The answer is 'Never Let Me Go' - what was the question?

A couple of weeks back I asked you to match an image from one of my January posts with a poster from a 2010 movie starring Keira Knightly.

The name of the movie is "Never Let Me Go" ...... see below.

Congratulations to Paula White who runs White Social Media and answered this correctly. Paula has a great focus on Social Media and advises businesses on how they can use Social Media to their advantage. To see Paula's website, which contains some great reading, click on the logo below.

Taking a photo of me (and a competition update) .. my Tuesday image 28/03

So there I am sifting through the many photos taken during our weekend in London and I find that some of those I really like are involving the family.

I especially liked this one. My wife and I were messing about in the street taking photos of each other and I thought this one was quite arty and natural.

Competition Update

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I posted a competition to see who could work out which of the locations in my January images was also used as a poster location for a movie in 2010.

The competition is now closed and I'll publish the result later this week.

Groups of Three

 
The current collection at "The Kat Eye View" is Groups of Three.

This is my contribution. A little unusual I know but when you start looking for them you see them everywhere.

Another Week Gone By .... a birthday, a new camera and a general update.

Wow - another week has gone by - seemingly so much to do and so little time, except this week was a week with a difference.

It was a "special" birthday week, which spanned two weekends. The first weekend was a party at home, it was great to see all the relatives, some neighbours, some long lost friends and some new acquaintances who I hope I'll also be able to call friends. Very many thanks to my wife and son and all who helped to put it together and keep us sane. A special mention goes to my daughter who had all along maintained she was unable to join us and then did so in the middle of the afternoon and later impressing us with a rendition of "Come To Your Senses" from the show "Tick Tick Boom".

The second weekend was a trip to London with just the four of us to see a show called  "The Childrens Hour" with Keira Knightly and Elisabeth Moss. An excellent play. Many thanks to my daughter for sorting out the accomodation.

Highlight on the pressie front was a new dSLR camera, a Pentax KX. I don't want to get into the discussion about the pro's and con's of the different brands but needless to say I did a lot of research and so far am very happy with my purchase.

I loved my "old" camera, a bridge Panasonic Lumix FZ8 but felt that moving up to a full dSLR was an opportunity to improve the style, techniques and overall quality of my photography. I was lucky enough to find a box set on sale with both an 18-55 and a 50-200 lens for not much more than the single lens set.

I feel sure we'll be seeing some images from the new camera very soon.

Celebrating with Cake - SST 22/03

Wow what a week!

That was the week that was. After a number of very busy days Saturday arrived, my Birthday. I had a great day with the family and a super party in the evening. I was lucky to receive some lovely gifts but the centre piece was a new camera.

I have been lucky enough to be able to upgrade from a bridge camera to a full dSLR. I haven't had the opportunity to take it out for a test drive but my son just picked up started shooting some of the cup cakes and came up with some cracking shots, a couple of which I have included here for my sweet (literally) shot Tuesday.

Celebration Cup Cake

Pretty In Pink

Don't Forget The Competition Ends Soon - What's in it for you?

I just wanted to remind you that if you want to get a link to your site or blog centre stage on mine then you need to enter the simple competition in my post here.

• What's in it for you?

All entrants who get the answer right will get a link from mine but the winner will get one slap bang in the middle of my posts for the following two weeks.

Good luck!

A Small Competition - Just For Fun

I'm coming to a blogging milestone of nearly one thousand page views. Not a lot by some standards, I realise some blogs see thousands of hits a day, but this blog has only been up since December and I don't have as much time as I would like to dedicate to it I think it's all coming along OK. Judging by some of the comments and messages I have received my visitors seem to think so too.

I've been meaning to put this small competition out there for a while but it never seemed the right time until now. It's just for fun, there's no real prize except for the knowledge that you might have got the answer right or that you've learned something that you didn't know before.

I will choose a name from any correct entries and if the winner has a website / blog I'll make sure a link to it gets pride of place in my next few entries.

So here it is:

The area where I live is well used for film and TV work and recently I realised that a movie had used the exact same location for a publicity poster as one of my picture posts back in January.

The challenge is to match my January post with the movie poster. If you match the image in the post to that in the movie poster you should immediately see the similarity.  The clues are the that the movie was released in 2010 and the starring actress was Keira Knightly.

If you know the answer please let me know by emailing me, messaging me on Facebook or a by sending me a Direct Message on Twitter. Answer next week.

my email

Tweet

Spring in North Somerset at Last - My Tuesday Images for 15/3

Spring really did arrive last weekend, the sun shone and the temperature felt almost .. warm.

My son dragged us out to enjoy the sunshine and as usual he had to put up with me grabbing my camera and stopping to take a selection of different shots around the circuit.

Backwell Hill offers a walk of fields and trees around the back of the village so the options to stop and shoot are many. Here are a two of my favourites.

This shot shows the glorious views looking east over the hills.

Whilst this shows one of the  covered paths which make up Jubilee Stone Wood administered by the Backwell Environment Trust.

Twitter Rock Steady During Japan Quake

I'm probably not the first to comment on the use of Twitter during the Japan quake and probably won't be the last.

In my field of Business Continuity there is often talk of the use of alternatives to the use of traditional methods of communication such as landine, mobile phone and email. Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter often feature in these discussions but are quickly dismissed. I personally have been sat on the fence until last weekend when I very definitely fell into the pro camp.

What brought it home to me was a Tweet from a Japanese twitter friend from Yokohama who tweeted "phone and email are down. Only reliable communication by Twitter on mobile phone". This was reinforced by a later tweet stating that all her friends and family were now on Twitter and using it as their prime form of communication.

It's a testament to the mobile networks that they not only continued to function but didn't appear to go over capacity despite the use they must have seen.

That Twitter continued to function was also a big surprise as I recall with dismay those 'Twitter over capacity' messages you used to get approaching peak time hours in the morning and early evening.

If I can take two things away from this awful event they are that 'Social Media' via wireless networks are a viable method of communication during a crisis and secondly seeing those communications unfold in real time through the tweets of those there makes you realise that a crisis can really be a crisis, and it's not just the initial event but the aftermath too.

I am an IT Service Continuity specialist with an interest in social media. To find me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter click the buttons below:





Tweet

Square Format Photos

My first ever camera was an Kodak Instamatic 25 which used a 126 film cartridge and produced square format prints.

I had forgotten about this until I saw the discussion at "The Kat Eye View" about what a difference it makes to an image to be presented in a square format and the difference it can make to the view you have of the subject.

This is my entry into the "square format" gallery.

Linking Issues and My Tuesday Image - SST 08/03

Linking Problem

Firstly I'd like to thank Paula White from White Social Media for letting me know about a problem with a link on last weeks SST post. I'd linked to my images a different way and that led to a problem when trying to comment via Picasaweb.

It's always good to receive feedback of whatever kind so that I can continue to improve on my postings. Thanks Paula.

My Tuesday Image

With Spring well and truly on the way in the UK I remembered this image from a set I took a couple of years ago. Our back garden had been remodelled the previous year and this was it's first Spring in it's new design. Channel 4 TV had suggested they might do a piece from the garden as a part of one of those house make over shows. We worked like mad to get the garden looking great over the course of a day only to hear nothing more from them. Never mind! it made for a great photo set.

Spring is nearly here! Come in and smell the flowers...... Sweet Shot Tuesday 28/02

I noticed at the weekend that the early spring flowers such as the snow-drops were making way for not only the crocuses but the daffodils as well.

After some really wet and dismal days I've been craving some sun, not only for myself but to give me some decent light with which to capture the flowers. I love it when I can get close up and capture the colours.

From Thoughts And Things

Camera: Panasonic
Model: DMC-FZ8
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 6mm

In between showers the sun came out and I cranked the camera to f2.8, the maximum it will go to and decided to get down with the daffs. As always I was looking for an angle and on this case my camera was virtually on the ground angled back up.

Because I couldn't see what I was shooting in the viewfinder or on the screen the results were a bit mixed but I love the Bokeh effect of the trees behind the daffs as well as the colours and the raindrops on the heads.

From Thoughts And Things

Camera: Panasonic
Model: DMC-FZ8
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 6mm

Still at f2.8 I captured this other flower head I hovered over it and managed to diffuse everything else around it.