dare’s new home

Dare, the digital marketing agency I work for, is bursting at the seams. We’ve outgrown our current premises and don’t have space to seat the people we want to hire. So we’ve recently signed on a new premises over the road.

Unfortunately a lot of work needs to be done on the interior so we’re not going to be able to move in for a few months. I went over there with a small group to take a look at the place in its current state. It’s HUGE compared to our current place: four floors each of which is double the size of our current three working floors.

And I believe we’re getting rid of those horrible carpet tiles!

Predictably, I took some photos:

...and made a set on Flickr.

Photo Catch-up

The one problem with taking loads of photographs is that you end up with a massive backlog. Because I mostly shoot in RAW format I need to do a lot of manual adjustment to get each final image as I want it. If shooting on a compact camera then taking the reulting JPEGs straight off it is the digital equivalent to taking a film to be processed at Boots, then what I do is essentially the digital equivalent of processing your own film in a darkroom. And it takes ages, an average of 20 minutes per image though sometimes as much as an hour.

Over half of that time is spent waiting for the computer to load the image, reduce noise, render adjustment layer settings and finally save it. So I could do with a faster computer. The problem is that resolution will probably keep going up so computers will always be slightly behind. Also, I said I wasn’t going to buy any more gadgets for a few months, so, hmmm. No I’m going to hold back for a while.

Anyway in this post a couple of weeks ago I said photos from my brother’s jam session performance were forthcoming. The shot above is taken from the set and the rest of the set is here.

Still being quite new to the whole photography thing I made a couple of glaring errors with the camera settings so there’s a fair bit of motion blurring and ghosting going on, but on the whole I’d say they’re not too bad.

Glow Party

I took this on the way home from Camberwell on Sunday. Glow Party, this Friday at The Swan in Stockwell.

Doesn’t it sound awesome? Not only are they giving out free glow sticks but there’s a Robbie Williams tribute act on too. I know which bus stop I’ll be alighting at on Friday. See you there*.

(*somewhere else)

I hate Arctic Monkeys

There you go, I’ve said it now.

Sick – to – death of that guy’s voice. Irritating prick.

Happy Valentine's Day

And what a wondrous celebration of love it truly is. Even the tube was oozing with it this morning – a subtle difference in the way people shoved past each other, to cite just one example.

And don't forget ladies, there's still plenty time to get your cards in to me.

Actually, the one Valentine’s message I've received so far today came from the staff at Clapham Common tube station. They'd affixed a couple of heart shaped messages (addressed to all commuters) to small notice boards at the entrance. I was going to stop and take a photo of it for this blog post but I was running late.

I hope that's not the only message I get – there's something slightly bleak about getting a Valentine’s Day message from London Underground.

Lenses, Fish, Jazz

Those are three of the keywords that I would use if I had to tag my weekend.

I went to London Aquarium on Saturday with Andreas, with the intentions of: (a) seeing some aquatic life and (b) taking some photographs of it.

I was fairly successful, despite (with hindsight predictable) huge midday Saturday crowds obscuring the tanks.

Andreas brought his impressive assortment of lenses, most of which I tried on my camera. It made a huge difference. The main advantage being the availablility of f/2.8 aperture. My 17-85mm lens only goes to f/4 or f/5.6 at its full 85mm focal length.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with camera jargon, a smaller f ratio means that the hole that the light comes through is bigger relative to the length of the lens – i.e. more light gets in. This means you can use a faster shutter speed and/or a lower ISO (sensitivity) setting. All of which results in less blurry / less grainy images.

The image above is my best one of the day so far. There are more that still need processing (from RAW files). See my aquarium set on Flickr (unfinished at time of writing).

The rest of the weekend was cool. On Saturday night I went to my mate Sam’s night It’s Bigger Than. It was their (2nd?) birthday party and Tom Middleton did a guest DJ set. He did a good job – I’ve never seen such a DJ get so enthusiastic before! Erm, actually I once saw Mark E.G. dancing behind the decks clenching a 12” record in his mouth. But that was more insanity than enthusiasm. But anyway – Tom Middleton - he’s probably my favourite all-round DJ. I actually met him about five years when I did the DJ slot just before him in a bar in Leeds. Very nice chap, not to mention a musical hero of mine!

On Sunday, The Eyechild and I met up with the Camberwell Flickr Group, in a bar in Camberwell. They were a really nice bunch. We sat in a bar, supped Guiness and generally waxed Camberwell lyrical. As I’ve moved to Clapham, I felt a bit like a deserter though! My excuse was that I still go there all the time (which is true).

Sunday was also my brother’s birthday. After the Flickr meet-up Tom (Eyechild), Dunc and I went up to visit him in Wood Green where we grabbed some food then went to a pub in Southgate where there was a jazz jam on. He got up and played on a couple of tracks. Photos from that to follow...