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!

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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’

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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…

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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…

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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.

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This Summer’s Birds…

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Guthlac

Each summer I seem to capture a number of images of one breed of bird: In 2021 it was the Wren; 2022 it was the Robin and this year it would appear to be the Blackbird. This doesn’t mean I have deliberately sort these birds out but rather they have chosen to nest in the garden and so when I’m out catching some rays with my camera there they are. So why the Red Kite?

Well they are starting to be seen on a more regular basis over our house which is always welcome and I could pretend that was the case but it isn’t really. I have semi-seriously tried to capture this particular bird(s) as they keep appearing in skies over the part of the east of the county that I have been regularly visiting. As I get to know the creatures better I suspect (hope) I’ll be able to capture better photographs.

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Incredible Shrinking Boris…

Posted on June 17, 2023 by Guthlac

Oh how the mighty do fall. It wasn’t too long ago that there was 10 years of Boris as PM. Now? Well it is far from certain what his new role is other than destroy the current iteration of a Conservative government (not before time). Then what?

Make a lot of money and then spend even more money than you earnt and be back in the same financial mess – probably;

Start messing around with other women – he does have form;

More children, not with his wife – again…

Once more be PM? Now this is the most doubtful, especially if a future Labour government decides to bring England in line with all the other countries of the Union and introduce proportional representation. Even if this doesn’t happen the way back for Boris would require hard work, commitment, cunning and most of all bravery – he has demonstrated a total lack of any of these things in his political career so far -why should he change now?

Instead I suspect he’ll write his columns for the Daily Mail until they sack him – I believe that this is what has happened at most of the other papers he has written for in the past. He will still fly the world making speeches but the money here will also start to dry up and he will then be chased by creditors, ex wives etc. Finally, one day he may be seen in some pub somewhere in the cotswolds decrying his luck to anyone who listens.

Only time will tell.

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