It has been a while since I posted anything meaningful on the blog so I thought it would be good to stop by and take stock of things since my last posting.

Some of you already know that I recently had a fantastic opportunity to play the part of official photographer for the BBC Backstage team at TEDx Manchester.  The resulting shots are up on my flickr profile.
I was totally excited about the opportunity and had a great day shooting the guest speakers as they did their best to inspire the crowd.  The lighting at the venue provided a big challenge for me, keeping the ISO as low as I could and getting crisp shots was harder than I had hoped.  I managed to rescue just over 50 shots  for the day and  they appear to have been received positively by the people that matter: Jill and Joe public.
The stats on my flicker page went nuts for a few days and even after settling down my daily hit rate remains pretty high which is great and an encouragement for me to pull my finger out over the winter and put up some more shots.

Windows 7 has arived on the scene and my pre-order turned up in good time despite the bloody postal strikes.  Installing it was an absolute breeze and is more akin to Linux rather than the bloody awful long winded process you normally go through with Windows OS’.
Even more surprising was to have all the official drivers for my video, sound and mobo all install as part of the process rather than me having to go download them and install myself to the tune of several reboots.
A fully working Windows install with browser of choice (Firefox) installed and all drivers in place and up to date in less than an hour.  The last time that happened to me I was installing Ubuntu!
I’m loving Windows 7 more and more every day, stability and speed are excellent, I no longer groan if I need to reboot for some reason cos I know the OS will be up in seconds rather than minutes.  The UI changes are a HUGE improvement and just make me more productive straight away, Microsoft hit the mark this time leaving me with the same wow factor I got when I moved up to Windows 95/98 from the old 3.1.

On the gaming front, I’ve been busy playing Batman Arkham Asylum which is frankly nothing short of a revolution in gaming.  It looks good and plays better with some very nice touches that have me going back in for more even after beating the game.  I’ve also been checking out some of the cool indie games that have been popping up on the Steam network.  There sure are some fantastically creative people out there with some impressive ideas.  Recent favourites include Madballs, Quantz,  and Osmos.

I still haven’t finished my first book which is annoying me but mostly through my own indecision rather than any other technical or sinister reason.  My initial plan was to put together a collection of my best shots taken onthe battlefields of the first and second world wars.  The idea is to include a little bit of history along with the shot and short text describing my thoughts behind the shot.  I want to sell the book and have the proceeds all go to help for heroes a charity supporting injured troops in the UK.  The only problem is that I keep thinking the subject of the book is too dark and maybe people won’t buy it.  So plan B is to produce a second book that includes my best ever shots and sell this at the same time so people have a choice.
I’ve learned several valuable lessons in my photography this year.  I am my worst critic and by far the worst critic of my own work.  I listen too much to the voices of people who portray themselves as ‘experts’ and point out every little foible in every image.  By far the most important lesson I learned though, is that there’s no such thing as the ‘perfect picture’ and there never will be.  Photography is a form of communication, the photographer is trying to use the camera to capture a moment, and yet more than that, you try to capture everything that is in that moment, the image, composition, and emotion.  The Photographer wants to say something and whether the picture is perfectly focused/cropped or coloured is irrelevant, these are technical considerations that only serve to rob the viewer of the pleasure of viewing the picture and taking part in the experience.

In other news, I am no longer running netOxide.  I decided that it wasn’t for me in the end and I wanted to concentrate my energies in other areas, mostly photography, so I quit the company.  I’m glad to say that it continues though, my ex business partner is still running it and its getting a very strong customer base as well it should.
I’m on the lookout for another opportunity to use my photographic skills, I’ve a few ideas in the pipeline but for now I need to get the book(s) done and keep my eye out for another golden opportunity like TEDx.

I’m off for a very nice weekend in Wales to visit a very good friend of mine.  I’m hoping for kind weather so we can get in some photography and exploit the fantastic countryside Wales is blessed with.

This post is unoficially sponsored by Obadia Parker’s very fine rendition of Hey Yah which has been on loop through the whole thing and has left me in such a good mood :0)  Be safe, Be happy and don’t give in.  ;0)