A silly mistake – 30 July 2015

Posted on July 30, 2015July 30, 2015 by Zogman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — This one was 1/200 @ f9 ISO 250. In other words, Normal.

For a few months now I’ve been setting my camera to Manual exposure, choosing a shutter speed around 1/250th and an aperture of around f9, then allowing the camera to choose the ISO to achieve those settings. I’d used it on the Nikon first because the E-PL1 didn’t have the ability to adjust the ISO in camera. When I got the E-PL5 back in early June, and after researching the ‘hidden menu‘, I found that it could do what the Nikon did. Since then, I’ve used the manual mode almost exclusively. Today after a morning of success and failure in painting, then digging up our tatties (just got enough for two dinners – not good) I went out on the bike hoping to get close to nature and get some photos of ‘beasties‘ using the E-PL5 with the Pano lens and extension tubes. After dosing myself with

The lacewing was ISO 8000. Acceptable, just.

insect repellant – a strange thing to do if you are hoping to get closeups of insects, but it keeps away the biting insects … sometimes. The first two or three shots were fine, then I must have accidentally changed the shutter speed from 1/250th to 1/4000th. This gave an underexposure of over 4 stops which meant the camera compensated by increasing the ISO proportionally. Silly Boy! The result of this is that the grain/noise on the shots was a lot more than normal, and I do mean a LOT! The shutter speed has now been returned to normal and I’ll be more careful in future.

Sorry JIC and others, I should have posted a technospeak alert! 😉

Other than that it was just a normal day, but at least there was no rain and for a while we got some sun. I don’t think it will be like that tomorrow, so I grabbed the sun while it was there. Oh, one last thing. Had a starter tonight of Black Pudding Pakora. Don’t, just don’t. It’s not a lovely, lovely thing as John Torode would say.

A day out with friends – 29 July 2015

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Zogman

It’s not often we all get together, typically twice or three times a year, but when we do all get off the leash at the same time, drink is taken, jokes are told and you must leave your sensibilities at the door. That’s how it was today when we all arrived, well almost all of us at the Horseshoe Bar in Drury Street in Glasgow. It’s our usual pub and has the longest bar in Europe, 104 feet and 3 inches. For those readers who prefer measurements in metric, but a calculator. The Horseshoe Bar also has the cheapest lunch deals I’ve seen in Glasgow, £4.50 for three courses is hard to beat. After we had all caught up with each other’s lives, had lunch and a few beers, we went for a walk through the Merchant City to see what was going on in the festival. Not a lot going on when we started out, but on the way back we watched the hilarious Moustachioed Spies creating havoc and a great deal of hilarity with the children who were watching them. After that we split up and went our own way with the stated intention of having another meeting in a couple of months.

Next I met Scamp who had driven into town and we got the subway to Kelvinbridge to meet up with another old friend and then we went together to salsa class. Great fun again.

A good day with good folk. Oh yes, and the sun shone for a while. It did rain too, of course!

Reflection of the old sandstone buildings in my favourite glass fronted new building.

Still Raining – 28 July 2015

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Zogman

Another rainy day. Went to the gym and found that Windows was trying to shut down the computer at the gym. It looked remarkably like the shut down screen on Windows 95! Only 20 years out of date. Anyway, when Scamp went to the gym later in the morning, someone was trying to breathe some life into the old system and was hoping to get outside help to do so. Maybe the system will be running by the end of the year.

I felt like I was getting cabin fever today, so hitched the bike on to the carrier and drove to Auchinstarry for a wet, but warm run along the railway line past Dumbreck Marshes and on to the canal tow path. While I was there I watched some bees buzzing around the flowers. I thought it would be a good test of the high speed ‘motor drive’ on the E-PL5. I remember a few years ago I was in a group of photogs where there was a challenge among us to see who who would be the first to catch an insect on the wing. Lots of heavy duty technology was being used, but nobody got that shot. Today with a second hand Oly E-PL5 and a second hand Panasonic lens, I got the shot. I don’t suppose the wager still stands.

The day that the rains came down – 27 July 2015

Posted on July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Zogman

Sometimes after a particularly busy weekend, like this one was, we just want to relax on a Monday. Today that relaxation was somewhat forced upon us. From when I woke at 7.45am until now at around 10.00pm it has rained non-stop. What’s worse, is that we have the same to look forward to tomorrow apparently and little let up on Wednesday. On Thursday the rain will halt for a while to allow the entrance of northerly gales. Oh what fun, and this is summer? Personally I blame the Tories and Nicola Sturgeon. Probably Alex Salmond is in the mix somewhere too, because there isn’t a pie he hasn’t got his finger in. I’m hoping against hope that we’ll get an Indian Summer. Some lovely balmy breezes in late September and early October. We’ll probably need them to melt the snow.

The only photos I got today were these ones of sparrow scuds (young birds) waiting impatiently to be fed.

You know when you’ve been Kelpied – 26 July 2015

Today we were going to visit the Kelpies because neither JIC nor Sim had seen them up close, and up close IS the only way to see these icons. Drove there and parked in the paid car park as close as you can get to the massive statues. In case you have been living under Read More

DSC_3061- blog--207-1 — Introducing Harry the Happy Kelpie.

Today we were going to visit the Kelpies because neither JIC nor Sim had seen them up close, and up close IS the only way to see these icons. Drove there and parked in the paid car park as close as you can get to the massive statues. In case you have been living under a stone for the past few years, the Kelpies are 30m high horse heads, brainchild, or should that be brainchildren, of Andy Scott. No matter how many times we visit them, there’s always something different to see in them. I find it fascinating that people start taking photos of them almost as soon as they get out of their car. It’s as if they think they have to record them in case they run away. That may sound stupid until you’ve seen them. Then you will understand just how lifelike and dynamic these structures are. In fact, it’s hard to see them as simply structures, the have this organic life about them – quite scarily lifelike when you’re close to them.

Next stop was Vecchia Bologna in Bridge-of-Allan for Sunday lunch and for the first time I had their home made Tiramisu. I can tell you it won’t be the last time if I have anything to do with it. Quite delicious. Almost as good as Scamp’s. After that, sadly, it was time to run JIC and Sim to the airport for their plane home. All good things … etc.

Dragon Boats and Traffic Jams – 25 July 2015

Posted on July 25, 2015July 27, 2015 by Zogman

It was a decent morning and we had decided to go for a drive along Loch Lomond side as JIC hadn’t been there for years and Sim had never been to the ‘Bonnie, Bonnie Banks’. Unfortunately, as we got within about a mile of the roundabout at the south end of the loch, we hit a looooong traffic jam. The traffic heading up the lochside was at a standstill. A swift change of direction was necessary, so we moved into the almost empty outside lane and turned right at the roundabout heading for Balloch, intending to drive to Balmaha. I always thought ‘Balmaha’ sounded really exotic, conjuring up images of swaying palm trees, but it’s really just a wee lochside village with cars parked everywhere. Anyway, before we got to the Balmaha turn off, I spotted the turning for Balloch Castle and remembered Scamp and I going there a few years ago. Drove in and got parked quite easily. Went for a walk and heard music. At first we thought it was coming from Duck Bay Marina across the loch, then realised it was coming from the lochside down below us. Scamp talked to a lady and found out it was a Dragon Boat race and got direction from her, so we headed off and watched a couple of races. It was a charity event with teams in fancy dress. Managed to get a few photos of the boats. Also got some shaky shots of the two seaplanes taking off on short pleasure trips from the loch.

Scamp was feeling hungry, and once you’ve seen a couple of the races, unless you’re involved, it gets a bit boring so we went in search of food. Scamp said the best place was Lomond Shores and that is where we went along with hundreds of others. On the way, we could see that the queue was still at the roundabout, so we had made the right decision taking the diversion! Lunch was in the cafe at Jenners and was quite decent. After lunch we split up and wandered round the shops for a while then drove home after JIC found £15 just lying on the ground. Lucky boy. I thought that the queue at the roundabout would have dissipated by the time we were going home, but no, it had grown to well over 2 miles long by then. Some people were going to have a dismal Saturday afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, we drove the other two into Glasgow so they could meet up with old friends. Scamp and I walked around the Merchant City Festival in town and took in the sights and sounds for a while before returning home again.

Pink meets pink. One of the waitresses on the Camp Cooks food van.

That TGS key again – 24 July 2015

Posted on July 24, 2015July 27, 2015 by Zogman

Started a painting, a watercolour on Fred’s watercolour paper. Wasn’t at all happy with the results, so gave it a coat of gesso and left it to dry. I’ll maybe try watercolour on the gesso next week when it’s dry. Gave up painting and started to pack away the easel in preparation for the visitors.

So, I forgot my notebook and the pencil, but I did get my TGS key back when we went to the gym. Tried to plug it in to the computer at the start of the session, but the screen showed MS Windows. Borked! Oh, oh. This doesn’t look good. Tried it in the first machine I came to and got the message “The Key is Empty”. Ok, time to go to speak to the liar assistant at reception.

Me – “When I put my key in any machine it says ‘key empty'”

Assistant – “Oh”

Me – “So what do I do?”

Assistant – “It says ‘key empty'”?

Me – “That’s what I said.”

Assistant – “Oh. Let me check with ****”

Assistant returns – “There was a note with your key that …..” It sort of fades out there.

Me – “So what do I do?”

Assistant – “It will say ‘key empty’ because you didn’t check in and you can’t check in because the computer’s not working”

Me – “How long has it been broken?”

Assistant – “Dunno. Quite a while.”

Me – “When will it be fixed?”

Assistant “Dunno.”

Do you get the impression that this is not the most interesting, intellectually stimulating, or productive of conversations? Do you also get the impression, as I did, that he doesn’t care? I left it there and went back to the gym, where Scamp had also not logged in but whose key was working properly in all the machines. It is all recorded and will be played back for the benefit of the manager of Q Hotels. The ‘Q’ is for Questionable Quality, I believe. Since the computer has a touch screen and a virtual keyboard, I was tempted to use these facilities to format the C:\ drive, but I didn’t. Not this time….

Had thought about going cycling, but the rain that had appeared put paid to that idea. Spent the rest of the afternoon completing the tidying up of the back bedroom for our visitors to be able to at least put the bed down. Then Scamp decided to pick the blackcurrants that are overburdening the bush. Managed to get about 700g of fruit which isn’t bad. The smell of the blackcurrants took me back to Kirkmuirhill and my aunt Jean’s small holding during the summer holidays. Isn’t it strange how smells transport us. Raspberries always take me to Ormiston and my Uncle Bob’s fruit garden.

Took some time out from tidying and fruit picking to photograph some peppers that were destined for the compost bin. The colour versions didn’t look that good, so I reduced them to mono and then sepia toned one. Quite impressed with the results.

Drove in to Glasgow Airport at night to pick up JIC and Sim. Lovely night after a very changeable day.

A trip to Decathlon and Small and Often – 23 July 2015

Posted on July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 by Zogman

A 365 is sometimes a pain and sometimes a pleasure. Sometimes it contrives to be both. I enjoy the regime of having to take a photo every day. Recently I’ve been reading a book

“Daily Painting: Small and Often …” by Carol Marine. Her idea is that you should try to paint a small painting every day – much like a 365. I don’t think I could tie myself to the one-a-day routine, but certainly one a week is do-able. and I’m happy to try it in the coming weeks. I used to find that on days when I couldn’t paint, I could write code – just BASIC mainly, but occasionally assembly language for the old Z80 chip. Similarly, on days when my coding became heavy, my painting improved. I think it’s to do with left and right sides of the brain. One side is supposed to control the analytical skills and the other the creative and artistic abilities. It seemed to work for me and now I’m beginning to think that way again. Photography is not Art. Let’s not kid ourselves, photography is 99% technology now. With programs like Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop, there’s very little creativity. You only have to look at some of the crap on Flickr, 500px and similar image promoting websites – I’m not even going to suggest you look at Facebook or Instagram! – to see what I’m talking about. So… I’m going to try to produce one painting per week. It may appear here or it may not. It depend on whether I like it or if it is a Learning Experience.

Today I went to Decathlon at Braehead to spend the last of my gift voucher. It’s taken me a long time because there was a lot of money there and I didn’t want to squander it on just anything. I’m taking longer and longer to think about these things now. I intended to buy, amongst other things a saddle bag for my bike. The bag I chose was priced at £7.95. When I went to the checkout, the assistant told me it was £9.95. I told her it was priced at £7.95 on the rack. She got another assistant to check the price. He came back and checked it on a computer and confirmed that it was £9.95. When I asked him to show me where he got that price on the rack, he couldn’t. None of the codes on the prices matched with the item. I asked him how I could tell what price it was and he admitted I couldn’t tell. It had to be checked at the till or on computer. This seems a really stupid way to run a business. I can now understand why Decathlon at The Fort had to close. It also explains why people wander round this store looking bemused. I don’t think I’ll be back in the store, I’ll go somewhere sensible like Halfords or Evans, but think about this idea. Put prices on things. I know it takes away the mystery, but it makes buying things much easier.

Scamp had asked me to get some handmade chocolates on the way home as a present for a workmate’s 25th wedding anniversary. This means that I also have to buy Scamp some really good ice-cream and Edinburgh Rock for myself! On the way to the shop in Muirhead, I stopped to take a photo of these petrol pumps in a disused petrol station. I’ve passed them many times and always meant to take a photo. Today I got them, because if I didn’t, one day I’d pass and see the bulldozers flattening them and the photo would be gone. One of my mantras is :

Take the Photo then make adjustments.

Today I took the photo.

Later in the afternoon I was at the architecturally challenged Cumbernauld Town Centre also known as Castle Greyskull. It’s a dreary place that really needs to be torn down and started again, but all they seem to do is add bits to it and shore up the bits that are falling down. It makes a good subject for an HDR grunge photo.

Take the Photo

Pretentious Nosh – 22 July 2015

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Zogman

One of my friends had waxed lyrical about the Tipsy Coo in Strathaven. It’s a cafe in a gallery. Us being foodies and me being interested in painting and photography, we decided to make it our Wednesday Jaunt this week. Getting parked in Strathaven (pronounced Stra’ven by the way) was a bit problematic to start with. The first place we parked was in the Common Green which is not Common (nothing is ‘Common’ in Strathaven darling!) and it’s not Green. It’s a wide street with parking in the middle. Got parked no bother then Scamp noticed we were only allowed 30minutes there, presumably that’s why we had no bother parking. From there we went to see where the cafe/restaurant was and found it without too much trouble. Couldn’t get parked anywhere near it as its carpark was full. Then we had to negotiate Strathaven’s warren of narrow, congested streets to get back to the Common Green where I now remembered there was a bigger carpark. Found it and parked.

Walked to the Tipsy Coo, and when we got there, it was nearly empty. I wonder where the occupants of all the cars had gone. It’s not exactly a thriving hub of activity, and as it was a Wednesday, everything seemed to close at 12.30. Oh well, the place looked decent, although I wouldn’t have called it a ‘gallery’. There were a couple of cartoon style paintings of highland cattle and some of foxes hanging at one end of the building and also a few photographs. One incongruously of Quiraing on Skye. Only about 250 miles from Strathaven. We ordered from the menu and waited in anticipation of a tasty and healthy lunch. I have to admit that we did get that. Mine was tasty, and I suppose it was healthy, in as much as big meals are unhealthy. Three slices of warm overdone bacon on some leaves mixed with maybe three very small pieces of avocado on a slab of toasted bread. The bread was spread with chilli jam – that was the tasty part. I couldn’t believe this had cost me £7.00 give or take 5p. Scamp faired no better. She said her quiche was lovely, but she had even fewer leaves than me (they call that a salad in Strathaven, by the way). I thought the days of ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ were gone, but it seems they are just reaching Strathaven. We left feeling unfulfilled and disappointed. Even the paintings were rubbish.

We wandered round the town allowing our disappointment to dissipate and I got a couple of shots of the East Church which is a bit of a Strathaven icon. Camera started overexposing again. It did that while we were on holiday and I looked it up when we got home and found that a few people had had that problem too. No solution as yet, but I’ve changed the metering mode from my usual centre weighted to ESP which sounds very clever. I think it reads your mind and sees what you want the photo to look like and then compensates the exposure to suit. Maybe it will improve my photography too. We can but hope.

Talking about hope, I was hoping to drop in at Decathlon in The Fort at Easterhouse to spend the last of my Decathlon voucher, but when we got there, it had gone! Shutters down, sign gone, vanished without a trace. Now I’ll need to go to Braehead to get a saddle bag and a lock for the bike as my old angle bag won’t fit when I put the bike on the carrier. At least I don’t have to go to IKEA, that’s a little bonus.

Posh Nosh – 21 July 2015

Posted on July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 by Zogman

So, today started with a trip to the gym. My ‘key’ was being ‘reprocessed’ last week, but I was assured it would have been ready to pick up on Friday past. Not trusting them to be able to accomplish this swift turnaround, I gave them a few days grace and decided to pick it up today. After rustling some papers, rattling stuff in a drawer and looking confused, the attendant told me that “Ah! There was a bit of a problem with the monitor that they reprogram the keys on.” A blatant attempt to baffle an old person with all these new technology words. So it wasn’t that they’d lost the key or hadn’t bothered to reprogram it? No, it was the monitor that was at fault. An old person like me wouldn’t be expected to know that the monitor is an output device and generally you wouldn’t connect anything like the programmable key to it. It’s couldn’t be the fact that the software hasn’t been updated since 2004 but the keys have 2014 hardware which would cause a conflict? No, an old person wouldn’t know about ‘software’ and ‘hardware’ would they. Oh well, they said it will be ready tomorrow, which probably means that the problem with the monitor will be fixed today. I’ll try again on Thursday morning and act the ‘dumb kid’ again to see what explanation lie they come up with. Then I’ll write down the explanation lie, in pencil, in a little notebook (If I really want to over-egg the the pudding, I could even lick the end of the pencil first!) and accept the explanation lie. Then I’ll write a nasty email (old people can just manage to do email you know) explaining the problem and quoting the lies told, to the centre manager and copy in head office with a BCC (old people are devious).

Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

After the Gym/Swim, Scamp and I got the bus in to Glasgow for a posh lunch at the Rogano seafood restaurant. Of course, I can’t eat shellfish which the Rogano excels at, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Had a lovely lunch of Smoked Salmon Roulade followed by Lamb Burger with chunky chips. Scamp had Black pudding on a Portobello mushroom with a poached egg on top and pan fried sea bream for a main. A bottle of red helped to wash it down and a good time was had by both. Plans were made for the weekend, so beware JIC and Sim, plans are afoot – wet weather plans and dry weather plans. I know you read this, so be warned.

On the way in to Glasgow, as I said, we went in the bus, so I could enjoy the delights of a half bottle of red without having to worry about the draconian Scottish drink/drive laws which I’ve criticised at length before, so won’t go in to here. Anyway, this bloke got on the bus with his dog and sat down at the front, presumably so his dog could pretend to be the driver. It looked so comical, the dog sitting beside him on the front seat, I just had to take a photo. The dog seemed really interested in what was going on until we got to the motorway when it seemed to lose interest and started yawning and looking round at all these people on the bus. It really behaved like a little child, and was quite entertaining.

After lunch we wandered round Glasgow a bit just window shopping mainly, dropped in at Costa for a coffee and came home. While we were in Costa I saw this interesting window display in Dunnes Stores. Because I was with Scamp, I could not take advantage of this obviously once in a lifetime offer. I’d better be careful what I write, as she reads this too!

No entertaining dogs on the way home.