I have located the new theme for the pro website, which will be accompanied by a minor rebuild and rebrand in places, but it’s finally the site I want.

I’m hoping to have this up and running by the end of December or early January at least, but it gives me precisely what I want and soon, you’ll be able to see it. There will be a post about why I chose the site I did soon!

Production of thelongmile.com photography site has pretty much ground to a halt since I’m having trouble finding a theme under the GPL to rip apart and customise into something of my own, not only that but I can’t exactly start from scratch since I’m not sure what I actually want, what I do know I want is some form of news page to update on photography, shopping cart integration so I can fulfil print orders and a large gallery that displays exif or at the very least allows me to put some comments about the photos I have taken.

So with that the project is on hold for a short while so that I can clear my head so to speak, however it’s still very much in progress since I am always looking for people to send ideas about sites they have seen, however this hasn’t gone as well as I hoped, since I wanted everyone to contribute and make it a site they would actually want to visit, ah well

Other than that for me personally I decided to take the plunge and upgrade teh server for the website with a little more ram, it’s a temporary thing to see if this actually makes any difference to the performance or crashing issues I’ve been having and more so because of the casimireffectfilm.com ‘s increasing web traffic, however at the moment I’ve experienced one lock up that doesn’t seem to have any justifiable cause, I may eventually get a second linode, and do some testing with another webserver platform, it’s all part of the learning but it’s definitely frustrating!

As for me as an individual I’ve decided to take another financial plunge and get shot of my car, you know the big silver mondeo that made me look like a taxi. Instead I’ve gone for something that was a little more… well me, despite this the transition has not been without hinderance, and unfortunately I can’t reveal details of this right now as there may be some legal issues involved, Yes THAT badly,

I’m also planning on doing a summer return to livevideo.com since I’ve actually missed vlogging, and well, need to get my creative feet back moving, Holiday plans for this year are again hindered by political situations all over the world and my job is slowly grinding away at my mind until such time as I get my head around what is going on and what I’m meant to be doing, In other words I’m still finding my feet, but it’s a million times better than the last place I was in thats for sure.

Apptacious.com has effectively seen a halt in all posts at the moment since no-one other than myself is contributing, and since it was supposed to be a user or community based contribution site, I’m a little disappointed that no-one else wanted to share their feelings on the applications they have purchased, especially with all the new hype about the iPad and the possibility of the iPhone 4G looming around the corner, so if you have an iPad, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch or even a humble PC but like following mac related news please do get in touch and drop an email to mark@apptacious.com as soon as you can

Cardifftweetups.co.uk has also seen a virtual stop on just about everything since again I’m the only one contributing, however I’m blaming part of this on the winter months that have come about and no doubt spayed a few people off meeting anyone, although I am a little surprised, hopefully people on twitter will actually read this part of the blog and start contributing or requesting a posting account

In other news I’ve recently started writing for the wonderful wales online blogs on their your cardiff section and it’s proving to be a very rewarding experience, hopefully I can continue on this and start posting something that people actually read and can contribute too, also my typing speed has improved to around 140 wpm, although accuracy leaves a little to be desired,

Anyway thats my smal-ish update that has actually turned out to be quite long, although I did write this in the space of about 10 mins, impressive nonetheless but no doubt I will read this over at a later stage and see just how many spelling mistakes there actually are, or that it probably doesn’t make much sense,

so what’s been going on your life’?

What really took me was just how easy it was. I don’t mean the technical aspect of the shot, but just how pleasant it was to work with the people who were essentially modelling for me. Everyone was co-operative and helpful, although I’ll say that I was more or less useless at directing them.

I’m surprised because of course I’ve heard all of these horror stories about difficult subjects or the more or less total control needed for the photographer. One photographer friend of mine has said ‘it’s essential to communicate‘ and that I should ‘take charge’ and ‘direct everyone’, In fact his exact words were ‘You need to be really good at directing people’. Of course after hearing that I more or less ended up crapping myself at the thought of trying to control or direct some very important people and of course in my case, a famous one.
Yet all I had to do was say to them both “just relax and do whatever feels right”, and whilst they picked up on the fact that I have never done any form of portrait work before, they did exactly as I said and just… relaxed! It was an incredible feeling building a rapport with them as I fumbled around with the studio lights, trying very hard to not burn either myself or the cast member I was shooting. Despite all this, they were great, helpful, kind and after a few nerves and a little uncertainly (on both their part and mine), I started taking shots and everything just flowed.

Shooting in a studio helped so much, this is the first time I was able to do this, but it gave a more professional environment, I was able to shoot easily and well with the camera and I think I got some fantastic shots as well (you will see some soon) but it’s left me with a completely different view of studio photography. Who knows, I might even get a huge amount of work from it, Maybe not. But there is the possibility!

Maybe this was just a really great first experience, maybe it’s all like this, but I now know for a fact that the profession I’ve always wanted to get into, really is what I want to get into.

I am more comfortable behind a camera, than I am anywhere else.

From this I saw an opportunity to invite everyone, just as @foomandoonian did, to invite people to a long term project where anyone can join, have fun creating something they can be proud of, and submit their best possible work. It’s a chance for everyone with a phone camera all the way up to professional equipment to get creative, including myself.

The alphabet project is, quite simply, the alphabet. 26 letters over 26 months. Just over two years where each month, you have that entire month to pick a photo you already have or to go out and take a new one that corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. A for January, B for February and so on all the way up to February 2012 when the project ends on Z.

The photo can be of anything, so long as it matches with the letter for that month, it can be of an object, a builder, a place or even a person. So long as it is a photo, it’s acceptable.

I’m starting this month, and since it’s a little late, entries are accepted until the 5th of February for the letter A.

At the end of each month a thread will be created to pick out some of the best ‘letters’ of each month, where everyone can comment, give critique and suggestions for the next month. It’s a long term project, clearly, but it should provide everyone with a little challenge and the the option to learn and develop their skills. Beginner to Pro. Everyone is welcome

If you want to join in, all you have to do is join and upload on flickr.
go to The Alphabet Project by clicking here or going to http://www.flickr.com/group/alphabetproject/ or a short URL of http://bit.ly/alphabetproject.

If you tweet about it, please use the hashtag #alphabetproject and help make this work. Even if your not interested, send it to your friends, tweet it, blog about it, and help make this the biggest and most ambitious project going, and help it grow. Spread the word!

This one is more special to me because of course we are coming to the end of a decade.

So, this year I have given you three things to fulfil my three promises.

1: A digital artwork piece as per usual,
2: a Christmas artwork Piece
3: Something special to mark the new decade

So, without further ado, here is all the information you need to enjoy my festivities.

The Christmas Digital Artwork Piece, entitled, New Year, New Decade (click the image)

Of course if you want to see the whole set, New Year, New Decade, you can click here

And finally, today I went to enjoy the photography opportunities up in Brecon with the snow. Click here to view

So that’s your lot for the new year, I really hope you enjoy the work I’ve done. All of these are in full resolution so you can enjoy all of it the way it should be enjoyed.

Have a very merry christmas, great holiday season, and a fantastic new year.

Blind photography is something I had not even heard of until this morning, and it really does put things into perspective (no pun intended). The story talks about a photographer, Alex Dejong, who suffered a brain tumor three years ago causing him to loose his sight in both eyes.

Since that time he has found new and innovate ways to continue taking pictures. He’s not completely blind, he can see light and dark and basic shapes but even then you would not expect the type of photography that he produces.

Alex uses a variety of different techniques to get his pictures, strangely enough, part of it comes from the iPhone 3G S and it’s voice over functions but even more standard software packages are being put to use thanks to the advent of Voice Over technology which reads everything on the screen back to the user.

Of course the article does not solely focus on his work, but it also focuses on two others. Every single one of them producing fantastic and incredible photography.

The site, www.BlindPhotographers.org is filled with simply incredible pictures. It’s hard to believe that these people have any vision impairment whatsoever. I would of course love to put a few pictures in this blog post but licensing and legal issues currently prevent me from doing so.

At the start of this article I said that I was moved just reading it, but it really does become moving when you see people managing to live their dream and producing spectacular pictures when others wouldn’t think it possible. It’s not like these pictures have to be taken with a pinch of salt either. They need no handicap, and you don’t need to use the expression “Taking into account…”

The pictures themselves are truly amazing, and I would encourage everyone to view www.BlindPhotographers.org and of course read the Wired Article

This year however should be different. I believe my photography skills have developed sufficiently, and my personal commitments are worked out, meaning that I may finally be able to take the type of pictures I want to for christmas. This is a first for me, being able to take christmas photography, but also gives me some unique opportunities involving long exposures, motion photography and scenes specifically involving people. Whilst this gives me some incredible opportunities to develop new photography skills, It gives me some unique challenges. The biggest question now is weather any of the photos will make it onto the site.