Simon's Blog

Well the nightmare is nearly over and I am starting to feel the first flushes of creativity coursing through my body.  Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have pulled the portfolio together, mounted it and posted it.  That will be it.  Never again. (Although you should never say never so perhaps I should qualify this with probably never again!)

Over the past month or so I have found the whole process of meeting all the rules surrounding an ARPS submission for Nature really off putting, so much so that I haven’t been out and taken any really interesting and exciting photographs for a couple of months.  I guess I just lost my MoJo baby yeah!   Enough of the Austin Powers.   Although it does feel like that.  No motivation, no excitement.  However, there is a small glimmer of hope.

Yesterday I went a walk around Bradgate Park and started to take a few photographs.  It felt quite good.  I then processed the car and found a number of other photographs that I had made over the past couple of months sitting on the card waiting to be processed.   In amongst the dross there were two or three photographs that made me excited.  Perhaps my MoJo hadn’t disappeared but rather gone into hibernation.  Perhaps.  
 

One final thing.  I am now concentrating my blogging using Posterous.  They have some really interesting themes, better than the Blogger account.   I will still post stuff to blogger but the work will be published with Posterous in mind so if you want to see the work at their best then Posterous is the place to go. 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

With the timing of a man with an impeccable record for missing trends I haver finally become enraptured with Harry Potter.  This is something of a record, even for me, to be 13 years behind the trend.   However, I have Stephen Fry to blame for this.   I am not reading the books but listening to Fry’s masterful audio books as I walk around.  They are simply the best way walk – music is OK but Fry’s narration is off a different class.  Again, these audio books have been out for years and I am now only starting to listen to them – I really am a dedicated follower of fashion!
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

If it wasn’t enough to keep moaning about no Flash support on the iPad I have found another grip.   The iPad takes forever to back and sync.   It seems I am not the only person to experience this problem as I have searched the internet for answers.  In short there isn’t one single answer, some suggest that it might be one or more apps that are causing the problem, others a corrupted file within the iTunes backup process.  The solution that I have tried and seems to speed things up is to switch the iPad off and on again then run the backup and sync.  This seems to speed things up a lot – as I write this my backup of around 8 GB of data has only taken about 10 minutes – almost unheard of speed.  In fact the whole process has just finished so this may well be a solution – for me at least.

So another problem with the iPad – this is getting more like a good old PC each day that passes.  However, I wouldn’t be separated from my iPad and no doubt version two or 2G will be a lot more stable and perhaps Apple might decide to swallow their pride and get around to supporting Flash.   I don’t think I’ll hold my breath on that one.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

This is hard work!   I’ve made 15 prints and they work well together but know I am second guessing myself like crazy.  It is so stupid but I just can’t help myself.  I have written a statement based on what I have selected and now I am not sure that the photographs fit the statement – forgetting that I can easily rewrite the statement.

I am going to go out for a walk in the hope that this might clear my head and give me some perspective.  This is all part of the creative process – god I hate this.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

I have been browsing through some of the wonderful art work created on the iPad/iPhone/iTouch.  It is mind blowing what people can do – I have a long way to go to be as good as some of them.  However, you have to start somewhere.

Anyway, one artist caught my eye – Rita Flores.  She has a wonderful approach to using this new and rapidly developing medium.  

If you want see some more work in this medium then take a look at the following groups:

As usual some of the work is great some not so.  The creativity, however, cannot be faulted.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini