Bridal rant! LOOK IN THE BLOODY MIRROR

I'm sorry but I'm going to go off on one here.

Yet another stupid fat bride stuffed into a dress 5 sizes too small, for pity sake what is wrong with these women? surely they can look in a mirror and see how ridiculous they look
Add the fact that this one wasn't just fat she was HUGE!!! she arrived in a drop head VW beetle, and she filled the whole car, it just looked ludicrous, how the hell they got her in I don't know, obese doesn't come close, she looked like she caused a famine somewhere.

I really don't understand why they have to buy a low cut dress that doesn't fit. Ok I suppose there is a shortage of fat bastard tent size wedding dresses, but didn't any of her friends tell her how hideous she looked? Her breasts looked like two badly parked blimps, how the dress took the strain I don't know, it must have been lined with Kevlar or something.

Then to add insult to injury she was freaking ORANGE! No not the dress, her body, she had one of the "dodgy" fake tans that look nothing like a suntan, but Tango man comes to mind (or captain beany) Again why? if you want a suntan get a proper one not a stupid coat of orange undercoat. Trouble is in all the photos shes just looks daft, everybody else looks normal and she's the colour of an Oompa-Loompa, bright orange.
I give up with these idiots.

Texture layers

Adding a texture to an image can give an interesting effect, heres one I took recent'y in Cardiff, I have added a texture overlay to give it a "grunge" feel.
Enjoy.

Spending cuts.

It seems in an effort to cut spending our government (remember they had to join two parties to get in, so we didn't really vote for them) are going to build two new aircraft carriers, great!... well except for one small snag... we won't have any aircraft to fly off them for 10 years.
It seems that the moron who thought of building 2 aircraft carriers didn't bother to check if we had any aircraft to fit on them first!
So when the next war comes our two big tough aircraft carriers will steam off to war and ... well sit there with bugger all else to do. General Custer award for forward planning then. Oh and a great way to SAVE money guys!!!

Yesterdays wedding.

Yesterday I had another wedding, really it was a favor (sort of) for another photographer, I wont go into detail but he couldn't do it.
I was lucky really I had a nice day, the couple were nice, and the locations were not bad.
While my day was pretty good, you couldn't say the same for the bride, her limo got lost on the way to ther house, in the end the grooms dad and an usher went out searching for it, they managed to find it eventually and the bride arrived only 45 minutes late, then the limo hit a parked van. he didn't stop there though, he also hit the park gates on the way to the photo location.

Nik HDR Effx Pro.

Here is my Hmmm " review" of Niks answer to hdr.
Nik HDR EffX Pro, Niks answer to the popularity of HDR, first off I think they missed the boat a little, hdr seems to be on the decrease and there's been a surfeit of hdr programs this year to compete with it.
Secondly it's got "issues" quite big ones it seems, it's got compatibility issues with Itunes, On One software and heavens knows what else (I'm told about some) but as I have neither of those theres other things going on as well.
I did manage eventually to get it to work on another pc (with some difficulty) but I have to say I'm far from impressed. It's painfully slow (on a good spec pc) god help if your on a slow computer. Then while the interface is simple enough getting your pics in the first place isn't, the option in the filters menu (the obvious place) is greyed out untill your image is 32 bit, to load 3 pics you have to use the file/automate/merge to hdr effx pro, then go and make dinner while it does something (crashes photoshop most of the time) if it actually works (and you haven't died of old age) you'll end up with a reasonable hdr.
IMHO Photomatix is quicker, miles and miles better and cheaper (I think) failing that try Dynamic photo hdr, just as simple at Niks offering, vastly quicker (quicker than photomatix) and even cheaper again, and a doddle to get your pics in, just open and drag the images in, how easy is that!
Nik, if you want to capture the HDR market, you really need to sort out the compatability issues, speed the thing up, and make it easier to get pics in. Simple really.

Don't give a child a biscuit!! Warning

Don't give a child a biscuit!! well not if you happen to be a dinner lady in County Fermanagh anyway, one suffered two years of hassle and was told by the school that "could be seen by her actions as grooming a child." all that for giving a relatives child a biscuit.
It's long overdue for some common sense to make a return to the world!

CSI.

I have mentioned this stupid excuse for a program before but now it's gone too far.
In the past I have them "blow up" poor quality video and produce stunning clear fine detailed images which is rubbish, it just cant be done sorry!. Then there's the fact all their case would get thrown out of court because the crime scene people have been to the suspects house and the crime scene (cross contamination of evidence it's called) so any evidence they have found wouldn't be admissible in court.
But today! it's gone from stupid to ridiculous, today they had an urn thing (hand thrown pot) and put a laser on and got the sound in the room at the time of the murder, the actual speech from the murderer, I kid you not! They claimed it's just like the wax cylinder gramophone. I'm sorry it just can't be done, and even if it could how would they know which bit of the pot to get the sound of the murder from and not what was on telly last night.
IT'S TOTAL CRAP GUYS!!!!! For pity's sake why not stick to what can really be done instead of making so over the top.

Smoking ban in cars.

It seems the Welsh "arse-sembly" government is planning to ban smoking in private cars.
While I'm not a smoker I do have issues with this decision. First off is it only in Wales? surly that's discrimination on grounds of race? it should be nation wide on nothing! Secondly how the hell are they going to police it?. The over stretched police are struggling to cope now, the ban on mobile phones while driving hasn't really been a success, every day you'll see hundreds of people ignoring it, the same with smoking, if the people don't agree they will simply ignore it.
Yet again it's our sad pathetic nanny state trying to look like it's doing something useful to justify it's existence.

Norman Wisdom

Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom OBE. 4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010.

Dear old Norman Wisdom died yesterday at the age of 95. Norman best remembered for his role as Norman Pitkins in films like the Early Bird (1965) in which he stared with the long suffering Mr Gimsdale (Edward Chapman) with numerous films to his credit, he more recently appeared in TV series Last of the summer wine. With many other screen and stage appearences behind him he gained his Knighthood in 2000.
From 2005 onward he suffered declining health, finally he passed away at 6:46 pm on 4 October 2010 at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man.
God bless Norman, you have given me many a good laugh.

Wedding and Waves.

I'm off on a wedding soon, so lets hope the weather stays dry, it's something wedding togs have to cope with, unlike the Ryder cup we can't stop idf it rains.

Heres a pic of some waves at Rhoissilli beach, I'd gone chasing sunsets but there was the usual cloud back on the horizon, so I didn't get a decent sunset, liked this shot anyway.

The world is getting sillier by the day.

Yes I'm afraid the world is getting sillier by the day.
Yesterday the Ryder cup (golf) had to be postponed due to heavy rain, the scary bit is this seemed to come as a surprise to all concerned. What heavy rain in Wales in October?? Wow that must have been so unexpected... well not to anybody who lives in Wales anyway, lets be honest we get a lot of rain in Wales, and October is late-ish in the year. Maybe Autumn in Newport wasn't the best choice of location.
20% of councils haven't got their winter salt stocks in yet. Why? after all winter coming shouldn't catch these people out, everybody knows it coming, even the birds, but our councillors seem oblivious to it. Maybe they are too busy sorting out their expenses claims or something.