Personal
End of an era!
So, I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few weeks now, but as I haven’t had the details sorted out by now I chose to keep things more quiet. But, on the 30th of March I chose to step down from my position as Head of Design at Orange Bus. It’s been almost three years, I’m the longest serving employee (who’s going to beat me?) and it’s definitely been tough times and fun times. But, it was my first ever encounter with the professional world after university and I feel like I could do with some experience elsewhere.
I’ve not actively been looking to move on, but when the opportunity arose I felt like it would be stupid not to explore it more. So, on the 24th of May I’ll be taking on the role as Lead UX Designer at Cravens Advertising. It's a new position where I will be forming my own role, just like I did at Orange Bus when I first joined the team. I’ll be bridging the gap between the digital team and the creative team, and for a design hybrid like myself that’s pretty ideal (some might say sickeningly ideal!)
I need a new housemate!
My housemate Eline is moving out on June 11 to go back to Norway (good choice of country!) and I'm in need of a housemate to hang out with in this lovely big house in Spital Tongues (Just off the mini roundabout on Claremont Road). It's an old Victorian building which is within walking distance to town (10mins from Haymarket) but still tucked away from traffic. There's a lush garden, big kitchen and dining room to host Come Dine With Me parties downstairs, and a lovely and light sitting room upstairs. The room is en-suite, with a stand alone bath and a fantastic shower and plenty of wardrobe space.
It's non smoking, but yes party!
DM me on twitter if you're interested on www.twitter.com/fuselagetown
Some pictures
Bedroom
Dining room - with bikes for the time being
Kitchen island
High Dynamic Range Imagery
You've probably already seen some very insipring HDR photography out there on the web, as it's not a new technique - in fact the idea goes back to 1850 (!) - but it's become more and more common, especially now when many people have their own digital SLR camera.
I'm quite a keen photographer myself and thought I could share with you how to do a quite simple but in most cases will give you a great result!
Step one - Camera settings
You will need a tripod, or at least balance your camera on a steady surface. In the settings on the camera, set the AEB (auto exposure bracketing) to -2 and +2 (google AEB and your camera brand to find exactly how to). This makes the camera take 3 images when you hit the release button; one with normal exposure, one under- and one overexposed. For best result, choose to take your pictures in RAW rather than JPG. RAW stores much more information.
Smoke Central
As a web designer, it's often required to make nice header graphics or background, or even design feature boxes which might contain boring data. I'm not going to say that Photoshop can't do this, in fact there's pretty much nothing you can't do in Photoshop CS4, but a good photograph can help you on the way to a more abstract look, which is exactly what this experiment proves.
I've always thought that smoke creates amazing shapes and shades, and I was pondering how to capture this on still images, and this method is the one I found to work best.
First of all, a dark room is required. I used a 2 meter long table, placing the candle on one side and the camera on a tripod (this is essential to get the focus right) on the other side. Use a spot light to cast a bright light on the smoke only.
My equipment is a Canon 40D with a EF50mm lens with a max aperture value of 1.4, which is great for this purpose. It leaves the focus only on the smoke, whilst the background (if there is any) blurs nicely, exactly how we want it.
The camera is not able to use the Auto Focus (AF), so to get the focus right use manual (MF), or alternatively make your assistant (in my case my mother) hold an item in the area in which the smoke will appear, use AF to get the focus right and then set it to MF before shooting.
New bands on the block...
Nice little task from my good friend Sissel, which goes a little something like this:
What would your own album look like if you were in a band?
Here are the rules:
1 – Go to a random Wikipedia : The title of this Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to Quotations Page : The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to last 7 days Flickr : Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
5 – Post it to your blog!
51 kodak moments in Kenya
It's been a couple of weeks since I got back from Kenya, I've spent hours and hours (enjoyable mind) on the post processing of the photos and they are ready for showcasing. I've put them all up on Fuselagetown's Kenya Gallery - Or 51 kodak moments in Kenya as I like to call it... I've also uploaded them to my Flickr Photostream but they are of lower resolution over there.
During my stay in Kenya I blogged regularly over at the Team Kenya website, and I've now copied the content over for my readers to catch up.. Here goes nothing..
Giving back to society
I've always believed it's okay not to support every charity that asks as long as I'm a student. When I now (finally) am making money it's time to give something back to society. I was very excited when Orange Bus decided to go through with The Free Web Project, building a website in 72 hours free of charge, and my excitement was even bigger when Team Kenya won the contract. They came to Orange Bus headquarters with amazing stories, class footage, a stack of photographs and burning passion to make a difference in Ndhiwa in Western Kenya.
Canon Vs Canon
Every time I get into a conversation with a fellow keen photographer, it tends to have drastic consequences for me. Last week was no exception. At lunch break I had a lengthy chat with Tim about the sort of problems we face when we design websites for clients and they can't provide you with decent photos. It is a true challenge, and even thought we are wizards when it comes to visuals, the results aren't up to scratch. Bad photography cannot be "hidden" in good design. Photos are what catches your attention when you arrive at a website, and it's frustrating when people can't understand that. Websites aside, we're both keen to do more one-off gigs - I'd like to focus on weddings, children, promotion photos for artists, athletes etc, all of which are excellent opportunities to let creativity flow and really make unique and special imagery. And after speaking with Tim, I realised that the only thing holding me back is the equipment.