computer writing blog posts like this one….

The first thing that struck me was that I’d need to crop the image in a little as I was quite a bit too wide when I took it (actually I was leaving space to allow it to be typeset, but that is neither here nor there…). Due to the way that I’d lit the drummer (and her hoice of cosmetics) there would be very little need to retouch her skin which is also a great time saver. So the first step was to crop the image and straighten the vertical edge of the speaker stack.

Once the crop was made the next thing that needed a little attention were the levels as the contrast was a little to concentrated in the midtones and would be better served in the shadows which were a little murky. So I applied a curve adjustment which brought up the brightness of the shadows while reducing the brightness of the lighter tones shifting the ontrast to the correct places. I also upped the vibrance of the image to compensate for the saturation lost due to the curve shift.

I was unhappy with the crop which I’d been left with, whilst the vertical edge might be straight Id been forced to crop the edge of the drummer’s hand which seemed imperfect to me, and so I was prepared to live with an angle to keep the hand in. Once the image was re-cropped it was just a case of applying some slight sharpening before outputting the image.

My appologies for today’s post I wanted to find a set of images which showed how I created versions by means of my in camera settings, but couldn’t find any that appealed to me and hadn’t already featured on these pages. I shall make time to shoot something especially for next weeks post (I was planning to do so today but was working until 10:45pm and I didn’t want to miss the midnight deadline to keep up with NaBloPoMo).

Tomorrow we are going to see another sunset, or maybe a sunrise I haven’t quite decided yet, any preferences?? SPeaking of which don’t forget to get your requests in for next Wednesday…

Hmm it’s Friday, and today was a national holiday, which was nice for most people in Tokyo, but for me it didn’t make the blindest bit of difference as I was working. This is ironic as the holidy in question was Kinro kansha no hi or labour thanksgiving day where we are supposed to commemorate production and celebrate workers rights.

I am going to use this as a very poor link to work in a comment on the case of Bilal Hussein who has been under arrest for the past 19 months without charge for working in Iraq. While I don’t think this is the forum to discuss the merits of the US army’s case against him I’m sure that it shouldn’t have taken 19 months without legal representation to bring this man to trial. I feel it sets a dangerous precedent if members of the press start being arrested and detained, as it can do nothing to help them give an unbiased account of what they see if they have to be worried about detention if they report unfavourable news (there is no such allegation here, but it seems like a slippery slope to me).

I‘m a trained economist and so am very cynical when it comes to unionised labor. I did however find this video by currently striking US writer Harlan Ellison very amusing and relevent to any cretive endeavour. Viewer discretion is advised as he uses some grown up language to make his point…

Another economic concept which is near and dear to my heart is the availability of credit, something which Kiva is trying to make easier. I am unsure what the balance is between a profitable organisation and a charitable foundation with Kiva or how much interest the end user is being charged yet, but the concept interested me as I’ve long been a proponent of using subsidised loans rather than straight up grants to promote growth in the developing world. I plan on doing a little more research and I’ll let you know what I find out, anyone with more information should feel free to leave a comment….

Thanks go to A photo-editor for the Harlan Ellison video and David Hobby for the Kiva link…

Nikon D200 50mm f6.3 1/250s ISO100

Fen said:

“I wish to see some unsual angles of everyday objects. I do love pictures like that.”

Well I’m happy to oblige with some items which I use everyday, I’m hoing these angles are unusual enough for you. I really wish I had some insightful commentary on these pictures but frankly they are unexciting aside from the lighting which I don’t really feel like talking about today (if anyone is trying to reverse engineer it, think “internal reflections”). As a result I shall now procede to ramble and whine about nothing…

This week definitelly marks the point when japan ceases to be a warm place and the coldness that is winter kicks in. I am certain we did not have an autumn as this year as last weekend I was wearing shorts and this evening I am sat here pondering putting on my heater. Utter madness….

Nikon D200 200mm f2.8 1/160s ISO100

I‘ve been busy all day it’s late and I have stuff to do, so Wishlist Wednesday is going to get postponed until tomorrow, as none of the requests I had were things I have in the archives….

The upside is you now have an extra day to get your requests in.

To remind me to still do the post, here is an elephant as they never forget…