A picture paints a thousand words..

...so it saves me having to type long blog posts....!

Eventually got round to uploading pictures from the past 4 months onto Flickr last week;

In August it was Peter and Joanne's wedding, and I was his Best Man.

I stayed at the Village Hotel with Peter and the two Ushers the night before the wedding. The reception was at North Shields Registry Office and then everyone headed back for a Garden Party at Joanne and Peter's house, where yes I had to make a speech!
The evening doo was then at Seaton Sluice club.

O'Brien Flickr Set and Slide Show.


Also took Abigail to SevenStories for the first time in August, and she loved it.
It was early on a Sunday morning and she basically had the run of the place.

Definitely somewhere we'll take her too more often and it's probably also somewhere relaxing to go when we've two children in tow...!

SevenStories Flickr Set and Slideshow.



In September it was Andrew (Maddy) and Sara's wedding, and I was an Usher.

The whole day was at Doxford Hall, which I have to say is one stunning place.

Maddison Wedding Flickr Set and Slideshow.


Then finally just to explain the last of the Flickr photos, I attended a charity day at The Races where I got to meet Alan Shearer and current Newcastle Goal Keeper Steve Harper.

On the subject of photographs, I recently came to the conclusion that it's time I moved on from Compact Digital Cameras to the real deal Digital SLR Camera format.
Sold my old one on good old eBay and the new one is due to arrive any day now, so expect a shed load more pics starting to appear on Flickr....! Could have waited for possible bargains in the sales but I need to make sure I'm familiar on how the thing works before baby no.2 arrives, and as you can see from the count down at the top of this page that's really not long at all now.
Jen is doing really, really well and she literally NEVER moans or complains during pregnancy. Don't get me wrong I know she's getting towards her limit now and is about ready to pop, but it has to be said that she's an amazing mother.
It's also a bit worrying that people are forever commenting that she suits being pregnant....!!!!

"Eeeeh it makes everyone look like miniture people!"

'Tilt Shift' photos are something that has fascinated me for a while now but they're something I'd never have the time to look into creating from scratch. It's a lot more technical than this, but in short it an effect which can make people / objects / landscapes etc in photos all look miniture, - like a little toy town if you like. Try Googling for examples or looking round Flickr.
Normally it's quite a lengthy process which also involves a decent spec camera for a start. However I came across a link to this site a few months ago; tiltshiftmaker.com/
Which allows you to have a go at it with your own photos in 3 easy steps.

Decided to try it with this photo I took a few years back at St James' Park when 'The Match' was being shown on Sky 1. Obviously the original is on the left, and the tilt shifted version on the right.

Click the photo to see the full original size.

This is example is no where near as effective as some of the ones kicking around the web but I was pleased for how long it took.
If you really want to be impressed check out this example of a Tilt Shift video;

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

You constantly have to remind yourself that the video isn't just a load of toy people!

Parcel Tracking

The story here is some bloke sticks a camera in a box with a small hole in the side and the camera automatically takes photo's every 10 seconds. He then sticks the box in the mail to himself and joins the resulting photos together in a slideshow - Genius!
I dare say if he did this a couple of times, it wouldn't be long before you'd uncover some nasties about the way parcels are treat whilst in transit.

Maybe I should buy a waterproof one..?!

As Button's arrival becomes ever closer we are going to have to invest again in a Digital Camera. As documented on here in the past I don't have the best of records with Cameras (and electrical gadgets in general!), so I'm trying to be very choosey before investing in another one;

I've decided that it must be compact, preferably enough to fit into my pocket. I've been using my Bro's digi-cam recently, and being able to carry it round in your pocket makes so much sense.

Also don't want an overally expensive one, - apart from my history with then, technology changes so fast meaning they soon become out of date.

That said this camera meets these criteria and then some..! You will notice from the picture that it actually has two lenses. One for normal pics, then the other kicks in when you use the zoom function. Most impressive of all is that this results in 10x optical zoom, which is far more than 99% of other digi-cams on the market.

It also boasts Bluetooth meaning that pictures can be immediately transferred wirelessely to mobile phones etc. A very useful feature in my opinion.

Finally something that has always bugged the hell out of me with digi-cams is the shutter lag. i.e. the time it takes from when you press the button to when the actual photo is taken. It turns out that this varies massively from camera to camera but is rarely advertised as a feature. This table shows that the v610, scores very well in the category too.

I know we've got a shed load of Baby stuff to buy, but we also MUST have a camera. When the funds become available, this looks my choice so far.

Thanks to my boss, Jon for pointing me in the direction of this one :o)