367-50 Week 24

Bienvenue, Ola, Hoz Geldinitz and so on. Welcome to week 24 - yes that's WEEK 24 of my dinky little photoblog.  God only knows what's coming up this week. Nothing planned in advance and no known photoshoots in the works, except for a camera club outing on Wednesday night.

23/04/12

Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM+ for short) was invented in 1938 and by 1942 was being used by Britain and the USA as an IQ screener for all new soldiers. Welcome to the 2012 version which now includes a very test of ability as well as the good old visual matrices. But why take a photo of this? I'm doing a training session next Wednesday on a new batch of psychometric tests being given out to all post-primary schools and this is one of the tests in the box. It's incredibly dull stuff and I can't think of any way to liven it up except to throw in a few pics. Jokes about psychometric tests are thin on the ground. Mind you, if anyone knows one - leave me a comment on the blog or e-mail me at michaelbarbour902@btinternet.com. Best joke that can be used next week will win a pint at my earliest convenience. *Update* See joke at bottom of blog - all my own work.

24/04/12

Spent all day in Larne, assessed two nursery children (observations and psychometrics and interviews with staff and parents) and got to drive half way home with the roof down. Then went to take the kids aikido class when we graded two of the newest students. The went home and went out for a run - one hour with no stops. I'll not tell you how far I covered but it wasn't as much as the target of 7 miles for the marathon relay leg. My picture - me after my run. I forgot to take my camera out with me today.

25/04/12

I'm on a wee bit of a roll here in terms of strange things I've encountered in the offices of various solicitors. Today was a real gobsmacker. An innocent question - "where's the bathroom" actually lead me to a door behind which was .....a bathroom. Complete with corner bath and shower cubicle which you can't see in this shot. I felt like cancelling the interview I had scheduled and taking a bath.

26/04/12

Comber Greenway, between the Sandown and Beersbridge Roads. North Road bridge in the distance. It's cold and wet. Weather's miserable. Running a little and feeling like shit.

27/04/12

Dirty and grainy shot of the same walkway at sunset. This is at the end, heading into the Holywood Arches. It's not pretty. This and the previous shot were both taken and processed using the Camera Awesome app on the iphone 4.

28/04/12

This is the almost finished backwall gallery for the City of Belfast Photographic Society exhibition with most of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed prints on display. Unfortunately I had to leave before it was finished with the highly commended and commended prints still to be hung. I'm pleased to have four there so far, with a few more to come. I'm also very proud of my 9 year old daughter, who has two first placed prints in the novice/beginner/general section and four pictures up there - damn! She has the same amount as me.

29/04/12

I planted three forest flame bushes in pots in the front garden last year - they've all been out in flower for some time and all have different coloured flowers. These are the white variety - the other two are red/pink and variagated pink/white. They've done really well but I suppose they need to be planted in the ground at some stage.

Cheers for stopping by and having a look at the blog. Don't be shy and drop me a message on the blog - feedback gratefully accepted.

*Update*
Just remembered the joke about the man who goes to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist takes out the Rorschach Ink Blots and shows the man the first one, asking what he can see. The man says "I see a gorgeous naked lady and she's looking at me in a very inviting way." The psychiatrist shows the man the next ink blot and the man says "I see two people making mad passionate love."
The psychiatrist says "I think I can see the problem - you're obsessed with sex."
The man says "me? You're the one showing all these dirty pictures!"

367-50 Week 23

Back to work this week and a million wee things nagging at me to get done. Colleagues who eat up your time needlessly don't help. Anyway, that was all before I even had a cup of coffee in the office on Monday morning and I like my coffee early.

16/04/12

Glad to escape early today to perform my second shooter duties with Trish. Very small and intimate wedding in Belfast City Hall, another lovely couple to work with and great family and guests.

17/04/12

It was late and I didn't have a particularly good day. Everything was making me cross. It then got to be 10 o'clock at night and I hadn't taken my shot for the day. I retired to the kitchen and gave myself 20 minutes to come up with something. This was it.

18/04/12

So, it was a straight choice between a photo of Trish explaining how chicken nuggets are made (you know, when a mummy chicken and a daddy chicken love each other.......), Hannah's face while this was being explained to her, or a shot of Sarah demonstrating how she can put her foot behind her head. No prizes for guessing which I went for. Sarah then completed her yoga demonstration by falling off the sofa.

19/04/12

Having spent almost an entire weekend getting stuck into the garden during March, the first fruits (see what I did there?) of my labour have appeared. Several lines of rocket have shot up, well, like rockets. For the gardeners, they're still under a cloche as I'm well aware of the risk of frost. The rocket has today been joined by spinach. Meanwhile, on the kitchen windowsill, tomato and cucumber seeds have sprouted but there's no sign of the notoriously slow peppers. I love growing my own veggies. Mainly because I can eat them.

20/04/12

I was working in a nice solicitors office and was sitting beside this rather marvellous bookcase. It was the two pairs of shoes which caught my attention (one pair black, the other brown). The elegant flat cap and designer scarf also caught my eye. This smacks of a level of disorganisation that even I can only aspire to.

21/04/12

Spent this morning in Dundonald Library getting the prints ready for our camera club exhibition which opens on the 2nd of May. The club's prints look really well when displayed like this. Sadly we weren't able to put up the winning prints on the main wall within in library as there was a collection of photos already there. Without sounding a wee bit catty, there are not that good but the author is selling them (canvases) for £100 a pop. If they're worth £100 I could sell my pictures and be able to quit my day job. Miaow. Rough count on this wall - I have four shots, Trish has five, Sarah has one.

22/04/12

Last minute decision to visit the newly opened MAC in Belfast today. Thanks to Facebook, I saw that there were a couple of seats left for the play Titanic (Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner's Enquiry 1912) and bit the bullet and went along. I was impressed with the new building, although it was less airy and a lot more of a tall, thin space designed in the style of an underground car park. The play (by Owen McCafferty) is a fascinating piece of theatre. I hear that good old Roderick Jaynes will be reviewing it over on Shitflicks at some stage. We saw him at the bar drinking a rather large stiffener during the interval.

367-50 Week 21

Back to butts this week. Not much of an exotic nature to share this week but some strange happenings indeed to recount.

2/04/12

Today was our first wedding anniversary. I came home to find this rather excellent toilet paper installation in the living room, courtesy of Lynsey, Hannah, Maud and Roy. It was then I figured out that the first wedding anniversary is "paper" and realised that I'd got Trish a bunch of flowers. Whoops.

3/04/12

And here are the flowers in question. I started playing about with my Lensbaby although the light was very limited in the kitchen. I'm not always sure when using manual focus if my shots are sharp - part of being a little short-sighted I suppose. Even with the dioptre on my camera set properly it can still be a little hit and miss. The ability to shift the sweet spot on the Lensbaby Composer is a nice feature and I pushed it over the the left of the frame for this short. I think there might be some fun to be had with this little bit of kit. Perhaps a themed week on the blog is in the works?

4/04/12

I knew that going to camera club AGM was a bad idea. Trish had indicated that after 3 years that she wanted to step down as President. I knew that no-one else would want to do it but wasn't expected to be ambushed into standing for the post. So there we have it - I am now President of the City of Belfast Photographic Society and here's my chain of office to prove it. In reality this means that the above item has moved from Trish's underwear drawer to my underwear drawer. I'm still in shock.

5/04/12

After last night's AGM at the camera club and my shock investiture as El Presidente I decided that it would only be right to have a presidential portrait taken. I made an effort and put on a shirt and tie and felt that the cigar and trust-worthy expression would be just the ticket.

6/04/12

Keeping the theme of self-portraits, I shot this today after picking up a second hand Nikon 60mm f2.8D lens. Supposed to be very sharp and good for portraits and macro work. Been playing about with it this afternoon. The depth of field is a little out in this shot - My eye is sharp but the camera is way too soft for my liking - but then again I was shooting it "wide open" at f2.8 into a mirror. More playing to come. The  lens is really solid and seems very well-built. Autofocus is fast and accurate but doesn't have full-time manual over-ride and getting in into manual mode is fiddly. It also claims to close down to an f-stop of f32 which I've never seen before. I shall give it a try.

7/04/12

Still playing about with the new 60mm micro lens. There are two of these novelty bottles sitting on the kitchen window sill and I was just shooting close up with the new lens to see how it performed in terms of macro work. It does pretty well, although you do need to get very close with a 60mm my 105mm macro lens gives a bit more room to work in. Anyhow - nice and sharp and the colours are good.