Life Observed

Old is the new new , apparently. Here is a picture taken with a twenty first century digital camera and a fairly good lens. It's the sort of gear I might use to take a nice landscape. But look, I have managed to create a nasty, grainy, black and white picture with light fall off at the edges. It's an image that sums up everything about cheap film cameras that we laboured so hard to leave behind us. Now this old and awful look is available on your digital camera at the click of a button. Old has become the new chic. I decided on a suitable subject for this little demonstration. It is my one remaining film camera. This Russian FED50 cost me £14 brand new in the mid 1990s and  I bet it could still produce better images than these modern "art filters" create.

My mind's a blank.... Weird alien thing found in Debenhams. I wonder if I should have told someone?

There was a family do at the weekend. Champagne: (Nice pub, the Wych Elm) Cheesecake: (No - I don't usually take pictures of my dinner) An experiment: Taking photos with a phone rather than a camera. Conclusion? Hmm. The images are nice and sharp. The camera is exactly the same size as the phone. Is it a substitute for a camera? No, not really.

Oh dear me. Minus one on the way to work this morning.  A proper negative number. The freezing fog hangs over the empty fields like a giant frozen  foggy  thing . I find myself wondering maybe the Winter tyres should finally go on the car? Should I wait for proper snow to arrive? I learned a lesson last November: Cheap Winter tyres may be great on snow and Ice but they are not at their best unless it is properly cold. 

Looks grey and cold outside. I tap the barometer: Let's find out what the future holds. The needle falls a long long way from "Fair" to "Rain". Hmm: It looks like a storm is on the way. I tap the barometer again. The needle falls to "Much Rain"....  Goodness me, I've never seen a pressure that low. We must be in for a hurricane at this rate. I tap the barometer again. The needle falls off all together.

I don't entirely understand what is going on here. This is washing up liquid. Cranberry Crush washing up liquid in fact.  The name suggests you can drink it.  It looks drinkable.  It even smells drinkable. Except it is washing up liquid. Is this a sensible thing to do?

Oh, if only it were Summer. But it is cold, frosty and frequently wet here in the UK in January. Here is a little reminder: Sunset on Cyprus last April.  Now that is nice isn't it...

Compose your pictures. Don't just snap them. Place the foreground, the middle distance and the background in the correct positions. Now leave out everything that shouldn't be in the picture...

Everyone is so busy: No-one seems to have noticed that Albert has died.

Extreme Marmiting... Stronger, Thicker, Blacker. Go on, try Marmite XO. You know you want to.