Category: Editorial

My news and opinion articles.

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Editorial Other

new iPhone photography page on ‘my glass eye’

IMG_0567 express escalator to hell.JPGI already use Flickr to host my iPhone photos that are worth sharing, as well as displaying the most recent 5 in the sidebar on the front page of this blog, but I decided I wanted somewhere on this site to properly showcase them so I’ve just added a new page – iPhone photos.

I selected 24 of my favourites and used Airtight Interactive’s free Flash gallery creator, PostcardViewer, to display them above a short blurb about the apps that I use. As and when I have new photos I want to add I’ll just swap out older ones I’m bored of – apart from anything else I just love tinkering with my site and adding new pages! 😉

Also, I keep meaning to finish a blog post about an app I recently added to my collection called ToyCamera (by the creator of QuadCamera). I’m not as enamoured with it as I am CameraBag but it does have some charming qualities. I also have a giveaway to announce. Really ought to get that uploaded today but there are some ‘real world’ chores I should probably attend to first…

Enjoy the gallery!

Categories
Editorial Photographic

daddy or chips? comic or sweets? cropped or uncropped?

Whenever I have a big decision to make, a clear choice between ‘a’ or ‘b’, my mum likes to remind me of my habit as a 3 or 4 year old toddler of storming out of newsagents empty handed, crying my eyes out and having a right old hissy fit because I couldn’t choose between a) a comic or b) a packet of sweets. So rather than risk making the ‘wrong’ decision I’d go empty handed like a proper little martyr.

(and my mum would argue that this still happens)

So, I had a really difficult decision to make recently. In fact, I’ve still not made it. No sweets or comics were involved, but all the same it’s pretty much hamstrung my entire creative flow. I’ve got photos in my camera that I can’t even find the motivation to download simply because Photoshop is still open in the background with two slightly different versions of the exact same shot sitting there waiting to have the Ultimate Verdict delivered, and it’s been like that for over 24 hours. Talk about making a lot of fuss over nothing.

The shot in question isn’t even all that amazing (well, obviously it is really – I’m just being modest). It was taken a few days ago when I was on a wander around my neighbourhood with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens, looking for little details that caught my eye in an attempt to keep my hand in with casual personal urban photography, something the photoblog was pretty much founded on but which I seem to have strayed away from recently. I was deliberately looking for the really small stuff that still told some kind of story in terms of how it might have got there, and also have something aesthetically pleasing to my eye.

So, which of these two versions is ‘better’?

Continue reading “daddy or chips? comic or sweets? cropped or uncropped?”
Categories
Editorial Other

recognition! fame beckons…

logo.gifI’ve just noticed a number of hits coming from Smashing Magazine, where it seems my glass eye is considered one of 50 wonderful, inspiring photoblogs, alongside such equally (if not more so) deserving blogtacular luminaries as Dave Nightingale’s chromasia, Sam Javanrouh’s daily dose of imagery and Kenny Weng’s moodaholic.

That’s pretty gratifying, to say the least, so I better make sure I don’t let the side down, and that I go check out some of their other recommendations that I haven’t come across before.

In other news, what is it with photoblogs and lowercase titles?

Categories
Editorial Other Pictorial

back to reality, and behind the scenes of ‘Psychosis’

VVD_348.JPGIt’s been a pretty crazy few weeks for me and the only reason I managed to keep posting new shots on my glass eye was by posting about 10 days worth in advance, set to auto-update, before I went away! I hope you’ve been enjoying them, and with any luck I should be able to start regular photoblog updates again soon, with some really nice photos of the snow out in Somerset.

I managed to miss pretty much all the snow-related chaos in London, though! When the major snowfall happened I was out in Somerset at Shapwick House shooting the publicity and production stills on a feature length movie called Vivid – which you may or may not have seen me Twittering about if you follow my feed.

Continue reading “back to reality, and behind the scenes of ‘Psychosis’”
Categories
Editorial Other

action -vs- inaction

An interesting article about New years Resolutions in Resurgence magazine, as sent to me by my secret spy on the web (that would be my mum, then). I particularly like the last line of the following submission, and although the context of the words in this example are quite specific, it’s an attitude that feels relevant to me in many other contexts.

PAUL HAWKEN • TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES

The planet needs ten thousand acts of mercy and kindness to be saved, undertaken by hundreds of millions of people. There are legions of action lists and they are good. While we vote, organise, plant, retrofit, reduce, renew, and teach, it is good to remember that the organising principle of restoration cannot be fear. We gather and congregate around warmth, grace and generosity. If we ask ourselves why we are saving the planet, the answer is always life: our life, the life we share the planet with, and all life to come hereafter. In order to restore life, we must every day take care of our own life. It starts with our mind, heart, and body. Daily acts of personal renewal are essential to creating the conditions that are favourable to all life. In that renewal, we understand that there are no inconsequential actions, only consequential inaction.