Click, Click.

Yes it has been a while since I was last here, and a lot has happened in the roller coaster of excitement that is my life, but that's another blog entirely.

Anyway the point is that I have found myself doing a lot of photography (most of it free) which blows since I am mostly unemployed, however this has left me plenty of time to pursue other avenues of interest, such as talking to myself and air drumming. However i have been curing my boredom in other ways; such as finding out what happens when you place a developing Polaroid into the microwave (Sparks, a horrible smell, angry housemates and very little else) or cruising photography forums to find pure awesome in photography form, some of which i have found, like the worlds largest pinhole photograph.

Which this brings me neatly to the main point of this blog (it doesn't, but who cares) photographic equipment, I love it, but I love to tinker with things, i want to know how things work and I like the fact that new equipment can make you rethink your style of photography completely. However there is one thing i do dislike about new gear, its the people that have all of it but only have one very lonely and cold braincell huddling towards the back somewhere whimpering every time it hears a distant creak. I was at a gig the other day for reasons of fun and i saw two photographers who irritated me profoundly, the first was a small emo child in front of the stage taking photographs at a 45 degree angle, (every freaking one!) now i'm not so heartless to get annoyed at the as of yet unlearned, but when i spied a look at his camera, he had a brand new (honest to god, not even a scratch) Canon 40/50D worth between £800 - £1100 (inc standard lens), I mean come on! It's a semi pro camera, choice of weekend warriors and professionals alike and he had one, my Canon has seen so much action that the flash doesn't pop up anymore and there's a groove where my thumb rests and I would have to think twice before buying one.

So the next guy is somewhat worse, he was atleast old enough to pay rent, so no blaming this one on the parents who are convinced their little genius will bring them riches in their old age (he won't he'll go to uni and do a course entitled "Media Studies" in which he chooses all of the classes, either by name 'coolness' or what he thinks the token hot girl is doing (he won't ask her, he'll just guess, and by pure chance get it entirely wrong) he'll then scrape through with a third after repeating each year twice, fail to get a job in the university city, come home and live with his parents until he's 27 at which point his mum will get him a job at a hair dressers as the assistant hair sweeper, he'll eventually end up as a manager in a Tescos, still living at home, having long since sold his camera for pot.) so anyway the other guy, he was even more of all the gear no idea. Pretty sure he had the brand new 5D Mk 2 (£2300 body only fact fans) plus a stupidly lovely lens and a nice flash it is the flash that i want to draw your attention to now, you will notice that it has a diffuser on it (to help remove the shadows you get with direct flash) you will also notice, as he kneels down infont of the stage to take a very exciting upwards shot, that the flash is pointing towards the celing, or more specifically its about three inches away from my eyes at which point it goes off and I am blind.

He continues to do this to vaious people in the front row, most of which are there to enjoy the music, i note that more than one person has the "i'm going to punch you in the back of the head" look in their eyes, "why does he have a diffuser on if he's bouncing the flash off faces and celings" I hear you ask, good question, not only that, but the celing in this particular establishment was black (lets break it down for the science. The colour black absorbs all light waves and reflects none, white on the other hand reflects all light waves, red only reflects red and absorbs all other etc etc so now you know why pointing a source of light at something black will fail to light up the room.) "he must be a moron" I hear you cry, yes and here is some more proof:
A short while before he'd finished blinding every fucker in the room he then perched next to a speaker stack to get some shots he had his camera on it's side (turning it anti-clockwise if you must know), now he seemed fairly unhappy with these shots, i'm guessing they were too dark, I know this because the brain donor had his flash pointing directly into the speaker stack, he didn't figure this out and infact looked surprised when his next shots looked over exposed.

Thankfully the band were rather good and he vanished off before the half way mark and so he still has all of his limbs and equipment.