It’s about time too…. and a lack of DSLR action

It’s about time too.. I have been busy creating pages for this blog that sit in the background with snippets of information that I find or have found useful or interesting. It then became apparent that maybe doing these pages made me neglect the daily ramblings which was the initial purpose of this blog-ette. So here we go, my first blog….

Last month, towards the Christmas period, I took a look at the mounting backlog of images from the 12 months of 2012. I had started off the year with every intention of keeping up. The fact that I had ended 2011 in exactly the same predicament as I have ended 2012; way behind in editing; probably had a major influence on why my images fell so far behind. I found myself editing January’s efforts in April. But, having said that I can only blame myself. I think I am way too fussy about things been right. They have to look good, correct and in place; not particularly perfect as I allow for my own creativity to play a part in the final results but that’s open to flexibility isn’t it? Having said that, the whole problem is caused by taking way too many photographs in the first place. Where does this vicious circle end though? Fine, I can understand it been my responsibility. I am the one pressing the shutter…every press can create up to 15 minutes of work, editing, resizing and preparing in Lightroom for upload to my Flickr pages. I personally put it down to my love of taking photographs far exceeding the love of editing. This, coupled with seizing every opportunity to shoot something in the sunlight as opposed to cloudy days means that a week of good weather can produce 700 images and no editing. End result – Mounting backlog of images.

As the months progressed I stayed at a continuous level. Usually two months behind. On December 26th I took one look at November’s and Decembers contributions and just thought “sod it”. I ploughed in to them like a man possessed. I was ruthless. Anything that looked remotely like previous images was marked for deletion and anything that stood out was edited at marked for upload. Then came the big one. I uploaded what I had marked in my first pass of the images as edited. Then I deleted the remainder. OH NO !!! Big mistake…HUGE, ENORMOUS. The 300gb of files that were deleted had gone, yes I was warned that they were too big for the recycle bin but I had automatically assumed that they were the ones I had finished with and not the unedited ones. Anyway, to cut a long story short…they have gone forever. Floating around in cyber space somewhere never to be seen again.

I uploaded the batch that I had finished and that was it. 2012 was all done. I have been twiddling my thumbs ever since. The present Mrs Winterbourne must be wondering what the hell is going on. All this time I am spending with her is becoming a shock to the system. As a consequence of the file loss, I have put some contingency plans in place and today a new 2tb hard disk arrived at Winterbourne Towers ready for installation tomorrow. This will give me plenty of space for 2013 for all my RAW files. But the weather had to improve first.

The weather has a lot to answer for doesn’t it? Not a glimmer of sun, plenty of rain, cold temperatures and then; my family residing in New Zealand, and my family visiting New Zealand start posting pictures on Facebook of cloudless skies, sun-tanned bodies and summer. Yes, remember summer….that thing with warm weather and sun ! So do I…but only just.

This weekend saw Elaine and I disappearing for a well deserved break. We do this from time to time you know. It does the soul good, four walls are better than three in your home but they all tend to look the same after a while anyway. So a change of scene was in order…just don’t tell the kids she said. Saturday morning saw me helping a friend out and taking some photos so I was away well before lunchtime. Mrs W on the other hand had a day off work and a rendezvous at our hotel of choice later that day was in order. It’s not as easy as you think to check in to a hotel that your wife had already checked in to. Even if they give you the room number by text message, getting past Saddam Hussein on the door is another story. It wasnt so much that they wouldn’t let me in first time, as I fully understand security and its procedures with my background; it was more about the fact that they fired questions at me that were so unexpected. I greeted the receptionist with a smile and was hell-bent on keeping walking but as I passed her at 90′ she must have realised I was on a mission and from behind me came the voice “excuse me sir”…”why, what have you done” was the thought, and yes I was itching to say it. “May I help you sir?” …. of course.. I’m meeting my wife here and need to go the room she is in. “Please wait here sir, whilst we check” … check what I thought….? Yeah I know, security etc….but I would have thought that knowing our address, providing the credit card the booking was made with and handing over my identification would be enough, as well as knowing the full name, date of birth, cup-size and colour of the underwear of the occupant of room xxx as secondary. No. ! it wasn’t … I was subjected to “we are just checking with our guest sir” … I know, that guest is my wife for goodness sake.

Now, it doesn’t take a genius to work this out but this must have looked quite laughable to the people who were in reception. I was an alien…an illegal one at that… I started singing the Genesis track in my head…”I’m an alien, I’m an illegal alien”… you know how it goes….mind you, I moved on to the next track in my imaginary playlist and came up with Home By The Sea another Genesis track which goes in to quite graphic detail about a mental institution. The humming and singing quietly came to an abrupt end as she announced the room number.

I felt like a businessman meeting his secretary for some extra curricular activities out of working hours. As I walked towards the elevators I felt like they were talking about me…I can hear it now, Hey Doris, remember that blonde lady that arrived this lunchtime, you know the one with the black sports top on….he’s off to meet her….

I know, I’m getting carried away…but we had a great weekend though. It’s not often Elaine & I will go to the cinema to see a film twice but we decided to make an exception to this one. Skyfall is absolutely fantastic and well worth a return visit. We had decided to go for an Indian Meal at Nawaabs initially and with an early bird offer we were dining by 17:45 …what an absolutely fantastic meal too…the place was great, not too busy at first but nearly full when we left. It comes highly recommended should you like this style of dining.

We decided over our meal that the cinema was an option.. We just looked at each other and said “Skyfall” .. So, it was a done deal… Skyfall it was. A quick check online for the show times and we were sorted…who can resist a bit of 007 action.
A fantastic weekend, and not a one image shot or edited for my library….unless of course you count our #januaryphotochallenge on Instagram

Thanks for reading….

Back soon,