Archive for August, 2007

Fast wide-angle lens

Published by Dan Sumption on August 25, 2007 in Uncategorized. 8 Comments

So, I’ve been working down in London for a couple of weeks and, as a result, even though I’m still hugely overdrawn and in debt, I can now see a way to paying it all off, something which eluded me as recently as three weeks ago.

As a result, as always happens when I know that I’ll have money coming in soon, I got credit card happy. Lots of little treats all week (books, meals out), plus one very big treat: the lens I have been lusting after for many months now, a Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L USM. I got it second hand (a mere £690, including hood) from the Camera Café in Museum Street.

My only problem was that, for once, I was travelling without my camera (I had a lot of other stuff to take to London, and my back has been playing up so I wanted to keep my kit to a minimum). Plus what started out as a 2 day placement stretched out to 9 days in a row. So I’ve been carrying this lens around with me, itching to use it, but with no camera to put it on.

I’m back home now, and initial results are… interesting. With such a wide aperture, auto-focus is an absolute pig, and manual focus at f/1.4  with a crop digital viewfinder is next to impossible, but it’s a challenge - I need to improve my focusing skills anyway, and this is an ideal way to do it. I may get myself an ST-E2 to help with those dark moments, but ultimately I’d like to get better at getting a proper feel for focusing distances, and doing it manually as much as possible.

I’ve been feeling a bit ambiguous about my recent use of Flash - the results look great, but somehow it feels like I’m not being entirely true to my roots. The f/1.4 gives me a chance to go out and try some flash-free photography again with more flexibility. I shall try to avoid the flash as much as possible for the next month or two, and see where the ambient light takes me…

Blogged with Flock

London

Published by Dan Sumption on August 21, 2007 in Poetry. 4 Comments

Walking to work this morning. Mood: poetic…

I love this city like the back of my hand
Tattoed your name there when I was young
and
I travelled each artery
Down to capillaries
Lions Are Drinking in tides of my blood

Sheffield Bench store launch party

Published by Dan Sumption on August 11, 2007 in Clothing, It Happened to Me!, Photography and Photos and Work. 0 Comments

On Thursday night, I was hired to photograph the launch of Bench’s new flagship shop at Sheffield’s Meadowhall, and the subsequent VIP party.

I have to admit, my hopes weren’t that high. I mean, how exciting can a Meadowhall shop be? Well, how wrong could I be? The shop was amazing, and the evening even more so.

The shop itself was incredibly well designed, with different themed zones which reminded me a little of the sadly-missed Zoltar the Magnificent London store. The changing rooms were carriages on a London tube train, complete with video “windows” which showed passing stations and underground tunnels.

The party was mighty, unlimited free booze (some pretty nice stuff as well), Mani DJing some very dance-friendly tunes (and a lovely bloke he was too), Dynamo performing the most incredible magic tricks I have ever seen anywhere (his dexterity and his hip-hop street style were just too cool for words), and just a lovely, friendly bunch of people. I also got about half-a-dozen offers of future photography work out of the evening, which I’ll be following up.
As usual, I started off a bit limidly, taking lots of rather nervous, not-very-good pics at the store part of the event. And as usual, I loosened up through the course of the evening, and took my very best shots of the night just a few minutes before going home:

Jon (Little Man Tate) and Nicol (Radio Coma) at Bench VIP party

Ad Agency Toilets

Published by Dan Sumption on August 11, 2007 in Dan's Thoughts and Usability. 0 Comments

At the risk of sounding like a toilet-usability-obsessive (following my post about train toilet usability), why is it that advertising agencies always seem to have such badly designed toilets? (I shouldn’t really single ad agencies - this is something they have in common with über-cool bars and other bleeding-edge over-designed buildings).

At Leo Burnett, we had to put up with unlabelled mono-taps, with no indication of which direction to turn them for hot or cold. Despite working there for three years, I never quite got the hang of them, and ended up with scalded hands on more than one occasion.

At Saatchi’s, where I am now, the taps are set too far back into the marble sinks. This would be fine for a dwarf with withered hands, but for me (not a large-mitted person by any standard) it means cramming my hands up against the rear of the sink in an attempt to direct a few splashes of water onto them.

There was a day (I imagine) when bathrooms were just bathrooms, sinks were fairly regulation white ceramic things with cookie-cutter chrome taps sticking out at the back. Sadly that’s no longer enough for most people: they have to have variation, innovation and, in nine out of
ten cases, bad usability.

Shit, I’m starting to sound like a grumpy old man. Somebody shoot me!

The 1234 Shoreditch Festival

Published by Dan Sumption on August 6, 2007 in It Happened to Me!, Music and Photography and Photos. 2 Comments

Yesterday I went to the 1234 festival, organised by our mates at 1234 records. With my “Access All Areas” press pass, I had some fun backstage and got a few decent photos (appearing soon on Dan Shot Me - a couple are already up on Flickr). Didn’t catch a lot of music, although I was very happy to grab the end of Man Like Me’s set - I saw them last December on the Vice tour, where they were the highlight of the evening.

I hooked up with Jan while I was there, and the two of us pootled around photographing everything, him with his little compact camera and me with another Heath Robinson-esque flash rig, which Suz has described as looking “like a portable version of the Fylingdales Early Warning Station in Yorkshire”. Here’s a photo Jan took of me and my rig:

Dan pretending to be Fylingdales Early Warning Station (mobile version)

The Center Parks experience

Published by Dan Sumption on August 3, 2007 in Family Life and It Happened to Me!. 0 Comments

Just got back from our annual holiday - 4 days (well, 3 and a bit) at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest. The holiday was “cheap” (well, £250 for an 8-bedroom “villa”, which apparently is a lot less than the usual price - we got a discount as foster carers), but everything else was ludicrously expensive. Center Parcs offer literally hundreds of activities, from nature trails to crazy golf to 4×4 “experiences” to arts & crafts, but everything costs. And most of them start at around £15. Per person. For an activity that lasts an hour or two. Many also require an accompanying adult (who must also pay).

So we could well have spent several hundred pounds on activities for the kids. But, being skint, we just made use of endless free swimming (about the only thing on the site that is free). And walked about the vast sprawling site (almost 1000 villas = far too many people) dodging wobbly once-a-year cyclists.

Lots of other stuff to hate about Center Parcs, and a few other things to love, but that’ll do for now.
Next year, we’ll pay a bit more for the accomodation, and go somewhere where the nature trails are free.