And the Winner is…Not Sure…

Posted on May 5, 2023 by Guthlac

The morning after the night before and we still don’t have anything like the full picture of what has happened in the local elections yesterday with one exception: Rishi Sunak’s hold on the Conservative party this morning is a lot weaker than it was yesterday. The whole purpose of Sunak for the Conservative party was to be some sort of purgative – to flush away the bad tastes and memories of 2022 and for a while it seemed to have been working. The Windsor agreement was undoubtedly Sunak’s highpoint to date but as I write this at lunch time on the 5th May that does seem an awful long time ago. If things do go as badly as they seem to going last night then expect the Conservative party to enter a period of great unrest and Sunak’s hold on power will wilt away in the summer sun.

On a totally unconnected subject the Conservative Democratic Organisation CDO which is definitely NOT the Tory Momentum are to hold their first conference shortly. The key organiser of this group is Priti Patel. (Another key organiser of the CDO , David Campbell Bannerman, has just claimed that “…I think the way that we got rid of Boris, I’ve spoken to quite a few people who regret that on the doorstep..We want to get back to more traditional conservative policies.“) Now it would be churlish of me to suggest that the main policy this Organisation within the Conservative Party would appear to be the return to power of Boris Johnson but Campbell Bannerman’s comments might one to believe that might be the case.

A few days later the definitely independent National Conservatism group are holding their “NatCon” meeting in London on the 15th May when one of the keynote speakers will be Jacob Rees-Mogg. In short by the end of May there could be a head of stream building to topple Rishi Sunak.

Will anything come of any of this? Well perhaps not but if I was Rishi I would start look over his back as there is just the chance that the part he leads might be collapsing around him the country could be about to experience another Tory horror show.

Editor’s Note: This is all pure speculation on my part with no insider information at all. I just don’t want to live through another 12/18 months of the same nonsense we had last year. I fear that we might be about to see history repeating itself! Certainly the parts (?) are starting to be assembled.

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Because you’re not here….

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Guthlac

YouTube, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is full of crap. Perhaps not as much as say Twitter but nonetheless you enter the world of YouTube holding your nose. Fortunately as you get used to the stench you start to notice one or two gems floating around and you grab hold of them. These gems lead to other gems and so you build up your own curated patch of YouTube. A patch that other people would consider crap but you don’t. No this is a safe place that reflects what you are interested in; where interesting videos appear as suggestions that you add to your little world and everything is just a little better.

This is how I came to be watching Produce like a Pro‘s documentary about Jeff Wayne’s The World of the Worlds. Now in the past these sort of documentaries were made by the BBC and were available on the iPlayer but I guess that ship has sailed. Fortunately (and I guess this is what the detractors of the BBC would say) there are people who willingly take up the slack and produce interesting documentaries. Perhaps the most interesting fact I learnt from the video was that the hit single Forever Autumn started out as a jingle for a Lego commercial. Strange how things work out.

So what, you might ask, has this got to do with the Rhythm and Geometry exhibition at the Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham? Good question but I’m afraid the answer is somewhat mundane. Since watching the documentary I have been relistening to Wayne’s magnum opus in full, something I first did back in 1978 when it first came out but haven’t done in a long long time, and I realise just how good it was. Still not explained about the connection I hear you few readers saying. Well the simple truth is I have been listening to the music whilst making the images in post. There happy? I doubt it but what can I say?

So if you are in the area then take a look at the exhibition. It is, as usual, very good and informative. Which, I guess, is all you can expect from an exhibition.

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With a Little Help…

Posted on May 2, 2023 by Guthlac

So Lightroom has been updated and they have now added the Adobe A.I. to help removed noise from the image. I have to say I am really impressed with the results. The images here were captured at c 8000 iso which needless to say came with a significant amount of noise and yet with a click of the button it is mostly gone (you won’t be able to tell here as the image is so low res but believe me it has done a great job). Is this cheating? No I don’t think so. Is it better than the other image handling software out there? Couldn’t say as I only use Adobe products. The way I look at it is that it is just another tool available to all digital image production flows and I have to say I like the results.

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Broad Street….

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Guthlac

Yesterday I visited Oxford or to be more precise Broad Street. It was a wonderful coldish spring day and the place had the buzz of a town full of energy: The sort of energy that young people give off that we old farts can only envy and wish we could once more feel; a buzz of the possible before the years of heartache and disappointment drains it away.

But such is life and may the young enjoy their few brief years of relative freedom. I wish them well whichever way life takes them. This being Oxford it is more likely to be towards the top rather than the bottom of society but it was ever thus.

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I Blame the Quality of Netflix Programmes….

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Guthlac

For the past few weeks I have just exploded with creative output. I have no idea where it came from but there it is just sitting on my hard drive. A lot of it has been made whilst watching the innane rubbish that seems to passes for new content on Netflix. I know this is hardly an original observation but Netflix now produces some awful programmes. Perhaps it appeals to some people but it doesn’t to me. It was so bad that I was reviewing whether to dump the whole package the other day. I’m not at the moment as there are two or three series I want to see conclusion of but after that? I can’t see the point of Netflix anymore.

So instead of watching crap I just sit there in the evening and draw away on my iPad. Strangely enough I find this really relaxing…the latest programme I have on in the background is Landscape artist of the Year on Sky (I know this isn’t Netflix but whatever…). It is good fun being aware of some other artists creating art whilst I am. The the best bit is right at the end when all the pieces have been produced so this is the only part I concentrate on.

So night after night I draw and this seems to have driven during the day as well. Crazy how one things leads to another.

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Does Apple Music Know Me?…

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Guthlac

So, this morning whilst I was waking up and waiting the start of the Australian Grand Prix I made myself a coffee. Whilst the kettle was boiling I scanned through my Apple Music and found my personalised Music Station. Now I had heard of this many years ago (well I think it was that long ago but memories who knows now?) and so I started to play the music and I’m not sure it was really me or perhaps it really was and I just hadn’t been paying attention. Anyway, according to the computer my music is mostly guitar vocals by such artists as James Taylor, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Tracy Chapman.

Not at all sure what that means but I’m still listening to the station as I write this…

Perhaps this really is me – not sure but great music.

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Morning Constitutional….

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Guthlac

Some people go for a walk I draw and paint after breakfast most mornings. It doesn’t matter what who the subject is I just find I start the morning much better having created a little something.

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Harry Potter and the Raw Photo Image…

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Guthlac

One of the problems that any photographer faces when trying to capture images in the Harry Potter Studio Tour is light or the lack of it. Fortunately, we live in a world where digital cameras provide opportunities that were not there when the films were made as they were recorded on, well, film. To reinforce this there is a huge still from the production in the Backlot Cafe where Michael Gambon is being filmed in the great hall delivering a speech from the podium. The image however shows the production crew who were watching as he delivered his lines including an Arri movie camera with a 1000 foot reel of film. The image was probably captured c2004/5 when digital was only really starting to enter major movie production so film, which is unlikely to have had an ISO or no more than 200, was the medium they recorded the images on. Hence massive lighting rigs etc. a lot of light was required to ensure the image was captured just the way that the DP wanted.

The reason I bring this up is that I used my iPhone 13 to capture a number of images in very very poor lighting conditions and came away with very different results. The first image of Hogwarts was taken using the Apple Pano function and relying on the computational power of the phone to correct any problems and it really delivered the goods. Now of course if you pixel peep you will soon notice that there are many problems with the image but, given it was captured in VERY poor lighting it is remarkable. (I also find pixel peeping to be a pointless exercise when the image is the real goal but the fidelity of each pixel – but that is just me you may disagree and I accept that.)

Just how remarkable the image processing was can be seen from the next image. This was captured with the ultrawide lens on the phone but instead of using the Apple App I used the Adobe Lightroom camera which, I believe, by passes the computational software of the Apple Camera app and gives you the raw data for you to use as you see fit. I used this for esthetic reasons and I am really happy with the results but it does underline just how powerful computational photography has become in the modern smartphone.

Now I have nothing against computational image making. The above image from the Ministry of Magic set was created by Adobe’s AI in Lightroom from two image I captured with my R3 and I think it is an important thing to think about when discussing computational photography in general and the broader issues surrounding how AI should be used. I made the decision to use it for my own artistic reasons. It was no more than an extra tool I now have available to me in the same way that the image stabilizing system on the camera helps me capture sharpe hand held images in very low light conditions. The problem comes when we don’t know these tools are beings used or we just accept what they have given us. They are tools nothing more and we should be the ones that make the decisions as and when they are deployed.

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Give me Harry Potter…..

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Guthlac

If you’re a fan then you really must visit Warner Brother Studios at Leavesden. It is described as a ‘Studio Tour‘ but it really isn’t. No it is a museum, a very well supported museum, but a museum all the same. Here you can experience and explore just how they made the movies with some of the original props, sets and costumes as well a big chunk of show biz magic thrown in. Warning if you are not a fan then this is not a place for you. It might come as no surprise I am so it was a great day out.

On the way home the next day we drove across the Buckinghamshire countryside which, I have to say, was just wonderful as well. All in all a good couple of days.

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Unusual Faces and Where to Find Them….

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Guthlac

Not quite sure where these faces or at least the impulse to make them came from but here they are for whatever it is worth. To me they’re interesting…your mileage might vary.

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