Trying my hand at HDR

One area of digital photography I have always had a desire to try my hand at is "High Dynamic Range" or HDR photography. To see a true master of this technique visit the 'Stuck In Customs' link on my sidebar, and see what experience and "top end" equipment can do!
So the above images are my first attempts using this technique. It basically involves taking a -2, 0 and +2 exposure and combining the images using bits of software and then adjusting contrasts, to give a vivid and almost surreal photo. I am quite pleased with my first attempts and look forward to doing some more!

Woohoo, I got Kaiser Chief tickets!!!!

Excellent news! I have just managed to get hold of 2 tickets for my brother and I, to see the 'Kaiser Chiefs' at the Hull Ice Arena next Tuesday evening. The concert was actually sold out but a friend of mine who knows the people in the ticket office, contacted me to say there had been a few tickets become available, so I rang up and booked them! There is also good support from a good American band called 'We Are Scientists' which is a real bonus!

The image is just taken from the window of our house looking onto the road with a long shutter time.

Jetty Across The River

I took a short bike ride down the road to the riverfront, to see if I could find anything to photograph, I noticed in the distance this Jetty, so using the zoom, I took a couple of pics from a few different locations to see how well they would turn out. It was a bit windy but I managed a few nice shots, I just wish that lampost wasn't in the way on the first two!

Experimenting

Just a few crazy images I took purely by accident with the new camera, whilst experimenting with it's settings. I really liked em so I thought I would post them.

Toronto & Niagara Falls

Just a quicky!

My sisters home from Canada today, she's taken some lovely photo's and I'll put a few up here tomorrow!

Scunthorpe United 1 Hull City 2

A veiw of the south bank whilst crossing the Humber bridge.

A veiw of the north bank whilst crossing the Humber bridge (Hull in the distance)

'The Iron' at Glanford Park

'The Tigers' training at Glanford Park prior to 'kick off'

Im nicely warm again now after a bitterly cold and windy and rainy, miserable afternoon in Scunthorpe. I went to watch Hull City away and even though I was well wrapped up, I managed to leave my gloves on the coach and ended up losing the feeling in 2 fingers on each hand, and all my toes!

I say it was a miserable afternoon, but we won the game and that more then made up for my painful fingers and toes, even though it was not a particularly good game of football. Hull City are now into the good part of the league table.....the bit near the top! Still, we are only half way through the season, theres a long way to go yet!.....up the tigers!

I had my mobile with me and took some pictures whilst crossing the Humber bridge and when we were in the ground (Glanford Park) itself!

T-Bone....T-Bone....T-Bone......

Ive done it! Just ordered my new camera as pictured, now I've just got to wait for the thing to arrive, oooooooh, I'm gonna be hard up this month, but I'll be poor and able to take pictures with a nice camera.

I'm very very tired today, I was practicing with the band till about 11:30 last night and because I knew I would be tired at the rehearsal, I drank a high caffeine energy drink and subsequently I could not get to sleep till around 12:30.......I was up at 5:00!!!

Bed now for an hour, then Body Balance fitness class tonight at the gym!

Oh and we chose our meals for our departments Christmas dinner......16oz T-bone steak for me, and best of all, it'll cost me nothing.....same for the drinks too! So I cant wait for 20th December!

Burn baby burn.......

Nothing much to say today, to be honest! Although for the past 2 hours or so I have been learning some funky disco basslines......Good Times - Chic, Disco Inferno - The Trammps and I Want You Back - The Jackson 5, all three are classic bass guitar driven songs and I love em! I don't plan to perform them as such, but they may come in useful for a soundcheck or to fill some time if our singer/guitarist Dave snaps a string! I'll do a kind of medley I think!

This last week I have been listening a lot to, The Wombats, Young Heart Attack and lots of Led Zeppelin!

I aint that good a singer for starters!

The picture is of my dog Mia asleep on my bed.

Band rehearsal was canceled last night due to some unfortunate circumstances surrounding a relative of our singer Dave, but Dave and I are going to have an acoustic practice round his house either Monday or Tuesday to work on my backing vocals, there are 2 reasons for this a) I aint that good a singer for starters and b) it's hard to hear if your own voice is in tune, over the crashing and distorted sounds of drums and electric guitars whilst practicing with the band.....but I still put my self on the firing line by attempting to sing anyway hahaha! It's not uncommon in rock music to be able to sing great anyways....most people just get away with shouting in punk music!

I was going to meet up with my new female friend tomorrow night at The Adelphi to watch my friend and co-worker Dean's band 'The Strands' but Dean left work today feeling ill, this included a sore throat and headache, so it's not looking promising for the gig to happen.....which is a shame because it would have been the first time I have met her in person since our first meeting a couple of weeks ago which was very brief indeed, and it was my chance to shine as a person and show her what I'm all about, but there'll be another time to meet up I'm sure! It would have been such a good opportunity as well, we were both going on our own!!!!

My younger sister is off on holiday to Canada tomorrow, Toronto I think....she's been quite lucky to meet a guy that's paid for her to go to Venice, Holland and now Canada this year, with a possible visit to Russia early next year! There's so many places in the world I would love to visit and I haven't even left little old England in the 29 years I have been on this earth. I would love to tour the US and Canada and also Japan, Hong Kong, the list is endless! I have not even seen a lot of the UK or London for that matter!

I'll get going now and walk the dogs around the marina.......oh yeah, I cant stop listening to Sigur Ros this week! I'll have to buy their DVD I think.

We have a name!

So I have booked my last 8 holiday days off at work starting in the last week of November....cant wait for that! Don't know what I'll spend my time doing but who cares, I wont be doing it at work!

The girl I mentioned in the last post has become a nice new friend we talk sometimes for hours on MSN messenger having a laugh, we don't seem to discuss anything in particular and yet we talk about everything, if that makes sense, but I like her and even though she's not interested in romantic relations with me, I'm glad I have found a new friend, she's a good one to have! Probably because we are both a little bit mad!

We finally decided on a name for our band, we are now called 'The Strangelets' and I am currently in the process of booking our first gig for (hopefully) sometime in January. I am itching to get back on stage, I really have missed the adrenalin rush of playing live...I really do feel as though we have been practicing way to long (albeit with some hinderances and set backs) and I am of the opinion that no matter how much you practice in a room with no onlooking eyes, you really have to play in front of a crowd to get tight and learn the performance part which is probably the most important aspect. We are now also a 3 piece with Dave singing/guitar, me playing bass/backing vocals and Garry on the drums. Nick who was playing lead guitar has had to take a hiatus from our band due to time constraints/commitments with his other band 'The Strands' who he joined first and are in the ascendancy as far as the local music scene goes! I am actually pleased about this as Nick also can be a bit of a hinderance in terms of learning/creating new songs.

Too bold, too soon!

The above photo shows my 2 Rats 'Jazzy Jeff' and 'The Fresh Prince' as they awake from a doze in their hammock!

Popped along to the gym again last night, for the fitness class, not nearly as sore as last time, in fact I did notice I was just that little bit more stretchy, compared to the first time......it's good though, most enjoyable!

I was worried I had made an arse out of myself on Wednesday.....at the sesh gig on tuesday night, I saw a girl and introduced myself and after a bit of chat, I walked away.....the next day I popped onto Myspace to leave a "well done" message on the bands page, I noticed she had left a message and that she was online, so I sent here a "hello, remember me" message...after an hour or so of sending messages back and forth, I thought I would cut to the chase and told her I thought she was "a bit of alright" and asked if she wanted to meet up for a drink....she kind of fobbed me off and I was left with the impression that I had been a bit too bold, a bit too soon, and had generally put her off, anyway......the last 2 days she has been instigating conversations with me via MSN, so she may have a slight interest in future relations after all! Though she could just be thinking she's found another myspace/MSN friend. We'll see! Either way, I no longer feel I made an arse of myself!

The Sesh

Last night I popped along to 'The Sesh' live band night at 'The Linnet & Lark' (Hull) to see my 2 friends Nick & Dean's band 'The Strands' play. It was a f***ing good gig and they sounded spot on, anyways, I posted this video taken on my mobile of them playing their new song......can't remember what they said it was called, something like 'Hey hey my friend' not the greatest quality video you'll see but please do enjoy if you can!

Still aching a bit from the fitness class last Sunday, going again tomorrow night!!!

Fireworks

Last night I walked the 5 minutes into the town center to watch the city's annual fireworks display, I took a bit of footage on my mobile phone so you can get a taste of it! I wish I had the new camera that I will be buying myself (next payday) with me, I am getting the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18. I have been looking for a "pro-sumer" camera for a while, but quite frankly the ones on offer were a bit ugly! I have missed not taking photo's as much as I used to with my old point and shoot Canon Ixus, but now the time is right for an upgrade in class of camera, I'm not quite ready for/not in need of and nor can I afford the cost of lenses for a proper DSLR but would like a bit more control over my pictures then that of a point and shoot....it'll also have an 18X optical zoom (35mm Equiv.: 28-504mm) which should be fun to use, I have not seen one bad review of this camera.

Yesterday I went to the gym and attended one of the fitness classes, it's the first time I have been brave enough to attend such a class and show how un-flexible and generally unfit I am in front of what is essentially a 95% female class! It was a yoga-ish type of class which aimed at stretching every group of muscles in the body.......and I'm feeling the soreness today ladies and gentlemen, oh yes! I now go to 2 gym's, the posh and expensive one for the fitness classes, pool, sauna & steam room, and the free gym at the company I work for, for actual weightlifting type stuff.

Not been up to much, not worked on any of my music, not had any band practice sessions as our drummer as injured his foot and did not go to the football match as it was an away game, though I will be going to watch the tigers away in Scunthorpe on 22nd, anyway that's all for now!