A walk in the woods at Llandegla today

Here are some of the images I made today.

Out with Social Links Photography group today, down by the river Dee in Shotton.

Today we went down by the river near to Deeside enterprise centre. I had my 550D IR conversion with a Hoya 72n IR filter, and a circular polariser with my 40mm prime pancake lens.

Here is a selection of the shots. I've channel swapped some, some I then decided looked better in mono chrome. I split toned a few to give a bit of a Lith print look, which I prefer with IR shots.

On the 4th of April, I just had to go out with my Camera (For some Strange Reason).

There has actually been some decent UK Spring type weather between this and my last Snowy Blog, I've just been busy moving house again. Anyway North Wales got a heavy load of snow this Easter, so after a week from the heavy snow storm, I went up to Llandegla and took a few pictures around Lake Hill fishery.

The road was still closed by a 15ft snow drift so I had to do a bit of a hike but once there I got these shots. I think it was worth it. Anita says I'm mad;

Here are some of the images I've made so far this year.

 Firstly a visit to Ewloe Castle in the recent snow.

 This one is done using a Hoya infrared filter.

 Split toned monochrome to give that Lith print effect

On my way home.

Burton weir during the snow melt

Caught this meteor at 5:15 am.

Lith effect on the way out of Wepre woods

Looking down on the Llangollen Valley from the horseshoe pass.

Greenfield valley abbey

Gladstone's Library Hawarden.

First hard copies of my book have landed.

This morning,  

I was woken up by the door bell at 7:45 am. It was a courier, I have just received the first 10 copies of my book, 7"version. That's it for now on that project, busy on some other avenues of work up until Christmas. I will be selecting 20 of my best images from my book and getting them printed 12" square and framing them for exhibition. Early in the new year I will be burning some rubber (on the soles of my shoes, leather soles don't seem to last me 5 minutes) canvasing possible venues for exhibiting some work. Hopefully the bulk of that project is now finished and it's time to move onto the next.

Have to start compiling a list of goals for next year, then shaving the list down to the one or two things that I can tell Lee I want to do next year ;-) (That'd require getting the SMART filter out then !)

I am already building up a list of the camera gear I want, just got to find a way to justify each. Plus I need to get my own source of finance going. Not cheep this photography business, is it?

New Book release

Well I did it! 2 days solid compiling pictures and text (which took months to get), I have finished rewriting last years college project. It was very expensive first time around. Plus due to a crash I lost a lot of the base data.

So what's the deal with this version?

1) Cost: the original "hardback" was way too expensive and that's a thing to note on the learning curve here, set a practical unit cost. I have got this down to £17.50 per book. I haven't offered this as an e-book yet but if there is a demand that will follow.

2) Double use as a brochure, I plan to exhibit some of the work for this book. The book shows a range of post processing styles, which can be applied to almost any of the images. By offering the book I am presenting a choice of style for final print {some shots may require reshoot if infrared is required etc}.

3) Previously unseen work. I have recently noticed a few features near to the river that I thought should be in the book. So I have been on my travels. A good chance for a bracing walk. I tried to avoid illustrating the havoc created by the recent floods. (They are for the news which is not what this book is for).

4) I managed to re-focus one one of my original aims for the project and more adherence to the film shots up stream, digital shots down stream.


So available now from Blurb. Order now (30/11/2012) for delivery by 14th December.

http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/3122263/0b2caea5d31eb452238232b1e5d090d430b88f76

Just getting some of the film images sorted (Film shots - upstream)

Upcoming release planned for 

mid to late November 2012

I am currently working on editing down the original of this debut photo book for Alto Photo in order that it is a lot more affordable and also less wordy.

Watch this space for the release of the 7" single

version to be published via Blurb.

Where to next and other meanderings

OK, I guess it's about time to take stock and plot a path for Alto Photo, for the coming year.

I'll start with what the plan was from last year. Whilst studying for my HND last year I only had one project ...... with lots and lots of sub tasks.

The stated aim for the year was to pass the course which was ticked off in June. Prior to that I had completed my book "The Song of the River Alyn", and what I had hoped to do was produce prints from the book and do a touring exhibition. The first exhibition of this tour was going to be my backup if the team effort fell apart, which it didn't.

So following the course I was going to run off prints from my book. Unfortunately however, just prior to our exhibition I had a bit of a disaster with my image files, so now I have to try to recover what I can and maybe reshoot some of the shots.

So over the next few months I will be trying to recover work, hopefully the result will be a better version of my book, which I can then offer to the local archives.

A few things come to mind when re considering the book. Originally it was not designed as a market venture as is reflected in the exorbitant unit cost on Blurb. It was always intended that I use the book as a study aid, as I intend to start work again slowly on a part time basis. I am going to need some support in doing this.

I intend to post on my blog images as I recover them. The reworked book will be aiming at a unit cost of £20 - £25. I doubt that I will be able to get it produced any cheaper. I may have to sacrifice a little regards aspect ratio and maybe revert to a soft back format.

Also I intend to complete a preparing to teach in the Life Long Learning sector qualification.

Then moving on from that, maybe a distance learning degree, but that is dependant on how all the other things pan out.

Here is the cover of my book:

I have done quite a lot of project management and programming of works in my past life as a Civil Engineer. Fortunately I have been able to use this over the past couple of years and have been able to meet most deadlines by building in a lot of redundancy and float into my work. That has meant working like a Tasmanian Devil when I was well, to make up for the times when I was down with the result of apparently doing way too much, fortunately the plan came together for the main part, but lets just say I have paid a price, which may only be truly realised on the 31st of this month. 

Fingers crossed, how can having a positive mental attitude cause so much trouble?

I spent the first four years of having this condition, trying to convince doctors that there was nothing wrong with me, then I gave up and accepted their version of things as it seemed a reasonable explanation for why I couldn't cope. Now the DWP are trying to convince the doctors that there is nothing wrong with me, I sure wish they would have had that attitude 10 years ago. 

Here are a few pictures from the weekend, from Hope mountain. Flintshire.