Stuart's Soliloquy to the void

Bird photography

Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 | Personal | No Comments

Doing bird photography is not easy, I am afraid. In fact, it is terribly hard as the birds are typically pretty small and not very interested in having their photo taken. Rather, they are usually fairly busy panicking away from where I am. So, typically I have to ensure a telephoto shot and pray that everything magically works out.

DMC-FZ3, 55.2 mm., 1/40 sec., ISO 200, 2006-01-09

Of course, having to use telephoto isn’t usually enough. I typically have to take the shot from some improbable location, sitting in some odd pose so as not to scare the bird. But having done all that, I managed to capture the great tit (which is in reality rather small) at 12x zoom. Through branches. Through a window. Against the light. All in all I think it went pretty well, if only it had turned a little more sideways. Oh well.

Tags: photography

Collaborative writing

Saturday, January 7th, 2006 | Personal | No Comments

I have recently been investigating various forms of online, synchronous collaborative text editing, and have in my pursuits found the less aggravating program for Windows, moonedit, that allows one party to host one or more files, and others to connect to this person and edit these files.

As part of testing this editor, Jonas Öien and I have written a small short-story set in the typical crime novel style. It is, as the picture suggests, called The English Umbrella (PDF). For the interested parties there’s a small exerpt below.

The sky was dark grey, brooding, rain falling heavily and without mercy.
It had all day. I looked at my gold watch. It was fifteen twenty, almost
time to go home. I shuffled the papers on my large mahogany desk aimlessly.
Work had been scarce lately and my coffers were almost empty.
Another few days from now I would have to default on my rent. Where
was the glamour and excitement the other private eyes seemed to go on
about? God, I hate mondays.

I decided to leave a bit early. It wouldn’t matter, no one was showing
up today anyway. I was a failure at the trade, just like my father had
predicted when I proudly announced that I would become the greatest
private eye that had ever lived. How ignorant one can be.

I took my coat from the hall tree in the corner of the office. It was
looking worn and a few sizes too small, or perhaps I was a few sizes too
big. I tried to button it, but like usual I gave up after a few fumbles. I
reached out to take my felt hat when there was a careful knock at the
outer door. I stood still, not really sure whether I had heard the knock
at all. It came again.

Read the PDF for the full story and the captivating ending (or something). We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Tags: book, publishing

Reading and some lights

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 | Personal | No Comments

The busy christmas vacation has been, the world is slowly starting up again after all the festivities, and everything is just looking cold, snowy and January again. Fortunately I had planned to take a bit of time off from my studies during the vacation so I wouldn’t go entirely insane over the next six months. This time off was spent pondering over the new books I got for christmas: Daniel Silva’s The Kill Artist and The English Assassin. I have earlier read the third in the series, The Confessor, and I must say that they are all good in each their own way. The series start off a bit weak with The Kill Artist, but Silva has cleaned up his writing style a lot in the two latter books about the art restorer Delveccio who is, in reality, the Israeli agent Gabriel Allon. So if you like a nice thriller with some fun plot twists, pick them up from someplace and read them.

Since it’s winter and I’m up here in the semi-north it has, of course, been snowing. A lot. Oh and don’t try to bike in the snow unless you know what you’re doing. It’s tough. But that wasn’t really what I was going to say.

By request and because it’s always nice to take pictures of the snow, I brought my camera with me to work yesterday and had planned to snap some photos on the way there and on my way home as well, but I was too rushed getting there and going home was too dark, so I had to settle with experimenting with a few shots of the rush hour traffic on the motorway.

DMC-FZ3, 8.1 mm., 4 sec., ISO 100, 2006-01-02

The light streaks were done with about a two second exposure. Unfortunately I couldn’t hold the camera entirely steady so the streaks jump a bit more than they were supposed to. You can see how much my hand shook by looking at the light poles. It’s pretty decent for a first try of long exposure, but I will definitely have to try it again with our tripod.

The other picture came out a bit shaken as well, but you don’t notice it as much. It really is terribly hard to try to do panning photographs. In the dark. Without a viewfinder. Without any indication of whether your motive is still in the centre of your objective. So, considering all that, it turned out rather decently, I’d say.

DMC-FZ3, 27.5 mm., 1/4 sec., ISO 80, 2006-01-02

I’ll have to remember to try a more classic panning photograph from the side of the objective someday as well. But the night photos have a fascinating quality to them that I have always liked. Perhaps it’s because at night the geeks prowl. Who knows?

Tags: book, book review, photography