On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

This will get removed at some point but I need a new telly (by new I mean a second hand one that will replace my 14” portable with something a little bigger like 21”) and then I found this:

Link to Advert

HITACHI TV (not LSD or Plasma) with stand. 28 inch. Remote control. Full working order. £40 ovno,

Well, there you have it folks. It’s not a LSD Telly.

But I am intrigued to find out what a LSD Telly really is. :

For the entire month of February and for the 1st March 2009, Worthing will have temporary ice rink in Steyne Gardens.

I went down today (partially for work related purposes to get some good photos) to see the ‘opening’ which had a lot of official sort of stuff. (You can see I know a thing or two about civic, umm, things…) The Mayor opened it, and then a few of the councillors also got their skates on and had a good old well cling to the side of the rink really (well not all of them)

Actually I have to say it was rather well done as 3 girls (from 7 to 16 I think) opened proceedings with a dazzling display on ice – they were seriously good – and then the councillors and various peeps got on the rink. I stayed nice and safe by just shooting away (used my second roll of Ektar 100) and will have hopefully got some rather good snaps.

It did get me thinking, Worthing could do with an ice rink, just as much as it could do with a new swimming pool. Financially things are up the spout as they seem to be in most places but it’s a good idea. I found this letter on The Argus’ website from Michael Donin (who too was skating quite well) which makes interesting reading.

Kodak’s film business decreased year on year, Fuji’s also did something similar. Double digit drops but both seem to have made a profit…

Yaddy yaddy yaaa…

Seriously, *yawn*, It’s quite obvious this would happen. Most people rightly have decided digital is far more convenient from them and what’s more they get the results they want from it. Digital is also bloody excellent. But so is film. They both are.

But the amount of “film is dead” threads that have bounced back with this week’s news is at very best tedious and dull. So long as I can buy film I’ll use it but when they stop making it, whenever that might be, I’ll get equipped with digital. It’ll be a crying shame as I love my Delta 100, Pan F 50, Tri X and HP5, SFX 200, Velvia 50 etc. but just as I have had to say goodbye to Kodak HIE (2 rolls left in the freezer) I’ll say goodbye to the others when they get stopped.

When will that be? Do I look like a friggin’ oracle? In the meantime I’m going to enjoy this thing called photography for everything that it is and the fact I shoot film and like working in the darkroom is incidental to the grand scheme, the main thing is the results and I appreciate those however you took the photo.

See you next year when I’ll probably say the same thing.

Part One – To Medium Format and Beyond… for sixty quid…

Skip to Part Two | Skip to Part Three

To most people, film is 35mm. In fact for most people, it never enters their mind that there is anything beyond their digital compact, their 35mm camera or indeed something beyond, “one of those fancy SLR things.” Mention medium or large format to most people and they will go, huh?

In case you are one of those, think of a piece of film like a piece of paper. With 35mm, imagine sketching a landscape on that size of paper? It’d lack a lot of detail and the only way to pack more into that sketch would be to make the pencil ever sharper (my analogy to ISO/ASA speed.) If you enlarge that piece of paper from 1 by 1½-inch to say 2 ½ by 2 ½-inches you can make a more detailed sketch of the landscape because you have more room, even without using the sharpest of pencils. And the same happens again when you move from medium format to large formats like 5×7, 8×10 and so on.

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It is as the screenshot says Windows Vista.

But I think it looks kind of neat like this, I have found Aero to be a little bit jarring at times. But this is nice looking. Overall though I still am very much glad that I have Windows Vista on this box over XP which whilst fine, does have some annoyances when you use Vista a lot elsewhere e.g. desktop wide search built into start menu, and the nice improved Windows Explorer.

I have been watching Sugar Rush again the past few days. Whilst the second series got a little bit sillier in parts (it was still good) – some of the dialogue in the first series was spot on; not just from the perspective of it being a coming out story for a young lesbian, but for life and dare I say love (though infatuation is probably closer.)

One of the aspects that always hooks me by the lip is the words in in episode 7 (if I can count) is the sentiment that once a special moment has gone, it was as good as things would ever get; and you want it to on forever, and moreover you want everyone to know – but that sometimes isn’t possible. Whilst that might sound like a disturbing sorrowful thought, it’s actually quite positive in a way that isn’t it just a wonderful feeling when you have something so wonderful happen to you that you just feel this bursting brimful urge to tell everybody about it there and then.

I was just thinking, that probably never goes away – somewhat like your first crush, the world becomes this vibrant, over saturated universe from what was a slightly quirky, grey, indeterminate place. At least I hope it never goes away. I can see why perhaps those who are older seem so much more frustrated by life and at least in the UK.

The past couple of years have been interesting (in fact the past decade has been somewhat interesting really) – I’m finding that hard to express right now; but I’ll find the words soon I’m sure.

I guess I just had a little Zen moment (as clichéd and trite as that now sounds) on the beach earlier on today. It was just peaceful listening to the tide in the distance and the seagulls cawwing in the distance, watching the sun set after I had watched it rise and set on Saturday too, and the world felt a good place. A vibrant universe, over saturated and endowed in silly bright poster paint.

And whilst Robert Peston and the media will have us all believe we’re all going to the dogs, there is some good things still around. And I’m not being harsh or unsympathetic to those being directly affected by the loss of their jobs – I have seen what that does first hand with my own family (in the late 80s and early 90s) – I just feel that you have to at least avert your attention from all this gory badness once in a while, release the pressure almost. Take a walk, take a drive in the car at an ungodly hour, it’s soothing.

It was utterly beautiful to drive down Grand Avenue on Saturday morning at half 5, no cars but mine, window wound right down, a gentle hum of the engine and birds twittering in the Scots Pines, and that wonderful icy fresh air whistling by… I just had to tell you about that, of course…

After all, the last time I was made redundant (in 2005) I decided one day I had enough of endless forms and the depressing state of affairs of having to sign on; so I went for a drive to Bodiam Castle. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Rye. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Ashford. And then up the M20 to the M25. And even when on the M23 I decided to dive off into Crawley and out the other side before getting back… It’s just good to get away from it all and then tell someone about it. The world can be an enriching place, even with its ever incessant march of retail parks, motorways and suburbia enveloping you all around…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7849914.stm

Right off the bat:

1. I generally really do not have a problem with strip clubs
2. I have visited Henley on Thames a number of times
3. I drive a clapped out Ford Escort but I don’t give a monkeys and I’m certainly not rich or a toff.

Ok that out the way The reason I say all those things is because I do have some prior knowledge of what Henley is like (they elected someone like Boris Johnson for starters) and I’m not what we can all upper class. Haha. Far from it *crazy glint in eye signifies signs of life and enthusiasm after all*

Anyway, strip clubs have been opening up all over the place and there is now one in Worthing but that only made it into the local media as you would expect – but there was nothing on the BBC News website about it.

So – this is actually quite a short blog post but is it only because it’s Henley on Thames that the BBC has pricked its ears up? I mean come on, why is it suddenly so news worthy out of all the other towns in the UK that have had strip clubs pop up more than ever get no attention but when it’s Henley, the BBC march right in and ensure they can whip up a bit of publicity.

Colour me cynical but whether it’s Henley or Worthing – the issue should be argued on its merit alone, not because of the town that it resides in. And in any instance, the upper class have not exactly been shy of a bit of debauchery and other illicit passions before now have they.

Let the market determine what Henley wants after all!

This is a ‘little’ something that I have been working on for a little while now. It’s not finished but I decided to post it here hopefully to spur me on to finish it…

Purpose by Victoria JK Lamburn

Your glistening eyes are the very eyes that my mother would have said, “Step away!” are drawing me in, luring me deep into your uncharted territory that swims beneath the piercing blue. And what lurks beyond the iris’ ocean? Do you even know yourself in your quieter pensive moments reserved for only you within the four walls of ticking clocks? Seldom does a thought fuse and the moment then snaps and clicks and suddenly it becomes sense itself…

Only for brevity to snatch it away, and then your ocean of thought and emotion is occluded by mist at the shores; riddled as the tide, ceaselessly, rhyming an eternal paean for time and confusion. What is the purpose of you and those devious eyes, the purpose of you and your thoughts? The purpose of me drawn to those eyes and your soft delicate face around, what purpose does it serve us to be locked with our shy little stares and quiet little lost moments at sea?

Then there is your hands drumming towards my beating heart, a delicate flick of the small hand to sweep that lone lost lock of long blonde hair from the left, dazzling me with a sapphire’s glare full beam ahead of me. Your nails, though not manicured look nervously bitten but neat and clipped. Here I am on your deserted shores that, beckoning me towards the rocky isle that screams with echoing fate of others who’ve struggled towards pleasure.

And your eyes haunt me when I close my own to chase away the fear of a heart’s aching love. I’m trying to hide behind my veil, rummaging through my soul to find the deep and burning fear that reminds me of the last call from a fanciful voice and alluring eyes that whipped me with sharp black lashes. Maybe there is nothing more than to submit myself to your enticing shores and in wild abandon plunge uncertainly into the ether of fate.

Copyright ©2009 Victoria JK Lamburn

Dungeness is a weird old place, in fact the whole area is like an alter-ego to reality with its abundant decay, quirky artefacts littering the Romney Marsh and spit and the monstrous Dungeness nuclear power stations rising up from the shingle land with a wild and abundant array of monstrous pylons heaving out the electricity and marching towards the ‘mainland’ with a gallant stride.

This was the first time I had been out with the guys from Sussex Photo and in fact surprisingly (mostly to myself) the first time I have ever been out with other photographers (i.e. not people who just take snaps or a passing interest but people who really enjoy it on a hobbiest to professional level.) I’m very much the keen amateur so it was great to get a glimpse of how other people work. Needless to say I was the only film junky and rather than taking the EOS 3 with me (still not digital but it’s comparable to their most advanced current bodies with the only major difference with it not being digital) I decided to take out the Leica M2 with a 35mm Color Skopar and my Mamiya C330F with the 55mm and 80mm lenses. I didn’t use the 80mm lens at all but with a raft of Cokin filters (red and GNDs) it was an immense amount of fun.

It’s not easy getting up at 4am but in the height of summer you would have to be up much earlier with sun rising at around 4am itself! In the winter months, a sunrise between 7 and 8am is more do-able though of course shooting both summer and winter sunrises are quite different (different quality of light, one is blessed with a coldness and a summer sunrise has a slight stickiness and almost insomnia ridden quality about it.)

I found this interesting video on YouTube which talks to a resident of Dungeness and her interesting insight into her life and of Dungeness itself:

Certainly it is well worth visiting, there are probably very few places like it on earth, it does give you the impression of being something like lunar or Martian landscape with its vast expanse of shingle and tufts of grass sprouting up here and there.

It is one of the few places on the South East coast that has a sense of isolation, few other places that I can think of have that, if indeed at all; and for that sense of isolation and freedom away from the heady madness of modern life, it can’t be beaten.

I’ll provide some instructions but they are incredibly minimal (just to get the Radeon 7500 driver installed which most Thinkpad T40s have) as much of the hardware is recognised when Windows 7 installs.

I can’t really lament much on the installation as nothing went wrong and it all went as you could expect. After plugging in my LAN cable, Windows 7 appeared to download some updates and drivers as it then installed the Intel 2100B wireless card’s drivers. So now it’s all up and running.

Thankfully I can report that the taskbar whilst it does in some ways resemble the OS X in working (e.g. pinning non running applications and shortcuts together) you can configure it to use small icons as Windows does at the moment in Vista and earlier, and to display a text label by the icon too, like all other release versions of Windows – see the screenshot on the left for the full idea. When the taskbar becomes full, like windows are grouped together and hovering or clicking on the grouped taskbar icon allows you to switch to which window you want much as you do in XP or Vista at the moment.

Hallelujah!

The real benefit is you can move the order of the windows around in the taskbar so if you have a workflow say three Firefox windows, one which might be your CMS editor window, the second your preview window and the third your upload to the main web webserver window, you can keep these in a left to right order for a clean workflow. Unfortunately in Vista, XP and earlier, the order of your window tabs can’t be moved around.

I also really like the large show desktop bar on the right of the taskbar, it’s much easier to swipe down to it, click and show the desktop than move to a small QuickLaunch ‘Show Desktop’ icon.

So far my impressions are very favourable! Stay tuned for much more in depth discussion.