I’ve made it 11 days I’m pretty pleased. I know there’s a way to go yet, but I’m really enjoying it so I intend to keep it up. I’ve also been doing well with my January goals (to be explained at the end of the month), though I will say they involve reading design related books at lunchtimes and I’m really enjoying reading New Media at the moment. It’s a very academic book which I did read bits of while I was at university doing my dissertation, but now I’m reading it cover to cover, and it’s totally waking my brain up!

Anyway enough chat:

For those of you that don’t know, a brief reminder/explanation…

What is Project 365?

Project 365 involves doing something every day for a year. It doesn’t have to start on January 1st, and it doesn’t have to be photography, though from what I’ve seen it does tend to be something creative. One photo a day, one sketch a day etc. The idea’s been gaining popularity over the years and I see more and more people doing it. In 2008 I managed to keep it going pretty well until the April and it petered out into June.

There was one guy who took one photograph a day for 18 years of his life. He was pretty cool, go check him out for some inspiration.

For an even more in depth explanation, check out this article on Fuel Your Photography.

How do I join in?

Just start! Whatever your passion, just go with it. If you want to share it with the world there are a variety of ways! flickr, tumblr, deviantArt, a blog… just get snapping and get sharing!

There are bunches of groups on flickr dedicated to Project 365. I joined Project 366-1 (2010) because many of the same people from the group I was in in 2008 are there. They’re full of helpful advice and suggestions about how to keep it going, and there’s weekly competitions which are pretty cool too!

It was also our first Christmas at our flat instead of a parents’. Lunch was good and not as much hard work as I thought, but that may be to do with not cooking a whole turkey… I also managed to watch every single Wallace and Gromit short & film over the festive period.

For our Xmassy pics complete with snow, Snoopy, Playmobil advent calendars, check them out on Facebook here.

There’s a slew of 2009 review & 2010 promises in my Google Reader today, but what’s one more eh?

2009

Design

I will pick up some files from work on Monday so I can do a review of my work from the year. Includes the designs and associated work for smtrac and StationeryWise.

Photography

I’d briefly considered 365 again but didn’t get very far this year. You can see the photography I uploaded this year here.

Life in General

Work and home life are pretty much the same. I got a raise which I was pretty pleased with. We’re decorating the bathroom at the moment (same colours, just needed a few things sorting out, it already looks miles better). Love-wise we celebrated 3 very happy years together. Familywise, long story, but I just went from being an only child with one parent for 22 years to having two parents, two (half) sisters and a (half) brother. So that’s been good and interesting.

2010

I am yet again attempting Project 365, you can track my progress on my flickr here. This is my big resolution for the year on a creative level. On a personal level it’s health and eating real food, not just chocolate/caek.

There are plenty of posts about keeping resolutions and such out there, and I’ve read a lot of them over the years. The things that stick out most seem to be about taking small steps so as not to overwhelm yourself and creating new habits so as to make real changes. It’s also good to write these things down, review them regularly and have ways to hold yourself accountable.

I liked Gretchen’s post at the Happiness Project about taking each month for a different “thing”. So I’ve done something similar:

Jan – Work/Money
Feb – Love/Relationships
Mar – Mindfulness/Happiness
Apr – Skin/Teeth (yes that sounds weird, it’s not, I’m rubbish at these routines)
May – Cleaning/Tidying
Jun – Exercise
Jul – Photography
Aug – Social
Sept – Art
Oct – Spirituality
Nov – Writing
Dec – Family

Each month has some kind of event, end goal and reward. I’ll be updating my blog from time to time about these because I think it’s good to check in and talk about what I’ve learnt.

Lastly

Eddyb has redesigned his site and blog, go check it out!

Fortunately for us we live just off the local park where our town’s firework display is held. Our balcony produces an excellent view of the show – and easy access to warmth! I must admit to not being much of a fan of standing outside at night at the beginning of winter, bonfire or no bonfire.

This year I decided to try and take some photographs, having such a good vantage spot.

f/3.5 Exposure 1/8 secs ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

I used my Pentax DA that came with my camera, simply because I couldn’t decide on a different lens. I’d read some articles (listed below) about what to use, but uncertain about where exactly to focus, I went with old faithful. Next time I want to experiment more, I’m sure my prime lens could get some fantastic results.

More pictures and tips after the jump!

f/3.5 Exposure 3 secs ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

I kept my f-stop the same (which I would probably play with next time) and just experimented with shutter speeds. I had the camera on a tripod, in the same position the whole time. I did zoom in at one point, but was unhappy with the results.

Having it on a tripod allowed me to photograph the finale in such a way as to fade it all together in the above slideshow. I wish I’d got the end properly as I feel it ends too abruptly, but another lesson for next time. I probably would have put the camera on continuous shooting mode had I thought of it so I could just hold the shutter while I wanted it to take the pictures. This would have worked much better than taking the picture and then waiting for it to store it.

Exposure - all 1/2 sec except the bottom right which was 6 seconds. I adjusted the contrast slightly to remove light pollution. f/3.5 ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

I really liked these, they don’t look like normal fireworks to me, just weird and pretty explosions.

f/3.5 Exposure 1/6 secs ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

Not so keen on the shorter exposure, would rather have the longer trails, but did like these pictures for the colour.

Exposure - all 1/8 sec except the bottom right which was 1/3 seconds. I adjusted the contrast slightly to remove light pollution. f/3.5 ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

I loved the pictures and can’t wait to experiment again!

Useful Links

• Digital Photography School – How to Photograph Fireworks
• Pioneer Woman – Breaking the Rules: Fireworks the “Wrong” Way
• Just Fireworks flickr Group
• Firework Mutants flickr Group

Now please don’t switch off just yet.

Whether “global warming”, or “climate change” is actually happening, or would happen regardless of us makes no odds. It is no excuse for being wasteful. There’s little to no effort to recycling, so why set such a bad example of values to your kids etc? It’s not good to waste things, just because you can! Odds are, that wastefulness is hurting someone or something somewhere. Like the ocean and it’s inhabitants for example.

So, where does our plastic end up?

Photograph belongs to Chris Jordan - http://www.chrisjordan.com/ It has not been Photoshopped.

Yes folks, that is an albatross. A dead albatross showing the contents of it’s stomach. 2000 miles away from the nearest continent – and there’s many more. Plastic now outweighs plankton 6 to 1 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (more info).

Taken from Journey to Midway website:

Midway Atoll, one of the remotest islands on earth, is a kaleidoscope of geography, culture, human history, and natural wonder. It also serves as a lens into one of the most profound and symbolic environmental tragedies of our time: the deaths by starvation of thousands of albatrosses who mistake floating plastic trash for food.

See Journey to Midway and Chris Jordan’s photography for more information about this horror.

But, I recycle, I’m not responsible

I find this film particularly striking (check out from about 5:00 onwards) – a collection of objects found in rotting albatross carcasses. If you were thinking “oh this isn’t my doing”, check out how many toothbrushes, pens and lighters there are there and think again.

Now you “they’re just animals” folk can sing and dance all you want, you can’t think this is right, expecting birds and fish to eat our waste and then die, only to put it back in the sea. No one deserves that. No one deserves to swallow an ink cartridge or golf ball thinking it’s food! Especially just so we can continue this “throw-away society”. It’s not worth it.

What can I do?

Recycling is important, but with plastic it’s called “downcycling” and in the end the plastic still isn’t going to biodegrade for a very very long time and may well end up in the sea. I’m not saying don’t recycle. I’m saying use less plastic!

Buying throw-away products costs more in the long run, matches are just as good as lighters, use pencils when you can? I’ve vowed to never buy biros again. The few pens I have can have refills and the rest of the time I’m going to be using pencils. I’ve also given up Kinder Eggs…

Well if you’re so perfect…

Yes, I’m responsible too. Everyone is to some extent. No one can be completely “green”, that’s not a realistic expectation and it’s not about that. It’s doing what you can and it’s NOT hard. Here in Woking the council has actually upped the types of items we can recycle in our bins. In the new year we’ll have food collections too!

When I feel my efforts slipping I find myself checking out Chris’ work.

I’m almost done, I swear

Remember to do what you can with your recycling, and when buying something, ask yourself, do you really REALLY need it? And if so, buy something that’s built to last you, not for you to throw away.

The Links

http://www.midwayjourney.com/
http://www.chrisjordan.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/ – Worth watching while it’s still on the iPlayer! Beautiful imagery and very interesting information about good being done in the world, and of course showing the effects of our existance. And it has Stephen Fry. Are you not sold with that alone?

Since my Big Ben “pseudo tilt-shift” got featured in Abduzeedo’s Daily Inspiration the other day I thought I’d talk a little more about “tilt-shift” and what I’ve learnt in the last couple of weeks.

What is Tilt-Shift Photography?

Really and truly the popular thing at the moment is actually “miniature faking” via digital post-processing – I don’t think there’s many people out there with the lens required to acheive this effect out of camera.

Wiki Says:

Miniature faking is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is made to look like a photograph of a miniature scale model. Blurring parts of the photo simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered in close-up photography, making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is.

Show Me Some Examples

Did I tell you, I simply love this effect? So do a lot of other people at the moment! For more examples of beautiful tilt-shift photography, check out these links!

• 41 Amazing Tilt-shift Miniature Faking Photographs
• 50 Beautiful Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography on Smashing Magazine
• Tilt-shift Miniature Fakes flickr group
• Tilt-shift Britain flickr group
• Tilt-shift flickr group
• More of my London Eye tilt-shifts

How can I Make a Miniature Fake?

Firstly, it’s good to think about your angle when taking the picture – above is better. It implies that what’s below you is smaller than you, and is how you’d look at a “toy town”. I had the advantage of being on the London Eye, so up nice and high. You can get the effect from any angle, but above just seems to emphasise it all the more.

Taking it into Photoshop

To boil it down as simply as possible, select an area with a gradient in quick mask mode, use lens blur on the selected area and then boost the saturation. For a detailed tutorial, this is the one I used to get started.

Boosting the saturation is important, because it gives it that lovely vibrant “toy” effect that we’re looking for. I usually tweak the curves and other things, whatever looks good

There are also websites out there which will do this for you, though I prefer greater control.

So, show me your tilt-shift miniature fakes!

My birthday this year fell on a Monday, so the weekend was filled with a party with my friends and a party with my family – lots of good food, good conversations. I had a fantastic weekend!

For the actual day it was just the Mister and I, he took me up to London for a trip on the London Eye – having never been.

You can find some of my photographs on flickr. I thought it was a great experience. Would love to go up at night as well! We were fortunate enough for it to be a mild day, with some cloud cover but lots of sun, so the views were clear, but it wasn’t too bright.

I’ve fallen in love with the pseudo tilt-shift effect and so thought I’d try it out with some of them, since I was looking from above and all

I got a ton of presents. I love presents. I can’t help it, everyone loves presents. And I loved everything everyone got me this year. Such great choices! Some things I never knew I needed until I had them (I’m thinking of the book about how to make felt animals – see below)

This is a small selection of my presents, I still have one to cash in (shopping!) and any money I got went on the Great Devon Trip to see Muse. These are the ones I hadn’t found homes for before remembering to take a photo!

In that black box is some incense. I’m halfway through the “Logo Design Workbook” now. The notebook has become my art/design notes book.

Check out the TRADITIONAL SHERBET at the top there. So much better than the plastic packaged stuff. I’m eating it sparingly, trying to make it last as long as possible. I’ll probably keep one forever. The earings were made by my friend Michelle, you can buy more of her excellent jewellery on her Etsy page.

The Cute Book is the felt animal thing. I love sewing. It’s not something I ever make time for, but for some reason I just love it. I took textiles at GCSE as a result. I didn’t know I needed this book until I had it. I’m now in the process of making my first lizard, something more than one person has asked me for. Getting the felt involved a trip to a Hobby Craft and my God was I in heaven there! SO MUCH ART STUFF. I nearly had a heart attack.

And the Mister was so kind as to replace the cheapo Claddagh ring I accidentally put through the wash, with a nicer, more expensive silver one

The view from my balcony, with a very very long lens. You wouldn't know I was in a busy commuter town centre would you?

As it is, our apartment just overlooks the central park, so I see trees from my balcony, and the hills during winter (see photo). There’s still flats directly opposite, but the nature’s there. And, we have a balcony. I was lucky enough to be given some plants, some grown from seed and so all very young. This terrified me somewhat, but I was amazed at how much I enjoy looking after them. I’m not doing brilliantly, but I really enjoy going out to the balcony, watering the plants, checking them, not knowing what to do when I find something wrong… ahem.

If you’re living in a small apartment, don’t have a garden etc I highly recommend just getting one little plant, herbs will gladly live on your windowsil and you can use them! I find tending to my plants very grounding and enjoyable, and I know very little about it.

More pictures of my little plant family, and Fuzz Lightyear (because he’s amazing) after the jump! To note, some of the photos are also on my flickr and you can visit them by clicking on them!

Ignore the dead ones behind, I did “dead head” those, though being a gardening spaz I didn’t really know what that meant…

My boss gave me these a year ago when I moved into the apartment. I really didn’t think this was going to survive – but it did and flowered a second time, though there were three in there before, and whilst those did come up, only one of them truly made it. I’ve since put them in a bigger pot in the hope they’ll keep going. I’m also curious as to where my pictures of it flowering have gone…

This was so exciting, my first tomatoes on my little pearl(?) tomato plant! I hadn’t expected any of them to really do anything…

And then even more appeared!

A tiny cucumber? I must admit this is the one plant I’m having the most trouble with. The leafs are all covered with a white moldish looking fuzz, and from what I’ve read that’s ok. It looks pretty strange though. I also don’t know when to pick the cucumbers, the biggest one is green and yellowy green and doesn’t look how I imagined one to look, so it’s just been sitting there for ages. I’m guessing it’s done? There’s a pic on my twitpic here. This is the plant I was most excited about, so it figures it’s the one doing worst!

More pearls.

They’re so tiny! But ripe. Too ripe in fact, a couple of them split, I don’t know if that’s hugely bad? If I didn’t water them enough? Didn’t pick them soon enough? But I’m trying not to let it happen again. I’ve got a couple of unsplit ones to eat tomorrow

More tiny cucumbers, before the great molding of July.

My trough of various herbs! Thyme, basil, sage or mint (we can’t figure it out), angelica and parsley.

The tiny tomatoes that had split. I’m really clueless, really!

My bigger tomato plants. These were the first tomatoes to appear, now I’ve got quite a lot and am just waiting for them to ripen off. Apparently if I’d cut the plants I would have had more, but I really don’t know which bit of it I was supposed to cut…

They keep going through phases of being really green and happy to really wilted and unhappy. I figure it’s because they’re in their teenage years…

Like someone else I know who never gets out of bed!

We also likened it to what they do in the weightloss TV shows, where they take all the food a person has eaten in a week and dump it on a table. I imagine looking through my photographs is going to be something like that!

My CC blog for yesterday is up here: http://caloriecount.about.com/users/jaz_desig n/307162.html

I don’t know how successful it will be, but it can’t hurt. More awareness of what one is eating can only be a good thing. I know I tend to mindlessly eat, not enjoy my food and not realise how much I’ve actually eaten. Seeing is believing they say!

In other photography news, I finally finished my black and white film I had in my SLR and now have those to upload when I get a minute (mostly photos from The Great Snow and a day in Brighton). I’m also planning to sit down and sort out my Project 366 photos (though I think this year didn’t start out so well with that as last year).

Also hopefully the iPhone is on the way (decided I liked the apps etc too much, had a play with the other half’s, we’re good to go) – I tried to get one at a real store four times and have given up. Internet all the way.

The one thing I’m trying not to let ruin my day is my phone. Messages from last night were coming through  strangely, so I thought I’d switch it off and back on. It won’t turn back on. This is apparently not an uncommon problem and fixes cost money and all the data stored on the phone. Fortunately my pictures and things are on the external memory card, but my contacts,  messages and a few other bits and bobs are not. I’m also generally unhappy with the phone. The OS has had it’s quirks, and the other week it randomly deleted all the default themes shipped with the phone.

It’s still under manufacturer’s warrenty, but part of me stopped trusting the phone a while ago. I’ve only had it 14 months. I want to go back to a Nokia I just bought a new camera though, not really looking to spend precious funds on a new phone. I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, back to new years… 2008 recap! I…

…graduated
…turned 21
…moved into my very own place
…started working fulltime for the very first time
…had a second anniversary
…generally entered the world of the grown up

I have no idea what’s going to happen this year, which is weird after knowing for the last 17 years or so of full time education exactly what would happen each year. I do know what will happen this month though:

Websites, websites, websites. The ones which have been in the works the last few months will launch or get close to launching.
At work work there should be some exciting design stuff happening!
More photography!
I’ll cave and get a new phone

Project 365

I tried it last year and made it to June with a fair few missed days. This year I hope to make it a bit further! I have a new camera, a Pentax Optio S12, which is so dinky it fits in my pocket but still gives a great picture and has plenty of options. Would have loved that digital Leica I saw, but it was 6 times more expensive!

For the time being – until I sort out a photo gallery here on my hosting – I’ll be posting the pictures to my Shuttercal. I don’t want to pay for another flickr subscription and think I’m almost all out of room on there, plus Shuttercal was specifically designed for this I’ll put monthly mosaics on here too! I’ve not taken today’s picture yet, trying to think of something appropriate

Happy new year everyone!

I just wanted to share with you some of my pictures from Whipsnade Zoo…

More@flickr

The post the group had found can be read here and has lots of links and information. This guy took a polaroid every day for 18 years until the day he died. You can see them all here. This is definitely the inspiration I need to get back on with this project. Sure he was just an ordinary guy, but what he did was amazing.

Also I put up the rest of the Bleeding Rose pics. You can see them here or here. I don’t change the prices they put in on the prints, so if you want one let me know and I’ll sort them out to be more reasonable.

I had this photograph featured in a piece on NowPublic.com about the government maybe enforcing some kind of smoking licence scheme. I know it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s really nice that they asked to use my photograph. Also VOTE PETE for student support officer. This be him, pictured here.

I saw Sweeney Todd. Whever it was, with the Mister. I thought the movie was good. Not my favourite Burton, but it kept me entertained. Here I tried drawing with white on black paper, which is much harder than it sounds. I will post the finished piece, when I finish it, I guess.

The Mister’s mum sent us pressies from Egypt. This is the little wood camel we got. Name suggestions in the comments please!

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My best friend came to visit that Friday. Haven’t seen him since Christmas so it was a blast. The Mister cooked us up a good dinner and good times were had by all. These are some of the flowers he brought me.

I honestly adore how in England going to the beach in winter isn’t a bad idea. I spent the best part of my day down at the beach whichever day this was, just listening to music and sleeping on the pebbles. It was awesome. The weather was nice too. I love this photo.

My Valentines present was oil pastels which I asked for. Expect an art in the next few weeks This is also the card I made for the Mister, the idea for which I stole from Dinosaur Comics. Check that out. Hilarity with dinosaurs. It’s hand painted anyway. Check me out. Little miss artist.

Valentines day itself, the Mister cooked me a lovely meal, we had lots of wine, and watched Lost in Translation. I quite liked the film, it kind of reminded me of Eternal Sunshine in the way it was formulated and how it was two people making a connection.

Selling my blue Olympus 410. Buy it here.

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Massive emo moment, haha! I’ll post when I have the rest of this set up, I have a few of them. They’re sort of a sequel to my Descent themed set and part of my Self Elected project.

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Today’s picture is about something so exciting, it’s getting it’s own post.

Also check out this link, there’s a short clip of Muse at Wembley doing Knights of Cydonia. I can’t wait for the DVD!

Jan 9th –

I did take this yesterday, but only got chance to post it today. Need to sort today’s out later too

Took this with my phone cam, was getting ready to go off out to class. Don’t know why I snapped it, this isn’t me at all, I look way too cutesie here. It’s probably the hair clip

Jan 10th – Invincible

I’ve had a busy day. I love my desk. I draw on it all the time. It’s where I make my art, do my work, think etc. So the doodles are important to my process.

These are part of the lyrics to Invincible by Muse. I have the entire song written on there. I love it.

ETA: My boyfriend says my description is crap, so, I took this early on in the day, it’s a giant candle my best friend gave me for my birthday last year. It’s on my windowsil and I like to look at it while I’m working. I changed the tone slightly to get rid of all the blue from the outside light.

Just the view out of my window, where I gaze when I’m procrastinating It’s not terribly interesting.

I may blog about the class tomorrow, I really enjoy it. It’s mostly about being in the moment and focussing – I think this photograph evokes that quite well.

I wasn’t sure about the light in the top left? What do you think.

I’m not 100% happy with the composition but I didn’t realise until it was dark that this was the case :S I don’t like that that top left part of the clearing is cut off, but other than that I quite like it.

Also looking at it afterwards, I wasn’t sure if there was too much light in the bottom half of the picture – I think I need to experiment further with this.

All in all, a learning type day

I was just messing around with my webcam – not brilliant quality, but whatever

Click the image for flickr goodness.