| Leopard on the prowl! | |
| Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 | Date: 16-11-2018 17:47 | Resolution: 5176 x 3235 | ISO: 320 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal Length: 100.0mm | Location: Okonjima | State/Province: Okonjati, Otjozondjupa | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6II | |
Apologies, I have a problem with my RSS feed which appears to require "live testing" to resolve. Please ignore this post, but if you’re already here please enjoy a nice picture of a beautiful leopard!
| A ray of sunshine | |
| Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 | Date: 01-05-2020 19:40 | Resolution: 4979 x 3734 | ISO: 640 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/60s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 30.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8 | |
For about ten minutes at the end of each evening the sunlight lights up our newest sculpture through the Chinese circle. I thought it would be nice to share this:
PS – it turned out to be a better test than I expected. Half an hour later I’ve learned how to use SSL with the .Net web client! Working now!
| Kolmanskoppe Single Shot | |
| Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 | Date: 25-11-2018 15:49 | Resolution: 4080 x 4080 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/200s | Aperture: 6.3 | Focal Length: 12.0mm | State/Province: Kolmanskop, Karas | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8 | |
I’ve been having a few problems with my RSS feed, hopefully now fixed. If you view my blog via the feed and don’t see a picture from my trip to the Kolmanskoppe diamond mining town, please let me know.
| The Opera House in Prague: Kolor stitching 4 pictures | FOV: 131.87 x 47.47 ~ 24.87 | Projection: Mercator | Color: LDR | |
| Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 30-06-2016 21:35 | Resolution: 9183 x 3804 | ISO: 3200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/25s | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal Length: 12.0mm | State/Province: Prague | See map | |
Apologies if there hasn’t been much activity on the blog lately. I’m deep into the invention of the expert system I wrote about previously, and that’s filling the relatively small brain of this bear, and not leaving much space for other creative activities. However, I am gently working on a couple of longer articles I hope to share with you soon.
Meanwhile, I am working here and there to catch up on the photographic backlog. Frances and I had a couple of days in Prague about a month ago, and predictably I took a fair few photographs. What was interesting was the dynamic of the type of shots: I did relatively little close-up or 3D photography, but the opportunity to generate big panoramas positively abounds, especially if, as I did, you get up to the top of several of the towers open to the public. I’ve recently switched my panoramic development to Kolor’s Autopano Giga, which coupled with Capture One makes the whole process very quick and painless, effortlessly adjusting and stitching even images taken with a moving camera (moving from the waist, rather than rotating the camera around its optical centre as per correct technique), and those requiring substantial perspective correction.
The attached was taken from a point where the main entrance of the opera house filled the frame, and the two sides stretched away from me down two streets orthogonal to each other. It was also taken late at night, hand-held by available light but the Panasonic GX8 has made a decent job of managing highlights even if the sky does fall away to black. I think it works.
| The Devil's Garden, near Escalante, Utah | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL | Date: 13-10-2007 15:08 | Resolution: 3468 x 2308 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/60s | Aperture: 11.0 | Focal Length: 38.0mm | Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM | |
Some things don’t scale. You start off doing something, but before you know it it’s outgrown its usefulness and needs to change. So it is with website design…
I started off with lists in a couple of places on this site of blogs or albums related to trips I’ve done. However as the list has grown they were getting a bit unwieldy and out of step with one another. I have therefore practiced what I preach, and "re-factored" them to a new "index" page, at www.andrewj.com/travel
Take a look, and let me know what you think.
I’ve taken advantage of a bit of spare time to sort out our web sites, and in particular fix a few things which didn’t work quite right after our enforced emergency upgrade in February.
Hopefully you should see everything working properly now, but let me know if not. ☺
AgileArchitect.org has had the most significant makeover, and is now fully responsive and mobile-friendly, just like our other sites.
Happy browsing!
Apologies to all for the interruption to our websites and email service around last weekend. My server was hacked and used to launch DDoS attacks, and had to be taken offline and rebuilt with the latest software versions. Fortunately I only really use it to host the websites and our email endpoint, so it was a nuisance rather than a disaster. There’s a lesson that all servers need to be constantly patched and updated, and I’ll now have to either work out how to do this in the Linux environment, or switch to Windows which I understand a bit better.
If you did have an email bounced, please feel free to re-send. And if you do meet someone who hacks other people’s servers, feel free to give him a kick for me.
| Looking down over the Cortina D'Ampezzo Valley from the Selva Pass | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 550D | Lens: EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 05-09-2013 15:13 | Resolution: 5184 x 3456 | ISO: 100 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/160s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 20.0mm (~32.4mm) | Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM | |
The astute among you will have noticed that I place a random panorama in the masthead of all my web site pages. I’ve just refreshed my album with a number of new images, which I hope you’ll enjoy.
| Monochrome HDR shot of the "Ugly Pond" and stormy sky beyond | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 24-08-2011 10:43 | ISO: 100 | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 10.0 | Focal Length: 30.0mm (~48.6mm) | Location: Einbúi | State/Province: South | See map | Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM | |
Oh well… The annual pilgrimage to the sun has come and gone, and it’s back to the ´fray. (I assume that “fray” is a contraction of “affray” – is that correct?)
Updates to my web site are almost complete. As a salutary lesson to others in a similar position, what I had hoped would be a few weeks’ work turned into something which chewed up most of my “development” time for over three months. However I now have a site which works well on almost all devices (although there are a couple of outstanding oddities and the style sheets still need tweaking for phones with relatively low resolution screens, such as older iPhones). I’m hoping my “lessons learned” will make interesting reading to anyone with a similar challenge, and I’m also confident that future changes will be easier to achieve.
I’m also hoping to get back to blogging on other topics, which have been neglected a bit in recent times. If you have any preference on topics then please let me know.
Most of my recent posts have been book reviews, and I thought the blog needed a picture at the top, hence the above. I’ve been processing some outstanding photos from my Iceland trip, and I was rather taken with this one, which is another HDR monochrome development from three originals processed using Photomatix. What do you think?
| Fixing a Hole: Iceberg on the Jokullsarlon glacial lake, Iceland | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 27-08-2011 11:08 | ISO: 100 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/40s | Aperture: 10.0 | Focal Length: 100.0mm (~162.0mm) | Location: Jökulsá | State/Province: East | See map | Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | |
I’m making decent progress rolling out my new design to the website, but apologies if you’re waiting for some more interesting content!
I’ve now got to the “fiddly” stage, making sure that the new theme works on the slightly more tricky pages. Basically a process of “fixing holes”. I’ve also been processing a few more of my photos from Iceland, and I thought this one a neat echo of my other activities!
Please let me know how you get on with the new look website, and particularly if there are any problems on particular devices or browsers…
The updates to my website are now in progress. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have already spotted changes to my blog and front page, and the rest of the website will follow over the next few weeks.
You should now be able to get the full experience of “Thoughts on the World” on all devices
Please bear with me if there’s the odd foible as I complete the changes. Also please let me know if you spot any problem – but don’t forget to let me know what device you’re using.
My blog now supports multiple views, with the default being an “abstract”, giving an experience a bit like Google Currents. Use the icons at the top of the page, just below my title bar, to switch between them. Please let me know what you think.
| "Fifty Shades of Blue": Iceberg on the Jokullsarlon glacial lake, Iceland | |
| Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 27-08-2011 10:12 | ISO: 100 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/125s | Aperture: 10.0 | Focal Length: 80.0mm (~129.6mm) | Location: Breiðamerkursandur | State/Province: East | See map | Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | |
Apologies to regular readers of my blog for the recent low output. I’m currently working on a major overhaul of my web site which will see it considerably modernised and should enable it to be viewed successfully on all sorts of different devices, but it does mean my time is being taken up with design and programming work rather than “content creation” at the moment… Please watch this space for further announcements.
On a positive note, if, like, me, you’ve embraced Google Currents for keeping up with your blog reading (see Keeping Current) then you may be interested to hear that “Thoughts of the World” is now published as a Google “Edition”. To subscribe and add it to Currents, just click here.
As an architect, I’m used to explaining that the world is not black and white, but has to be appreciated in shades of grey (but maybe not 50! :)). However as a photographer, I’m much more interested in other hues. The picture above is from my Iceland trip, and I call it “50 Shades of Blue”. Enjoy!
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