Royal Marines

40 Commando Royal Marines
Originally uploaded by Nostromoo

Today Taunton town centre was closed off for a drumhead service in tribute to 40 Company Royal Marines. The event began with a march through the town by the batallion, from Station Road to the Parade. The service was held outside the Market House.

It was absolutely an amazing experience to be there, and to be part of the crowd. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people lining the streets throughout the town, it was very hard to find a good place to shoot from. It was also incredibly humbling and moving to see the young Marines march past, to see their injured comrades, to see the bereaved families of those marines who did not return from Afghanistan, and to see those old veterns pay tribute to those that have taken their place.

The marines were roundly applauded as they came up North Street by all around, as they were again after the service as they marched down Corporation Street.

You can see more of my images from the day here.

High Dynamic Range

Someone was asking the other day about HDR photography, or high dynamic range. This is a process whereby you take several photographs of the same subject with varying exposures, then mathmatically combine them to produce an image with greater dynamic range.

What is dynamic range? Well the simplest way to describe it is that amount of detail that is exposed correctly so that it can be seen (i.e. that isn't blown out or completely black).

Have you ever looked at a beautiful sunset and tried to photograph it, only to find the sky is a beautiful red colour, but the foreground is in silhouette even though you could see it when you were there? Or it's a beautiful summer day, with a clear blue sky and you try to photograph someone, and they come out correctly exposed but the sky is blown out? Or that film camera images always seem to look nicer than digital camera images? Well that's because the human eye has a much greater dynamic range than a camera, and film has a better dynamic range than digital. And essentially the greater the dynamic range the more detail in the image. So what we see isn't necessarily what we are going to capture with our camera.

True HDR

But here is where the maths come in. We can actually take multiple exposures of an image and combine the best bit from each. To do this I use a piece of software called Photomatix. This comes in PC and Mac formats, and is pretty cheap. And it works well.

Firstly you need to take your source images. I always start with RAW, but in theory you could have multiple jpegs. You need at least 3 images, with varying exposures, but you can have up to 5 or 7 or even more if the light dictates. I generally do 3 though at +/- 2EV, that is 2 stops below and 2 stops above the metered reading.

You can do a little processing such as setting the colour temperature, but I mostly just leave them as they are. If you modify one though you ought really to modify the others in the same way. This is why I generally leave the images as they came from the camera.

You then load them into Photomatix and let it create the initial blend.


Notice the image will look utterly wierd. This is because at this point the image has a higher dynamic range than your monitor is capable of displaying. You can move your cursor around the image to reveal things. You will see the bightness adjust just like the human eye would as you move around the image. It's good here to check for noise or any artifacts that will ruin the final combine. If all looks good though, you can tone map and compress the image into something your monitor can handle. In the image above I have focused in on the window detail which show the detail of the brickwork inside the building even though on the large view this is completely black.

When you do this there are many different options you can choose from. It can be a bit trial and error because until you have processed the image you won't know 100% what it will look like.


Ever again the loupe is focused on the interior detail through the window. This view gives you a pretty good idea what the image will end up like, but it could still be a long way away. It could eaily be far too bright or far too dark. So this is where the trial and error comes. Basically you just have to pick some settings and try it. Then look at the end result.


If you like this image, you should then save it, either as a 16 bit TIFF or an 8 bit JPEG. If it's not right though, try to go back and fix it. Photomatix has the highest dynamic range and colour depth to work with. If you save the image you're locking that compressed view down, so you can only work with that set amount of data. If you try to fix any images in Photomatix this will yield a better final combine, although it will be much more work to do this.

Eventually though you'll have something you are happy with. At this point I would then run any shaprening, cropping or tweaking you want, to create your final image. Here is mine


I just did this quickly as a test, I think the end result it slightly 'overcooked', the blue is too saturated for my liking although the brickwork colours better resemble the glourious summer sunset we had that evening. I may revisit this image and spend an hour or so on it.

Pseudo HDR (Tone mapping)

There is another technique you can create better images from just a single file. Usually people use RAW images for this. In theory you could use a single JPEG. I tried this although it's debatable how much of an improvement it made. You could spend time doing this, although I can't say that it would be worth it. However with a RAW you can extract several different 'exposures' and save these. Then load them into photomatix, tell photomatix what the EV differentials are (in 1/3 EV increments) then process as above.

Actually I do things slightly differently. I begin by teaking the image in lightroom to the best of my abilities. I'll crop, rotate, and adjust contrast, saturation and levels to make it look as good as I can. For example


Then I'll save three 'exposures' from that point and combine these in photomatix


Again I try to do as little processing afterwards as I can, and prefer to try to get photomatix to create the image correctly in the first place. The results can be quite pleasing however.

Designing user interfaces

Today I have mostly been designing a new user interface for a piece of software we have. I like doing this, and I think I am quite good at it. But designing an interface is not trivial, and the more one knows about computers the harder it can be to design a good interface. That is because the more familiar you are with how software works, how different applications are written, and what is going on behind the scenes in the operating system, the more you anticipate how software is going to work. You can know instinctively what will happen when you click a particular button, even if you have never used the software before.

This can pose a problem when one is designing software, because the developer may make assumptions that a user will be able to drive a piece of software because it seems obvious to them that if you click here then whis will happen. But this makes a huge assumption on the users' knowledge and skill level.

You may love them or hate them, and you may be a fan of Vista or not, but the trusth is Microsoft do know how to right software. Whether or not they succeed is another matter, but the do know how to do it. And they have studied it at great length. They have infact come up with guidlines on how to write a good interface, and the things you need to keep in mind.

Microsoft Inductive User Interface Guidelines

Melancholy

Melancholy
Originally uploaded by Nostromoo

Tonight was a lovely day, and the evening was looking really pretty. So I decided we should go to Lydeard Hill so I could get some shots of Pixie as the sun went down. Trouble was, we left too late and we didn't reach the summit in time. Besides, it started to cloud over towards the horizon so the sun was getting obscured anyway.

So we turned around and headed back to the car park. On our way though I noticed quite a nice patch of sky above the tree line I thought I'd go for so I quickly pulled out the camera and fired off a couple shots just to get the exposure right. Pixie sat on the grass waiting to be called into action. I think this just turned out really well though, considering it wasn't planned as such. Looks nice in colour too, but I prefered it black and white.

Silly me can't hand hold a portrait postition at 1/25th obviously. I'll have to work on that.

Exmoor Ponies, Day One

Finally I managed to get up to go to Exmoor! Woooo.

Well I suppose I can get props for that, but sadly the pictures didn't come out as I wanted. Basically the light was too poor, and there was too much cloud cover for what I wanted. I'm thinking for the shots I want I might need to wait until a cloudless night, although when that will be I would hate to guess. I tell you though, I can't do too many starts like a month.

I left the house today at about 03:50am, and headed up to Winsford Hill. This is quite a nice place that good commanding views across Exmoor. I figured this would give it a good chance of picking up the the morning sun and give some really nice backdrops. Another good point about this location is that the 1,760 acres of heather moorland are home to the "Anchor" herd which is quite a large herd of Exmoor ponies. And the more ponies the greater chance of spotting some.

There are actually two peaks of interest in this location, Winsford Hill proper and Draydon Knap. You can see the peaks and the route I walked overlayed on the following map:


I started at Draydon Knap becuase it has a better car park. There are only limited areas where a non high ride 4x4 can comfortably go. A saloon car like mine tends to scrape the underside on the rocks in certain places so it's not all the much fun.

I found a small herd of ponies, two foals and about 5 mares spread about. As the sun came up the light was absolutely fantastic. The sky went though so many glorius shades or red, yellow and orange. Well, the very small strip below the clouds did.


The problem with the clouds meant that the light level was very low. My telephoto isn't the fastest, and is f/5.6 at 210mm. An f/2.8 will have to wait because it's too much money. So at f/5.6 I was struggeling to get any better than about 1/6 second at ISO800. That's pretty slow, and grainy. I only had my monopod with me so camera shake has been a problem, but the ponies are not stationary so even their small movements, let alone when they were actually moving, has been a problem. Also the high ISO has caused a lot of noise, and the low light has caused a lot of problems with the auto-focus. It was forever hunting which take about a second to go from infinity to close and back out again.

This is a rather good image compared to some that I collected.


Eventually the ponies decided they didn't like where they were, or perhaps they didn't like me, and moved off to north down into the valley. That lost the angle I wanted and it was even darker anyway so I didn't follow. I scouted around for some more but seeing nothing moved the car up to Winsford Hill proper and looked around there. I found another few keeping close to the road, and I followed those for a while. They headed off into the heather so I went down to Spire Cross, then across to the Caractacus Stone. Seeing nothing I made my way back in a round about sort of way to the car.

Low and behold, as I neared the punch bowl I found a group of maybe 25 ponies. I'd lost the colour in the sky by then but I thought I'd try and get something. It's a funny thing about the exmoor ponies, or maybe this herd in particular. You can drive right up to them on the road, so close that with the windows down you could probably touch them. But get within about 200 yards on foot and they decided they want to be somewhere else. And the noise I was making with waterproofs on they could probaby hear me coming from a mile away.

So here is a group that was already well underway by the time I had gotten close enough for a picture:


This was quite a nice group really. They decided to head roughly south from their position so I was able to intercept them and close the distance pretty well. I got pretty close at times:


As we neared the road, I was able to get some really nice angles and use the terrain to sneak up on some. But the lack of adequate light still caused a shutter speed problem. I think this could be really good if he had his head still or I could have used a faster shutter.


I did get one really nice capture though I think. I'm quite pleased with this, although I had to HDR process the image to get the colours ricer and get some light back into the image. I basically underexposed it by quite a lot (1/50 @ f/5.6, ISO 200) because I was concious of the noise and I wanted to control the shutter more. I figured a dark image is easier to lighten in photoshop than a light image can be darkened so I'd hope I could bring it out.


I gave up shooting at about 7am, which meant I could be home by 8am. Time for a quick nap and then some breakfast! I got just over 100 exposures, and I've probably culled about 20 or more so far. I'm just going to see if there is anything I can recover from the others.

Next time I'm hoping for a little less cloud and a little more more light. I might also take some carrots or suger cubes or something. Or I'll get some camo gear and crawl around on my belly. I really need to work out how to get closer to those ponies.

Where people meet

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I met Pixie. By a "long, long" time I mean 4 years ago on 17th July 2004, and by a "galaxy far, far away" I mean Brighton. Let me explain.

Pie Crust

Okay a little background. Well okay, a lot of background. I just love Star Wars. I've owned VHS copies since they came out and watched them I don't know how often. And played so many of the franchised computer games. I can't begin to image how many hours I played X-Wing, B-Wing, Tie-Fighter and Imperial Pursuit as a boy. So back in 2003 I was absolutely enraptured to learn that a starwars MMO was coming out! Even though at the time I had no idea what an MMO was, I knew it was a computer game and it has Starwars dammit! Star Wars: Galaxies had been born! If I was going to break my MMO cherry, then this is surely the way to break it.

Forums appeared and as the game was developed more of the world was revealed to me. I read about adventures in the Dune Sea, combat with monstrous beings, player communities, traders, Rebels, Imperials, spies. And the ever present hint of secret Jedi-ness lurking in the shadows. I was excited, nay aroused, as week by week, more features were added and more beta stories appeared on the forums. And believe me, what really sold it to me was a story about fishing. The first fishing expedition. I was, excuse the pun, completely hooked.

So as soon as I could I pre-ordered from the States, I'd even have paid for the guy tio stand in the queue and by a copy when the door opened at midnight, and ten have it chilled and air freighted over. I waited patiently for the release date to arrive. And in due course, a DHL man arrived with a huge box demanding some exorbitant amount of import tax. "Here, take my wallet, just gimme the box!"

And thus began a series of late nights, followed by 4 hours stints in bed, followed by work, then home to repeat again. To mix a metaphor, I was grinding my day job just to get home and fire up the game. It was unhealthy. But boy, back then it felt sooooo good!

Thus Gorja La'Tau was born, forged on the harsh plains of Talus. He became a warrior! I was Rebel scum.


The beauty of Star Wars Galaxies to me, was the flexibility of the class system. It's something no other MMO I have tried has had. And something SWG sadly lost in 'upgrades'. When your character was born into the game, they were nothing, but they could be anything. The only limits on what "Class" you were, where your own desires (within the confines of the game mechanic "skill points" of course). I toyed with several professions, as my whims changed, combat, crafting, healing, but always I kept my dancing skills. People always used to laugh at me that I played a Star Wars game but most of all I enjoyed the dancing. But it was fun to unwind doing it.


I had known a nice lady called K'Vera in the game since almost the first week I had been playing. She had a band called Talus Moon. I learned tips and tricks from her. And we even met in person. Here we are in Bristol:


Sometimes I really think I am Mark Corrigan. I'm the one on the right.

Eventually however the game really started to piss me off. The game wasn't as much fun as it used to be. There seemed to be continual changes and a general overall degredation of the immersion. So in typical Nostromoo style I packed my bags, sorted my affairs and decided to quit. Well, not without going out with a bang! I decided to go to Coronet City, visit the cantina (which is like a bar) and strut my funky stuff. And then quit. Always leave them wanting more, see?

Cooked apple filling

So after that brief *cough* background story, we come to the title of this post. Where people meet. Back in those days, I was Gorja. Or rather, he was me. I made him that way. He was lost, and to be honest I was lost.

So there I am in game land, alone, when all of a sudden there's someone else there. As pixels go, these were pretty cute. And wait, did she just /wave at me? Maybe I'll try a ..... /wink! Ha! Interaction. She's probably a man though, most of them are you know.....

Actually she wasn't, and she was very sweet and fun to talk to. So we did. She was an Entertainer, and I was an Entertainer. I danced, she played, or someone else played and we both danced. And I forgot I was going to quit. I was lost, but then I was found. And instead of quitting we both joined Talus Moon instead.

And inevitably, Talus Moon had another get together, this time in Brighton. And this was the first time we met in person:


Did I say I was Mark Corrigan? That's a Barbour jacket you know, and I'm not a farmer. Do you know how old I was there?

So where do people meet? Well some meet through friends, in bars, in clubs, in supermarkets. Some meet on train station platforms. Some actually meet in "cyberspace". It's strange how people meet. There are many stories.

Custard

So it was 4 years ago. The 17th of July 2004. There was an Edward Hopper exhibition at the Tate gallery, so I'd invited "Sassira" to join me in London. She likes art right, everyone likes art. We're just friends. Friends go to art galleries in London all the time. What's wrong with that? It's just an Edward Hopper exhibition. If that's all it is, we can board our trains afterward and never speak of it again. But if it's not......nah, don't get carried away. It's just an Edward Hopper exhibition. We'll meet, have a very pleasent discussion about Nighthawks, then slowly drift apart again like passing ships.

So as depicted in glourious 640x480 camera phone colour goodness, we met for the first time without the company of friends:


And we had a good time. We saw the painting, and talked about Edward Hopper. We had lunch. We talked some more. We walked back to the station though Hyde Park. And we held hands. And we got to the station. And we kissed.

And for the entire journey home I thought about it. We spoke on the phone. And I was happy. Across the table on the train Fred was happy too, although we didn't talk much:


Fred got off with his owner in Swindon. I stayed onboard.

So that's how we met. A chance encounter in a virtual bar. A 3D computer animated representation of the greatest science fiction franchise to have existed. Had I decided to leave a week earlier; had she decided to come in a week later; we never would have virtually met. And without virtually meeting, I would not have met her at all.

Coffee and mints

After London of course I met her again at her home:


And we had a baby!


Oh wait! No, that hasn't happened has it. That was just a baby I was holding.

Data Protection

For legal reasons, I would like to point out the following story is purely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual event or to persons living or dead is purely conincidental.

So my better half works for a local college. She writes databases and such like, and develops custom software for them. Tomorrow she has to go out of town on a training session, so about a month ago she tried to book the train tickets online. It's not the first time she's used that booking company so after two weeks she was surprised that the tickets still had not arrived.

So she rang their Indian call centre and explained that none of the tickets had arrived. But was told there was nothing they could do until the day before the journey. She just had to wait to see if they turned up until then.

So another two weeks later, today, and she's due to catch the train at 6 am tomorrow morning. She rings up the call centre. "What is your name? Oh I am sorry madam, we cannot speak to you, we must speak to the card holder only."

"But the tickets are in my name. I booked them."

"Yes but you are not the card holder. And due to data protection we cannot divulge information to you."

"I don't want any information. I already have all the information. I booked the tickets a month ago. They were addressed to me. They havn't arrived, and my train is tomorrow. I need you to sort it out."

"Oh I am very sorry. Please have the card holder call us."

Apparently someone else in the office did ring back and claimed they were the card holder. "Oh yes Sir, we will send the details to the station office. You can collect the tickets in an hour." That should be all that is necessary shouldn't it? The tickets will be at the station when we get there right?

Later that day then we went full of optimism to the station, expecting to find the tickets. "Sorry love, nothing in that name here."

"Well maybe they are in the card holders name. Can you check that name."

*rummage through paperwork* "Nope, nothing of that name. And nothing even going to that destination. Let me try ringing the booking company." He picks up a phone and gets though to the Indian call centre, quotes a reference number...."No I'm not the card holder, I'm the station master..." *more murmering* "..okay then. Thank you." *hangs up* "Sorry love, he won't talk to me. You'll have to get them to fax us to give you the alpha-numeric reference code."

We this is pretty rich. She's ordered these tickets a month ago, they never turned up, so she tried to talk to them herself only to be fobbed off until the day before and then told they won't speak to her anyway.

Oh did I mention that she had used a college credit card to book these tickets. It's registerd in the vice principal's name. So she has to ring the vice principal up after work in the evening and ask him to call an Indian call centre to sort out the tickets?! Oooooookay then.

Well this was about my limit. I decided to take the bull by the horns. Got my mobile out, and called the number. "Right look her my man. I have a reference number here, number xxxxxxxxx, you see. Now it seems there has been some cock up and the tickets have not arrived and they are not at the station as promised. Now I jolly well want something done about this, what!"

"Okay Sir, now to comply with the data protection act, can I ask you some questions?"

Damn I can see where this is going.

"Ummmmm, yes."

"Are you the card holder?"

Now have you ever seen that Simpsons episode where Homer wants to quit his job and writes Mr Burns a letter. But then later regrets it and wants the letter back? So he goes to the post office and puts on his most plummy voice. "Hello, my name is Mr Burns. I believe you have a letter for me?" "Yes Sir? And what is your first name?" Suddenly I see this scene flash before my eyes.

"Are you the card holder," asks this Indian chap.

"Umm, yes of course"

"And what is your name"

Shit! *turn to my other half* "Shit! What's his name." She tells me.

*back to the mobile* "It's "

"Yes Sir. And what is your registered address."

*gives college address*

"Okay Sir, let me see....."

What!?! I got away with it? Probably eventually I will go to jail because of this. However, 10 arduous minutes later I managed to get this guy to fax the station the details the station needed to print and release the tickets. And another 15 minutes after that the fax had finally arrived and the tickets secured.

I don't really know why this had to be so complicated, and quite what the point of quoting "data protection" as the reason they could not help, yet it seems so easy to bypass. What on earth was that supposed to prevent? Do they think that after I get the tickets sorted out I was going to ask, "Oh one more thing. I seem to have forgotton my mother's maiden name and the name of my first pet. You couldn't remind me could you?"

If there is a moral to this, it's don't use QJump to book train tickets. Probably also somewhere I should be repentant for impersonating the Vice Principal of the local college. Although considering it was such a f**k up and 11 hours before the journey there were still no tickets and they still refused to do anything about it, strangely I don't feel bad.

Trains, cows and ponies

I've got it in my mind just recently to go to Exmoor at dawn and take pictures of some of the Exmoor ponies. Trouble is I need to get up at about 3:30am, and I just couldn't motivate myself enough this weekend to get up that early and go out and hope that it wasn't raining on Exmoor and that I could find ponies in the right place. I've been up scouting and there are a couple of interesting places that I will try, I just need to get there in good weather. And the weather being as bad as it has this past week, it's a really big ask to convince myself that if I get up so early and drive for an hour, the sun will come up strong and the sky will be beautiful and I will get some nice pictures.

So instead on Sunday I attempted to take a picture of a steam train! Well that's not strictly tue, actually I wanted to take a picture of the River Tone but with a steam train in the background. There is a bridge in Bradford-on-Tone that crosses the river, that I thought might be promissing, so I visited that.

There are some nice bridges on the Tone, and I thought the river running under such a bridge, while a train went over might be a nice idea. This location wasn't really suitable though sadly. I couldn't legally get to a good point to shoot the scene; the bridge was quite high; the river was quite narrow; and there was a lot of tree and shrub growth obscuring the view. Even if I could trespass into a better position, I can't really see how the scene I want could work here. So instead I decided to climb up onto the track, get the camera about wheel level and shoot the train just zooming down the tracks towards me.

The train in question on this day was the Tangmere, number 34067. There is a public footpath that takes you across the tracks themselves and you can get really close. But trust me, don't get too close when the big cross-country services hurtle though. They go really fast, I mean really fast, past here. It's flat, and a fair distance still from both Tiverton and Taunton and there are no stations left between them so it must be nigh on full speed. A couple went past about 15 feet from me and the ground shook and the wind really whipped about. It was quite awe inspiring. I figured a little steam train might be slower but actually even it managed a fair old pace down the line. It's a good job I didn't go with my initial idea of lying in the track and shoot the train from ground level as it came towards me.

I also met some new friends on this little day out. So it was quite a nice day out.

Selling Images

I've had a lot of positive feedback about my photos from flickr, and even I think that some of my photos are quite nice. So the other day I decided I might as well see if I can make some money, as I think that's a really good motivator. I mean it's easy to say a picture is nice, whereas to actually put you hand in your wallet and say a picture is good I think adds more weight to it.

So I added some images to ImagKind, although that's more of a fine art place and it's quite expensive to have a canvas made so I'm not entirely convinced I'm good enough for that yet. I also signed up for iStockPhoto, which is a microstock library. Images there are as little a $1 each, so I think I'm more likely to see some sales. But as they only pay me a percentage, it will of course only be cents at first. Until I can build up a large enough portfolio of stock, which would probably take at least a year if I could theoretically upload pictures at their maximum rate and have 100% acceptance rate. So probably not then. But pence is better than nothing I guess.

But I did like the fact that I had to pass a 10 question test, and submit 3 images for review before they accepted me. That felt nice to get through. Maybe everyone that applies gets through I don't know, but it still feels nice to believe I have been judged and passed.

This weekend I'm hoping to have some more pictures for upload but the weather is forecast to be so terrible I really don't know.