I liked to help you…

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Guthlac

Well that was a few days I would prefer hadn’t have happened but they did and I just have to process things.

Posted in Gardens, Photography, Summer | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Will they Lose?….

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Guthlac

So will the Tories lose all three of the upcoming by elections? I don’t know but that is not going to stop me speculating!

Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Chance of Conservatives losing: 90%

What more can be said about Alexander Johnson AKA Boris? I suspect the voters of the constituency want to give him a real kicking for many reasons. However, I suspect that the forthcoming ULEZ implementation might have a factor but I doubt it will have that much. Perhaps turn out will be low but it is the former seat of the artist known as Boris so perhaps not. Given all this I think were the Tories to hold this seat it will be a major upset – hence the 90% chance of them losing it.

Somerton and Frome

Chance of Conservatives losing: 70%

For almost 20 years this seat used to be return a Liberal Democrat MP. The current MP has resigned after being involved in after being involved in misconduct (I’ll let you find the full details for yourself…needless to say they are …well you can find out...). The Liberal Democrats had a very good local council elections in the area this year taking over the running of the council. Former Tory resign in shame, Liberal Democrat on the rise. This should be great opportunity for the Lib Dem gain. The only downsides are that the Conservatives have a nearly 20k majority and it is summer so many voters might be on holiday. Nonetheless I think there is a good chance of a Lib Dem gain.

Selby and Ainsty

Chance of Conservatives losing: 60%

I don’t really know anything about this seat other than its previous MP seems to have resigned in a fit of peek because he wasn’t allowed to go to the House of Lords in Boris’s resignation ‘Honours’ list. Again, this has a 20k plus majority so this might help save it but I suspect not. However, it is an unknown so I have given the Tories a fighting chance but given the national mood I still feel it is likely to fall to Labour

So taken as a whole this would give the Tories around a 60% of at least keeping hold of at least one of these seats, my guess would be Selby and Ainsty. However, I suspect the all the circumstances of these three by elections will mean that they will lose all three. Only the voters know.

Posted in Apple Pencil, Conservative Party, drawing, General Election 2024, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Politics, Procreate | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quack Quack…

Posted on July 12, 2023 by Guthlac

Found some new friends this morning…that is until they realise I wasn’t going to give them any food!

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Watership Down?…

Posted on July 4, 2023 by Guthlac

I spent a little while this morning at my local warren where the rabbits have been doing what rabbits do.

Posted in General | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Long Term…

Posted on July 2, 2023 by Guthlac

For a number of interconnected reasons I’m starting to think seriously about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be implemented over the next few years. The result of this contemplation is: I’m really not sure. The most obvious impact on my work is the way that Adobe introduce AI into their software. At the moment I only use the the denoise function in Lightroom which is not really what can be defined as AI compared to say the Secret Invasion title controversy.

Perhaps a better example of how AI can really take over image making can be found in the Smartphone world. We now have the situation where the image that is produced by most modern smartphones is not actually the one captured. I personally don’t really like the results that the iPhone produces and so use the Lightroom app on the iPhone which saves the images as a DNG, so allowing me to play around with them a lot more in post. Nonetheless there are times I have used the iPhone photo app for certain types of image making, Panos primarily, that the software is really good that there is no really need for other complicated post production intervention.

I see that Adobe have been testing in beta an implementation of AI where the computer creates whole new sections of the image. Again it is reasonable to argue that this has been available for a long time with such functions such as ‘cloning’ otherwise the verb to ‘photoshop’ an image would not have been coined. The difference is that it is reducing the skills required to create such an artifice in the first place.

I guess in the end of the day what all this says about photography is what anyone who has attended any photography course knows: All photographs are in some sense artificial, the important thing is that the producer of the images is honest about how the image was created. Personally, I make use of the facilities that Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop provide to enhance the images I have captured. I don’t create whole new images using the software but I am also aware that this is a very distinction that maybe in a few years will be impossible to define.

One thing I know AI will not be able to replicate or replace: The satisfaction of walking around my garden and capturing moments of time. For now?

Posted in Gardens, Photography, Summer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rocket Man…

Posted on June 29, 2023 by Guthlac

A fresher morning in the garden today. The overnight rain has brought all manner of insects out – food for hungry young Dunnocks.

Posted in Gardens, Photography | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

London Calling…

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Guthlac

There is little doubt that whilst London is geographically situated on the main isle of the British Isles it is a world apart. I have known this for a long time yet, walking the streets this weekend, it really did seem for the first time a strange and different place. For the first time I felt like a stranger in part of the country I call home.

Now I know central London is nothing like the many boroughs that circulate this lodestone the whole place is different, unique, wonderful and really daunting.

I’ve come away genuinely exhausted by the whole experience and I am enjoying the simple world less than 100 miles away from the ‘smoke’

Posted in Photography, Street Photography, Summer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clap Your Hands…

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Guthlac

Another beautiful day already. Sitting in the garden and watching nature flyby…oh and bloom…

Posted in Gardens, Photography, Summer | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cloudbusting…

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Guthlac

It’s a nice day so I thought I would sit out in the garden and see what happens…

Posted in Gardens, Photography, Summer | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Is this the last day of the Rishi government?…

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Guthlac

So today is the day…will any of the Conservative MP’s dare to vote against Boris Johnson in tonight’s debate on the Privileges Committee report ? Or to put it another way will they dare to vote against their membership? I have no idea what happens within each constituency membership but it is widely accepted that Boris Johnson is more popular amongst them than the population as a whole. This means that there may be pressure on Tory MPs not to vote but rather abstain. Here is just one example of doublespeak:

Michael Gove says he will not vote for a report that found Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over Partygate.

The housing secretary told the BBC there were areas where the ex-PM “falls short” of expectations. …speaking to BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Gove said a ban of such length – rare in recent years – was “not merited by the evidence the committee have put forward”.

BBC News Website

Not entirely sure what ‘falls short‘ means in this context – other than I’m in a very marginal seat at the moment and I don’t want to upset my core voters or am I being far too cynical?

Again the Prime Minister may not attend the debate nor vote. If he doesn’t vote then he has just kissed goodbye to his premiership as he will have bowed to the ridiculous pressure of Boris Johnson and his new column in the Daily Mail. Good luck with the news cycle when everyone is awaiting Johnson’s opinion. Let us not forget Johnson appears to seriously dislike Rishi Sunak so what advantage is the for Sunak in pandering to Johnson? Yet this is how it will appear if he too doesn’t vote. It will be an open goal for Labour and the Liberal Democrats – just what they want going into at least three winnable by elections to make the very simple claim that Rishi is scared of Boris. It will be very very difficult to argue otherwise if tonight’s vote is most notable by the large number of Tory MPs who are absent.

So will there be many abstentions? Don’t know but the stakes are really high for Sunak and if he blows it then what is left of his authority? Expect memes of ‘tiny’ Sunak next to the growling ‘big beast’ Boris. Margaret Thatcher will be spinning in her grave.

Posted in General | Leave a comment