Monday, December 10, 2012

End of the world

Well it seems the end of the world is coming, the 21 December 2012 to be exact.  It seems the Mayans made their calendar to end at a specific date, now some claim it's the end of the world as we know it, others say the calendar simply resets and starts again.
Now some goverments are taking it a bit too seriously, in France a mountain range is being sealed off, I'm told it will open and UFO's are going to come out at the end of the world.  This raises several questions, if the aliens know why not leave before the end?  Indeed, why are they there at all?  Personally I suspect it's more than a bit unlightly, but I might just be wrong..... No actually I don't think I am!.

Studio shoot

I did a studio shoot for a friend on Saturday, here are a few of the pics.







Saturday, December 8, 2012

Battle Recon (film review)

Battle Recon 2012,  (Battle Brigade)  A straight to video film, and you'll see why if you watch it. 
The plot is basically a patrol of soldiers have to carry out a "need to know" mission behind enemy lines.

What have we learned from watching this film.  

A small squad of men carry almost unlimited ammo.
The production company had difficulty getting the right weapons and uniforms for WW2.
Using replica guns and adding a four foot muzzle flash isn't very convincing, especially when the actors have to shake the guns to make fake recoil.
All German offices were leather coats all the time.
When behind enemy lines it's fine to walk on the roads in daylight.
A soldiers idea of camouflage is to "black" up his face like Al Jolson. (and leave his neck white).
Occupied France during WW2 looks more like Buckinghamshire.
Letting Robert Shannon write direct and star in anything is a bloody awful idea.

Waynes rating 3 out of 10, it's so bad it's almost good.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

A few pics from the Gower course









I think we all had a great time, I for one was knackered after the saturday (it was a long day honest)

Saturday, November 17, 2012

I'm pretending to be a celebrity get me out of here

I'm pretending to be a celebrity get me out of here! has started again.  The ex's, has beens, and loosers have been dug up from their graves and from casting agencies to put on another load of crap for the long suffering public.
While the original idea of getting a team of famous people, and putting them in challenges in the jungle was probably a good idea, sadly getting a bunch of past it ex-celebrities who don't really do much at all except pose is pretty awful.
I mean come on, a ex darts player, an MP and a bit part actress from a soap? hardly a list celebs are they.

Time to give this a break untill you can get some proper famous people I think..

Monday, October 15, 2012

X Factor. Melanie Masson.

Well, I watched the sick joke that passes for the X Factor last night, what a total farce.  Easily the best singer on the show Melanie Masson was "voted" off in favor of the talent-less prat Rylan Clark.  
I'm sorry Rylan but you can't sing, you can't dance and your about as entertaining as athletes foot.  Why in heavens name anybody would vote for you on a show looking for future talent simply baffles me. And that's the bit that gets me worried... did millions of people actually really vote for this idiot?  
On the net I'm seeing various polls, in one 26.000 people took part, 95% said they think the show is fixed, curiously the polls all pretty much agree although the percentages do vary slightly.

 My friend, a lover of the show never doubted the honesty of the show until last week, but was concerned after seeing Louis Walsh bumble about, seemingly trying to avoid making any decision himself (that's what the judges are for) but this week even she laughed and said "fix" when Rylan beat a girl who can really sing.

The big problem is that the hopeless looses should never have got this far, that's the point of auditions.  People with real talent are loosing the chance because the people who run the show think it's better to have some controversial fools to try and get people watching and paying money voting.  That's what it's all about, they couldn't care less about the hopeful people who go on the show thinking they have a proper chance of winning, or the mugs who pay to vote, it's all about the money, that's why the show winners often vanish into obscurity, many had no talent in the first place.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Skin softening airbrushing software (updated)

There's a few different software's about for skin softening/airbrushing.  Here are the main contenders

Portrait pro.  This offers face sculpting as well as skin softening, and has options for changing eye/lip colours etc, probably the most popular of the bunch it does require you set a number of key point first (not difficult really) although it does take a minute or so and makes batch processing difficult or impossible.
Price around £50

Imagenomic Portraiture.  This is much more basic and easier to use, it finds the skin tones fairly well without having to be told, but doesn't offer so many options as portrait pro but does the skin softening quite nicely.  It will also work as a batch process if added as part of an action in photoshop.
Price around £100

Digital Anarchy Beauty box.  Another fairly simply one, this again finds the skin areas by itself and offers much the same options as portraiture.
Price around £100

Photoshop.  Photoshop doesn't have any built in option for skin softening but can be used by making a new layer, bluring that and then masking (or earsing) the bits like hair, eyes, lips, etc.
Price varies with version but starts around £50+

Perfect 365 by ArcSoft, another of the simpler ones to use, although mine keeps asking for the serial number everytime I try to save an image which is a pain in the arse.

For some comparrison here are some images done with those softwares, not I have had little time to play with some of them so with practice better results could be obtained with most.







Sunday, September 16, 2012

Some news

Well it seems the royal family are up in arms about topless pics of kate Middleton, I'm afraid I have no sympathy myself.  She knows the press watch her every move and she goes topless, then they wonder why the press publish the photos.
Lets face it nobody else has access to as much private land as then and yet she chooses to go topless in a place you can see from the road?  Either stupid or she wants to get in the papers..

Sir Ranulph Fiennes now 68 is planning an expedition to the pole in the winter, he could face temperatures as low as -90.... so much for global warming then.

Insurgents (used to be called Al Qaeda) have attacked camp bastion, first they claimed it was in revenge for a film mocking the prophet Mohamed, then changed it to an attempt to kill prince harry who stationed there.
A few things come to mind, why was the movements of a soldier on active service told to the press to publish, why did Al Qaeda change their story and the reason for their attack. 
But the biggest question of all is why are our troops sill out there?   There will never be peace in that country, especially with what is effectively an invading army there.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Open letter to discovery channel

Can we please have some programs that don't have fish/crabs, or auctions/picking,  guns, gold and cars.

Just for a change how about some more programs made outside of the USA, your not doing the country any favors showing many of the programs you show.  lets face it despite what Americans think they are about the least popular people in the world, and your showing the worst side of them, lets look at what I mean.

American guns.  As a business driving around in a helicopter and setting off large explosions is a waste of money, it's posing and childish.

Gold divers  see the post next to this one.

American chopper. Tantrums, arguing, and how about building a bike that's actually practical to ride every day to work?

Gold rush.  Well what can I say, the miners forgot to pay the lease and lost the mine...Dohhh!  Agian, more attitude that ability, programs boring watching them make a loss every week, fat men with beards arguing.

Deadliest catch.   More men arguing and getting wet
.
Mythbusters.  one of the few programs with little or no arguning, big problem is they over complicate the myths, but otherwise not a bad program.

Born survivor, now finished as you sacked Bear Grills.

Finding bigfoot, this lot couldn't find a brick in a paper bag, they go crashing throgh the woods scaring all the wildlife away.

Flying wild alaska, to be honest after watching this program I'm supprised the FAA hasn't shut them all down.

Storm chasers.  men shouting at each other and panicking a lot.  If your scared shitless don't go in the first place.

Weird or what, interesting idea, but doesn't actually tell us anything we didn't know before, maybe try and explain the things?

Worlds toughest drive, not that tough obviously as two unfit tv presenters had already driven to the north pole on top gear..

Whale wars, I've mentioned before on the blog.


You really need to move outside to the rest of the world a bit more, theres so much your missing, if nothing else cut down on men arguing, I can see that any day, I don't need to watch Discovery to see it.






Monday, September 10, 2012

Gold divers

I saw this the other night and I won't be watching it again, the smell of testosterone even on telly was too much for me. And why do grown me have to say "dude" every five seconds. I mean it's so bloody 1080's Don't men grow up in the US.... silly question really isn't it.

Some sunsets


Heres a few recent sunsets, both taken on the compact as I was traveling light.
The top pics is taken at Porthcawl and the bottom from the side of Corn-du, both in south Wales

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Some from yesterday

I have been pretty busy recently and have had some internet issues with my sons computer so haven't been on here for a while, here are a few shots from yesterday.
These are all taken on a fuji compact as I'm traveling light at the moment.




Saturday, August 18, 2012

Man woman wild

I have watched this from the beginning, and I have to say maybe the title should be changed to man wild woman annoying! 
 Mykel does a fair job at the survival side of things, but he's no Ray Mears,  (and I'm something of an expert myself) while Ruth is simply a really annoying woman who screams at everything in sight.

Why on earth somebody thought it was a good idea to send her with Mykel I have no idea, the series would be far better and more informative without the "eye candy" if you can call her that.  She adds nothing really.

 I'm finding this series (series 2 here in the uk) much harder to watch that the first series and I'm close to giving up altogether, indeed some of my friends have given up already.  If theres a series 3 I have my doubts I'll be watching.    Bring back Bear Grills please.... Pretty please...

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Olympic overdose!

Now I don't know about you but I'm overdosing on the Olympics, yes I appreciate the BBC have to show then (they paid a fortune of our money to buy the rights) but the trouble is it's taken over the news as well, I like to know whats going on in the rest of the world, not just whats happening in a small part of London.

Come on play the game, 14 hours of olympics a day is enough, leave the news alone.

Ted (movie review)

I saw the movie Ted this week, staring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, with Seth MacFarlane as the voice of ted.
As something of a fan of Family guy/American dad maybe I was expecting too much, yes it's funny in a few places, but for me it simply wasn't funny enough for 106 minutes.  A good comedy has to make you laugh and cry they say, this did precious little of the laughing part and even less of the bit where I suppose you should cry (can't give too much away) I just didn't care when we got to the serious part.

 The story is  about a boyhood wish bringing a teddy bear to life, then years later the now grown up boy has to choose between his girlfriend and the bear

 None of the characters really seemed convincing, Mark Wahlbergs character John, a junky who's late for work, seemed plastic and unlikable.   Mila Kunis character Lon, frankly while good looking didn't seem a very nice person.  And even Ted, another pot smoking heavy drinking waster with poor people skills, seemed unconvincing (yes I know it's not real)  

Sadly something that works for 30 minutes as a cartoon, doesn't work as a full length movie.


Waynes rating  5 out of 10 (family guy fans might enjoy it but it didn't work for me. (maybe better after a few beers)

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

MMR and Autism

Now I can remember the fuss about the 3 in1 vaccine for MMR causing autism, at the time my children were young enough to have been needing to get the shot, both my children were vaccinated and thankfully there were no complications.

The story first appeared in the Lancet in 1998 and the author Andrew Wakefield was later found to have a conflict of interest and was later struck off the medical register.

A website has been told to remove information that linked autism to the 3 in 1 vaccination for MMR, now rightly or wrongly I don't like censorship, usually those trying to censor something have something to hide, why else censor it.

Maybe it's better to let people decide for themselves, if they check the evidence for and against the MMR shot, they can see the full picture,while there are some links to complications (mostly not autism) the risks from the measles/mumps/rubella are very much greater than the risk of side effects (actually quite rare like any medicine)
There's too much of the "nanny state" going on here in the UK,   Stop telling us what to do and lets us decide whats good for us.  After all those governing us are pretty clueless at the best of times, and sadly all too often there's an ulterior motive behind things any goverment does.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Craig Gallivan

I had the pleasure of taking photos of Craig Gallivan (footballers wives and Stella actor ) a few days ago, I say pleasure because Craig is a really nice guy, I spent a good few hours with him and his girlfriend (sorry ladies I think he's spoken for) and had a laugh and he was very profession in front of the camera, I'm planning another shoot next week in some different locations.



Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Paula Radcliffe

Well no surprises here but Paula Radcliffe has dropped out of the Olympics, Why we keep sending her is the biggest surprise, the highest she's come is 4th and that was 12 years ago in 2000, in 2004 Olympics she failed to finish twice, and in 2008 she didn't even finish the London marathon, there's  people in costumes finishing that remember.
Maybe it time she retired, and maybe it's time we started sending athletes who actually are fit enough to have a proper chance of winning instead of just sending people on name because they won something donkeys years ago..


Saturday, July 28, 2012

British Olympic opening ceremony

Well last night was the British Olympic opening ceremony, I wasn't hopeful and I certainly wasn't disappointed.  What a disaster, stupid sets, terrible singing and bad taste, well what do you expect with Danny Boyle running the show.
The doctors and nurses dancing for joy, why? the health service is in crises, they are closing hospitals all over the place because theres no money to pay doctors, not much joy there then.   James Bond in the opening clip with a fake queen, shame the bond films were all American funded and produced.
Then we have the real queen, sheesh! what a miserable old dear, all that done for her and she couldn't force a smile to save her life (mind you not much to smile at) I'm told she was reading while what passes for the British team came out.
Paul McCartney was dug up again, why? he sounded terrible, same as he did last time they grave robbed him, why don't these old rockers pack it in when the get past it.
The only mildy entertaining part was Rowan Atkinson playing the fool, and even he's getting boring now, the one trick pony of Mr Bean is tired and sad, but expected from royal sycophant Atkinson.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Power cables and mobile phones!

Why, oh why, is something as simple as a power cable such a problems?  I mean why cant they be standardised? Why do we need about seven different power cables for our mobile phones, surely some sort of standard could have been reached, I mean camera makers managed with the tripod screw fitting.
And why is it a phone cable is about a a metre and a half long (4.5 foot) or longer and yet a bloody kettle or computer power cable is about half a metre (18 inches) I mean a mobile phone is small enough to go anywhere near a plug, a kettle on the other hand will probably only go in one or two places in a kitchen, and a computer most lightly only one place in a room.  It's like spaghetti junction in my house with bloody wires and extension leads everywhere.
Come on designers get some common sense please!!!!!

Monday, July 23, 2012

John Bishop's Britain

I saw this the other night, and if a stand up comedian needs canned applause there's something missing.... him being funny maybe?  to be honest it was grim, singularly unfunny.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Grumpy

Yep it's official, I'm a grumpy old devil, the last few weeks I haven't been sleeping too well, and it's catching up with me.   I'm having a go at those around me, and they don't deserve it to be fair, so I'm going to try and get more sleep and be less miserable.   Fingers crossed.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

US tv shows?

What is it with US TV shows?  All the police series have glamorous detectives solving impossibly complicated crimes (nearly always a serial killer) with clever hi-tech crime busting.  Whereas the reality is a fat cop with an old computer hardly ever solving even the most basic robbery, and even when they do it's because the criminal is even dumber than the cop.

Then there's the "reality" shows, why is the boss always a hard nosed pretend tough guy (American chopper, sons of guns, battle machine bros deadliest catch etc etc etc) In reality an overweight bully with an attitude problem, who's showing off for the cameras.   And why is there always a dumb son or brother?
Do any of these people actually realise how stupid they really look?

Personally I cringe what I see some of the rubbish put out on channels like discovery, take Finding bigfoot (please take it away) every week a bunch of "squach" hunters go crashing through the woods with radios bleeping every 30 seconds, wondering why they cant find bigfoot.  Two reasons people, one because it doesn't exist, and two because even if it did exist the noise you jokers make would scare off anything within a five mile radius.
The way to find it ( if it was there)  would be to move in very quietly, and set up an OP covering the main tracks to any water, staying silent  (we call it hard routine) and wait for it to move around, you'll find bugger all thrashing about in the woods making stupid "squatch calls"  and talking constantly on the radio.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Mumbles










We went to Mumbles today for a break, I really enjoyed spending time with the boys and my dear lady, we should do it more often, we don't get out all together very often at all.
here are a few photos.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Whale wars Viking shores 3

Well what can I say...  In tonight's episode the Sea Shepherd crew actually went out to sea for a change, ok there was a dramatic race to stop a grind but that turned out to be a local boat race not actually a grind at all.

Then when for the first time the SS crew actually saw a pod of live whales, they immediately got on the radio and told everybody listening where and how many there were. Now remember in an earlier episode they said the locals were monitoring their communications, so maybe giving them the information they need to kill the whales wasn't very bright.
That is unless you wonder if there's an ulterior motive, after all they would love to catch the local Faroese people having a grind and film it for publicity for the Sea Shepherd, so maybe there is a hidden agenda here.

Either way I'm sick of the whole thing, the Sea Shepherd crew have behaved very badly, and either are totally incompetent (the covert van with the driver wearing a SS sweatshirt and being met by a film crew, the illegal microlight, giving out the whales location on the radio etc etc)  or are just very naive spoiled rich kids playing eco warriors, to be honest I don't much care, my support for them died during this series, and from what I'm hearing a lot of other people feel the same.
Goodbye whale wars.... And good riddance..

tilt shift

Theres a new feature in Photoshop CS6 it's the new blur options, one of which gives a tilt shift effect, this makes the scene look a bit like a model village.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Lifeguard sacked?

Thomas Lopez a lifeguard near Miami in the USA was sacked from his job after being called by a member of the public to a man drowning, Thomas rescued the drowning man and was sacked for rescuing a person outside the guarded area of the beach.
Most people would be proud of their lifeguards saving lives (the clue is in the job title), only in America where shoe sizes are bigger than IQ's would they sack them for doing it.
Give him his job back and a bloody medal you morons, if I'm ever drowning I really hope Mr Lopez is around to save me.
Good for you Thomas Lopez, you saved a life, I'd give you a job in a heartbeat, personally I can't think of a better recommendation than a guy putting his own life at risk to help others!

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Whale wars Viking shores 2 (update)

Well in yesterdays episode the Sea Shepherd tieam were threatened by two drunk lads and had to call the police to be rescued.... Well perhaps threatened wasn't the right word, the drunk really just made a pain of himself (like all drunks)and the crew panicked and over reacted, if they'd been really threatened they could simply have put to sea (maybe change the name to docks shepherd?) well they do spend most of their time tied up in port.
They whinged about the police "nobody ever gets arrested in this country" maybe Paul Watsons glad of that, he didn't get arrested either, although to be fair he bravely waited till the warrent for him had expired before returning to the islands.
They tried very hard to stir up the local people, who seem very calm and placid to me, certainly not as excitable as the OTT crew of the sea shepherd who panic at everything.
Funniest bit of the episode was the microlight plane, they flew it around for a bit with the pilot saying how dangerous the islands were due to tricky winds, then they found out it's illegal to fly a microlight in the Faroes for just the reasons the pilot said earlier.   Maybe you should have checked first guys!

I'm sorry guys, I really do support your fight against the Japanese whaling, but the Foroes case seems very different, here the whale concerned isn't endangered and it's an important part of the locals diet.
Your people are doing you no good with the way they are behaving, they are carrying on like a bunch of spoiled students, you should be trying to win over the local people and get them on side, not piss off everybody who you meet, including a LOT of viewers, I haven't met anyone here (in the UK) who isn't disgusted with the behaviour of your crew. 
You'll never get international support if you start going around behaving like eco terrorists.

More news

It was said today by Labour leader Ed Miliband that British banks are "institutionally corrupt", well he doesn't need to tell us pore buggers, we've known for years that dodgy dealing went on.
He might like to take a look at the charges we "normal" folk get as well, not having the income of a cabinet minister I get overdrawn from time to time, then I end up paying £10 a day, bloody silly charge, how do they expect people who haven't any money in the acount in the first place to pay a totally unrealistic charge.

Friday, June 29, 2012

News

Well the Olympics are back in the news for all the wrong reasons again.
A block of flats has been chosen for an anti aircraft missile launching pad, and it seems the residents are not happy.  To be honest I wouldn't be in their place either.
First off you have a ton or so of rockets and explosive on the roof, then theres the army manning it going back and fro and the noise they'll make on the roof itself, and pesumably the added security will make it a pain for the local residents.
You have the risk of it being captured by terrorists themselves, or more lightly an accidential explosion or fire. (not forgetting the roof isn't designed or stressed to carry the extra weight.
For me though theres a much bigger issue.  If you do manage to actually hit a terrorist hijacked jumbo jet, shooting it down over a built up part of London doesn't seem a very bright idea to me, and make no mistake, these missles (starstreak and rapier) are not powerfull enough to blow a big jet to bits, just big enough to seriously damage it.
A fully laden jumbo jet weighs in at the best part of 350 tons, thats a bloody big hole somewhere if it comes down.
And another thing, heat seeking missiles don't actually work that well on planes coming towards the firer, and even less well if the plane is diving with the engines throttled back (which it may well be if it's diving on the Olympic stadium), so any missles fired may not lock on and in a heavly built up area hit other buildings, causing even more carnage.
Personally I'm staying well away for the Olympic games (too bloody expensive anyway) but mainly becasue it's a prime target, international coverage etc etc. Not for me mate, I'll watch it all happen for free on TV.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Whale wars Viking shores

Whale wars Viking shores.  I have been watching this program, and the previous few seasons of Whale wars.  While I enjoyed the Whale wars series, and really supported the fight against the Japanese whaling fleet the new "Viking shores" has a different effect.  Here the Sea Shepherd team really seem to be trying to provoke Faroese into a confrontation, and are trying to show them in a bad light.
As for the "covert" team bringing in the sonar thingies, maybe their idea of covert is different to mine.  Mine doesn't include wearing a sea shepherd sweat shirt with the logo plastered all over it and being met at the customs post by a camera crew... Very bloody covert!
Personally I'm now supporting the Faroese, these people who do kill pilot whales (non endangered) just for food, (an important part of their diet), seem very restrained with the sea shepherd people.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Xbox repair

Well I don't know about you but I'm fed up of buying replacement Xboxs for my children, these bloody things keep failing with the same faults all the time, why theres never been a proper class action suite against ripoff-osoft I don't know.  After all it seems unlightly that everybodies fails from the same problems just by chance, more lightly a design issue if you ask me.
Any way both ours have died yet again for exactly the same fault as the last 3 or 4, so this time sod it.  We had it apart and fixed the bloody thing ourselves. 
Actually it was quite easy, the hardest part was getting the casing off, once thats done 2 screw drivers (well one a torque bit 10mm I think) and a bit of care and bobs your uncle, 2 working xboxes. And we saved a few hundred pounds on a "repair" by the ripoff-osoft.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Under-performing civil servants

The goverment are clamping down on under-performing civil servants.  It seems the bottom 10% are to have only a year to improve or they may be sacked.
Of course some would say why leave the other 90% of under-performers alone, and some might even say why wait a year to sack the useless wasters, sack them now and replace them, plenty on the dole.  If they worked in any other business their jobs would be at risk all the time, only these "jobs for boys" morons would get a job for life even if they can't do it properly.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Design Failure

Design failure.  Yes what I mean is bad design, shampoo bottles that fall over and spill all the time because they are top heavy,  good job the designer doesn't make ships!

Mobile phones that do everything except make a call properly, and are so complex to use you need an engineering degree to use one   And how come back in the 1960's you could talk to a man on the moon, but now 50 years later I have trouble phoning the person in the next street?

Internet that keeps going off all the time, this isn't a third world conutry for heavens sake, why can't we make anything that works properly.

Pen drives (zip drives) lets face it they couldn't be much simpler. plug and play.... except that some have to play a bloody tune and put a box up on screen to say hello.  Why for Gods sake, I know the bloody things plugged in, I just plugged it in myself, even formatting it doesn't stop the bastard saying hello... maybe a hammer will!

Design crumple, I love this, we had crashes in the old days, people got out and walked away with a bent bumper and a broken light. Oh  no not any more... a 5 mph crash and your whole cars a right off, and the fire and rescue service (used to be the fire brigade) will have to cut you out of the remains.






Saturday, June 16, 2012

Prometheus (film review)

Prometheus by Ridley Scott.
A space ship lands on an alien planet looking for the people they think created life on earth, the film is a cracking good Si-Fi romp, with some stunning landscapes and special effects. 

Sadly the characters in the story don't really come across as very nice people, indeed even the female lead isn't really a nice person in the film.

For me there are several plot holes, not major but there are things going on that make no sense to the story, for example why does the robot poison the crew member?  Why the elaborate escape pod? How did the alien get into the escape pod? why is there only one "engineer"  left how did he avoid being killed? 
 For me these were slightly confusing, leaving me with the feeling I was missing bits of the story somewhere.
Waynes rating    7 out of 10    Worth a watch but not worth the £30 it cost me to see it in 3D

Weather

Well for the middle of June it's crazy here, more like the middle of winter, wet windy and horrid, it's not even that warm summer rain, it's flipping chiily with it.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Photoshop CS6 review

Well CS6 has been out long enough for a proper review (I don't like doing the beta versions)  Well first off theres not a huge lot new for photographers, but what there is, is good!
Theres a better content aware, including a content aware move tool, the crop tool has had a big makeover (not sure it really needed it but there you go.
The interface is changed to look more like elements, but probably the biggest change is the new camera raw process 2012, this is miles better, it can pull back seemingly totally blown skys etc.

The big question is can you justify spending £667 for the full version (around £180 upgrade) thats a lot of anybodies money for not a lot of new life changing stuff, up to you.

Fuji problems

I was recently given a Fuji compact camera fro a present, great! a carry everywhere camera thats nice and light, and with Fujis name it should be half decent.... Or so I thought.
I didn't notice from the first few pics of the dog etc that the lens was out of alignment, the right side of the image totally blurred, only when I took it to a waterfall with lots of detail did I realise just how bad it really was.
Off back to Fuji it went, 3 weeks later it returned, nice and sharp.... Well until you zoomed in and got got a totally corrupted image (not blurred)  Back to the shop I go and fair do's they replaced it with no hassle.  Well done Argos!  Might have been easier if you'd done that first time I brought it back though.

Cloud computing... cloud nine more like!

Cloud computing is the next big thing that won't work here in the UK, Why? Simple, because our internet is so unreliable it makes the internet in a third world country look good.
Just about everyone I know is constantly having problems with their internet dropping offline intermittently.
 


Monday, June 11, 2012

Communication?

What is it with big stores these days, none seem to have a proper phone number,  spent this morning trying to ring Argos to complain about a faulty product, all I get is an automated answer service with no option for problems or even a human at the other end, what a joke.
I'll never buy from them again.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Food photography 3

The last for now of the food photos, so I thought I'd leave you with dessert.

Food photography 2



Another food pic.

Food photography

Here are a few food photographs I took recently, these were taken under very difficult conditiond in a small area of a marquee kitchen.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Penrice Castle

I was lucky enough to get access to the Penrice estate on Saturday, so I took these pics of the castle there (or what remains of it)

Friday, June 1, 2012

Diamond Jubilee

This weekend it's the queens Diamond Jubilee, and to be perfectly honest I'm sick of hearing about it already.
The trouble is we have had the union flag (the union jack is a nickname) plastered over every bloody thing for weeks, that and the Olympics are getting on my wick as we say here.  Frankly I'll be dammed glad to see them both over.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Sgwd Henrhyd (Henrhyd Waterfall)

Not one of the easiest falls to find, at least one set of directions on the web is wrong.
My starting point was Neath, I took the A465 to the main Glynneath turn off (the next one after the McDonalds turning off) then at the main crossroad in Glyneath take the road to Abercrave, go up the hill and after it levels out on the top a mile or so along is a right turn marked Coelbren, at the T junction turn right, go through the vilage and just after the vilage you will see a small bridge, turn left here (it looks a bit like a private drive) There is a small wooden sign on the gate but it's all too easy to miss when your driving, just down this road is the carpark.
From here walk through the gate and down into the valley, at the bottom it doubles back on itself and you cross a small bridge, then a short distance along is the falls (which you can walk behind, take care it's slippery and rocks do fall)  The walk from the car park is probably only about 10 or 15 mins, coming back up is a bit harder though. 

Monday, May 14, 2012

National Health Service

Our dear old NHS has really gone to the dogs, I friend waited 15 hours in casualty with his wife who had breathing difficulties, totally unacceptable.
Another close friend had a motorcycle accident and the hospital couldn't tell if he'd broken his neck, they had to eamil his xrays to another hospital for their doctor to check, even then they managed to fit him with the wrong collar.
It seems I have been having the wrong treatment for my bac for the last 6 months, perhaps if the person carrying out the treatment took the trouble to actually speak to me he might find out.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Cove Swansea (restaurant review)

The Cove, castle street Swansea.
First off please note I'm nothing to do with this restaurant other than a customer.   I visited the place for the first time yesterday, and I'm not connected with the place in any way.

I went to the Cove on the recommendation of the lady who works for my  insurance company.  The Cove has a "bistro" feel to me, I ordered a chicken with garlic and herb baguette, and a coffee, when the baguette arrived it was huge and with a salad and a pot of dressing, it did cost just over a fiver all in but it was a fair meal and the baguette was stunning, really excellent.
Will I eat there again.... you bet I will, good food is hard to find.
Waynes rating    8/10

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Weather

Well today theres flood warnings for a large part of the country, and couriously still a hosepipe ban?

Friday, March 30, 2012

Panic at the pumps

This week there's been chaos at the petrol pumps,, it seems a cabinet office minister Francis Maude, advised people to stock up on petrol as a tanker drivers strike seems lightly, this caused panic buying and chaos.
Trouble is storing lots of petrol isn't actually a very safe idea,
.

Lords prayer

It seems the number of people saying the Lords prayer has fallen by about half...... and this comes as a surprise?

With the country at an all time high immigration level, the vast majority of whom are not Christian what did they expect. Add to that the Christian Church's policy on gay marriage and the "issues" it's had in the past with child abuse, it's fallen from favor a bit.

In the modern day and age I suspect more people find the whole bible thing harder to believe, it's contradictions, and the fact the books in it were carefully chosen to exclude books that the church didn't like, or didn't suit it policy at the time have all contibuted to peoples doubt.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Bit stressed

Well I'm not having a good week, I have a lot of stuff going on and to add to it some bad news this week, so I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment.

Tyntesfield again


I had to go to Tyntesfield house again yesterday, so heres a shot from there, only shot on the compact as I couldn't carry much stuff.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Four people in one room

The last 2 weeks I have been trying to get four people together in one room, you wouldn't believe just how hard it's proving to be. Now they need to be together to rehearse something, but it's incredible how many things a person has on these days.
Take myself as an example, I have hospital visits, doctors appointments, seeing family/friends, work (or what passes for it these days) cooking, cleaning etc, I have about one of two evenings a week free, now multiply that by 4 and it starts to get silly.

Friday, February 17, 2012

The woman in black (film review)

Went to see this a few days back, so here's my review.

Made by Hammer it bears little similarity to the earlier hammer films.
The story, a young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.

Staring Daniel Radcliff the film is set in a creepy house in a creepy village, the film is dark and moody without being too dark to see the action, the film is genuinely scary although sadly the director has chosen to put in lots of things to make the viewer "jump" this is unnecessary and for me spoilt the film.
Having adrenaline dumped into your body every five minutes isn't actually very healthy, sooner or later somebodies going to have a heart attack and they will get sued. And it's not needed, the film would be much better without the distractions in my opinion.
Daniel is very good in this film, it gives him a chance to show he has real talent for acting
A face from the past who makes a brief appearence is Victor McGuire (Ron from the tv series goodnight sweetheart and Jack in Bread)

Waynes rating 6/10 (would have got an 8 if it wasn't for the silly making you jump nonsense)

Taxis

What is it with taxis, they seem to park just about anywhere with no regard for other road users. They will stop in the middle of the road (even when theres parking spaces) blow the horn at all hours of the night (an offence here in the UK) and never turn off the headlights even when parked, often on full beam.
Thats actually a big problem around, the parking with headlights on, especially when parked on the wrong side of the road so theyare facing you driving towards them, blinding isn't the word.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Long gap again

Sorry about the long gap, things have been going on in my life, and I'm back and fro the hospital for treatment on my old war wounds lol

I'll try and post a few pics and some news tomorrow.