Yesterday Amy and me had the family come round for some food and for a little catch up, I haven’t really seen any of them since my birthday which was like two months ago, so it was good to see them all, even Esme.
It wasn’t all straight forward, amy and me had a lot of pressure planning today, from what everyone was going to eat ( I cooked a banging curry) to the most important thing the orange cushion that WE (Amy) had to get.
Yesterday was the first time we played host to my family and I think I was a success, apart from being a bit short of cutlery and plates but who’s counting anyway.
I’ve normally always been the guy sat in the sofa drinking beers and watching TV so never really worried about what’s going on in the kitchen, I’ve just worried about what time it’s been served. My hat goes off to anyone that’s ever cooked a large meal I’ve eaten, it’s 100% pure stress.
The cooking isn’t the stressful part, it’s the washing up that’s the stinger, you fill your face and then all of a sudden you’ve got a million plates and hundreds of glasses to wash up, and I don’t even have a dish washer, proper 1950s stuff.
Anyway, it’s now 5am on Sunday and I’m up and out the door off to work, so I’m going to keep this one short and sweet. Here’s some shots from yesterday.
– I know it’s weird for dogs to wear clothes but I think Mooney pulls it off –– mum and flo haven’t a moment, or in reality. Mum trying to get flo to sit still –– she was scared to the Xmas tree pines –
very weird post today, last night I was working a night shift and was expecting to walk home along this really cool canal at like 7am and I could take some cool photos early morning of the river and the canal boats, sounds pretty cool doesn’t it?
well that kind of changed, I did work till late last night but instead of walking along the canal, I jumped in a taxi. it was still pitch black when I left and I wouldn’t of been able to take any photos with out a flash and thats something I didn’t have on me.
its all good finishing work early, but this had really put a massive hole in my plan for todays post, panic had now started to set in and my idea for todays post had completely gone out the window, and my photos are terrible.
What I ended up doing was taking some quick photos before and after my Taxi ride home, but this also went wrong when I only took two photos, now I’m completely screwed. so now I’m running around my flat trying to think of something to take a photo of, before I can to go out buy a christmas tree and then cook some food for my family to come round. So its a pretty busy day, but its started on completely the wrong foot, Ive just got to hope I can pull it back.
first stop is to try and find a tree and also really this is our last day to get an advent calendar, if we don’t get it today when we will be too late to the party and have to wait till next year. Ive missed it for the past few years and I will not miss it this year. any way Ive got about a million things todo before everyone arrives, so wish me luck and please don’t judge my photos, I will do a better job of photos today!
– this photo was taken out side of work, while waiting for a taxi –– this was taken once I had got out my taxi. Welcome home Josh –– this was taken about 2 minutes ago, once I realised I hadnt taken three photos yesterday –
Today Ive spent my time involved in some manual labour, Ive basically been scraping wall paper off my hall way and then painting it white, this has taught me two really important lessons, that I will definitely carry with me for the rest of my life.
Lesson one, if I ever need to scrap wall paper off a wall again, pay someone else do it, there nothing nice, easy or rewarding about scraping that stuff off. Ive been there and Ive got the medal now its time for me to sit back and in the future let someone professional do it properly.
Lesson two, painting a white wall white again, its properly just as fun as taking the wall paper off. I also managed to literally blow up a light bulb socket with my head so I’m not really sure if my paint job was even and will have to wait till day light or a new light gets fixed to actually see if my job is even. by the way it wasn’t on purpose, I stood on a chair and moved really quick and my head just made contact with the light bulb thing.
apart from those two extremely good life lessons its also been a good day, the hall way has been on my list of things to get done for a while and today I knocked it off my todo list. I’m now completely nackered but need to power on till 3/4am as Im working on an over night job Friday and need to try and get used to being up at night and asleep during the day, my thinking is 3/4am is a good time go to sleep.
When I was in the mist of completing the painting I was thinking of things to photograph, it was way to cold outside to venture out for some street photography so my idea was to show how a photo looks before its edit and also how it looks after a few changes. I wanted to use a boring photo as it makes it easier to see the difference as theres no “WOW factor”.
the photo you see below was shot in .RAW which basically means you can do a lot more editing and manipulation. how that happens is by the camera sensor remembering all the information collected when you press the capture button, meaning you can change the white balance, the thing that makes either white, white or makes white that weird egg shell colour you some times see.
If a photo is really dark, say you shot inside a house at night and were trying to take a photo of your family and when you looked at it back you noticed the only thing you could see was the light on the fridge door, well because you shot .RAW you would be able to bring the exposure up in Lightroom or photoshop and be able to see what is going on. The files are slightly bigger than .jpegs but if you camera can shoot .RAW. do it! you really wont regret it. just buy a bigger memory card, and back your photos up regularly.
have a look at these photos below and see the difference, they were shot in .RAW. look at the different shades of white on the paint pot and see if you can tell the different. If it was .JPEG they would near enough be the same colour depth and not looks as good.
– this is the original photo –– I have changed the white balance to 28k and done a few other things with the contrast / exposure / highlights and cropped in a bit –– this has a 55k white balance and is obviously back and white –
Since my time began on this planet I have been an apple fan, from the first Iphone to the Latest edition of OS. Apple I have supported you, Ive loved you during the highs and the lows, through thick an thin. the mistakes and the triumphs, you’ve been a part of my life for so long. I learn how to edit videos and you helped me get past my GCSE’s and A-levels. But yesterday you let the side down, you failed me when I needed you most at work, trying to encode MXF OP-Atom DNxHD 114 files from XAVC files. we had a tight deadline and you just completely failed, but you didn’t just fail me, you failed the whole team, not even a genius could of got you through it. We HAD to use an Alienware PC and they cant even process a PRORESS file!!!! Brilliant you’ve brought out a phone that I can open with my face, while you’ve got laptops that cant process 4k or take hours to render. spend less time creating emojis that can copy my movements and more time thinking about the next step in rendering and encoding files.
I am really hoping a trip to the apple store and maybe a new machine will help me turn this nightmare around, but right now your CPU just cant keep up. please think about what people need and make it work, I know you have created the Mac Pro, but with a £7k price tag and not really that modular, why would I go for that over a Mac Bin. I need a laptop and something that can churn out 4k and transcode files quickly, and at the moment you don’t have any answers.
Files are getting bigger, we can now buy a 512gb AXS or Red mag card, thats literally half a Terabyte and we need answers, you wont let anyone else read Proress files so please create that laptop which just takes over the market not for the next 6 months but for at least 2 years.
We need someone like Steve jobs to take a few tabs of Acid, run off into some NASA like lab and just got to town, we need more start up disk space, faster CPUs and give our graphics card some steroids and ramp that beast up. create something you can only use on a bed of snow or ice, but please just do something revolutionary other wise I might just have to buy a Dell.
Best wishes,
A Man with a broken heart
– this is me resulting to using a PC – – walking to work yesterday none the wise that my laptop was about to let me down – – some small camera being used yesterday –
Welcome to the fun life of Josh, today I left the flat for no more than about 15 minutes, and the highlight of the day was posting a letter to HMRC. Wow, I really have lived today like its my last, Im now sat at the table with amy while we power through “Homework club” that was we call sitting at the table pretending to do work and complaining at Capital FM’s constant replaying of Rita Oras song or some advert that gets played every 10 minutes. Please capital FM stop replaying the same music and adverts. Also can we all just appreciate the fact that amy is using a 2009 Macbook, Im surprised this thing still turns on.
Anyway Homework club is going well we only have like another 10 minutes maybe and then we can sit down and watch a film. To day has been pretty productive which is a good thing, Ive managed to get done everything I needed too, the only problem is I haven’t taken any photos, so im going to use a few snaps from a recent trip to Spitalfeilds late at night. if your not too sure where that is, its this market in between Liverpool street and Brick lane, its this kind of quirky / cool or as my mum would say “hip” place where you can buy anything from an antique vase all the way too a vegan beef burger. well at night this market all of a sudden becomes empty apart from the odd drunk city worker trying to find the tube station or a market stall clearing up for the day. What Spitelfeilds market have done is install these massive spot lights in the roof, so every few meters you get this cool circle pattern on the floor, which when people walk past create these cool shadows and the light bounces off in different directions and make a normal pedestrian look like some rock n roll star about to walk on stage.
Anyway here are some photo I took the other day, I hope you like them.
– my first ever home work club, nice laptop Amy – – this guy should have this photo has his profile picture – – this was a shop window on Brick lane, kind of has a cool feel to it –
Yesterday was an exciting day, for some of you out there you know how much I love Leica cameras and how much Ive wanted one. I love the Leica Q, but Im not a fan of the fact its a £3500 camera that has a fixed lens, I love using different lenses and I don’t want to drop that much money of a fix lens camera. that puts me onto the next problem, the only other option is the Leica M, a beautiful camera and something I would love to own, but it comes with a hefty price tag of between £6000 and £8000! thats a bit to much money for me to even think about spending, especially when this camera doesn’t even have auto focus.
Well, Leica have now done something truly amazing, they have re-released the Leica CL, a 24 mega pixel, 4k video mini pocket rocket. this is exactly what Ive wanted, something for a good price that I can change lenses for and that comes with that iconic Leica picture quality.
you can buy a the Leica CL with a few different lens choices, the 18mm, 23mm, 35mm, 65mm and a 55 – 135mm lens. literally a perfect mixture. Ive decided to go on the waiting list for the 18mm lens aswell. I was thinking about getting the 23mm, but that was a bit too tight, the 18 is wide, very wide but it just works as a starter lens. then once ive managed to afford food and the odd social event I would probably go back and buy the 55-135mm and maybe the 35mm. just so Ive got a range for just about any event. Im kind of gutted that I didn’t test the 55-135mm yesterday, I just got carried away with the other lenses.
I know there are people out there that would say “why don’t you just get the Olympus X-T20? and save yourself £2000 ” and trust me that camera is still on the table, but I wont be able to make that decision till I get the phone call from Leica telling me they have a CL in stock and with my name on it. I love the idea of owning a Olympus X-T20 and think its a beautiful camera but I cant ignore the fact Leica have brought out a camera that Ive wanted them to make for so long. Oh and the auto focus is ridiculously quick and smooth.
enough of the geeky chat about cameras, here are some photos from the store, thank you anders for coming with me and pretending to be a model, have you ever thought about a career is modelling before?
– 23mm lens –– 35mm lens –– 23mm lens –– I think this was on the 18mm –– I didnt take this picture but this is what the camera looks like –
A few months ago amy brought some tickets to see the Kooks play in Brighton, they are a band Ive wanted to see for ages and something which I’ve been excited for since she told me we were going. but before we can go to an amazing gig we had to do something that turns girls like amy into monsters / dictators, I’m talking about is IKEA. Yesterday we had to venture over to the warehouse of nightmares and shop till my credit card pops.
I saw a side to amy which scared me and it happened in the cushion department, we were trying to work out what colours go with what pattern and what fabric would work with the sofa. I never new that cushion shopping was a thing, I just thought they came with a sofa and that was it. who wrong I was. cushion shopping involves panic attacks and a lot of tongue bitting. Apparently my opinions will be taken into consideration but in the end they will be ignored, she even let me pick a cushion that she chose.
After cushion gate has finished it was time to hit the road and head down to Brighton and meet some good old chums and put the whole ikea experience behind us. the kooks smash it they were literally amazing the lead singer is a guy called Luke Pritchard and he knows a thing or two about performing and somehow have managed to hold down a top spot in British indie music since their album Inside in inside out was released in 2006. what was amazing about the show for me was when the blue curtain came down and he performed an acoustic set, for some reason when you bring the curtain down mid set it really makes the gig feel intimate. if you have the chance to see the Kooks definitely get down to a gig, tonight they are playing in Cardiff and if I could get down there I would.
As I spent the day running round doing a million and one things, all my photos were taken on my phone.
P.s Amy thanks for taking me around Ikea, you’ve given me the interior design bug and also for getting the Kooks tickets!!!!!
– this part of the set made it worth it –– the literally havent aged as a band since 2006 –– amy mid panic attack because yellow doesn’t go with the orange of the wall… or does it?! –
Yesterday was the first time in ages that ive had “that friday feeling” and today being saturday morning I have that “horrible hangover feeling” but I cant stop and moan I have a proper ikea mission first.
Any way back to yesterday, it was a bit of a gamble to be honest, I had been stuck at my kitchen table all day working on my laptop, just getting stuff done, even though its a day not at work I try to treat everyday like a work day, other wise ill spend the time watching a Netflix series or something which is never good. my aim is to always be out of bed by 9am and always do something productive and yesterday was no exception apart from the afternoon bath, which by the way was amazing.
It got to around 4 / 5pm and I started to think about my plans for that evening, there was talk for Winter wonderland in hyde park, I was adamant that its still to early to celebrate Christmas so it was a No from me, I would just meet charlotte and stay in East London.
After a few beers and a few more phone calls, we are all on our way to Winter wonderland, who would of guessed! and what a great decision that was, I hadn’t seen a lot of the people there in ages and im not really sure what happened after the first hour or so it gets abit blurry. I do know how ever I eat way to much food, 1 hot dog, 1 Calzone Pizza and a Mcdonalds and some Pasta. What was I thinking, this morning I feel like ive put on about 2 stone and eat like 5000 calories in the space of 4 hours.
anyway here are my photos from last night.
– I think Aaron was happy to see me –– just dave drinking from a bird bowl or maybe a water tap, im just not too sure –– this is the perfect meeting place for anyone at Winter wonderland –
Todays post is a bit late and thats just because i’m attacking the two months worth of washing I have in my wash bin, i’m quickly running out of clothes and today is solely dedicated to getting the washing done and hunting down some clean socks. Welcome to adult life josh…
Yesterday day time was spent on the sofa getting through emails and doing all that accounts stuff, but in the evening Amy and me met up for some chicken wings and a drink, it was just nice to get out and have a bit of fun. even though after my first beer I was nearly falling asleep, Sorry about that Amy.
While I was waiting for Amy I decided to spend sometime taking photos of shop windows and the people inside them, so much effort goes into how a shop looks from the outside which basically means that each shop is kind of perfect for taking photos. the windows are kind of pieces of art that are made to draw people into them, if that makes any sense. people are employed to make a shop window stand out, thats literally a job and those people who design shop windows probably also do set design for video or fashion shoots, so they all have the same guidelines. make something individual and to that company / artist style. well that was my kind of thinking to taking photos through the windows last night and I kind of think it worked.
I really wanted to focus on the typography or lighting of each shop and use those two things to take the photo and explain the photo I took. each photo that has typography explains whats happening or what they stand for.
The tattoo photo shows a man laying topless on a bench, the neon lighting above the window show that he is getting a tattoo, otherwise it might just look like he was drunk or something.
the “we sell liberation” basically speaks for its self. theres a guy wearing make up and someone with crazy hair. what more is there to say about that photo.
the reason behind the third photo is all todo with “eat beautiful” and also the lighting, which is pretty cool and the mirrors in the background create this funky look.
I’m back in the swing of things now and cant wait for the next 131 days of the photography project, lets grab some fireworks add some crazy ideas and take some cool photos!!!!!!!
I have literally just slept for like 12 hours, i cant remeber the last time I spelt for that long and now I feel amazing. Im pretty sure Ive beaten jet lag and now back to normal. my plan for today was to spent the day sleeping on the sofa watching netflix but after a quick phone call with my mate anders im on my way to south london to go rock climbing at some place called the Arches. what happening to just chilling on the sofa.
Its been a bit of a productive day, I also put some blinds up in my living room this morning, but ill show you those tomorrow. I need to get hold of some velcro to finish them off, im not about to show pictures of half a job!
it feels good to be back in London and Im now motivated to get on with what I started 233 days ago! since I’ve been doing a lot of travel recently Ive had time to think of some cool projects I want to start, so I’m now going to spend the next few days seeing if I can put them into practise. work has started to slow down for christmas so Ive now got quite a lot of time on my hands, which is actually quite exciting. I really want to get a lot done in the flat and get it up to a level Im proud of.
Ive had a week of not being able to post and now Im finally back on track and ready to pull my canon 5d out and take some cool photos but first I have 4 episodes of the new Peaky blinders to catch up on, I didnt even realised that it had started again!
here are some photos from yesterday and also a shot from the Grand Hyatt hotel reception, Im struggling to get over this view.
– climbing yesterday, I think I could have a new hobby –– welcome back to london, the best city in the world –– see you soon shang hai –
joshfspear.com 