Now all I have to do is figure out why it's not working with my Wordpress accounts.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Studio
Friday 8 April 2011
Testing Blogpress
Decided to try out Blogpress for iPhone. Could be handy, but I suspect my laptop is still safe as my #1 blogging tool.
Now all I have to do is figure out why it's not working with my Wordpress accounts.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Now all I have to do is figure out why it's not working with my Wordpress accounts.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday 29 July 2010
The art of seeing
Photographers are a funny mob. We get so involved in how to do things, or how that effect is done etc, that we often forget that photography is about seeing and painting with light.
What camera do you use, or what lens or what f stop are always bandied around when photographers get together. You don't often see photographers spending much time developing their eye.
Our vision, in reality is the only thing that separates us from each other. As creatives we need to be practicing daily our craft, our vision, our eye. Yeah I know as working shooters there is a whole lot of other stuff we have to do, like paperwork, marketing promotion and just simple talking to clients. All that stuff gets in the road of us training at our chosen vocation. Can you imaging a pro footballer, golfer or tennis playing not practicing daily, instead doing the other stuff. How long do you think professional sports people would last if they didn't practice.
What camera do you use, or what lens or what f stop are always bandied around when photographers get together. You don't often see photographers spending much time developing their eye.
Our vision, in reality is the only thing that separates us from each other. As creatives we need to be practicing daily our craft, our vision, our eye. Yeah I know as working shooters there is a whole lot of other stuff we have to do, like paperwork, marketing promotion and just simple talking to clients. All that stuff gets in the road of us training at our chosen vocation. Can you imaging a pro footballer, golfer or tennis playing not practicing daily, instead doing the other stuff. How long do you think professional sports people would last if they didn't practice.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
We're moving forward....
Well that's what our new Prime Minister tells us, I guess we can all forget the train wreck of the last government and focus on a bright and fabulously wonderful future with our new team.... Not the dream team we were promised at last election, but a moving forward team.
One of the things I've never really got about moving forward, is why is it always good to move forward? For example, if I've parked my car facing towards the edge of a very high cliff.... is it still a good idea to move forward, rather than stay still or go backwards.
If we move forward, do we get a better deal, and better governance? Or is it just possible we get the same deal? New packaging, new slogan.... moving forward.
What do we do when we move forward? Now that the dream team have tackled all the hard issues like, climate change, whaling in the Southern Oceans, giving each kid a lap top in an education revolution and of course my absolute favorite the National Broadband Network, which has been rolled out to give us international standard access to broadband. What do we do when we move forward?
I ponder sometimes the alternatives to moving forward. Sadly there are none unless you like middle aged men, trying to prove they are some kind of action hero running around in tiny little bathing costumes. Oh well... At the end of the day, I'll guess we'll just have to move forward.
One of the things I've never really got about moving forward, is why is it always good to move forward? For example, if I've parked my car facing towards the edge of a very high cliff.... is it still a good idea to move forward, rather than stay still or go backwards.
If we move forward, do we get a better deal, and better governance? Or is it just possible we get the same deal? New packaging, new slogan.... moving forward.
What do we do when we move forward? Now that the dream team have tackled all the hard issues like, climate change, whaling in the Southern Oceans, giving each kid a lap top in an education revolution and of course my absolute favorite the National Broadband Network, which has been rolled out to give us international standard access to broadband. What do we do when we move forward?
I ponder sometimes the alternatives to moving forward. Sadly there are none unless you like middle aged men, trying to prove they are some kind of action hero running around in tiny little bathing costumes. Oh well... At the end of the day, I'll guess we'll just have to move forward.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Is it just me?
I was lighting the fire in our studio this morning and picked up and old newspaper. Started reading as I tend to do... Read a piece on a guy taking his ex boss ( they both worked for the same company, she was his superior) to court because she let him have sex with her. Apparently when he made advances to her... note he made advances... he is claiming that she should have said NO.
Instead they had an affair that lasted for several months until she finally said enough is enough.
The guy wants compensation for the stress and suffering he under went while he was shagging her. Apparently this dude believes that it is all her fault for letting him screw her.
The woman concerned has since lost her job, however Randy as I'll call him is still employed but now wants to be compensated for his unfair treatment.
What is this world coming to? Sounds a bit like the barbaric act of stoning a woman to death for committing adultery and letting the fella go, only in this case the fella now thinks he deserves a pot of gold after the honey pot runs dry.
Back to more pleasant things. A gentle balloon flight across Australia's larges salt lake, Lake Eyre. More of these pics can be found at excitations stock archive.
Instead they had an affair that lasted for several months until she finally said enough is enough.
The guy wants compensation for the stress and suffering he under went while he was shagging her. Apparently this dude believes that it is all her fault for letting him screw her.
The woman concerned has since lost her job, however Randy as I'll call him is still employed but now wants to be compensated for his unfair treatment.
What is this world coming to? Sounds a bit like the barbaric act of stoning a woman to death for committing adultery and letting the fella go, only in this case the fella now thinks he deserves a pot of gold after the honey pot runs dry.
Back to more pleasant things. A gentle balloon flight across Australia's larges salt lake, Lake Eyre. More of these pics can be found at excitations stock archive.
Monday 12 July 2010
Macbook Pro battery life.
Is it just me or does the advertised battery life of a 17" Macbook Pro SUCK?
Brand new machine, the apple claim a wonderful battery life of over 5 hours (in fact I'm pretty sure they claim more than that) mine is lucky to last 2 hours. I thought that was ok given that I use mostly processor intensive programs, but I noticed the other night that it still died in 2 hours and 15 minutes while I was just doing emails.
Nice bit of kit, but why the deception? When Canon and Nikon make a big deal out of battery life on their DSLR's you get much better life than the previous model. Apparently a concept that escapes the little silver apple.
Brand new machine, the apple claim a wonderful battery life of over 5 hours (in fact I'm pretty sure they claim more than that) mine is lucky to last 2 hours. I thought that was ok given that I use mostly processor intensive programs, but I noticed the other night that it still died in 2 hours and 15 minutes while I was just doing emails.
Nice bit of kit, but why the deception? When Canon and Nikon make a big deal out of battery life on their DSLR's you get much better life than the previous model. Apparently a concept that escapes the little silver apple.
Photographing from a hot air balloon at Lake Eyre
Just returned from a road trip to Lake Eyre in the northern part of South Australia. We were there at the invitation of Balloonist and adventurer, Kiff Saunders. Kiff was involved in an horrific road accident earlier this year and celebrated his first balloon flight by flying over Lake Eyre.
The outback photographer got to ride along with Kiff. You can view some of the images captured here at excitations stock archive.
What an amazing flight, lifting of just as the sun peeped above the horizon and over Australia's largest salt lake in minutes. Amazingly, even though we were drifting slowly over the lake, the whole flight seemed to flash by. So many things to photograph and so little time to do it.
The outback photographer got to ride along with Kiff. You can view some of the images captured here at excitations stock archive.
What an amazing flight, lifting of just as the sun peeped above the horizon and over Australia's largest salt lake in minutes. Amazingly, even though we were drifting slowly over the lake, the whole flight seemed to flash by. So many things to photograph and so little time to do it.
Sunday 5 July 2009
Living with fire and ememrgency response
If you live in Victoria as I do, unless you have been comatosed for the last couple of months you would be aware of the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Fires. Media and political interest often fuel these inquiries into disasters... because some has to be at fault... right!
Funny thing is anyone with even half a brain knew that we were in for one hell of a day on February 7th. A week of sky high temperatures, very low humidity across the state had already laid the ground work for a disaster. The Bureau of Meteorology forecast high winds and high fire danger days before. It was just a matter of when and where disaster would strike, not if.... Or at least that is the way our fire fighting forces should have viewed the situation.
Now the CFA has copped a lot of flak over its handling or rather miss handling of the days events and rightly so. We should however separate the CFA into two parts. The teams on the ground busting their guts doing everything in their power to save lives and property and on the other hand the administration and management division. One group literally laying their lives on the line every time they turn out to a fire or emergency. The other group charged with the responsibility of ensuring crews on the ground are trained, equipped and provided with timely up to date information, enabling rapid and safe deployment in the advent of a disaster situation arising.
The failures within the CFA appear to primarily lay with management. Failure to adequately ensure the CFA was ready to handle an event of this magnitude. Failure to have in place a communication system that worked. Failure to disseminate information to its own members and failure to provide any relevant and useful information to the public. Who by the way are not totally free of blame here. There was plenty of information available to suggest that there was a clear and present danger. We all have to accept some responsibility for our own well being. " Oh look Bill there's a bloody great fire up wind of us... awesome, now let's crack a coldie and watch the cricket".
Ultimately we all need to take responsibility for our well being. Choose to live in a flood plain, expect your house to be flooded. Construct your dream home on top of an active volcano, expect your life to reach new heights. Choose a beautiful, forested mountain area in South Eastern Australia in which to live and you will need to accept that bush fire is inevitable. Prepare for the day, don't expect help to come, be self sufficient, arrange your own defenses and expect external utilities such as water and power and phone to be cut. If the additional cost of providing your own protection or the worry and uncertainty are too much for you.... move.
A communication meltdown may have been due to an overwhelming event... But that's what disaster management is about, being prepared to handle events lager than normal. If we only prepare for day to day work loads, we are always doomed to failure as soon as work loads elevate to a higher magnitude. In this case we had an advanced warning of several days, in fact months. How would emergency services cop with a spontaneous disaster. A large aircraft crashing into a small remote rural community during summer. No chance then to think about chains of command and protocols.
Governments have to ensure that our emergency response services are in a position to immediately assume control of a situation. They must ensure that the people at the top of these organisations are capable of immediately initiating a chain of command, utilising suitably qualified personnel, not desk jockeys who collect a salary and sip cups of tea at a political level. Management figures who wilt under pressure, and fail in the most basic of managerial practices have no place in any emergency organisation.
However the failures of emergency response organizations pale into insignificance when compared to successive governments over the last 30 odd years, who have slowly eroded any advances made after Victoria's last significant fire event. The implementation of fire refuges to name one. Demanding management that is capable of performing their duty is another. We have a Royal Commission into this latest fire which from memory our Premier said "will ensure that this never happens again". I just wonder if we will have exactly the same reaction to a catastrophic fire event 30 years down the road.
If you think I'm being a bit harsh, take a look if you will to our emergency response to Swine Flu. Had this been indeed a killer virus we would currently all be dead. Could our already struggling health system cope with even a minor terror attack? Would our response be to meet the challenge head on, or would we, as in the case of Black Saturday, make provision to change the triage conditions of incoming patients . I believe you normally require burns to 10% of your body to be admitted to the critical burns unit, but I understand that was to be raised to 30% on Black Saturday. Although this was not implemented, due primarily to a high mortality rate with few people caught in the inferno surviving long enough to need hospitalization.
OK rant over have a great day.
Funny thing is anyone with even half a brain knew that we were in for one hell of a day on February 7th. A week of sky high temperatures, very low humidity across the state had already laid the ground work for a disaster. The Bureau of Meteorology forecast high winds and high fire danger days before. It was just a matter of when and where disaster would strike, not if.... Or at least that is the way our fire fighting forces should have viewed the situation.
Now the CFA has copped a lot of flak over its handling or rather miss handling of the days events and rightly so. We should however separate the CFA into two parts. The teams on the ground busting their guts doing everything in their power to save lives and property and on the other hand the administration and management division. One group literally laying their lives on the line every time they turn out to a fire or emergency. The other group charged with the responsibility of ensuring crews on the ground are trained, equipped and provided with timely up to date information, enabling rapid and safe deployment in the advent of a disaster situation arising.
The failures within the CFA appear to primarily lay with management. Failure to adequately ensure the CFA was ready to handle an event of this magnitude. Failure to have in place a communication system that worked. Failure to disseminate information to its own members and failure to provide any relevant and useful information to the public. Who by the way are not totally free of blame here. There was plenty of information available to suggest that there was a clear and present danger. We all have to accept some responsibility for our own well being. " Oh look Bill there's a bloody great fire up wind of us... awesome, now let's crack a coldie and watch the cricket".
Ultimately we all need to take responsibility for our well being. Choose to live in a flood plain, expect your house to be flooded. Construct your dream home on top of an active volcano, expect your life to reach new heights. Choose a beautiful, forested mountain area in South Eastern Australia in which to live and you will need to accept that bush fire is inevitable. Prepare for the day, don't expect help to come, be self sufficient, arrange your own defenses and expect external utilities such as water and power and phone to be cut. If the additional cost of providing your own protection or the worry and uncertainty are too much for you.... move.
A communication meltdown may have been due to an overwhelming event... But that's what disaster management is about, being prepared to handle events lager than normal. If we only prepare for day to day work loads, we are always doomed to failure as soon as work loads elevate to a higher magnitude. In this case we had an advanced warning of several days, in fact months. How would emergency services cop with a spontaneous disaster. A large aircraft crashing into a small remote rural community during summer. No chance then to think about chains of command and protocols.
Governments have to ensure that our emergency response services are in a position to immediately assume control of a situation. They must ensure that the people at the top of these organisations are capable of immediately initiating a chain of command, utilising suitably qualified personnel, not desk jockeys who collect a salary and sip cups of tea at a political level. Management figures who wilt under pressure, and fail in the most basic of managerial practices have no place in any emergency organisation.
However the failures of emergency response organizations pale into insignificance when compared to successive governments over the last 30 odd years, who have slowly eroded any advances made after Victoria's last significant fire event. The implementation of fire refuges to name one. Demanding management that is capable of performing their duty is another. We have a Royal Commission into this latest fire which from memory our Premier said "will ensure that this never happens again". I just wonder if we will have exactly the same reaction to a catastrophic fire event 30 years down the road.
If you think I'm being a bit harsh, take a look if you will to our emergency response to Swine Flu. Had this been indeed a killer virus we would currently all be dead. Could our already struggling health system cope with even a minor terror attack? Would our response be to meet the challenge head on, or would we, as in the case of Black Saturday, make provision to change the triage conditions of incoming patients . I believe you normally require burns to 10% of your body to be admitted to the critical burns unit, but I understand that was to be raised to 30% on Black Saturday. Although this was not implemented, due primarily to a high mortality rate with few people caught in the inferno surviving long enough to need hospitalization.
OK rant over have a great day.
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