Language largely consists of nouns (name words) and verbs (doing words), and a standard sentence contains both. But, as a rule, people want to turn a description (such as person-who-takes-pictures) into a new noun (photographer). Giving something a...0
18 Mar 2022 5:05AM | Read
Views : 355
Two years ago, I bought a new car, and one of the less-obvious benefits was a voucher for a portrait session at a local studio – I won’t name it because I’m sure many other businesses do the same thing equally competently. Covid delayed matters some...0
23 Mar 2022 8:25PM | Read
Views : 385
For those over 18, here’s a chance to marvel at the changes in publishing over the last 60 years or so. I wrote the other day, describing the three books of (largely) nude pictures I bought in Todmorden, and today there are illustrations, plus a cou...1
22 Feb 2022 4:27PM | Read
Views : 86
Four nights in Calderdale, and far too many books bought secondhand, including a couple of ‘collectable’ volumes, I suspect. There are impressive bookshops to be found…Times change, and three of the books I brought back show this very clearly indeed....0
20 Feb 2022 9:13AM | Read
Views : 388
I rounded off a four night stay in Calderdale with a visit to the Yorkshire sculpture park on the way home. My wife and I agreed to go before we left Hebden bridge and I booked the tickets with my mobile phone. I hate booking things on my mobile! ...0
218 Feb 2022 8:33PM | Read
Views : 394
Is your camera weatherproof? I have a feeling I’ve blogged about this before, and demonstrated sheltering a camera on a shoulder strap with my arm. But if it gets a bit more serious, there is still a simple way to make a summer camera into an all-w...0
29 Feb 2022 8:42AM | Read
Views : 495
I was leafing through the free videos that one website offers, and had a look at a short piece about JFB, who I’d not heard of before. The site describes her as a fine art photographer, which, for present purposes, let’s define as ‘does own projects...0
27 Feb 2022 8:04AM | Read
Views : 506
We all want to ‘improve’ in what we do, don’t we? (I except a very small number of people who I met during my working life, who were happy with things exactly as they were – I found it rather hard, in a brief spell as a union rep, to understand a co...0
56 Feb 2022 11:57AM | Read
Views : 380
I grew up with BBC radio comedy: and Denis Norden and Frank Muir we among my favourite performers, in a very literary quiz called My Word. They were already – had I but known it – legendary as writers. Late in his rather long life, DN took part in o...0
23 Feb 2022 3:53AM | Read
Views : 549
I can’t resist looking round secondhand bookshelves, and they can often provide photographic inspiration: especially when I find books of photographs by a photographer whose name I don’t know. A visit to Attingham Park and the National Trust’s seco...0
431 Jan 2022 1:16PM | Read
Views : 483
One of the silly Sunday posts today suggested that a figure was a senior civil servant disguised as Mary Poppins to deliver her report to Downing Street. I couldn’t refrain from comment, as I’ve had some professional dealings with almost equally se...0
30 Jan 2022 2:15PM | Read
Views : 583
This blog is very late, partly because of other things happening when I got home, but also partly because what I did this morning was peculiar. I’m glad I did it in several different ways: the most important of these was that it is what a grieving ...0
26 Jan 2022 10:15PM | Read
Views : 662
Halation was, at one time, the bugbear of against-the-light photography. It wrecked the images that flare didn’t… As it doesn’t happen with digital, maybe some explanation is necessary. Here goes. Film isn’t completely opaque, so light can go straig...0
224 Jan 2022 7:00AM | Read
Views : 613
I was exploring the idea of ‘glimpses’ with Amber Belle, and had taken along a couple of long, manual focus lenses – I’ll say a little bit about the two of them first. My 100mm Canon f/3.5 is an old lens – I reckon it dates from about 1960. It’s a ...0
322 Jan 2022 8:51AM | Read
Views : 441
Roy (aka kaybee) commented on my blog about sharing a studio with Norm (aka Owdman), and told a tale of a club night that ultimately led to him leaving the club, on grounds of incompatibility! It reminded me of a similar experience I had 35 years a...0
420 Jan 2022 8:47AM | Read
Views : 426