Photography Archives
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November 1, 2009
No Hats
Seen on a recent trip to San Antonio, Texas, which is probably the last place you'd expect to see any attempt to constrain the use of any kind of headwear.
Obviously they don't mean you can't wear your own hat while taking photos; what they want to prevent is people wearing the display hats for the purposes of having their photographs taken. Or at least I think so; there were no hats in the vicinity of this particular notice.
Posted by Ian at 2:01 PM | Permalink
February 18, 2009
Bedside Chocolate
This is another "snapshots from my travels" picture, from a recent trip to Zürich, Switzerland.
In many countries, it's common to find an inedible boiled mint on your hotel pillow. In Switzerland, hoteliers apparently have tastebuds that work.
Posted by Ian at 6:09 PM | Permalink
October 5, 2007
MOO Two
I've been promising myself a set of properly prepared MOO cards since I got some free samples a year ago.
I finally got round to doing this; the cards arrived just in time for my trip to the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting, and literally an hour before the postal strike started.
For this batch, I went through a lot of old images looking for images that would work in the 70mm by 28mm format; most of the results are still crops from much larger images, though. One thing I found very helpful this time round is that you can download a Photoshop template for the card format, including guides to help you allow for a safe area and off-card bleed.
I've uploaded all the images I used for this batch as a flickr set for anyone who is interested; they are CC-licensed, so feel free to use them for your own cards if you like them.
Posted by Ian at 10:41 AM | Permalink
January 28, 2007
Piraeus Lion
I was contacted a couple of days ago by a Wikipedian who had seen this picture in my flickr stream. He had a story to tell about this lion, he said, and would I be prepared to re-license the image appropriately to allow this?
Of course I agreed, and the Wikipedia article on the Piraeus Lion is now available. Of course I'm immensely chuffed that something I took as a holiday snapshot should turn out to be a bit more useful than that.
I knew there was some sort of story connected with one of the lions when I took the picture, but wasn't able to see the rumoured graffiti even with it right in front of my face. One of the most interesting things to me about the Wikipedia article is that the second image illustrating the topic is actually an enhanced version of a detail from my own image.
For someone who believes in the Creative Commons, this is a pretty nice unbirthday present.
Posted by Ian at 1:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Permalink
January 1, 2007
Cockit Hat
Another slightly odd street sign, this one from Edinburgh. I assume that the reference is a local variant spelling of Cocked Hat. There's a local dominoes club that uses the same name.
Posted by Ian at 8:32 PM | Permalink
December 16, 2006
Cold Snap(s)
I spent a few days in the Hyatt/McCormick Place Arcology in Chicago recently, afraid to venture outside lest my limbs break off like brittle sticks in the -15C temperatures. So, here are some entirely unadventurous pictures taken out of the window on the 23rd floor of the hotel.
Posted by Ian at 4:26 PM | Permalink
October 11, 2006
Moo Cards
My ten free sample Flickr MiniCards turned up from moo.com today. Here's what they look like, along with the little dispenser the samples came in and one of my current business cards for scale.
The material the cards are made out of is very well chosen. It's a nice heavy card stock, pretty much matt on the printed side and with a nice soft sheen on the image side. Definitely not gloss, though, which I was a little worried it might be.
The text side of the card — which I think of as equivalent to a standard business card — is just large enough for a few lines of contact details, and that looks great in the format. My flickr avatar image works quite well at this scale, although I'd drop the flickr logo when buying some of these for real.
I'm not blown away by the results I got, though. There are two problems, both at my end.
The first problem is the shape of the cards; few of the images I've uploaded to flickr look really good at this very wide (2.5:1) aspect ratio. I can see myself occasionally shooting specifically for this format in future.
The other problem is that a lot of my flickr images end up pretty dingy in this medium (the two you can see here are the best results, and they're not nearly as punchy as they are on screen). If you're going to try this product, make sure you have lots of contrast and colour or you might be disappointed: what looks good on the screen isn't necessarily going to look great on a card.
Posted by Ian at 1:00 PM | Permalink
September 17, 2006
Venice 2006
We have recently returned from a very enjoyable week's vacation in Venice, Italy. I have posted a flickr image set of a few of my happy snaps; you can view it as a slide show if you like.
Venice makes a pretty restful place to visit for anyone tired of city traffic noise. They might also have the best gelati I've ever tasted. I heartily recommend the mela verde, limone and melone from Bar Solda' in the Campo Ss. Apostoli if you're in the area.
The photographs were all taken with my Nikon E5700, mostly in RAW format this time round. Post-processing was done in beta 3 of Adobe Lightroom. I must say I am really impressed by Lightroom; I hope they don't charge an arm and a leg for it once it becomes a real product.
Posted by Ian at 6:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
Pink Assassins
Another fun street sign, this one from Burano (near Venice) in Italy. A "fondamenta" is the kind of street that runs along the side of a canal. Just the place you'd expect an assassin to ply his trade, perhaps, but the colour doesn't match the image somehow.
Posted by Ian at 2:36 PM | Permalink
May 29, 2006
Mowbrays Slap
Poor old Mowbray, whoever he was. This street sign is in West Linton, Scotland. I don't know the story behind it, but perhaps "Slap" is another local name for "small street". Or not.
Posted by Ian at 11:12 AM | Permalink
May 10, 2006
Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate
Number one in a series of probably at least two "Great Street Signs of the World".
Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate is the name of a very small street in the city of York, England. In York, "Gate" means "Street", but "Bar" means "Gate" (as in "city gate"). It is probably something to do with those Vikings.
Posted by Ian at 11:37 AM | Permalink
March 3, 2006
EPS International 2006 Entry Form
If you're looking for an entry form for the Edinburgh Photographic Society's 144th International Exhibition of Photography, you can download one here (PDF).
Posted by Ian at 10:39 AM | Permalink
January 21, 2004
Blowing One's Own Trumpet
My 2003 Christmas card won a runner-up prize in this year's MWORDS Season's Greetings competition.
Posted by Ian at 9:31 PM | Permalink
December 15, 2003
Season's Greetings 2003
My annual battle with stacks of paper and bottles of ink has concluded with the printing of our 2003 Christmas cards. If you can't wait for yours to turn up, you can find a description on the main site.
By the way, I particularly like this year's UK Christmas postage stamps, which this year are all images of ice sculptures by British landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy.