DPReview Recommends: Best Compact Cameras for Travel: Digital Photography Review

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7118583476/dpreview-recommends-best-compact-cameras-for-travel?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=generic

This is a fascinating article but I feel totally misses the point. If you are travelling the best camera that you need is you phone camera…little hassle, always with you etc. if this is the case then in my humble opinion you cannot beat the iPhone 5s. Another attack of the Apple Fan Boy syndrome me thinks!

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Welcome back brushes

I’ve just checked and it is nearly two months since I made a painting using Brushes…what have I been doing with my time? Anyway I quite like jovial cove – almost a bit Falstaffesque. I also think that the looser you get with brushes the better the results…only taken me about three years to work that one out!

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Giraffe

Having just watched the Imagine programme about the remarkable Judith Kerr I felt compelled to make a drawing of a giraffe…not sure why a giraffe but that doesn’t matter right now. Anyway, my first giraffe was from memory and had all the anatomical features of some who had never seen a giraffe before. Anyway, I think this one is slightly better.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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We’re ashes on the ground…don’t say I’ll walk away

The Fight

I guess it was only matter of time before I came around to one of the best photo’s ever taken – Neil Leifer’s Clay v Liston – comic book chic…

 

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Making believe this is what you’ve conceived

Four Drawings

Oh Yeah… so the song goes.   Some of the drawings I made just for the heck of it.  The only rule I had was that there was not going to be any rubbing out – each mark had to be lived with – Give a little bit of my life for you…

 

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Through these fields of destruction… I’ve witnessed all your suffering

The Boxer

In life’s great game some days you on top and other days life steam rolls you.  Yesterday was one of the later days – nothing like as bad as I’ve had but bad enough to make me an exhibition opening by by good friend David Manley at the Lakeside Art Centre at Nottingham – which I’m really sorry I missed but it couldn’t be helped.

Today, after a lot of TLC, I’m a lot better and back on the boxer beat.  The other day I was flicking through one of my year books and it struck me that one of the things that I really enjoy is just sitting down and drawing a face and this was something I hadn’t done for a while just for the heck of it so that is exactly what I did and you know what I really enjoyed it – not trying to make a likeness but enjoy the process of drawing and sod the result.  This is what I did with this drawing of the formidable Mike Tyson.  There are a number of problems with the drawing but I just don’t care – I enjoyed the process and that is good enough for me.

As I keep making these boxing drawings the Dire Straights song Brothers in Arms keeps running through me head.  Not sure why

 

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Make sure you shoot the messenger

Last night just before I went to bed I switched on Sky Sports and saw the banner headline that the Heineken Cup had been saved as the national Rugby Union’s had signed a deal. I thought I would have to write this morning about eating humble pie. Indeed if you were to believe the headlines in The Times this morning “English clubs Face Isolation…” you would think that things have swung decisively against the English rugby union clubs (if you want to read more about this then I’ve been banging on about it on this blog so check it out).

However, when the articles are read it would seem nothing of the sort has been agreed and that the break up of European rugby is still on course. Indeed, BT Sports has now agreed to increase the funding of English Premiership rugby next year no matter what happens. In fact it ‘agreement’ could be viewed as a last gasp attempt by the old guard to try and put the up start clubs into their place. There will be a whole lot of arm twisting over the next few weeks to try and get the French clubs to break with the English clubs but I suspect that this may be fruitless as the French Clubs see this as a way of making their league even more rich and powerful than it already is and so probably will refuse to play ball. If this is the case then we may well have the situation whereby the Heineken Cup will be little more than the RaboBank pro am cup with the two biggest rugby countries missing and the Welsh not wishing to be there at all. At the same time all of the talent would be looking to move to England and France.

I really don’t know what the answer is when the old guard try to defeat the pursuit of money…no wait it usually means that the old guard looses and the money wins – painful as that may well be. What is more interesting is to see how this “agreement” was plastered around as some form of victory when it would seem to be nothing of the sort. At times like this you really should check what message the messenger is trying to peddle and then take aim and ….

Simon Marchini
www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Kodachrome, You give us those nice bright colors, You give us the greens of summers – Paul Simons

Whitby Harbour

You just have to love the iPhone Pano function.  However, now that I’ve got home and are able to start to examine some of the details and one thing struck me.   The ISO is really low – this one for example is only 40 ISO.  Now for a modern generation having such a low ISO is almost unheard of – however for those of us who have more miles on the clock than we would like to admit to this does bring to mind another very low ISO or should I say ASA film stock – Kodachrome 25 and 64.  Those were the days when we would send our slide films off to Box 101 Hemel Hempstead (according to the internet it was PO Box 66 or some other number so I may well have got the number wrong) and if you were lucky or good you would get back some real stonkers in a couple of weeks time.  Most of the time for me it was much more luck than skill!

The pano function is a real joy to use and it does produce some great looking images straight out of the camera.  Of course it does distort the perspective but I find that adds to the interest of the image – this image is almost 300 degrees of arc but it really does give the true feel to Whitby.  I really am a Pano addict and it looks like I’m not the only one.

 

Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!

 

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Sunrise over Hartlepool

At least it has stopped raining !

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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More examples of the IPhoneography from Middlesborough and Redcar

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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