No don’t worry regular listeners – I’ve not found god, however I was invited into Birmingham Cathedral (St Philips) as part of the Birmingham We Are / We all shoot Photos group.
It’s a place I’ve walked past on many occasions and never thought to venture in (not knowing if you are allowed to take photo’s etc – seems they are fine with it!!)
Fujifilm X-Pro2 XF14mm f/2.8 R ƒ/8.0 – 240seconds – iso200 SRB Photographic ND 1000 Filter Fujifilm X-Pro2 XF14mm f/2.8 R ƒ/11.0 – 1/30 – iso200Fujifilm X-E3
8.0 mm Samyang Fisheye II 1/60 iso 3200
An interest place to photograph as it’s open to the public and at certain times services are being conducted. I’m pleased with how the first image came out as I was using an ND1000 filter to remove people from the shot – hence a 4 minute exposure. The last image was high iso as I was hand holding the X-E3 whilst lying down.
As a group they are trying to get access to other building in the city for us to point our lenses at,
After inspecting the damage of the last 8 months I’m finally back, well not as back as I’d like to have been as I seem to have lost 2 years of posts. However my posting frequency over those years was like my pay rise from Capita – none existent. I won’t mention the latter too much, but the reasons for fixing the blog where at the request of a ‘guest’ poster – who I still don’t know who they are.
So, new start new look?
Actually it’s a default look due to incompatibilities with the old wordpress theme and SQL/PHP/Moon phase etc.
Anyway, you might want an update – it’s a bit like those shitty round robin Christmas messages you get from people who you see once every 20 years. So…..
I guess I should start not with the blog, but a personal thing. Back in August, co-incidentally when the blog stopped (although no actual link) my Mom died. She was terminal with Throat Cancer for a 8 months or so. It happened suddenly (if 8 months can be regarded as sudden) so it’s still 7 months on taking a while to get over it all. Needless to say the family are still upset about it, but that’s life I guess. Not great, but you have to carry on. Mom wouldn’t have wanted the fuss to be honest.
So that over, me time. Last year was my big triathlon year – plenty of events paid for – back in March/April started to up my training then bang. Actually it was a scrape of metal and tarmac. I was hit by a car, ‘super manned’ over the bonnet and landed with the left wrist taking most of the pain.
Broken wrist – 9 months on it still hurts!
As you can see not the normal wrist position.
The Bike didn’t look too damaged, but……
Seat post damage
Damaged mud guard, lights, forks (slight bend)
…seat isn’t that comfortable anymore. Fair enough the guy that hit me, he’s acknowledge it’s his fault and the insurance company have accepted liability.
Anyway – the monumental announcement….
I have Fibre!!!!!!!!! Years of having a moan at Openreach finally paid off.
So update rant over. I’ll look at changing the layout of the blog eventually I just wanted it back.
My woes with BT/Openreach with regards to upgrading have met an impasse – well, not strictly an impasse in the broadest meaning of the word – but they are at a point where I probably can have fibre delivered via the BT/Openreach infrastructure, however I have to find nearly £18,000 for the privilege. To me that’s an impasse, others may argue – but I’m going to argue.
So words aside, Virgin – I have no choice, if I want fast broadband at a price where I don’t have to re-mortgage then that’s it.
So from the 22nd of November I shall be getting it installed. Now why do you need to know, you don’t – but those that know me can now laugh at me – because this was never going to happen!
The Zen ADSL connection will still be kept open and i’m only using Virgin for the Broadband – no phone or TV. I’m not even touching their email system as it’s spied on by powered via Google Gmail. Just need to work out the routing for the email back to Zen now!
/edit 2/2/2018 (a few years late – but oh well) – Virgin lasted 3 weeks. They were shit, 50mb ‘fibre’ was outperformed on Youtube by my 5mb ADSL.
If you’re a photographer or like me someone who occasionally pretends to be one you may already know the name. Mifsuds are a small independent photography shop, located in Brixham.
I’ve bought from them in the past and today traded some stuff in for a new lens (EF 200mm f/2.8 L if you’re interested), but the post isn’t about that. It’s more about the shop, as the title it’s something we’ll probably never see in Birmingham again.
The shop is a treat:
Stock – lots of it (although not the lens I wanted – they are ordering it and posting it to me)
2nd hand gear (some of mine now!) – plenty of options
Staff – Staff that have knowledge/interest
The closest thing we had recently was Jacobs, although a chain (now sadly gone) they had a similar setup. Previous to this, probably back in the 90’s we had the Camera House. There were some regional fairly grumpy photostudios with a small photographic sales section bolted on (thinking of one near Acocks Green). It’s a fairly sad state of affairs that a city of one million can’t support a decent photo store.
I don’t know if Birmingham could support a Midsuds – I guess the mindset of us Brummies is the cost is king, maybe we value the cost over service?
Really the point of this post is visit your local ‘Midsuds’ spend money there – when they’ve gone all we’ll be left with is Jessops and Currys/PC World/Comet.
