Yesterday evening, we attended An Evening with Andy Rouse at the Stroud Theatre in Street. No, not in a street - a town called Street. It’s a whimsical name for a town, but the South West is rich in natural whimsy.
For those who don’t already know, Andy Rouse is a wildlife photographer who has won many awards, and taken an amazing number of truly great photos. He’s also known for his humour and love of West Ham (for non-Brits - that’s a football club, not a type of meat).
We had a great time. Before the show even started Andy was running around meeting people and joking with them, and selling books and calendars. I jumped in early to pick up a copy of his latest book, Understanding RAW Photography, getting it signed, and taking the chance to hand him a Moo card.
I Should Blog More
I should blog more. That’s hardly an original start to a blog post, especially one on a long-neglected blog, but there you go.
I’m using Emacs for much of my day-to-day stuff at the moment, working in PlannerMode. I never use the ‘Schedule’ section (I use Google Calendar), so I’ve changed it to ‘Blog’ instead, with the idea of tapping a blog post into it during the day, then posting at the end of the day. If you’re reading this, it worked. Once.
So, what’s been happening recently? We’re still enjoying Devon. My calculator obsession seems to have faded somewhat, leaving me quite settled with the HP 12C financial calculator. There are far more powerful things around, but they’re sitting unused in a drawer. The 12C just does the basics really nicely.
I’m left with my current obsessions being pens, notebooks and Emacs.
Pens
I have bought a few new pens recently:
We had our usual walk by the canal today, and I did a bit more playing with monochrome when we returned. I took this photo of grass for the pattern and contrast, so it was a prime candidate for black and white:
The last part of our journey is by street, and this chimney pot caught my eye - an H in the sky:
I was only taking shots to experiment with the exposure modes on my Nikon D40, but as I was finishing up, I snatched a couple of shots of our light shade that I thought might be good for something. That something turned out to be experimenting with black and white. Practical Photography magazine had a monochrome theme in their latest issue, which gave me a clue on making better mono images, with more options for tweaking.
Their tip was to use the Channel Mixer rather than just changing the colour mode. Their instructions were all for Photoshop, but it translated pretty easily to The GIMP - just find the Channel Mixer under Filters, Colors. Tick the box for Monochrome, and play with the sliders to get the look you want. As the magazine said, the best results seemed to be when the slider values added up to around 100:
Latest Update: A few minor changes, and adding a few more ideas, bringing the total up from 50 to 60.
Many of us want to be more creative in our day-to-day lives, so here are a few ideas to get you going - many of them very quick and easy…