Construction continues at typical British pace on the BBC's new northern base at Salford Quays, Manchester.
30secs@f7.1, ISO100, 11mm. ND110 filter, ND grad and zero processing trickery.
It's well and truly upon us now, the beautiful golds and bronzes are fading to mucky browns as we stumble towards the end of another year. I think it's quite a fitting entry, seeing as my time at Vox is also winding down. I won't be leaving altogether and won't be deleting old content but my head has been turned by another platform, one that's a little more photo-centric and has given me more viewing pleasure and inspirational imagery in the last couple of weeks than Vox has all year.
Everything about my photography has become stale lately so I've done a little trading (up, down and around) of equipment and sought some fresh ideas. When Spike posted about his move to aminus3 I took a look and liked what I saw. Initially I resisted the temptation to sign up, but found myself going back and browsing there more than I look around Vox or even Flickr, eventually deciding to give it a whirl. So far they're proving to be a talented and friendly bunch!
BBC2's motoring entertainment show 'Top Gear' features a mythical race-suited test driver, 'The Stig'. This name wasn't plucked from nowhere - here is rally legend Stig Blomqvist, now well into his sixties, just about giving his old Escort some air on the recent RAC rally.
Sometimes I see a scene and automatically go for the most complex, technically demanding way of capturing it. When things work out it's great but often they don't and the moment is gone, leaving me with nothing but the sour taste of wasted opportunity This is why I'm thankful that for once, when faced with the lovely beach huts, I remembered to take my sweet time. True I could have done with a tripod but the light was okay, the huts were in no hurry and at that early hour there was little to no chance of people getting in the way.
I've already posted one beach hut picture, typically it's probably the most complex one of them all, but faced with the opportunity to explore different angles, compositions and ideas, I thought perhaps I should balance it with one of the simpler shots from that morning.
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
It was a fun weekend, all told. A blast over to the North Yorkshire forests to watch the 2009 Roger Albert Clark rally, where historic cars once again galloped free along the muddy gravel trails that crisscross the maze of pines. Chasing the cars from stage to stage made my own car look like it'd been taking part, poor thing.
From there it was onto the Olivers Mount Tarmac stage, where events were prematurely curtailed after a car went off and three spectators were injured. Whether this was directly due to the crash or in the scramble to get clear I don't know, but as the light drew in and the remaining competitors headed back into the forests we went onwards to the coast and our sea view hotel room - this view, to be precise...
The next morning we took a refreshing stroll along the North Bay, stopping to photograph these charming beach huts before heading further North to Robin Hoods' Bay where, quite by coincidence, we bumped into another photo friend of mine, Stuart, and his lovely family. Stuart clambered down the rocks at high tide to get some shots of the waves breaking, with predictable results....
We had a beer in a warm pub whilst he dried off and then, all too quickly in mid-November, the sun had set leaving the long drive home and a memory card full of images to plough through, but not before a good sleep, Expect more beach huts and rally action soon!
It may be more or less on the doorstep but I find there aren't many reasons to venture into Oldham, even in daylight. The former cotton spinning capital of the world has been spinning itself into serious decline at the foot of the Pennines since the industry moved on, making it a grim and unforgiving place at the best of times. Once in a while though a bright idea sparks into life there, however temporarily, like a dying animal twitching with defiant pulses of life.
Six projectors cast a 10,000 square foot image of these Flanders poppies and the word 'Remember' onto two sides of the otherwise hideous Civic Centre and the result is said to be visible over 40 miles away on a clear night. Whilst 40 miles away sounded like the perfect place to be, I dragged a minimal amount of camera gear there last night to grab a few quick shots before the lights go out forever at midnight tonight.
An entire generation made so many sacrifices and endured so much hardship to ensure we can live our lives in relative freedom today, whilst many of us have friends and family caught up in the current conflicts. Don't forget to remember, 11am sharp.
There will now follow an interruption of service whilst I turn my clinically dead Vista desktop into a clean and healthy Windows 7 machine. Time to hunt down all those application and driver CD's filed not-so-neatly around the office and hope my favourite open source apps are compatible with the latest OS. Once up and running I'll be using the new drive imaging and backup tools in Windows 7 to ensure a running start should the unthinkable happen yet again.
Unlike the Great Hard Drive Disaster of 2007 I do have my photo collection, music and most other goodies backed up but I have lost a little working file of unposted stuff, which may never now see the light of day. Hopefully that's not the tip of the iceberg... see you on the other side!
