Miami Beach Huts are finally online

After nearly a year, I finally found the time to get back to work on the Miami Beach Huts project.

Over the last weekend I’ve uploaded all our output to a shiny new website called http://www.miamibechhuts.com featuring a shiny new WordPress Theme. Each Beach Hut we shot is featured, with (often too many) supplemental images.

Finally!

I couldn’t believe how much time has passed since I’ve last updated the site. Life just got busy I guess and there was just no room for Beach Huts. But they’re back now, and swisher than ever might I add: all pictures are colour corrected and we can get to work on the book we always wanted to make. Once that’s done, we’ll look into exhibitions over here and abroad.

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My neighbour threw away my telly

My "new used" telly

So I discovered this excellent Panasonic 15” flat screen CRT telly on top of my wardrobe. I hadn’t used it in a few years and had originally bought it for video editing as a third monitor on my desk.

Julia and I decided it would make a nice addition in our house in Birmingham, and should we ever get round to renting it out it would be great in one of the bedrooms. We postponed going up quite a few times though, so I took the TV out of my flat and put it in front of my door. There’s a landing where I put stuff from time to time.

The weeks pass, as they do, and on Tuesday something rather bizarre has happened: my upstairs neighbour took it upon himself to decide that my telly would be classed as RUBBISH… He took it downstairs and put it on the side of our house.

I live in Haringey, so it must have taken about 30 seconds until someone grabbed it. Now it’s gone forever, with only a remote on my desk to show for it.

I was literally gone for one hour while all this happened, because I remember clearly seeing the TV when I left the flat – and it was gone when I came back. Only one question springs to mind: WTF?

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When things start breaking down…

It wasn’t enough that my 3yr old HP Pavillion Laptop stopped working the other day. I never liked it anyway so maybe it picked up a vibe there.

In an unrealted incident, my trusty hot-pink Saracen Pylon 4 had a gearbox problem this week – which means that the cycling trip with my wife is off this sunny weekend 🙁

Or is it?

While we’re choosing a new bike for Julia on Saturday, I may just treat myself to a spontaneous backup bike. Sam and Daniel from MTV are both in favour so that’s a good enough excuse for me 😉

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Going Limited: I’m changing my trading status from Sole Trader to Limited Company

Pinkstone Pictures, Ltd - live long and prosper

After 10 years of trading with Pinkstone Pictures I’m converting the business into a Limited Company. I’ve been putting this off for years, but tax implications give me the nudge to “get on with it.

Let me explain all the pros and cons, why I’m doing it and what’s changing in my paper trails with HMRC for tax and VAT returns.

I’ll update this article as I go along with this adventurous journey 😉

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Meet DREXEL: my new Database Server

I’ve already mentioned this to some of you, but here’s the official release. Last week I introduced a new server to the Guru Network: DREXEL – my THIRD web server in only 18 months!

With it I’m building a dedicted hosting infrastructure optimised for self-hosted WordPress sites. Depending on how well it’ll go from here, I’d like to grow the Guru Network into a multi-server environment across the world similar to that of Automattic and WordPress.com.

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Walker’s German Bratwurst Sausage Flavour

OK this one makes me feel a little bit home sick actually… sniff! Spot the deliberate grammatical mistake though: “wurst” already means “sausage” (or “turd”, depending on the context). Not my favourite flavour of the bunch, even though Julia loves it to bits and has already voted for it. Did I mention you can do …

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Walker’s American Cheeseburger Flavour

Walker’s have done it again: create a range of brand new Limited Edition flavours just in time for the World Cup Football Qualifiers. And what would this series be without them? We discovered 8 flavours at the Oxford Service Station and we’ll give you a rundown of them all. To kick off this leg of …

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First Flush: I’ve shot some PX100 in my new Polaroid 600 camera

Today is a very special day for various reasons: not only has my Polaroid 600 Extreme camera arrived (the one I bought for £2.50 off eBay). Also, both me and my wife are off together – it rarely happens these days. That alone was reason to celebrate.

But more importantly: The Impossible Project have today released their brand new PX600 Silver Shade Instant Film which is made for just these cameras! I put an order for 12 packs in immediately and can’t wait to give it a try.

In the meantime however, I pondered over the question “does the PX100 work in Polaroid 600 cameras” or rather “does an SX-70 film work in a Polaroid 600 camera” as discussed in my previous post.

I’m happy to say that YES IT DOES – with a minor modofication to the camera.

Let me show you the results and talk you through my experiences with this exciting new material.

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Lomo Lunch: Diana Instant Workshop at Lomography London

We had the most fantastic time on Tuesday at the Lomo Lunch Workshop about the Diana Instant Back. For only £8 per person, this is a bargain considering you get

  • to use and test a Diana with Instax Back for the whole afternoon
  • tips and tricks on how to use it
  • a free pack of Instax film
  • 30% off Instax Film for the day
  • all your questions answered and more

I bought this fantastic gadget for a whopping £70 a few weeks ago and was a bit unsure what to expect. Instant pictures a la Polaroid have always had a fascination with everybody who’s into photography, and Fuji is now the only manufacturer of such products (not yet counting The Impossible Project).

I’ll give you a full review of the back another time – there’s a lot that can be said about it. If you are in town during April you should pop down to see the Lomography Gallery Store and check out the Diana World Tour downstairs. It’s an exhibition featuring 100 vintage Diana cameras and clones formerly in the collector’s hands of Allan Detrich.

The workshop itself consisted of a brief introduction to instant photography, the do’s and don’ts, and then they let you walk away and test this puppie out. If you have questions you can pop back anytime and even buy some film for 30% off the market price.

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First Flush: Polaroid 600 and the new Impossible PX100

At the time of writing, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first ever Polaroid camera: the 600 Extreme that I got from eBay for a bargain price of £2.50. Hey, it even was for charity!

I wanted it because there’s an ever so slim chance that I can use it with the brand new film by The Impossible Project:  PX100 First Flush. It’s a black and white film that fits old Polaroid cameras and has only been released a couple of weeks ago.

The Impossible Project, lead by Lomography founder Dr. Florian Kaps, have bought the last remaining Polaroid film factory in Enschede in 2008 and have since then been working on reviving this brilliant format. I cannot wait to see what they’ve come up with!

Since Polaroid left about 300 million cameras stranded in drawers and attics around the world without fresh film coming onto the market, my fascination with a medium doomed to be extinct keeps growing daily. I never really cared for Polaroid in the past, mainly because of expensive running costs. The cameras aren’t exactly attractive either. However, my views on the subject have changed in recent years, and ever since I acquired an Instant Back for my Diana I don’t mind telling you that both Julia and I are ADDICTED to instant pictures!

With the arrival of the very first batch of newly produced PX100 film, my interest in Polaroid has skyrocketed. I had to see for myself what I could do with an overpriced and hard-to-get pack of 8 pictures for £20. Considering I haven’t got the right camera, this is bound to be an adventure…

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Holga: Up-Close and Personal with add-on Maco Lens Sets

If you wanted to take pictures closer than 1m (3ft) with your Holga, it meant you had to hack it and permanently mutilate your camera. Even then, putting things in close focus was a guessing game so I never bothered.

Thanks to these two £10 packs of add-on lenses, you no longer need to do that: snap one onto your Holga and start shooting up-close and personal. Since the barrels are the same on the 120 and 135 models, these babies will work on all my seven Holgas. Sweet!

I couldn’t resist and bought them both at the Photographer’s Gallery. I am currently looking into doing somethig similar to Little People in the Big City with Holga and Diana so these lenses seemed ideal for the job.

What I got was no fancy packaging, a clear set of instructions and a total of FIVE lens rings in a cute plastic storage pouch. All that for £19.98 and I wasn’t even looking – amazing!

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My busiest week so far this year…

… and I think of myself as a “busy man” already. As I’ve learnt this week, things can ALWAYS get busier.

New this week:

  • a Super King Sized Bed
  • a new Website
  • two new mobile phones
  • a new games console
  • and to top it off: a 16hour shift at work

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This Month in My Life

Melvin and me at MTV

I hadn’t seen my good friend Dave Lee in a while and thought I’d connect with him via email today. When I was finished typing, I realised that it would make an excellent update on this site as well – so let’s have a look at “What’s happening in Jay’s Life” 🙂

With many of my friends, colleagues and Internet acquaintances getting into blogging, I find it hard to keep track of who’s writing an update and when. With Twitter and Facebook it’s so convenient to scan through the headlines if and when I have the time – hence I’m currently looking for a system that lets me check out my friends blogs from a single interface.

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Tutorial: Getting “The Grunge Look” in your photos

Blackbird, Fly!

This is an article in response to a comment I received on my Golden Half camera review, in which a poster asked me “How do you get THAT picture quality?”

Henceforth known as “The Grunge Look”, featuring harsh grain, strong contrasts and vivid colours (where available), I’ll give you a rundown of what you need to achieve it. This article is aimed at advanced beginners, plastic camera fanatics, film shooters and everyone else interested in going “beyond the clean holiday snap”. I may cover more than you want to know, but please bear with me.

So grab a coffee, sit back and let’s get started 😉

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What’s the difference between HDCAM and HDCAM SR?

Let’s take a look under the hood of two broadcast VT formats: both are called HDCAM, both do some form of HD, but apart from the operational differences, the funky coloured flap and two extra letters, what is the real difference between them?

Let’s find out.

 

HDCAM (non-SR)

HDCAM was introduced by Sony ages ago in 1997. No other tape based HD broadcast format was around at the time, and it quickly became clear that one was needed for HDTV to succeed.

The HDW-M2000 machines are based on the DVW-2000 series of VTRs and record with a datarate of 144 Mbps (that’s a 50% increase compared to Digital Betacam’s datarate of 96 Mbps).

HDCAM features 4 audio channels and can handle all common framerates between 24 and 30Fps.

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Making Television History in 32APSK with NFL Football

This is how nPSK works...

We made some television history the other night: in a test for the NFL International Distribution, Adrian from TV2Go and us folks at IMG Mediahouse have successfully brought a 32APSK encoded signal across the Atlantic, with a datarate of 30Mbps using a 9MHz carrier!

Since the start of the current NFL season in 2009, part of my job is to bring in feeds that originate in the US for an uplink stateside to NSS7. Our clients then downlink these feeds in Europe. In North America, DirectTV offers the NFL (and nearly 200 other channels) to domestic customers via their fleet of ten satellites. Using MPEG2 and H264 encoding, QPSK and 8PSK modulation are commonplace in satellite transmissions.

Ray was looking after this year's NFL season (I was behind the camera of my mobile phone)

However satellite bandwidth is expensive, and we’re dealing with demands of ever increasing datarates. Compression alone will only get us so far, so the only other way to increase throughput would be to increase phase modulation on the TX path. Lucky for us, the DVB-S2 spec has another trick or two up its sleeve.

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Behind the Scenes of Inter vs Milan for ESPN

My own notes, invaluable in times of severe panic

Sometimes a feed comes in, gets an English voiceover and is put straight to air on ESPN UK. But on Sunday, we pulled various aces from our sleeves to bring the Serie A “Milan Derby” to an expecting UK audience.

The feed comes in from Eutelsat W3 in HD, the studio for pre match presentation is SD, the commentators are on site in Milan and come in via ISDN. Question is: How do we synchronise comms with pictures, and how do we create HD graphics during the match?

We use pretty much EVERY piece of kit IMG Mediahouse has to offer, that’s how.

In this article, I’ll explain some of the challenges my dayjob in MCR has to offer. My colleagues and I feel like rockstars when a feat like this can successfully be pulled off, and I’m happy to say we did it once again.

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The scary truth about Google’s Chrome Propaganda

If you’ve recently passed through Oxford Circus Station, you will have noticed only ONE advert on all billboards at the platform: Google Chrome, and how you desperately need it in your life. In fact, this ad is currently plastered all over the UK, and one must ask the all too obvious question:

Why advertise for a FREE product that won’t make any money?

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Bad Toast at Oxford Service Station on the M40

Particularly rubbish for a shocking rip-off price: £7.99 for “The Big One”. Includes disgusting scrambled egg, terrible sausages and squidgy bacon. Hash browns and beans were OK, but then what can go wrong when all you’re doing is heat up the contents of a can. “Overpriced Shit” sounds way too positive. Verdict: no matter how …

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Treeworshippers (Etch A Sketch)

I was going to call it “Sunworshippers” in hommage to the song by Mylo – but then I discovered that the “sun” didn’t actually look like a sun… so I turned it into a tree. Works much better.

It’s my first Etch-A-Sketch Masterpiece in Decades!

We were passing through a service station in Beaconsfield very late yesterday and spent a spontaneous night at the Etap Hotel. It’s connected via a walkway to a 24hr neon world of McDonald’s, Starbuck’s and an Arcade featurung Outrun 2. It felt just like Vegas! We discovered a Pocket Etch-A-Sketch at WH Smith, and I …

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Cycling Diary 2009

The year is coming to an end rather quickly, and so is the life of the battery powering my Giant Axact 13w cycling computer. Before it loses all its settings, I thought this is the perfect time to put them somewhere safe. Like the internet. This year, I’ve clocked up the following mileage. Keep in …

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YouTube has invited me to make some cash… but it’s a gamble!

Here’s a funny one…

I made this video on Xbox drive noise over a year ago. It has now had 55.000 views and 129 ratings on YouTube. Out of a sudden YouTube are inviting me to cash in on it.

It means that they’re eager to display adverts in the video and on the page. I can apply for this particular video only, and it won’t affect any of my other 130 videos in my account.

But here’s the snag:

if YouTube REJECT my application, the video and all its 462 comments video responses will be DELETED forever!

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