Sorry.

I'm rubbish at updating this I know. I apologise to anyone who is still reading it.
I have not been very well and despite spending a lot of time at home have not really felt like sharing much.
I have been taking some more photos and have been adding them to flickr, though there is little of interest other than the magnitude of Mr B. If you are interested the page can be found here.
If I had something to rave about or complain about I would. Nothing very interesting has been happening nor have I thought anything of value to anyone but myself.
Identity and death have been on my mind. Both I need to spend some more time with before I can begin to understand what it is I am trying to work out. If I do I will be sure to let you all know.

As ever take good care of yourselves and don't forget to ask your old Auntie if I can have that typewriter.
X

This will be my last post for a while as I am going into hospital again.

I want to share my admiration for a young photographer I came across on Flickr.
Her name is Cari Ann Wayman and she goes by the handle yyellowbird.
All I was doing was looking for pictures of typewriters and stumbled across one of her self portraits. It's hard to put into words the feelings her images evoke for me.
I will do the best I can.
Though nostalgic in tone a lot of her shots are provocatively posed and framed in a fashion not unlike early Dazed and Confused (before it became shit) Though her work lacks the pomposity of a lot of fashion photography.
Her use of muted tones adds a seventies feel as well as her diverse wardrobe.
I also love the post processing she uses. The light bleed adding a red glow to the edge of certain shots is one of my favourites. It subconsciously adds a sense of naivety to images that could otherwise become rather too competent looking and loose a little of their charm. Sparkles of light and lens flare add more to her already dreamlike images.
For me they feel like images from a book. Just how one might imagine a scene described in the most poetic of language. Such detail in composition and content, such emotion in pose. She makes me what to be a young girl exploring the US with my camera.
Please have a look at her photostream here YYELLOWBIRD

At my worst her work has given me a place I would like to be.
I explore the abandoned houses in my head and look for the beauty that she has found.

The lump they call life.

Depression is no fun. Its not just a clever name.
The weather wont have helped I'm sure but when you just can't seem to find anything to hold on to where are you left? Waiting. When you don't have the drive to work towards any sort of progress you just wait and see. Not even hope. Just see what happens. And this is how I roll all the way down to the bottom of the hill.
I have been told to write 3 things every day that make me happy or that are at least good in some way. I tend to just ask my Girlfriend what they are and she seems to be able to come up with them for me. I can't feel them myself though.
Issues around my father have been at the forefront of my mind grapes.
Its not an issue that is easy to deal with nor one that I have the means to do so.
So again. I wait. How do you take action when you have no strength?
It always feels like a struggle getting back up the hill. They say its not like starting again but it fucking feels like it.
Anyone that has suffered from or is suffering from depression or any mental health issues know that I am with you. Swimming in the murky shit at the bottom of the lump they call life.

First try with HDR.

I have my new Nikon DSLR now and have been having a lot of fun playing with it.
There are only a couple of things it lacks which is a shame.
Auto bracketing and depth of field preview. To be honest I would have probably gone for the next one up had I known about the lack of DOFP.
The bracketing is something anyone into photography would have done many times but manually. And of course it can still be done that way. The advantage of the auto bracketing is for HDR photography. (High Dynamic Range)
This is a relatively new technique which uses 3 or more exposures and puts them all together in one image.
The basic idea is that you take a number of shots all at different exposures. So one properly exposed and then one or two each way +1 +2 and -1 -2 stops.
This allows the camera to get detail from every tonal range. Lots of shadow detail and lots of highlight detail as well.
The problem without AEB is that you need to touch the camera to change the shutter or exposure compensation between shots. This can move the thing and also allows clouds etc to move in the frame which will prevent your shots from lining up properly for the final shot.

Now there is a clever way to make a semi HDR out of a single RAW image!
This Is what I have done with the image below. It is not a true HDR but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. And unless anyone wants to buy me a better Nikon body its the best I can do for you for now.
Hope you like it.

Larger version here on Flikr.

Just a couple of pictures of my Typewriters.