Alastair139's T189 Weblog

ECA and beyond

alastair139 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:10:35 +0000

Having sent the ECA, I put the panel in a set in my Flickr photostream, and it can be found at – http://www.flickr.com/photos/alastair139/sets/72157606089084508/ – comments welcomed.

The problem is ‘what to do next’. Another course seems the most likely, and, at the moment, the OCA’s ‘Art of Photography’ looks a possible candidate.

ECA submitted

alastair139 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:34:03 +0000

Sent off the ECA a few evenings ago, after much agonising over which images to submit. Having finally made the decision, the zipping of the ECA slideshow and written Part 2 was another nerve racking episode. One always worries about things that haven’t been done before. However, the instructions given regarding the zipping of files worked perfectly, and the transmission went OK – sighs of relief all round. Now it’s the long wait until September, when the results will appear.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

alastair139 — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:40:05 +0000

Feel guilty that I haven’t been keeping up to date. I did write an entry a few days ago, and was sure I had clicked the ‘Publish’ button, but, alas, it is nowhere to be seen.

Since getting the course material I have been busy looking at a few of the video tutorials, and, in fairness, I must admit to having learnt something from them – particularly the importance of being organised in terms of dealing with my pictures. I must admit to being rather disorganised, and frequently spending more time than I should searching for particular images. If I can deal with this in the suggested manner, that should be less of a problem in the future.

Dashed out on 1st May and took a couple of pictures for the Session 1 assignment, and spent some time at home taking bottle pictures – this was quite interesting, as I had not taken any still life pictures before.

Back to looking at tutorials again on 2nd. Later tweaked one of my bottle photos.

3rd – printed out course material for sessions 2, 3 and 4. Will get round to reading through these later.

More pictures at Lake of Menteith.

alastair139 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:19:30 +0000

Took a run up to Aberfoyle and Kinlochard today, but didn’t see anything that took my fancy – one or two spots earmarked for when the lighting conditions are right. Back to Lake of Menteith for lunch, and took a few pictures there. A bit busier than when we were there last. Some fishermen on the lake, and the ferry was going to and fro carrying visitors to see the priory ruins on the island in the lake.

Back to the 70-300mm zoom.

alastair139 — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:59:27 +0000

Having been disappointed with previous efforts with this lens, gave it another try this evening. Lighting was probably a bit better than last time, so was able to use exposure of 1/500th of a second, and was better pleased this time with the results at 300mm focal length.

Custom Image Header.

alastair139 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:56:17 +0000

Learned something new in the last 5 minutes. Looking to see what changes I could make to my blog, I discovered that it was possible to use one of my own pictures in the header – so I now have a custom image header.

Photophlow.

alastair139 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:35:23 +0000

Yet another new thread on the T189 May 2008 Flickr group. Something else to learn, and we haven’t started the course yet. Not without its little eccentricities however, it seems to be having a little hiccup at the moment, but will no doubt sort itself out in due course.

Falkirk Wheel.

alastair139 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:21:47 +0000

Had a look at Mike’s photostream a few days ago, and was interested to see his pictures of the Anderton Boat Lift. He referred to the fact that there was only one other boat lift in the UK – the Falkirk Wheel. I see the Wheel pretty well every day in the middle distance – it’s about 2 miles from where I stay. I thought it would be a good idea to trot up to see it at close quarters – for the first time! Off I went with my trusty little compact camera – I thought it might be busy, and I might stick out like a sore thumb if I was lugging about DSLR, lenses, tripod. etc. It was a bit dull and drizzly, but despite that I was pleased with the results obtained with the compact. I have put a selection of them on my photostream. Only a bit of cropping, and increasing the brightness, other than that straight from the camera.

Slaving away.

alastair139 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:55:54 +0000

Have spent a chunk of the evening copying all the blog addresses from the T189 blog thread, entering them into my blog, and, surprise, surprise, the links appear to work! We learn something new every day.