Feel like you'd work more productively if you had a calming landscape to look at rather than those boring old spreadsheets? Constantly worried about what day of the week it is and fretting that you can't recall if next Sunday is the 15th or 16th of the month?

Put your worries to one side and enjoy a free wallpaper that combines not only a soothing scene of the lovely Lake District but a handy calendar right there on your desktop. It's OK, no need to thank me. It's my pleasure.

Tags: wallpaper

This is the first and, as far as I know, only tablet Mac currently on the market. It's made by Axiotron and has only recently hit the shops. I've yet to see any reviews of the Mac Tablet but it certainly looks like a flash bit of kit. It's so much more productive working with a Wacom tablet rather than a mouse and so the appeal of being able to draw directly onto the screen is obvious.

Tags: mac

I had started to write a lyrical and eloquent post about David duCenin's wonderful web site because I wanted to tell you how inspiring and motivational I have found it. But all you really need to know is that having followed his recent comment on my blog to his web site, looking through the wonderful content kept me up way past my bed time and prompted me to get up extra early this morning to continue reading.

The very first category in my web browser bookmarks is entitled "be inspired" and is reserved for those very special sites that are uplifting, educational, informative, entertaining and, most importantly, which are capable of motivating me and of getting my brain whirring with new ideas. David's pixelatedimage.com site is the latest addition to that very exclusive list of bookmarks.

These are just a few of the highlights I found last night and this morning:

1. David's Portfolio, especially his recent World Vision photos from Mongolia, gorgeous images from Nepal and the "Colours of India" and "Classic India" galleries.
2. David's Blog has some great info, including...
3. A glowing review of Joe McNally's new book, The Moment it Clicks, which led me to Joe McNally's web site and then to his blog. More great reading!
4. Flying with Fish. A blog written by a well-travelled photographer, Steven Frischling, with lots of hints and tips for the travelling snapper.

I realised too that David was also a finalist in the recent Travel Photographer of the Year competition so I'm doubly delighted to be in such illustrious company.

I've ordered Joe McNally's book, which, to veer off at a very angular tangent, reminded me about what I was saying the other day about blogging becoming a great producer of the "buzz" that can surround new products. I haven't seen the book mentioned elsewhere and although it may be reviewed in one or two of the photographic magazines that I subscribe to, there's no guarantee that it would ever have come to my attention. It's no surprise that companies are turning their attention to bloggers when they're looking to promote a product.

My copy of "The Moment it Clicks" should be here in a day or two and I'll certainly post a review here when I've finished reading it. Indeed, with a growing number of products to review and comment upon I shall be stealing an idea from David duChenin and Scott Kelby (and others) and introducing my very own rating and endorsement system for products that I've used, books I've read and web sites that I've visited. It will probably be no more complicated than a simple five-star rating system but if you have a clever idea for something I can use instead of stars then please share it. I did think about have an f-stop rating system with great products getting f/2.8, average products receiving f/8 and a rating of f/22 being reserved for the real dogs but felt that it was unnecessarily complex. Simple, as they say with a stammer in my home town, is often best.

Tags: blogs

This is an American copyright infringement case but the principle of using photographs without the permission of the copyright holder (usually the photographer) remains the same worldwide. It's illegal and you shouldn't do it. I've recently noticed a couple of my photos being used without my permission and although this was quickly and amicably resolved (they're paying my invoice) it does illustrate the fact that many people think that photos in the public domain are available to be used for free.

I think what made it worse in this case was that the defendant's testimony was ruled to be "inconsistent and full of contradictions" and that he had a"reputation for being highly deceptive and saying one thing and then doing another".

Tags: copyright

Getty Images has been sold to private equity firm Hellman and Friedman for $2.4 billion and shares in the company climbed by over 30% following the announcement.

Tags: getty

This panoramic image of Lake Buttermere in the Lake District is constructed from nine separate photos and was stitched together in Photoshop. It shows a 180 degree view from the western shore of the lake.

I've been to the Lake District many times over three decades but I've never known the weather to be anything like as good as the weather I enjoyed last week. Usually, time in the Lake District is spent cocooned in wet weather gear and the expectation is for rainy days and grey skies. However, for five days last week the only cloud I saw was the tiny, wispy one that appeared over the lake in this photo. There were blue skies and mirror-like reflections in the still waters of the lakes, it was a rare and welcome treat.

Clicking on the picture above should open up a larger version of the panorama in a new browser window.

Tags: cumbria, panoramas

There aren't many things that really get my goat these days, apart from discourteous driving, which always gets me reciting a list of expletives. Oh, and poor customer service. And any sort of automated phone system. And the lack of anything remotely watchable on the TV. OK, that's the start of what might become a long list if I let it continue.

One thing that rarely annoys me is looking at other photographers' work. There's always a lot to learn from other photographers, especially those who manage to earn a living from their trade. Which is why I was surprised to feel the hairs on the back of my neck pricking up yesterday when I read a National Geographic interview with Lynsey Addario.

I'll share just two excerpts from the interview with you, the full text can be found in the link in the previous paragraph:

"In one house there were these two little girls—one was maybe ten and the other seven—and their mother was working out in the fields. I walked into the house and said hello, and one of the girls just stared and started crying, because she had never seen a foreigner."

and

"But he just said, “Not possible.” For him, he couldn’t fathom bringing a photographer to a funeral. They aren’t used to people documenting their lives."

Lynsey Addario has photographed Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Miss India Beauty Pageant - all potentially dangerous locations for a photographer and she's taken photos that I would be hugely proud to have taken (check out her impressive web site) but, and it's a big "but", why on earth does she think that walking into somebody's house uninvited is not going to freak children out and in what world is she living if she thinks that arriving at a funeral with a big camera is going to see you welcomed with open arms?

This is an attitude that I've encountered quite a lot, sadly. Westerners who trot around Third World countries like it's their personal adventure playground, sticking their cameras into people's homes and lives as if the fact that because people are relatively poor (financially) it makes them little more than colourfully convenient photographic fodder. Seriously, to suggest that, "they aren't used to people documenting their lives" is the reason why people wouldn't want you to photograph the funeral of a loved one seems hugely ignorant and insensitive to me.

Grrr! It really made me bristle. Perhaps Lynsey was quoted out of context and I may be doing her a huge disservice, in which case I apologise. But her comments do reflect an attitude that I've encountered previously and, if nothing else, serve to illustrate the pompously arrogant and superior attitude that a lot of Westerners seem to have when visiting certain places in the world.

I'm going to give this some thought and see if there's not a more rational explanation for such behaviour and perhaps a more reasonable response to be made by me. In the mean time... Grrr!

PS - Whilst we're on the subject of annoying things: web sites that resize themselves to take over your computer screen!

Tags: bhutan, rant

Just to round off on yesterday's post, these are the three originals that make up the final image. Just as Masher suggested, they were taken in quick succession, all at f/16 and 1/6, 1/13 & 1/25 of a second respectively. I rarely use a tripod so often prefer to take a single RAW file and then make three versions of it, each at different exposures. I use these to create my HDR images although I know that the result is not strictly showing a High Dynamic Range.

Tags: cumbria, hdr

This photo was taken shortly after sunrise on Kirkstone Pass between Ambleside and Patterdale. It's a narrow, winding and very steep road that's known locally as "The Struggle".

This is another HDR image although rather than using three files constructed from a single RAW image processed at different exposures, this is a combination of three separate images, taken in quick succession with the camera fixed firmly to a tripod and with a remote release cable.

I've been experimenting with the HDR process recently in an effort to produce more natural-looking images. HDR images can look a bit artificial. It's a look that suits some images but I find that they can end up looking very alike. I think this one's reasonable though. It doesn't seem to have that very obvious HDR feel to it and I think I'm beginning to find settings that produce more realistic images.

(Canon 1Ds MKII - 43mm - 1/6, 1/13 & 1/125 at f/16 - ISO100 - No Flash)

Tags: cumbria, hdr

I've been coming to the Lake District for over thirty years and the one thing that I'm always confident of is that it will be raining. Planning a quick trip to Cumbria in February is asking for trouble. It's bound to be raining, bound to be icy and it's quite likely that snow will curtail any plans for walking or photography.

Until now. I've been here since Friday and I've yet to see a single cloud. It's so unusual for me to see the landscape beneath a blue sky that it feels almost surreal. What a rare treat. The only problem is that my expectations of the Lake District weather have been raised so much that future trips might seem disappointing by comparison.

This photo was taken at the Glenridding end of Ullswater. I've used a little fill-in flash to lighten the small, wooden pier but otherwise this image appears just as it was shot. And for those of you who like to see the EXIF data, it's included below.

Canon EOS 1Ds MKII - 24mm lens - 1/30 at f/8 - ISO100 - Flash -1EV

Tags: cumbria

I joined up with Jon Sparks today for a photo workshop in Silverdale, Lancashire. It really was the most beautiful of spring days and setting out on a walk with a group of enthusiastic photographers was a treat. The great thing about spending time with other photographers is that you pick up little hints and tips that had previously escaped you. For instance, Jon pointed out that most of us carry a pretty sizeable reflector with us whenever we go walking but don't even realise it. It folds up to pocket-sized yet unfolds to become the largest light reflector you could ever need. And what is this magical light reflector? Why, it's your Ordnance Survey map of course. Cheers Jon!

This photo was taken at the end of the day and is an HDR image constructed from three images made from the same original RAW file processed at different exposures.

If you're interested in attending a photo workshop with me in April, don't forget that we've added a second date to the Purbeck Workshop in Dorset.

Tags: cumbria, hdr

The Polaroid company are saying goodbye to photography, having announced that they will stop producing their instant film stock. I briefly had a Polaroid camera many years ago and the film was just too expensive but it's fair to say that being able to produce those instant results was akin to being a magician back in the 1980s.

Tags: kit

I tried to think of something to link these two web sites but they really are apples and pears. Chalk and, indeed, cheese. I'm going to the Lake District for a few days at the end of the week and am a member of the Wainwright Society so was interested to see the two winning entries from the society's annual photographic competition.

You might also be interested in seeing Reuters' Pictures of the Month. There are 66 in total and it might have been better to have seen them as a slideshow but nevertheless they serve as a great illustration of the variety of work covered by Reuters' photographers. From the image of a young Kenyan man with an arrow in his head to the image shown here of a performer at the Ashura carnival near Tehran via a winking George Bush, there's something for everyone.

Also, whilst I'm wrapping up some online galleries that I've been looking at recently, you might like to see the winners of the World Press Photo competition. Not always the most uplifting images to look at due to the subject matter, the World Press Photo winners do at least demonstrate that photography is still very much a force in bringing us news about what's happening in the world in a way that can make us sit up and take notice. I think for most people, the still image retains the ability to grab our attention even more dramatically than moving images can. Somebody pointed this out to me recently by asking me to think of images from the Vietnam war. Only still images came to mind. Those of Don McCullin and Tim Page especially. And yet I know I will have seen lots of footage from that conflict but it's the still images that get burned into our memory.

Tags: cumbria, reuters

There simply have not been enough tea-related posts on this blog of late!

One of my long-term goals is to compile a book about tea. I have in mind a series of photos that follow the tea making process from the green slopes of northern India and China to the tea-drinking establishments of London, Harrogate and New York. You may wonder why Harrogate is included, it's simply because the genteel tea rooms of upper-class Harrogate seem to epitomise the ultimate, English, tea-drinking establishment to me.

With the early chapters filled with colourful photographs of Darjeeling and Assam, the later chapters will feature places like The Adore in New York. The wonderful Tea Muse web site introduces The Adore by describing its range of available teas:

"The tea menu is enough to make any tea lover's heart skip a beat. It is impressive in that it is both wide and deep in focus. It includes 11 decadent aromatized teas, which are a noted French specialty. (The sweetest of the aromatized teas, a black tea with hibiscus and mallow blossoms, is rather appropriately named 'Eros.') There are five (yes, really, five) variations on the classic Earl Grey, the simple fact of which begs for a tasting session"

Two interesting things I learned whilst writing this post. Firstly, tea is commercially cultivated in Tregothnan in Cornwall, which is a surprise to me. Secondly, the author of the Tea Muse review is a lady called Lindsey Goodwin who is a "freelance tea consultant". What a title! And Lindsey offers Tea Tours of New York City. I'm booking a place today!

Tags: tea, new york

No, it's not the US Presidential Primaries, it's arguably just as important though.

SuperDuper is a back-up package for Macs that creates a fully bootable system backup. I have my Mac set to wake up automatically at 5:59am each day and the SuperDuper backup kicks in at 6am. By the time I arrive at my desk there's simply a message to confirm that the back-up has been successfully completed. What could be simpler? In the event of a disaster, I can boot from my SuperDuper archive, which is stored on a dedicated Firewire drive.

And now SuperDuper is fully compatible with the Leopard OS so it really is a SuperDuper Tuesday!

Tags: mac

Wonderful food for thought in this brief look at National Geographic magazine:



"A photograph is the blink, is the moment, and it communicates everything in one drop. And you need nothing else. You see the whole tragedy in that moment. It cuts out all the clutter and chooses one thing, and that's everything."

Tags: photography, national geographic

The AOP Portfolio exhibition finally opens at the AOP gallery in EC2 today with the official Private View coming on Thursday evening (let me know if you'd like a ticket).

I already owe Lucy Davies from Flavorpill a beer for this quote:

"Gavin Gough's colourful travel images... convey the vibrancy of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures without cliché or contrivance."

Tags: aop, exhibitions, photography

I'm a few months behind with this story (better late than never, right?) but I've only just got around to reading my Canon Professional News e-mail from November last year.

The third Angkor Photo Festival took place in November 2007. It's an inspiring idea: photographers gather at Angkor in Cambodia to lead workshops with the aim of promoting photography in South East Asia. As well as catering for keen photographers, there are workshops for street kids and Canon have donated cameras to the Anjali Centre in nearby Siem Reap and the hope is that the children will work towards producing their own fund-raising book.

I remember seeing news of the festival last year and also in 2006 and it sounds like a fascinating project. Although the specific dates for 2008 are yet to be announced, I've pencilled in some free time for November in the hope of participating.

Tags: angkor photo festival, photography

I needed to get some printing done rather promptly this week and have been lucky to have come across some printing heroes and as really good customer service seems to increasingly be a thing of the past I thought I would bring these exceptions to the rule to your attention.

Spectrum are photographic printers based in Hove. They have a really clear and easy-to-understand web site, their prices are competitive and they got two batches of prints out to me unbelievably quickly. Their staff were helpful and efficient and actually did everything that they promised. Something of a rarity.

Moonshine Framing is a little shop all the way down in Penzance but they offer a mail order service and if you call and speak to the enormously helpful Suzie you are sure to get all the help you need. Through no fault of their own, the first lot of mounts they sent to me arrived damaged and without quibble they had another batch cut and on a courier the same day.

What a pleasant change to deal with companies where the customer is still valued and where "customer service" is not an alien concept.

Tags: printing, marketing, photography