DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

You may or may not remember that shortly after the September 11th attacks on the US, a well documented and publicisied exhibition sprung up in an empty store in SOHO. Soon to become know as Here Is New York, it was a place where anyone could go to post photo’s of NY and 9/11 related material. It didn’t matter whether you were a pro photographer, photo journalist, or were taking it with your camera phone, they all got put up, anonymously, and without caption.

Out of this exhibition, a book was published, which I saw recently and decided that I just had to purchase! It’s huge, and contains a massive amount of images, and from what I’ve seen so far, for any New York fan, or anyone with a passing interest in the events of 9/11 it’s an essential purchase.

I’ve long wanted a proper flash based photo gallery. I’ll be a long time waiting on Emma Jane to build me one I reckon, so, for the mean time, I’m going to make do with SimpleViewer, what looks like a very neat way of putting together flash based photo galleries. On top of that, it sits very neatly with Picasa, so will make things nice and easy to use. But, on top of that, there’s a lot of customisation available which will open up lots of advance features too!

Not quite as crude as the name might suggest, The Rasterbator is a very cool tool discovered by some of the lads in the office. It allows you to create giant posters from normal size photographs.

I’ve seen the results in printed form already, from a distance, they look amazing, and would make for some very, very entertaining backdrops to parties etc in the future!

I took the camera out at the weekend for the first time to take some proper shots since I got it back, and much to my disgust, I found that the problem that was there (front focusing) prior to Canon taking it off me for four weeks, was still there, in fact, if it’s anything, it’s worse than it was before.

I took over 300 shots, from shots at a rugby match, to portraits, to candids out in the garden, and not one of them is 100% in focus. Ok, some are close enough as it almost makes no difference, but, from over five grands worth of kit, you’d expect pretty much every shot to be in focus all the time!!

So, it’s going to be going back to Canon on Friday, which, is going to leave me camera-less for the Christmas unless they get their act together and do something to arrange cover for me for the Christmas, as I’ve a few projects lined up!!

Peter has published another update to his monthly words of wisdom, which, as always, are well worth a read!

I have just been pointed in the direction of Magnum In Motion, which is an amazing photo-journalism website. I really recommend that you check out their photo essay’s, they’re not necessarily the most pleasant photo essay’s you will ever see, they’re hard hitting and emotional, but, they really are very, very good.

Four weeks later, I’ve finally just got my camera back! Now, let’s hope that everything is back to normal on it too!

I’m off to a showcase seminar for Apple’s new photo managment & editing suite, Aperture. Really looking forward to going along to this, as it looks like a very cool application, and should be a good morning out! Places still available too if you want to register