Ten ghost towns:

SAN ZHI: [...] in the North of Taiwan, this futuristic pod village was initially built as a luxury vacation retreat for the rich. However, after numerous fatal accidents during construction, production was halted. A combination of lack of money and lack of willingness meant that work was stopped permanently, and the alien like structures remain as if in remembrance of those lost. Indeed, rumors in the surrounding area suggest that the City is now haunted by the ghosts of those who died.

But the pictures are the real story. Prypiat, the town built for workers at nearby Chernobyl, is particularly affecting. Via Ed.

This evening I uploaded a picture taken on May 18th, and with that my Year 25 project is complete. I took a shot every day but one: an inexplicable m0rk on December 17th.

I have mixed feelings about the final result. In some ways it’s not what I intended. I wanted each picture to represent the day, and many don’t. Plenty were taken at 2330 when I got home and realised I hadn’t done anything. I intended the project to force me into taking pictures of places and people I don’t normally photograph, but this rarely happened. For example, I started uni in September, but there are no proper images of my fellow students as I never plucked up the courage to ask them - despite them also studying photography.

There are also way too many taken on my mobile phone. This always seemed like a good idea - usually because of some rationalisation about not getting my camera out of my bag due to safety/annoying people / whatever - then I’d get home and realise the results suck.

But, having said all that, there are still plenty of photos that do represent their day, and were taken with a proper camera. I’m happy with many, and am glad I actually managed to complete the thing.

I’ve also definitely improved over the year, and I can see the images evolve. I taught myself the basics of balancing flash with ambient light, I now understand the concept of formal image composition, even if I’m not very good at it, and I’m slowly getting better at predicting the look of the final exposure before clicking the shutter. I also finally sat down and learnt how to use Lightroom, and suddenly I could properly control the shadow and highlight points while editing - I think there’s a marked improvement in the image quality thereafter.

It’s also had the intended memory-bank effect. I checked over the set this evening - there were a few omissions / duplicates, and my pride at the final 365 total was dented when I realised it’s a leap year - and kept spotting and thinking about little events I’d forgotten, which is quite pleasant. My 25th year had sad days, happy days, scary-exciting days, celebrities, and plenty of monkeys - it’ll be fun to dig through in a few years.

So it’s a mixed bag. There are more than a few images that made me wince while uploading, and again now, but there are some that came out better than I remembered, and a few I’m very happy with. I didn’t learn as much from it as I hoped, but it wasn’t a waste of time either.

I’m going to make a Blurb book of the results. I don’t have a properly colour-balanced setup, so I’ll have to play the odds and just hope they resemble what I see on screen. I’m currently struggling to download all the images and keep them in order (I don’t have a local copy, sadly), but I’m sure I’ll find a way. However it turns out, it should make a neat little momento.

Is there a Year 26 Project? So far, yes. I’ve been toying with 52 Portraits or similar, but as I’ve got into the habit I see no reason not to continue for the moment. Objectives for this year:

• Be brave
• Take fewer, better shots, on decent equipment
• Check and double-check the goddamn focus (I hate hate hate it when the focus is off)
• Learn more about lighting, and put it into practice
• Take more portraits
• Be brave

I think that’s enough to be going along with.

Flickr launched their new video functionality last night, and it’s nicely implemented. They’re calling videos ‘long photos’, which is a decent way of approaching it. There’s a 90-second limit, only Pro members can upload, and they integrate into photostreams just like any other picture. It’s fairly snappy (although the FAQ says some older computers may struggle, in which case ‘just go to Best Buy dude’) and nothing plays automatically if you don’t want it to. Their charming FAQ explains the ins and outs.

Digital SLRs can’t record videos, so the only footage I have comes from my old Canon G3 - lost/stolen/beamed-up in a field in 2004. I had a dig through and found a surprising number of clips, but they’re almost all of my ex-girlfriend and I’ve no desire to re-visit them. Maybe in a decade or so. I did find this, though, taken on Prague’s Charles Bridge in 2003:

The upload process is a breeze compared to the morass of YouTube, and the - admittedly short - clip processed in only a few seconds. I tagged / geotagged it just like any regular photo, and it slotted into my photostream without issue. Neat, especially as their servers must be getting hammered about now.

I don’t envy the job of policing video uploads, but I’m impressed with the implementation. It’s obviously early days, but video fits into Flickr better than I expected. Their blog has a few decent examples. I can’t see me using this feature much, at least until I get a cameraphone with better video quality, but I’ll be interested to see where people take it.

Abode released a beta of Lightroom 2.0 this morning, which was quite the surprise. The feature list is impressive, but most interesting are:

• Much better Photoshop integration. Images can now be sent directly into CS3 without requiring an export. It can also send a group of pictures straight through to be merged into a panorama or HDR image. Now they’ve implemented this feature I really don’t see the need for Bridge, Photoshop’s built-in image browser.
• Localised masking. This is the big, attention-grabbing one - Lightroom can now edit specific areas of images. It’s nicely implemented, although since it links so well into Photoshop I might just use that instead. Well, I say that. In practice it might be quicker to do lots in Lightroom - we’ll see.
• Smart collections. These are a bit like iTunes’ Smart Playlists. You can configure a bunch of rules, each with individual AND/OR inclusion settings, that give you a very nice way of focussing on specific images. So you can have a dynamically created set of recently-edited images, or anything with the keyword ‘monkeys’ taken last May, with a wide-angle lens. Etc..
• Dual-monitor support. I’ve got two monitors, so I can have the smaller one displaying an overview of an image as I change particular elements. Or it can show the grid of photos while I edit on the main monitor. My smaller monitor’s colours are a bit dodgy, but it’s still useful as a rough guide.

There’s a fair bit more: export sharpening, better filters, a loupe in the details panel, and the interface has been overhauled and some of the existing features tweaked. A full guide is here.

Scott Kelby etc. have some introductory videos up, and their FAQ has some interesting details. They reckon the full version will be released June-ish, and there won’t be any beta updates between now and then. No word on pricing yet.

I’ve been playing around with it today and they’ve certainly been listening to the feedback. Lots of things work just that bit better, but it’s the Photoshop links that are the most useful for me. There are a couple of bugs, as is to be expected with betas, but nothing show-stopping yet. The program was pretty good already, but v2 adds enough that I can’t see me not buying the upgrade.

Because I own version 1.3 I can invite people to be on the beta program for six months - otherwise you’re limited to a 30-day trial - so let me know if you’d like an invite.

PicLens should be gimmicky, but somehow isn’t. It’s a browser add-on for viewing images (plugin for IE, extension for Firefox), that understands the major photo sites. This means it can display all relevant pictures, rather than just those currently visible. It’s easier to explain with an example:

I was making mockups for a uni project this evening, and needed a picture of a juggler, with specific criteria: it had to be a full-length, side-on view. I searched for ‘juggler’ in Flickr, and the search results showed me 20 pictures per page. This was a bit slow, and by page 10 was getting frustrating - it turns out most people don’t shoot jugglers this way. Eventually it occured to me that PicLens might help. It places a small ‘play’ icon over images from supported sites, and once clicked brings up a full-screen, 3D wall of images:

PicLens understands that I’m on a Flickr search page, so performs the search progressively as I scan along the wall. The scroll wheel zooms in, and dragging left/right pans along at variable speeds. This is approximately a billion times faster than going through individual pages. I glanced at hundreds of pictures before spotting something appropriate, at which point I double-clicked it. This downloaded the high-res version and displayed it full screen - I could then jump to the photo’s Flickr page via a button at the top of the screen (although I only discovered this later after watching the tutorial video - it could do with being a little more obvious).

I’ve been merrily browsing my contacts’ photostreams and sets all evening - the wall is visually gorgeous, and it’s just good fun. Plus, photos generally look better on darker backgrounds. It’s technically polished, too: the wall appears extremely quickly and I’ve experienced no processing delay when browsing, which is impressive for a full-screen app¹. It’s possible to scan faster than new images can be downloaded, but they appear fast enough that this is rare. I should mention that it’s stalled on me a couple of times, but re-clicking the play button solved it.

PicLens supports Google Images, Yahoo Images, YouTube, Facebook and deviantART, amongst others. There’s also a Wordpress plugin to add support to individual blogs. I predict somebody will buy this company pretty sharpish. Definitely worth installing if you spend any time browsing images, imho.

1. having said that, my Firefox install is less than a week old and everything’s quick at the moment [↩]

I was wandering around central London with a camera last Thursday, and took this in Trafalgar Square:

I like the shapes, but the end result isn’t particularly special. It could do with some light on the foreground, um, baby column bollard things.

Now, lesser photographers would have whipped out an off-camera flash. Perhaps using a wireless setup, they would have placed the flash to the right and experimented with exposure until they achieved something respectable. Wusses.

Proper photographers have no need of such machinations. Having trained their reflexes for literally years, they simply set their shutter speed to 1/25 of a second, then press the shutter at exactly the same time as a passing tourist takes a snapshot:

No need for all that faffing. Sure, the light’s a weird colour and the picture still isn’t all that, but come on - that’s artistry, that is.

Well, kinda. There’s an edit button above each picture that sends you straight through to the Picnik system, anyway. Is cool. Obviously no match for Photoshop, but 90% of my edits are cropping and a bit of levels adjustment, which Picnik can handle without a problem. Also useful for mobile uploads.

My good friends Lil and Tom married at the end of September, and my chum Ben and I were lucky enough to be official photographers at their wedding. It was a great day. Six weeks later and I’ve finally finished processing ~1300 photos down to ~400 on Flickr.

I was honoured when they first asked if I’d take on the photographic duties, but I declined - wedding photography is a particular skill and too important for an amateur to try without experience. Things changed, though, and I agreed as long as they were aware I might mess it up. They were entirely happy with this, so I brought Ben on board as co-photographer and we set about researching wedding photography techniques. Obviously we wanted to produce the best results possible, so we read as widely as possible, trying to absorb second-hand information. The big day came around very quickly, and it was a hell of a thing. I did mess it up at one point, but the experience was amazing.

Ben and I met up for breakfast first thing that morning, and went over the plan of action. Everything seemed to be in place, and we quickly headed off in different directions: him to the groom, me to the bride. Each was half an hour’s drive away. Our strategy when researching was to steal ideas, and we both had a rough idea of the kind of image we wanted to capture. I’d been planning to scout out the destination the previous night, but two enormous traffic jams on the motorway meant I hadn’t arrived until 3 that morning, so I was entirely reliant on the satnav. Thankfully she did a stellar job, and I made it to the house in good time.

Lil was in the dress and looking lovely, and I took a lot of images of the final adjustments to hair and makeup, then some family group shots. At one point Lil took time out from her incredibly busy morning to hand me some books from a series I’d been reading. I was having enough trouble keeping everything in my head and I wasn’t getting married that day - I am in awe of her presence of mind Time quickly ran out, and I headed out the door a minute or so before they were due to leave.

I ran back to the car, set the photos copying from the memory card to a laptop on the passenger seat and headed for the ceremony venue. I don’t ever speed and didn’t at the time, but I was one of those irritating people who swing from the slip lane straight into the outside lane - I was determined to make it to the venue in time to photograph the bride’s arrival. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be; I hit traffic in Exeter and was actually the last person to arrive. Lesson 1: scout out routes beforehand. If I ever do something like this again this will be a major priority. Ben handled the job with aplomb, however, and I got there just as people were starting to head inside.

I knew cameras were banned during the ceremony and only one official photographer was allowed, but wasn’t sure where I would be allowed to stand etc.. A quick word with the very friendly lady performing the ceremony and I was told I could stand at the front, step forward when the rings were exchanged and move around as long as I wasn’t too distracting. Ok.

I took a few pictures of the room, then realised I hadn’t deleted the images from that morning, and I was going to need the space. I’d taken a few since arriving, so set them as ‘protected’ on the memory card and formatted it. Turns out, this doesn’t work: formatting trumps everything, and I lost maybe ten pictures of people entering the venue. One of them still niggles. In hindsight I should have realised the problem, but I was still somewhat flustered from the drive - at least, I like to think I’d have thought twice under other circumstances. Nevertheless: Lesson 2: know your camera inside out. Ben was doing a good job of covering the guests, so I retook shots of the room, figured out the ISO I was going to need based on the lighting (1600), then had a couple of minutes to say hi to all my friends, who I hadn’t actually managed to meet yet.

The ceremony began and I took my place at the front. Ben and I had been hoping he’d be able to stand at the back and take wider-angle images, but that wasn’t allowed. Lil entered and was walked down the aisle. I quickly became aware of the focus beep, and waited for a calm moment to try and surreptitiously navigate the menus to disable it. I hung back as the vows were read, kneeling and moving from side to side as necessary, hoping the shutter wasn’t too noisy. At one point I was kneeling for a good angle and felt myself physically shaking - whether from adrenalin or strain I don’t know - and hoped this wasn’t really obvious to the whole room.

To speak technically for a minute, I was getting roughly 1/50 at f5.6 at ISO 1600, which, while fine, was close enough that anything much darker would have caused problems. Flash wasn’t allowed, and would have ruined the pleasing window-light anyway. I had my f1.8 in my pocket in case of emergencies, but didn’t fancy risking the tiny depth of field that would produce - I could easily focus on Lil but not Tom with that thing.

I moved forward during the exchange of rings, hoping I wasn’t being too annoying, then stepped back. At this point I made my massive mistake.

The lady said ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife’ and, as you’d imagine, there were big smiles from the bride and groom. I rattled off a few quick images, not wanting to catch anybody blinking at that particular moment, while she said ‘you may now kiss’. And the buffer was full: I pressed the button and nothing happened and I missed it. Lesson 3 is pretty much covered by lesson 2, but is worth reiterating: know your technical limitations.

Lil and Tom signed the register, at which point I relaxed a little as everybody else’s cameras came out: anything I missed should be covered by someone. Ben had an excellent image-stabilised zoom lens and got some great, blurred-background shots from the back. He did this throughout the day, actually, and his shots of guests are far superior to mine. Lesson 4: to isolate guests, get back and zoom rather than try and compose around it with a shorter lens. I should have known this from Damian’s shots, but somehow forgot on the day¹.

The happy couple headed into the gardens and I had a quick opportunity for a few shots sans guests. Ben and I then took a few formal portrait shots in the gardens, but a light drizzle meant we decided to put off the rest until the reception. We took casual shots instead while formulating a plan of action, then it was into the cars to head for the Pride of Exmouth. I again set photos copying from the memory card to the laptop, and we drove half an hour to the coast. I was feeling bad about the missed kiss, but the ceremony was done without any other mishaps, and I was looking forward to the afternoon. Having to continually copy photos from my one 2gb memory card wasn’t ideal, however - Lesson 5: take ridiculous amounts of media, it’s cheap enough that it easily overrides the hassle and worry of transferring ‘in the field’!

The boat set off at the last possible minute before the tide rendered our route impassable, and the sun came out. The weather was beautiful for the rest of the day, which made for a lovely afternoon on as we moved south along the Devon coastline - including, incidentally, a view of the Napoli.

Ben and I took the opportunity to chat and socialise, while taking casual shots of happy people. Most of the advice in this regard had said ‘quality not quantity, unless you want to spend weeks editing photos’. Given our amateur status we ignored this completely, and took as many as possible of any given situation to make sure we had something usable. We did end up with 1333 pictures, but I still think this was the right approach.

Being nearby meant I got to chat to Tom and Lil a fair bit, which was great. There was food and music and sunshine: a fantastic afternoon.

After the meal had settled came speeches - I gave one - and formal family photos. I’d been nervous about these, but thankfully they went ok. The bright sunlight meant we put everybody in the shade of the front of the boat to avoid ridiculous contrasts. I tried to balance flash with the ambient light and was only partially successful² but while concentrating on the technical aspects found I was struggling to remember the best ways of arranging people. Thankfully Ben had no such difficulty, and did a sterling job of balancing heights etc..

Soon afterwards we docked back at the harbour, and the happy couple disembarked. I asked Tom and Lil to recreate the kiss, which they were very willing to do, and we took the photo Lil had requested months beforehand:

What a cool couple they are Probably the only chance I’ll have to take a wedding jumping photo! We also took the opportunity for a group shot of all the Arden schoolfriends, together for the first time in years, and of course there was the throwing of the bouquet:

Looking forward to the big day, Helen.

All too soon Lil and Tom headed off on honeymoon. I immediately wanted to re-do the entire day - Ben and I had learnt so much that we knew we could do better the second time. But, other than the kiss, we’d got everything we wanted. There were a few technical problems later - the laptop refused to power up, for one thing - but Ben’s 4gb usb2.0 stick saved the day. We ended up with photos in four different places, and it was a relief to get home and consolidate everything. Having used the demo for months I finally bought Adobe Lightroom to edit the RAW photos and can say without doubt that the program is a godsend. It’s just remarkable, and deserves its own write-up at some point.

In hindsight I didn’t give Ben enough credit on the day - he worked very hard, and I didn’t always correct people when they called me ‘the photographer’. Much kudos to Ben for his great shots.

This has been a technical write-up, but obviously it was a lovely experience personally. I’ve known Lil since secondary school, and it was wonderful to see her so obviously in love and happy. The whole day was a joy, in many respects, and I’m very grateful to Tom and Lil for giving us such a wonderful opportunity. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

1. I think I did this because of an old piece of advice saying portraits look most natural at 50mm from a couple of metres away. While this may be true in a studio, I’m going to say its redundant in uncontrolled situations [↩]
2. should have bumped up the ISO [↩]

A row of large riverside trees in the centre of Stratford have been blocked off since the floods in July, and last week a decision was finally made. Here’s how they used to look:

but now:

It’s sad - they were a major part of the view, and it’s not like they’re going to grow back :-( I guess it was the only way to make them safe, though. What with this and the RST being in bits, Stratford’s looking something of a mess at the moment.

After much panic and rushing about I finished putting the project together at 1940 on Thursday, and presented it this afternoon. Well, it wasn’t so much a presentation as a ‘critical assessment’, in which we split into groups, each critiquing the works of another and presenting their thoughts to everyone - it’s a little less stressful than an individual presentation + Q&A, although not much. The brief was 2-5 black and white prints on the theme of ‘interaction’ - basically an introductory project to get some indication of our abilities, I suspect - and my final display looked like this:

We were told not to say much about our intentions and let the images speak for themselves, so I’ll stay quiet.

It was the first time I’d seen everyone else’s work, and I was totally unable to get any perspective on my own project - I genuinely had no clue how it compared, or what people would think. The others had some great results, though, and I’m looking forward to an upcoming project where we work in teams.

The group’s reaction to my project was generally favourable: they liked the idea and thought the second image (knife in pumpkin) was the strongest, but recommended I remove the last two shots as they were weaker (particularly the final one), just leaving the first three more abstract photos.

Once they finished giving their opinions it was opened to the entire class, who said some nice things, and then the two teachers. They immediately completely disagreed, suggesting that if anything I should remove the first three as they didn’t seem to add anything to the concept and weren’t as good as the much stronger final two images anyway. The course leader recommended I enlarge the two to A3 and present them as a diptych.

It’s interesting to get such contradictory reactions and advice, neither of which I’d anticipated. I suppose the teachers have much more experience of this kind of work, and are, you know, grading it, but I want to produce work that appeals to my peers too. I’m not going to go into my intentions, but I don’t think I expressed my idea particularly well since neither the assessment group nor the teachers really picked up on the overall concept in my head. Having said that, at least one person definitely did have it all figured out, so there must be something there. It’s tricky to get any perspective now - I’ll take another look at them in a couple of weeks and try to see what works and what doesn’t. Plenty of food for thought, anyway. Thanks again to Nod for being a willing Pumpkin Man.

It’s a while since I’ve had a deadline project like this, and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot about how to manage my time. Major point: don’t end up doing it all in a week! The next project is entirely studio-based, which means playing with toys complex lighting equipment toys. Should be fun.

One of my photos from last year’s Stratford Mop Fair is currently on the front page of the Stratford Council website, which makes me happy. The fair is this Thursay/Friday and falls perfectly over the times I have to be in London, which makes me sad. Less sad than the original happiness, though, so I’m in credit.

I’m fed up with not writing on my blog. There’ve been all sorts of things I’ve wanted to type up recently that haven’t made it out of my head, and it’s usually because I want to do them justice. That doesn’t seem to be working, however, so I’m going to try the less-coherent-as-written-late-at-night-but-at-least-there tactic.

With this in mind, here’s me this evening:

Neil Gaiman is one of a few fantasy authors I really rate, but it’s interesting how much more often he turns up in my thoughts and writings relative to the others. I think it’s because he’s a strong and accessible personality, and this ends up inextricably linked to his work. I’ve been thinking about it today, and I don’t think it’s any surprise he’s good friends with Jonathan Ross. They’re both very open about their lives, give every impression of being entirely decent people, and their characters are a strong part of everything they do. A Jonathan Ross show will always make use of his particular presenting style that (unless he’s an extremely good actor) is his genuine personality; a Neil Gaiman novel isn’t an anonymous fantasy text, it’s very much his style - his books of short stories contain explanations for how he came to write each of them, and when reading I feel like I’m becoming familiar with him as a person, and not just his writing. Neil Gaiman also writes daily on his blog - he’s written something about this evening already - and his family life has been a regular feature of my daily reading for over a year.

I booked tickets for an interview with him at the Criterion Theatre a few weeks ago. They were only £5, and with the train ticket at £10 there seemed little reason not to take a trip. I arrived in good time, and the theatre wasn’t quite full.

He started by reading an excerpt from Stardust. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking listening to authors read their own stuff - they’re writers, not public speakers, and it can be cringeworthy. In this case I realised after thirty seconds that I was completely engrossed in the story and barely aware of his reading at all. And I’ve read the book before. That’s some skill.

The Guardian’s literary editor asked a few questions about his past, and then it was opened up to the floor. The first person asked for a kiss, which got a good laugh, and plenty of interesting questions followed. Had he ever shelved a story with religious themes due to fear of offending people¹? Who would he want to play him in a film of his life²? What happened at the end of the (recent, and excellent) Steve Ditko documentary³? There was a quick draw for the winner of two tickets to tomorrow night’s Stardust premiere, and then it was over to the local Waterstone’s for a signing. I got lost.

It’s only 100m away, and I got lost. I tried to follow the crowd, forgetting that London is one big crowd. I found it a couple of minutes later, but by this point was near the back of the queue. I got chatting to a nice guy called George, and together we shuffled forwards in the evening drizzle, until finally getting through the doors about 45mins after arriving.

We were unsure whether there’d be books near the signing table, so headed to the graphic novel department to pick up something appropriate. There was nothing there - everything was near the signing table - so we went back downstairs and found ourselves the last two people in the queue. Which was fun Not long after this I started worrying about time. It was 2100, the queue was 100 people long, and the last train was at 2200, fifteen minutes away. We crept forward, and I could see it was going to be close. Waterstone’s was closing shortly, and before we reached the table they cleared the books away. I was very close to leaving, but in the end decided I’d get a coach home if necessary - I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, since I was by this point only 10 people away!

I finally reached the front, and this happened:

I explained that I hadn’t a book of his as they’d been cleared, but I did have this one on photographic theory and it’d be wonderfully surreal, and entertaining for my classmates, if he’d sign it. To be honest I can’t remember exactly what he said in reply, but I recall it as brief bemusement followed by a smile and something along the lines of ‘no problem’. ‘Not written by Neil Gaiman’ was a nice touch, especially considering he’d been signing books for over two hours solid by that point. George then quickly took a photo and I said thanks for all the hours of entertainment. It was a nice little moment. He gives every impression of being a very decent person in interviews, and in person practically exuded friendliness. Definitely a cool guy.

Then we ran, George not actually needing to but in solidarity with me, and we split at Piccaddilly Circus. I wish I’d given him a moo card as we got on pretty well. I reached Marylebone at 2203, and it turned out that the last train was at 2210. So I made it. Jammification!

1. no, although one story involving ‘feotal dreams’ never made it as he was worried some sadist would use it as anti-abortion material [↩]
2. anyone, providing they had Dylan Moran’s hair [↩]
3. they chatted with him for a while [↩]

Just saying.

Spotted in a local hotel car park:

I was a bit extravagant on Friday. After much umming and aahing, I treated myself to a new flashgun, and have been playing with it ever since. I have a whole list of justifications for this purchase, which I could only just afford, but nevertheless feel a little guilty about it. Things are still a little up in the air part-time-job-wise, but I’m hoping to have that sorted soon.

Obviously I’m going to experiment and learn how to use it well, but after such an expense I think it’s doubly a duty to know it inside out. I’m keen to get an understanding of its Manual mode, but as it can interface with the camera’s exposure system I’d obviously like to figure that out too - fast-moving events and I’m not going to have time to manually set the power and zoom level. I know what the camera and flash can theoretically do together, but needed specifics.

Unfortunately, the instruction manual is dreadful. It tells me what all the buttons do, but has little information on how the flash deals with the various priority modes on the camera. It’s basic message is: “we’ll handle all the exposure stuff, don’t worry about it”. Which is no good. It continually refers to ‘foreground’ and ‘background’ without giving any indication of how the camera decides which is which. ‘Fill-in flash’ is mentioned as a possibility (and one of the features I most want to use), but how do I ensure the camera is in this mode? What happens when the camera is in aperture priority? This made me realise that I never really understood the small built-in flash as well as I should have, which in turn made me even more determined to make proper use of one that can bounce / swivel / zoom etc.. In search of help, I googled for a site I vaguely remembered.

The Photonotes.org three-part Canon EOS Flash guide turned out to be fantastic. It’s a comprehensive explanation of the various exposure systems, and has answered my every question. For example, the ‘foreground’ is the area around the active focus point, and the background everything else. Perfect.

The only remaining thing is to get it off the camera as I want to work through the Strobist lighting course, which requires an off-camera flash. I’d assumed a hotshoe extension cable would be cheap and easy to find, but I should have researched that more. Options are:

• Cable - Canon’s TTL sync cord. Means I can still use the camera’s exposure system. But £45. For a 60cm cable. So: rubbish.
• Cable - Jessops TTL sync cord. Again I can still get easy exposures. £35, and 1.2m long. Maybe.
• Cable - make your own PC connection. No exposure data so I’d have to do everything on manual, but that’d be good fun. I’d need two hotshoe adapters at £10 each but could then use any length PC cable I want. 5m would do it. Probably come to about £30. Definite possibility.
• Wireless - Canon’s wireless-TTL setup. Transfers exposure data. Needs a £90 trigger and, I think, line of sight. Can’t justify that.
• Wireless - “Pocket Wizards” - beloved of professional photographers, radio rather than optical, apparently 100% reliable, and £300. No exposure data. No chance.
• Wireless - eBay radio triggers memorably described as ‘modified garage door openers’. Not completely reliable, but the new ‘V2’s are apparently Not Bad. No exposure data. But about £20. Possible.

I think I’ll go with the make-your-own connection. I’d want a good few metres, and there’s no way to do that including exposure data, which I can easily live without. The eBay triggers I may upgrade to at some point, once I’ve got some understanding of how off-camera flash works.

As it happened, some extra work unexpectedly turned up and took the edge off the expense. Still going to work hard, though. On the right is one of the first shots I took, of (my sister) Jane, (not actually being tortured) Meg and (due in 4 weeks but apparently already in position) vaguely-baby Guybrush/Bellatrix.