So HND results are through....

and I achieved a ........... MERIT.

So thats a nice result from Kent.ac.uk!

Now all I have to do is get my 1st in my BA (Hons) and all will be good!

FMP Presentation day

Ok I suffer from bad nerves!

I know that I seem really confident but I feel like a have a bucket of worms for my stomach!

I just have to get through this and then it's all good till the BA.....

Eeeeeek what have I done!?

Been a while since my last post....

This was mainly due to getting the book sorted and finished ( well ordered! ) for my FMP.

The book has now been ordered and can be previewed here --> LINK

I do hope that this is not my first and last foray into the publishing world.

Any comments welcomed!

Crash Course in Photography

How to make your car look like scrap just ask the guy who was driving this one!

It might seem quite extreme but it was very interesting to take pictures of...

By the way if you know who was driving this car the other day then the police might like to know!

Another London shoot but the last one!

Finally finished the last shoot that I needed to do for my FMP!

Now the selection process begins. I have dozens of pictures pinned to the wall in my dining room!

I look like I am opening a trampy photogallery!!!

I hope that I can reclaim my walls soon!

The day after the 10 hour sorting session!

Narrowed it down to 72 potential pictures that I am gonna have in the book plus the 750+ for contact sheets plus the others that will find their way in somehow...I am going to need more paper, more ink and some of my sanity back please!

I still have one shoot left to do and I know that I will end up with a large number of pictures that need to be sorted ranked and filed properly so I can create my FMP without going insane!

Battersea better have some sunshine for me tomorrow or I will be the big bald bloke you see crying with his camera!

Off to sleep at lunchtime.

I was up at 3.30am to head to Ham, Richmond and Twickenham.

The drive over there was lovely even if it was as my assistant said "Stupid Early!".

Some nice shots of Twickenham bridge and Richmond lock.

Some nice shots of the big houses that have their own moorings! Found a lovely looking pub but it wasn't open at 4.30am!

Hopefully apart from my Central London trip on Monday that should be me done with shooting my FMP ( Final Major Project ) for my HND and I can get on with the Last Essay and the timed Photoshop exercise.....

Of course I have to edit the pics I took today but not just yet I need sleep!

Cake Sale & Logos

I know that my followers are limited but if either of them is available today then there should be a cake sale in the foyer of Speldhurst sometime today. I have brought along a stunning 'Cherry and Coconut' cake and I am assured that the remainder of the class bakers have some equally tempting delights!

On an entirely unrelated note what should I be looking out for in a Logo?

Should I aim for humour? Should I be looking at Cutting Edge Style? Is plain and simple the way to go? Any comments would be good!

Central London

Who knew that the connections from the O2 Arena were so good?

I was up there again today shooting around Canary Wharf and in Greenwich as well.

O2 arena you have the tube or the Thames Clippers you're in London in 10 mins. I don't think that I will be heading to Dartford or Gravesend station to get into Central London as much as I used to...or maybe I will use the 'Fast Rail' link from Northfleet...that's only 14mins.

Central London is not as inaccessible as people think!

Drop Ins full of Drop Outs

What is the point of a Drop In centre when people can book it?

Drop In surely means that you can 'Drop In' and do what you need when you need to as long as there is a space free?

Booking a space surely makes it less of a Drop In and more of a 'Book to Use'?

If an institution cannot listen to the people who will be staffing these areas, take on the recommendations that they make on resource needs and equipment levels, well what good are they?

Hardly seems like a way to run a 'Modern Education Institution' thats in the process of redesigning itself to meet the needs of its students does it?

Sorry K College but you get only a D- on this one!

Bigger Cards?

Who is now finding that their 8 Gb card is just not big enough?

Is 32 Gb seeming cramped??

How about 2 Tb?

Ok it all seems great in theory...But...

If you have 2 x 8 Gb cards you can shoot 16 Gb in total...if you have one card go 'Pete Tong' on you then you can still shoot the other 8 Gb...If you ONLY have a 2 Tb card then when ( if ) the card ends up spooned...well thats you done for the day and maybe a complete loss of your images?

I think that I will stick to carrying multiple smaller cards for now but...

The Woo

It doesn't seem as reliable as I had hoped for. Seems to have a problem with the thermostat.

The temperature gauge in the car is up and down like a yo-yo on a sugar rush!

I think that the part from a 'Main Stealer' is only about £40 but then you have to add the labour on top....I think I must have offended the Car Gods at one point. How can I appease them??

I am still able to get to shoots though so I can make the money to pay for the repair... Although the jobs are a bit thin on the ground this month.

Promotional items

Just seen the range from VistaPrint and well I am underwhelmed!

Anyone had any good feedback from using promo gifts??

If you have what did you use?

I would love to know if they work before I think about spending money on them!

On the subject of spending money....New car time...not sporty or amazingly fast but practical.

Daewoo Tacuma.

Lets hope its reliable!

School Photo type pictures

Anyone have any advice? I want to see if there is a way that I can make them a little less "Generic" and a bit nicer to look at?! This is one from my old secondary school...I am not in this one. I think that this looks a lot like 90% of the school pictures out there. Has anyone seen a school or club picture that looks better?? If you have let me know!

The lighter side

Ben Heine was one of the people I found mentioned in my Inbox today.

I have to say that after seeing his donkey picture I had to find out more and the more I found the more amazed I was!

With a great sense of humour and an eye for being able to integrate illustration into his photography...well he is in my opinion definitely worth a read!!

I do wonder how long the illustrations take as they are amazingly detailed!

Slowly building up the empire

So I am now on Linked In & Behance. I have a company page on Facebook and of course my website. I am slowly extending the reach of Simon Berry Photography. I am wondering now though about where I should pitch myself...Should I join the ranks of the 'General Photographer' or should I find myself a niche and burrow in?

I know that some people like the shots I have taken of Urban Decay and I absolutely enjoyed taking them but I am not sure who would have them on the wall? ( Let me know if you would I will give the 1st person a discount on the print! ) But I have some contacts in the charity sector I know that it seems that it will never make me a millionaire but comfortable is better than broke! I have the fact that I am Enhanced CRB checked to work with as well but CRB checks need to be redone for every organisation that need one...Lots of paperwork but could it pay off?

I feel like I am trying to wear to many pairs of glasses and I would love some insight as to what pair suits me best???

Just replied to my BA ( Hons ) offer.

With a 'Firm'. I do hope that's a yes!

It should be great sticking with the University of Kent and their partner K College.

Great teachers and from what I can see an ever increasing range of facilities!

I hope that any of my classmates reading this have the letters that they want from the places that they want and I hope all goes well for all of us!

Ok so I have the iPad now.

What a FANTASTIC way to show images!

The screen is amazing and the device is almost universally understood!

I have to admit that one of the other things that I am loving about the iPad is Angry Birds in HD...I never thought that green pigs with moustaches would look so good :)

I have to say that it was a breeze to set up and I can also have my .doc and .ppt documents on there and not carry around 99 bits of paper that will get crumpled and maybe lost!

It may be the Mc Donalds tag line but "I'm Lovin' It!"

Some good news

From another blog...Some good news for the photographers who have iPads.

piRAWnha is the first RAW image developer for the iPad. In piRAWnha, the raw data can be edited and once the settings have been optimized, a high‐quality JPEG image file can be exported to the Photo Library. Currently, piRAWnha supports raw images transferred to the iPad with the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit. piRAWnha works with all raw files supported by Apple.
Cypress Innovations launches piRAWnha, the first RAW image developer for iPad
Develop, adjust and perfect raw images with piRAWnha
SAN FRANCISCO— December 20, 2010 – Cypress Innovations
There is a new app for photographers eager to develop and process raw images on an iPad. The iPad allows users to view the JPEG thumbnail image embedded in the raw image file, but cannot process the raw data itself. To take advantage of this capability, Cypress Innovations has launched piRAWnha, the only app to enable raw processing on the iPad.
Currently, piRAWnha supports raw images transferred to the iPad with the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit.
In piRAWnha, the raw data can be edited and once the settings have been optimized, a high‐quality JPEG image file can be exported to the Photo Library.
piRAWnha features both raw developing and post‐processing options, including:
‐Exposure compensation
‐White balance correction (automatic settings and manual)
‐Highlight recovery
‐Denoise operations
‐Gamma correction
‐Saturation‐hue‐brightness adjustment
‐High‐quality contrast adjustment
‐Sharpening
‐Updated image histogram (red‐green‐blue) while editing
Raw images can be exported to the iPad’s Photo Library individually or as a batch. piRAWnha can also run in the background, so while it works to export the images, other apps can be used on the iPad. piRAWnha works with all raw files supported by Apple (a complete list of cameras is here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3825)
piRAWnha, the first raw image developer for iPad, is a true companion for the serious photographer.


About Cypress Innovations
Cypress Innovations is a creative software development group currently focused on iPhone and iPad apps for photography, fitness and education.


Here is the link to the blog I got the good news from.

Sorry if this is old news but Hey at least you have been reminded that Apple love Photographers!

First day back

OMG! I was in bed by 9.45pm last night I was just that tired!

Normally up till like midnight - 1am but I was just beat last night.

Add a large helping of the same work today and I think that I will be sleepwalking through the 1st day back at Uni on Thursday.

Still UCAS have accepted my application now that I have jumped through their hoops and filled out endless forms. With the rise in tuition fees set to kick in next academic year, it seems that loads of students are going to skip their gap year and try and get in to Uni earlier to avoid the price hike!

I hope that I am not nudged out of a place on the BA top up due to the increase in numbers!

Going back to the work thing...One of my lecturers ( A jobing photographer who has a penchant for food photography his site is here! ) has a job shooting for Unilever...The work I am doing at the moment is putting together packs for...Unilever. Some lovely food photography on the packs....I must find out who took the shots! :P :)

Matting pictures

This is the american term for what we would call mounting.

http://www.matshop.ca/matomatic/

Allows you to test the matt before you cut a thing!

Anyone have a preferance on mount colour?? I was thinking that Black generally goes with anything so I might stick to the black and play it safe?

I hope that my parcel from Silverprint arrives soon or all my mounting will be left without the nice sleaves that they have charged me an arm and a leg for!

One thing that I did notice whilst on the silverprint site was that they didn't take postage costs into account when working out your order value...Minimum order from them is £25 yet you have to spend that on goods alone not goods plus postage! Seems a tad unfair that I have to spend £35 including postage when the goods I wanted came to £23 (ish) only to have them ignore the £5 (ish) that I am having to pay them in postage.

Oh well as the French say C'est la vie!