via Bathtub IV on Vimeo.
Awesome. Absolutely friggin’ awesome. You really do need to watch it full-screen though.
davidrickard.net
Random stuff, randomly updated.
Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
Bathtub IV on Vimeo
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009*Crash* *Boom* *Click*
Friday, August 1st, 2008
On Monday evening, we were treated to a storm around 21:00. The weather had been pretty hot, and storms had been forecast. I was sitting watching the TV and spotted some nice big clouds racing our way, and some lightning.
I immediately jumped out of my chair and went to the back garden and stood and watched for a few moments. The storm clouds were skirting around us; directly above was fairly clear sky. I saw a flash of lightning. “If that flashes again really soon, I’ll get my camera” I thought. Mere seconds later, another big flash of lightning came.
RATS!
Saturday, July 12th, 2008
There’s a new sitcom on BBC2 called Lab Rats. The reviews for it have been a bit varied, with some saying it’s absurdist nonsense, and others saying it struck a good balance. Personally, I fall into the latter camp.
It was wonderfully absurd; the whole bit with the lemons was quite zany, and the giant growth serum was a funny angle. The Russian scientist was also quite good.
The ‘issues’ seemed to revolve around the timing and pacing of the show. Some jokes fell flat because there was too much dead space after the joke, or jokes were dropped in (possibly adlibs) which made them miss the beat, so they got ignored.
However, this is the first episode. so it’ll probably sort itself out over the course of the series.
It has potential.
Kodak: A Thousand Nerds – We Had No Idea
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008A story about how the ‘first’ digital camera came to be. It wasn’t much like the digital cameras we all know today, but the concept was there, even if it was a bit ahead of its time.
I like the closing statement though:
But in reality, we had no idea …
It was nothing more than a fun project – they weren’t trying to change the world!
Bonus. Print!
Sunday, April 27th, 2008As great as digital photography is, viewing pictures on screen is never quite as good as actually sitting and looking at them on paper. Modern inkjet printers are excellent at producing high quality results, but there’s still something usually missing from the prints. It’s usually a flatness, and a general lack of ‘pop’.
I’d been meaning to try one of the many online services for some time, but hadn’t ever got that far. I finally decided to bite the bullet and give Bonusprint a go. Computer Shopper magazine had reviewed them favourably some time ago, so they seemed like a good bet.
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Innocent photographer or terrorist?
Saturday, April 19th, 2008Oh great. So, now just taking simple photos gets you hounded for no good reason. I’m always careful where I take photos anyway, and only do so in public spaces. Even then, I’m wary of taking photos with people in (they spoil the shot anyway, as far as I’m concerned!).
I think I’d be inclined to do much the same as the person mentioned in the article though. Go along with it, then bitch, wail, and complain until blue in the face. There’s little point getting your collar felt just to prove a point.
Well there’s ya problem!
Sunday, February 24th, 2008I was looking at the awful photos I put up on Flickr last night I took at the gig. I was trying to work out quite what went wrong, and I think I now know.
Firstly, I was shooting in the high sensitivity presets. There’s one on this camera called “High Sens.” which purports to be useful for taking shots in dark situations, like a show. It seems to do that by opening a high aperture, and whacking the ISO up to maximum – 3200 on this camera! That would explain why the pictures are so horribly grainy. Not only that, but it was OVER compensating, because I’d rather cleverly disabled the flash. I usually don’t bother with flash in such circumstances, as it falls off too early, and you end up with all the kit at the front of the stage nicely illuminated, and everything else in darkness. So, yes, I got pictures, just really bad pictures.
The other ‘simple’ modes didn’t help either, as they too were horribly noisy too. Also, the focus was pretty bad on most things, as I wasn’t allowing the camera to focus on what I wanted. It’s a common trick of mine. I do it less on my DSLR, as I’ve been tending to manually focus with that of late, but compacts I always seem to end up with blurry shots.
So, lessons learned:
- Use the flash. It’s there for a reason
- When focusing, point at the thing you want to focus!
All my silly fault, really. I am still learning this stuff though!
Toot Toot
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
The above picture, part of the set I took a while back during a Battle of Britain flyby has made it into the local paper! My dad suggested I send it into them, as they’re always asking for local pictures and the like, so I did. I heard back from the editor a few days later and he said he liked them and wanted to use them for an online calendar they were planning. Of course, I said yes. After my little jaunt to London on Wednesday, I came home and was shown the paper, and there it was, on the back page as the picture of the week.
So I’m pretty chuffed!
If you haven’t seem them, the whole set is here:
A flying visit
Saturday, September 15th, 2007Well, I saw this today:
Not something you expect to see every day! Well, today I did, as it was related to a carnival being held in a field nearby, they’d arranged for the Battle of Britain memorial Flight to pass over.
My mother and myself stood on the hill behind our house, cameras poised. We heard the rumble of engines, then the three of them just appeared over the big tree in front of us, a LOT lower than I had anticipated, so I was zoomed all the way in and got some pretty rubbish shots to start with. Luckily, they came around again for a second pass, and I got some slight better shots. They’re not great, but they’re up on Flickr.
Quite amazing though.
Whizz Bang
Saturday, November 4th, 2006So tomorrow is Bonfire Night again. Yes, it’s that time when people set off massive amounts of explosive materials and create lots of noise whilst doing so, as well as starting numerous fires, all in the middle of housing estates and in back gardens.
The idea behind it isn’t that bad I suppose, but what narks me is the fact that people are able to legally buy explosives and blow them up. Is it me, or does that not seem like a really bad idea? Maybe I’m just a party-pooper!
Rants aside, I was going to go out and get my camera going and try and take some shots, but I really can’t bothered. I can’t think of anywhere decent to shoot from; taking random shots in the garden isn’t really good enough I don’t think. Besides, the street lights pretty much kill it. I did find that my old camera (C-50 Zoom), being an Olympus, has the same remote as my DSLR, so I can use it with that, including bulb exposures! I was pretty chuffed about that.
