Meet Mabel

Mabel

Mabel has made her home in Christchurch park in Ipswich and has become quite the local celebrity.

Typical that the day I spotted her it was dull, grey and raining so I haven't done her justice with this photo. Though I was pleased to have been able to take her picture despite the appalling weather. 

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Exif
Camera: PENTAX K-7
Software: K-7 Ver 1.11
Dimension: 1269 x 942 px (1.2 MP, 4:3)
Focal length: 300 mm (equiv. 450 mm)
Aperture: F7.1
Exposure time: 1/200"
ISO speed rating: 800/30°
Program: Not defined
Metering Mode: Spot
White Balance: Manual
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

Passionate about our NHS

Today I went to Cambridge in order to do some of my usual street photography, instead of heading off to the city centre we wandered along Mill Road.

It was there I came across this woman. I did the usual snap before she spotted me. I stopped and spoke to her for a while, asked her if there was a demo anywhere, it was then she told me that she was a one woman crusade.

Save our NHS

This woman feels so strongly that she wears that placard all the time (except for in the shower and in bed.) She has spoken to GPs who tell her that they expect the mortality rate to go up if this bill goes through.

She also suggested I check out the adopt a peer website http://goingtowork.org.uk/peers/ which I intend to do. I take my hat off to her, she is doing what she can, something we all must do, there's not much time left.

Unfortunately I didn't get her name, but this is how passionately people are about saving our NHS from the reforms the ConDem government want to impose on us. Take note Cameron, Lansley and Clegg, this woman speaks for us all.

Thanks to "Private This" who left a comment below regarding a national rally. Let's all sign up for Bevan's March and make sure this woman does not stand alone. http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/2634311-organise-a-huge-march-against-the-health-social

Sometimes people spot what you are doing

As most folk who follow this blog know my preferred genre is street photography, I'm often asked "do people spot you taking their photo?" The answer to that is "not often".

It's surprising how often people are unaware of what goes on around them. However it does sometime happen and sometimes that in itself makes for a great photo. The following is a photo from a fellow street photographer Stentionhouse (also known as Funkdooby) and is used with his permission.

Two Clocks by Stentionhouse @72dpi.com

What's the Best photo sharing site?

Obviously this view is just personal opinion. I take a lot of photos, my family get bored with looking at them, so instead of boring my family I need somewhere to upload my photos in order to bore my online friends.

Seriously though, I've made lots of friends on the internet some of whom are very fine photographers indeed, I show them mine and they show me theirs

For quite a while I uploaded to Flickr, it was here that I met some of the great photographer's mentioned above. See here as to why Flickr didn't cut the mustard.

Then I found 500px.com For a while it was OK, nice layout, nice scoring system except for its dislike button. See here for why 500px also eventually went by the by.

So where am I now? I am at http://www.72dpi.com
So far I like very much what I'm seeing there. On the whole it's a good community. Photographers of all abilities mix happily there from beginner to professional. Most of all the admins encourage discussion about the site and actually listen to their members. They have made many improvements in the short time I've there and all based on member feedback. This is how to run a photo site and the aforementioned others could learn a thing or two from http://www.72dpi.com/

I'm off

I'm abandoning ship

I'll not be uploading to 500px any more. I'm also not going to free up their server space by deleting my account. I paid for that space, I didn't pay for the mess the site has become.

Exif for those interested
File type: JPEG
File size: 373.2 KB
Creation date: 24/02/2012 14:01
Last modification: 24/02/2012 19:01
Make: PENTAX (http://www.pentax.com)
Camera: PENTAX K-7
Software: K-7 Ver 1.11
Dimension: 1542 x 1024 px (1.6 MP, 3:2)
Focal length: 300 mm (equiv. 450 mm)
Aperture: F5.8
Exposure time: 1/320"
ISO speed rating: 400/27°
Program: Normal program
Metering Mode: Pattern
White Balance: Auto
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

Spring is on the way

I guess this is what 500px did to their website - they f**ked it

And for those who like the details
Camera: PENTAX K-7
Software: K-7 Ver 1.11
Dimension: 1081 x 950 px (1 MP)
Focal length: 300 mm (equiv. 450 mm)
Aperture: F5.8
Exposure time: 1/125" (+0.7 EV)
ISO speed rating: 100/21°
Program: Manual
Metering Mode: Pattern
White Balance: Auto
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

How to take something that was good and make a pig's ear of it

Up until today I've uploaded almost daily to 500px. It was a photo sharing site that invited us to "upload your best photos" This I did, I also enjoyed being able to view some of the fantastic photos on there, comment on them and build a network of fellow photographers.

The only downside of 500px was it's quirky scoring system and it's dislike button. Everything you did on 500px was public except for the dis-liker's, who were allowed to remain anonymous. Dislike wasn't about constructive criticism, it was mainly used to knock photos off the 500px popular pages.

Today 500px disappeared for a few hours and reappeared with a new site. Meanwhile I had an email:

Introducing Market We are about to launch Market: the best place to sell your prints and digital downloads. With the 500px Market, anyone can buy prints or digital downloads of your photos. Get your photos in front of millions of people, and start earning more.

They tweeted that there would be a couple of other changes too and that we would like them - we don't!

Eventually the site returned. To my horror the first page I landed on was my "flow" page. This showed all the photos I had liked, favourited and uploaded - all in a terrible visual jumble.

Just look at 500px support pages to see just how many people don't like this mess that's called a flow. (Though I notice earlier negative feedback questions have quickly disappeared)

On further exploring I see that finding my contacts pages is all but impossible! The wall where we could interact has gone, instead we are told to interact on photos. It seems that the social aspect of sharing photos has been done away with and it's now just about making money.

But... there's no info on what the photographer's margin is on sold photos. So it's all about money in their pockets

And to top it all that damn dislike button is still there - and still anonymous!

Does anyone have any suggestions for good photo sharing sites apart from Flickr, G+ and 500px?

23/02/12 addendum 1:  there is now a pdf document on 500px that outlines photographers fees 

23/02/12 addendum 2:   Flow has been altered to now show my uploads, so at least the criticisms there were responded to. But it's still difficult to find my friend's portfolios and to know when they have uploaded 

24/02/12 addendum3: Flow has returned to the mess it initially was