RichRock : Running Free

As many of you may know, I have a somewhat keen interest in photography. I recently changed from film to digital, and have seen some benefits to the change. I say some, because there are pros and cons to the whole film vs digital aspect of photography:
Pros:

• Quick
• Instant - you can see results on the screen, or in post on the PC
• Lower overheads in chemicals/processing
• More opportunities for experimentation

Cons:

• Less originality - more pictures taken means less thought about composition
• No prints, no negatives - why is this a con? I’ll explain in a later post. Let’s just say I liked scanning film, getting 10,000px sized images

Anyhoo, I’ve added a lens to the digital collection: a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 55-200 f4-5.6G ED. In other words, a telephoto zoom, with a decent macro facility. So now I have the 18-55mm lens for everyday photography, and the 55-200mm for the zoom stuff. I’m off to the farm this weekend, and I’m hoping to get some decent shots of the new lambs, as well as some landscape shots, as the scenery around the farm is simply stunning. Check out the lonely tree on the Photography page.

I’ll typically shoot NEF Raw images now, having upgraded my memory cards to SanDisk Ultra II 2gb SD cards, which for my Nikon D40 perform fine, and give me reliability that the old Hama one’s didn’t. The next step is a decent polarising filter, and a new tripod. I have 2, one of which is a loan from my father, but both have a slight wobble to them…

I’ll admit, I am a fan of Linux, most notably Ubuntu. I started my Linux fascination when I saw the magazine, Linux Format in a newsagents. I picked it up, it had two CD-ROMs, one of which had KDE 2rc, and the other contained Storm Linux. I installed it on my shiny new £1,500 pc, an old Pentium 75 with 16mb ram. It was a strange experience, and although not lasting long, created a lasting impression on me about Linux.

Fast forward a few years, I have a Pentium 4, 1.8ghz with 512mb ram, and I spy the Linux Format magazine again, with an article on the desktop experience. Now I know that Linux has tried to evangelize a ‘desktop experience’ and that Linux as an OS is ready for the desktop. I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 5.10 (aka Breezy Badger), and ran it happily alongside my Windows 2000 install for some time. I lasted long enough to survive an upgrade to Dapper Drake. Then it fell apart again.

After this flirtation with the freedom (as in beer) that Open Source software provides, I went back to Windows XP Pro for a while. My job changed, now I am a web dev, but at home I reverted back to Ubuntu on my desktop. Granted, I still run XP Pro as a separate option for gaming, but it’s used less and less. If Halo worked on Ubuntu via wine, I would be happy. UT2003 and UT2004 work natively in Linux, why can’t other games be dev’d for it?

Ubuntu’s great. I’ve got my email, web, I can view PDF’s, watch DVD’s, check out my mp3 collection (huge!) edit my Nikon D40 pics (all my photos on the Photography page are edited with GIMP, even my Palm T|X pda syncs with Evolution…

What more do I need?

Well, access to my Minidisc player, Printer and mobile phone. But my Ipod syncs. And if I stick with Linux, I’ll probably never get another reminder to upgrade Itunes again.

And don’t talk to me about iPlayer on the BBC….

Sigur Ros. I love this band. I’m not really one for ‘band’ music, nor even pop/rock generally, but this Icelandic folk/rock quartet certainly know how to make a four-piece sound, well, ‘interesting’.

Know my propensity for obscure, found sound music, ambient noodling, etc, these guys provide it in spades, all from pure natural organic sources. So I was really chuffed to have been given the 2-disc standard edition of ‘Heima’.

Heima means Home in Icelandic, and is an interesting variation on a music DVD. Firstly, although this is about a series of free concerts at the end of a world tour, the primary film is a documentary about how it came about, with clips of performances from the shows. The second disc shows the performances in more detail.

Having only really watched the film Heima, I can’t fully comment on this. However, Heima as a documentary is beautifully shot, with fantastic sound, an excellent structure charting Sigur Ros’ free concerts in Iceland, how they felt, what it meant to both them as a band and the people they played for. One outstanding moment is when they revisit a disused fishing factory, where a lot of film footage was shown of it’s heyday. The fact that so many people travelled to this remote, abandoned building, and the comment, ‘It was good to return life to this place, if only for one night’ makes it seem so poignant.

Sigur Ros are not a performance band. In fact they are the complete opposite. This makes them suited to a variety of venues, such as the aforementioned factory, a tea room, at a reservoir protest, a schoolroom, and many more, leading up to the more traditional stages commonly associated with events like Glastonbury.

It’s not often that music moves me, but this music, combined with the scenes of God’s natural beauty, moved me to tears. This is a superb DVD, and I’m slightly gutted yet relieved that I didn’t get the special edition, although it might be worth adding to the Sigur Ros collection I have. Now, anyone got a spare copy of Von they want to sell off?

Haha!!! In my posting of photo’s on recent posts, I completely neglected to do an obligatory ‘new year‘ post. So here it is.

I have resolved to improve my personal life in one main way, which in the whole ‘cliched new year resolutions’ scheme of things, it to lose some weight and get fit.

So a little of my past, to understand where I’m coming from. I used to do road cycling, many years (10) ago. I would think nothing of eating up 30-40 miles 2-3 times a week, as I was unemployed at the time. I had a resting heart rate of 54bpm. I still had some flab, which would not shift, but I was fit.

I would love to return to something of these glory days of peak fitness, and my current lifestyle is not going to help that. Curse the DVD player, my love for foreign cinema, for making me sit on my behind, as my job now lacks any physical effort also!!!

I have planned to attain a return to fitness using an approved ‘ease in’ plan, which involves combinations of run/walks for eight weeks. I was never much of a runner, and hated the 1500m at school, so I find it amusing that I have started something which I used to hate, and it’s turned to something I enjoy. I guess one of the things being on a mountain bike taught me was that you must push the limits of what your body can do. I watched a trailer of a film, called ‘Spirit Of The Marathon’, which illustrated to me what running is all about. There seems to be an underlying philosophy that pretty much any other sport doesn’t have. It’s just you and the elements. No equipment (save shoes), no gadgets, racquets, wheels, clubs, etc. Just your legs. I’ve linked to the youtube video version below, although you can visit the site: www.marathonmovie.com.

So I’m into running. At the moment, I can last for 7 minutes. Not bad for someone who pretty much hasn’t run since school. I am desperately unfit, and am learning new things about pain, my body, and how I should treat it. Obviously, I’ve had digestive issues which are being investigated, but a diet geared towards running/general fitness if of benefit to me. Also, the nature of running and it’s physiological changes on the body will help, as my metabolism will change accordingly.

My new year resolution is an old, cliched one. But it’s by far the best one. And it’s nothing to do with resolutions, but with determination, willpower and a definite feeling of achieving something, even if other people don’t understand or appreciate it.

The aim of this? To complete a marathon. Had I thought earlier, I would have been getting ready for this year’s marathon in London. However, I believe that my fitness, the levels to which I need to achieve, are too great a stress on me, so I have decided that the London Marathon 2009 is a more realistic probability. It’s a definite goal, and I want to achieve it.

On a completely separate note - it was quite easy to place youtube videos on the site - so you may start to see more of them…

Yawn. I am really tired, I’ve been working hard last week trying to solve some massively technical problem which have impeded my work’s progress, and also been reading up/practicing my photographic skills. Both of which have also been taken up with seeing people, spending weekends at the farm, etc….

But… when I went to the farm, we had clear skies, and an opportunity to spend some time walking the fields as my friend had other friends round to visit, and thought it nice to give them some space and time, and allow myself to do some photography in some familiar but un-photographed surroundings. The weather was cold, but clear with some clouds in the skies, and it was getting on in the afternoon. Great.

So I snapped away, experimenting with the white balance settings, exposure/aperture ratios, tried some action shots with their hyperactive sheepdog, etc. However, I took some good (IMO) shots of a stark, lonely tree. It couldn’t have been placed more ideally. With a little levels tweak in GIMP (I’m a Linux user, don’t forget), and a little dodge/burn to remove a little flare, I produced the latest image in the photo gallery. Soon I’ll learn to post thumbnails and links to the image from these blog posts…

For inspirational photography check here. Shaun O’Boyle has done an amazing range of photographs which is exactly like the photography I would love to do. Maybe a trip to the old steel mill in the valleys as a project soon?