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pretending to be a virtual-prawn on the cyberspace-oceanfloor

Archive for the ‘Flickr’ tag

Daily Link

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It seems blogging is not something I’m that comfortable with. Weeks go by without anything being posted. Not that this is a problem, as I’m not of the opinion that people are that interested in the minutia of my life.

From today I will try something new to keep this thing ticking over. I will post a link to something that I find interesting or of value in the hope that it will benefit somebody else.

The link for today is HowtoForge. It’s a tutorial site with a vibrant forum for all things Linux. I have used a number of their tutorials over the last few years and have always received amazing community support on the forums. My private hosting server at Hetzner is based on a tutorial supplied by HowtoForge.

As this is the first post in this new initiative I’ll include a bonus. WordCamp South Africa is on this weekend and I have just registered. I hope to make some contacts and just bump into some old friends and past colleagues who are still active in the local online business.

WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. These events are usually highlighted by speeches or keynotes by various people.

There is a Flickr group featuring photos from other WordCamp events from around the world.

Written by BF

August 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm

Time to slow down.

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holga Wired.com is holding a photo-submission contest for photos taken with a Holga camera, and this has me quite excited. Habibti bought me a Holga 120 CFN for my birthday two years ago after I did a course at the Cape Town School of Photography. I attended the course because I wanted to learn more about photography and how to use my Nikon N80 more effectively. I also did the course to try and break a very bad habit I have. When I start something new I buy books on the subject. I read about photography, programming, design, GNU/Linux, existentialism, yoga  and even about sex. I become a theoretical expert on the subject. I love books, but books don’t an expert make.

Flight_3 The photos Vanessa Cowling (our lecturer) showed us were part of the "Strings and Flight" exhibition she was putting on, and I was amazed by the quality of the photos, but also the effects that were achieved. She explained to us that it was the unique quality of the Holga and Diana. They are cheap and nasty medium format cameras and no two are alike.

Back to why I’m excited and a bit inspired by the Wired.com photo-submission contest. My Nikon N80 is giving up the ghost and I’ve been obsessing about replacing it with something new (I bought the N80 second hand) and have spent many hours reading reviews on the Nikon D200 (and now the D300) and doing the "If only ……." shtick. And here I finding myself stuck once again in that pile of books, web sites and magazines planning for when I can afford one of those amazing pieces of technology.

I have found a group on Flickr with 5957 members and 61867 photos. There are some truly amazing photos and I have barely scratched the surface.  I don’t need to spend R18 000.00 to enjoy taking photos, not yet anyway. I have now taken two spools with my Holga and can’t wait to have them developed.

So those 4 or 5 visitors to this blog can start looking forward to seeing some of my photos in the near future.

Written by BF

February 11th, 2008 at 9:01 pm