My Life on the Net

I received my welcome pack from the University of Abertay yesterday. It’s a big blow to realise that in 5 months I’ll be moving away from my hometown of Edinburgh, say goodbye to my family and my cat, and start afresh in the town of Dundee - starting a course in Web Design and Development for 4 years.

I unfortunately missed the discussion regarding accommodation - but knew enough that I would be getting my forms for it after the Easter holidays. I got them with my welcome pack, and found out exactly what I have to pay. ¬£50 a week, or ¬£255 a month is what I’m going to pay for my accomodation - and that includes gas, heating, internet but unfortunately electricity for each room is paid with ¬£1 meters outside the rooms - and the first year undergraduates get the worst accomodation. I know, unfortunately, how much my family pays for electricity each year - and I hope I use a lot less.

My electronic devices as of recently that I’ll be taking to university will be:

• Laptop
• Camera (and battery chargers associated with it)
• Mobile Phone (not that I’ll use it much, knowing me)
• Lighting

So, it’s a lot less than the constant computers, tv’s, set top boxes, dvd, heating, chargers, and lighting that we use in this rather large house…

But it’s not only the cost of electricity - but the cost of food, educational materials, transport, and all the drink I normally consume in a day.

They say that a normal student will spend between £5000 to £7000 a year - and many get bursaries up to £5000 I think. But the richer the family you belong to is, the more the government expects your family to fork out for you. So, sorry dad.

Thankfully, I am aware that I live in a Welfare State. I have bursaries, free education and much more. I know that as long as I sign up for SAAS I’ll get bursaries, my education fees paid for me and a dyslexia bursary which will provide me with a new laptop to help me out. In that into effect, without it I’d be paying an extra ¬£7000 a year.

I just have to realise how controlled I’ll have to be with my finances starting in August or September. I’m going to switch banks and find one with a much better interest rate and internet banking features, I’ll need to wether or not I’ll need a job, I won’t be able to fork out on all my photography stuff - probably not shooting film as much. Thankfully, software won’t be a problem - as all software for my course is open source, and all microsoft products are provided free of charge by the university (so I’ll get vista, office, etc for my mac for nothing).

It’s just a shock, realising that in no time whatsoever I’ll be eighteen, leaving the house, and starting fresh in a new town with new friends going to university. Whoah.

One thing I wanted since I got my new Samsung GX-1S dSLR was a 50mm f1.4 lens, and recently that was made possible - thanks to Ebay.. wonderful Ebay… I got a Sigma lens for really cheap.

I wanted to get it before I went to Paris - but unfortunately circumstances led it to being late, and I got it on Tuesday.

I’ve taken it around the home and some of the botanic gardens and thought I’d show you some of my first experiments.

My cat, who was slightly annoyed that I bugged him with my camera while he was eating.

My sister, with my cat.

The depth of field can be really small, and is sometimes really hard to focus, since it’s a manual lens. But when it’s correctly focused, it’s really.. really sharp.

Some shots in the Botanics - just because I had the spare time to do so.

One of my particular favourites.

Back at home, it’s rare to get a good picture of my mother. I liked this one.

My sister. It was an alright ‘contemplating’ shot - but it was bad that my mum decided to put her hand into the shot.

Oh well.

Hope you enjoyed my first experiments. I’ll do some more when I’m not too busy.

Later.

I have about ¬£3 of colour or b&w photocopying that I have to use in the next few weeks. The fact is, that I don’t have anything to photocopy, and I can’t get my money back. That’s when the thought hit.

I have loads of photos, and I know that some people want prints of my work for dirt cheap - even free, as they don’t have the money deviantART wants for prints these day. I don’t either.

So here’s the deal. I have approximately 30-40 prints I can make up to A3 for anyone interested. You’ll need to cover postage if outside of UK, which is 48p in Europe and 54p to the rest of the world. Tell me if you want one and I’ll be happy to send you a few.

Just pick anything out of my flickr or deviantart galleries you want a print of, and I’m happy to send it - I’ll just be happy knowing that someone’s admiring my pictures (but donations are accepted if you feel that it’s too little).

Hey everyone, I’m back in Edinburgh - happy to be in the mid-twenties instead of the mid-thirties of centigrade I had in Paris.

I’m going to recap soon about the highlights of the holiday and my favourite pictures, but I’m spending the day relaxing and recaping on the cumfort and the purring of my couch and combined cat.

So, I managed to get into my hotel’s wifi. Which is great and all, apart from it seems to be off from 8.30 till 4 (I have no idea why) so I’m able to upload my photos to this set on flickr.

So, I thought I’d give you a little status report.

Wednesday
Yesterday was pretty cool. We woke up at 4AM Paris time to catch our plane at Edinburgh airport. Nothing major. It was however, terrible on my sleep pattern - as during the holidays I tend to sleep a lot later in the evening, and only got 3 1/2 hours sleep before waking up.

After we managed to get through the fantastic airport in Paris we got a ride on the metro, fairly easily, and even managed to get to the hotel without fuss.

The hotel is fairly basic, and the fact is that the wifi in the hotel is only for staff use, but there are 50 other wireless networks around. After settling down for a little while, we walked into town and I believe me and my sister, after lunch and after seperating with the parents, walked about 12 miles before collapsing and taking the metro home.

But dinner was good, and we went to a sushi restaurant not too far from the hotel. Wonderful food, and it seemed like the €10 per person gave us the perfect quantity of food to fill us up, and we somehow managed to get back home before collapsing on the beds.

Thursday
Today has been pretty good. We slept in an hour, but I think nobody minded the extra sleep that we all indeed needed. After getting a 3 day pass for all public travel services, we split up - I was with my father and my sister was with my mother. The girls wanted to go shopping, and while this was all ok, us men didn’t. Without having to say, we went somewhere else and found a graveyard with many well known french (and some other nationalites) - some of my favouries being Jim Morrisson, Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Balzac.

After realising it was near lunch time, we hoped there would be some sort of food services at the Arc de Triumph. Some good photo oppertunites, but no. So we proceeded to Le Defense - you know? That wierd hollow square thing. Well, that was pretty cool, and is quite the business centre, as well as contained a variety of shopping centres, one being ‘Les quartre temps’, or the four seasons. I found a fast food place, and also one of those shops that has absolutely everything - and manged to get a 2Gb USB keyring and some screen protectors for my camera which were really cheap.

We went to some other church place, but I’ve forgotten the name.

And after a lot of metro hopping we managed to get home, with mum and sister only 1 minute behind us, and collapsed on the beds again.

Friday
Today was slightly different - as we decided we’d visit some market before doing anything else. Since we were staying in Oberkamph, there was a market coming today which sold a lot of food and some clothing/acessories. My sister and mother wanted to go. There was some good photo oppertunities but overall, but I was uninterested.

My mother’s feet were acting up and she was finding it sore to walk, so the rest of us wandered of to Cite Science Museum, for no reason whatsoever, but had a look around nonetheless - buying an Exploration ticket and an IMAX film..

[i'll finish it off later. I have a headache and I'm going for lunch] Not going to happen. Too long afterward I can’t clearly remember it.

If I’m unable to find an open node near my hotel, I’ll be gone until Monday as I’ll be in Paris.

Yes, I’m bringing my laptop - but it’s strictly for storage space and because I have a 6000 word paper due in next tuesday - but if I’m unable to get any sleep or I’m having a break, then I’ll be round.

I’m sure you’ll all survive without me, but just in case you have a little trouble I’ve provided a few little pointers to get you through it all:

• Don’t do drugs.
• If you start to hyperventelate, don’t use those brown paper bags - they’re so cliche.
• Although I’ll not be on twitter to tell you when to go to the can, dosen’t mean that you should stop doing it alltogether. I don’t want to come back to find you all constipated or worse. Just remember, when you feel the urge to go. GO!
• But if it get’s really bad, and you really need me for something - a ticket to Paris shouldn’t be too hard to get on short notice. Just hang around the Gard de le Nord or Oberkamph, as I’ll probably be using those stations every day. Just keep crying out my name all the time - don’t worry, everyone does it..

As long as you follow these four steps you’ll be loosing pounds in… oh wait.. wrong speech.

I’ll see you when I get back - hopefully with many pictures and some interesting experiences.

Au reviour mes amigos!

I started using deviantART in February of 2005 in the thought that with the many users, and with the posession of a new camera, I would be able to recieve critique on my work to such an extent that it would help me to become a better photographer.

In the past 2 years, I’ve taken many of thousands of photographs, published to deviantart more than 250, and even more to sites like flickr. But only recently did I realise that the community that sparked my first interests has turned sour.

I joined deviantART on 13th February 2005 and since then I have recieved slightly over 7000 pageviews. Not too shabby, huh? It’s not that, it seems that since the time I joined the community, it has become sparse and uncommentive, and too much hype is produced around digital artwork (defitely around anime) and not enough is paid to others who have devoted themselves to their art.

I see too many works in which a lot of time and thought have been spent on, but very little critique or notice have been given to them. People seem to feel surpised when I offer a critique or opinion about a piece, and that’s what I believed deviantART was intended for. I feel the lack of commenting to be a downside to the entire process. Although it can be slightly uplifiting to get favourites and comments such as ‘nice pic’ once in a while, it dosen’t offer a good response as a critique.

I try when I have the time (and I seem to be the only one) that offers constructive criticism. I commented this once to a particular work I enjoyed:

“The cross processed look of this photo brings a lot more than a photo of correct colour balance ever could. The decision to use this tint, to me, brings a lot of mood to the piece by counter balancing the simplicity of the composition.
In English, that means that I like it.”

I often also comment on how a piece could have been improved, or done differently to offer a different effect. This isn’t used to tarnish a particular piece, but to bring new ideas to the artist for future reference.

This is what drives me mad about deviantART. That’s what they publicise, but at the end of it all people give no constructive criticim to your own work. It’s rather inconsiderate, if I say so myself. I think of it this way: when you see a ‘deviation’ - you have to understand that they generally want more than just a thumbs up, they want to know how they can improve and become better as the continue through life. That’s human nature - and you have to remember that there’s a human at the end of that piece wanting to know how you *really* think about something they created.

I’ll show you by example. One thing I have noticed in my time of deviantART is that if you want a favourite for photography, shoot a spiral. What is it with people on this website and spirals, I don’t know, I just know that almost every spiral I’ve seen has been favourited at least 5 times. My only spiral photo, “Spiral Stair”, has recieved more favourites and more comments than any other deviation in my gallery - topping off at 13 favourites and 13 comments (feeling unlucky, punk?). And guess what most of them are? Yep, you guessed it - “Good work”, “lovely shot”, and “that’s blossom” (I still don’t completely understand the last one)

I think these communities are similar to our own. In a place you may have gone recently, to life outside the internet, you might have realised that you have no idea who your neighbours are. Do you know what they’re interested in? Do you spend the little extra time getting to know them, and giving them help in little bits and bobs? I thought not.

It’s become relatively human nature to care, in some form or way, about the people around you. It just seems that somehow in these internet communities we seem to have lost the connections we once had with each other, and the short and blunt comments of days past no longer satisfy the critique we crave.

Sorry, I wanted to rant about this - as I’m trying to decide wether or not I’ll stay there completely. I’m not sure..

I managed to somehow wake myself from my ordinary eternal slumber and headed out to Ocean Terminal, a local shopping centre. For this weekend (Thursday - Monday) they set up an Xtreme Sports session which included, interesting enough for me, an indoor skatepark.

I’ve always wanted to do some skatepark shooting, but unfortunately our city lacks a permanent skatepark. There are locations where some go to skate, but none with ramps, etc.

I had some great fun, and managed to get some fairly good photos. I also managed to fill up all 2Gb of my camera’s storage - but unfortunately sports photography being what it is, most was either a blur or the subject was out of the shot. It was also the first time I’ve ever completely gone manual, and liked it. Apeture priority is good and all, but sometimes you need a lot more control over your photos. I think I’ll be doing that a lot more often.

You can see the entire set here if you wish.

I am ecstatic about going to Paris on Wednesday. So much, in fact that I’m ensuring that I bring my laptop as I believe that the 2Gb of camera memory I have at the moment won’t be enough.

With the wide array of architecture, the restaurants, the bookstores, the food, the metro and almost everything in that wonderful city is photogenic. I’ve been planning already what I need or wish I had to take with me.

Some of the thoughts were:

• Samsung GX-1S (my dSLR) and two lenses (18-55 mm / 50-200 mm)
• If I had enough money, a Pentax fit 50mm f1.4 lens (but I can’t find one too cheap)
• My Yashica MG-1 film camera (with 4 rolls of Ilford Delta 400)
• iBook G4 for downloading/editing on the move.

But however, I had to have the lecture from my father. If unknown to you, my dad has a fantastic ability to put a pessimistic view from about almost anything. Stunning architecture, beautiful scenery - and what does he say? The french are all thieves. ALL of them.

I believe he has said that about every country we’ve been too. His view is always single-minded. “The Italians are all thieves, the Greeks, the Turkish..” You get the drift. It is the most infuriating thing in the world, and as a family we have to put up with this..

And so, well - it comes to the conclusion. Teenage rebellion - screw him. I’ll bring whatever I want thank you very much. I don’t need to be told about how you got something stolen off of you in these countries, and how I’m the only one that’s not been robbed. I’m good at securing my goods and just because you are insecure about looking after your own property doesen’t mean that I’m not street-wise in looking after my gear.

p.s. If anyone reading this has any good locations they know of around Paris I’d be greatly obliged.

(Image “Porte Saint Dennis” by Till Kretch is under the Creative Commons “Attribution” licence)

I think the first day of April has brought up the spring with it. It was wonderful. It was warm, sunny and a light breeze coming from the south. Arthur’s Seat is in the middle of Edinburgh, 823 ft above sea level.

It’s pretty accessible, and is used by hikers, cyclists and tourists alike. It’s a great way to get a view of quite a lot of Edinburgh.