Update: Extra! Extra!

I’ve been too busy for the last two weeks. As you can imagine, these were full of emotions: leaving Manchester and coming back to Mexico; the wedding of my youngest sister; going back to work (waking up early again, yikes!); meeting lots of friends and acquaintances; and buying stuff for the new house (oh I forgot to mention finding a house). In sum it’s been real crazy…

Before coming back I met with my closest friends from the Photo Group. I met them all through Flickr and honestly it was great to share with them so many experiences. I’m sure we will be able to keep in touch regardless of the ocean between us (promise to get on Twitter this year).  Thanks guys! it was great to meet you all. Here a photo of the night taken by Paul:

Immediately after arriving was party time and I had to get a smoking/tux for my sister’s wedding, no need to say that we had a blast. I’m still waiting for the Tog to upload his pictures of the night, I will post a pic of me looking like a penguin then. In the meantime, V was having a great time being a princess:

I will leave my first week at work and house finding efforts for another post so…                      stay tuned ;¬)

 

mtk

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Been Busy Lately

I haven’t been writing in this blog for a while now. It is not that I don’t want to. No, scratch that: I really didn’t want to write anything else after finishing the thesis!!

However, now I am feeling in a much better mood and I want to tell you how it all went…

I submitted the thesis back in November, after that we spent some nice holidays in Paris. It was a well deserved holiday for all the family and a great opportunity to take some pictures in that beautiful city.

While in Paris I got an email saying that my Viva (the Thesis defence) was going to be on 28th Jan! Obviously January was a blur full of excitement and finally the Viva date arrived.

The week previous to the Viva was the worst ever, I was really scared but the examiners were actually very nice on the day and after two hours I ran away with only minor scratches. After a week or so I submitted the minor corrections, these were approved, I printed the final copies, submitted them in beautiful black covers and Bob’s your uncle! wait for the certificate to be made…

… and yesterday…

 

… To be continued.

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Firework Season is Back in Town

With the wind, the rain and the cold also come the Gluhwhein, the merry songs, and the FIREWORKS!!! So be ready with your camera to capture the moment, in this post I’ll try to help you get the best results.

I took the image above during last year’s Switch-On in Manchester. I’ve received many nice comments and lots of views, here I tell you how to get something similar.

Find a Good Spot

Every year I see lots of people trying to get to the very front, what’s the point? If what you really want is to get good firework pictures then you want to be farther away. You really need to give some space between you and the fireworks so you can catch’em.

Carry a Tripod

I know, I know, I also hate lugging stuff around. However this is a time where the tripod is your friend. You will need long exposures to get the fireworks and give them time to spread-out in your frame so, don’t be lazy for once ;¬)

Get a Wide-Angle Lens

If you are using a DSLR get a wide-angle (10mm), you really need a lot of space to make the fireworks fit on your frame. If you are using a P&S or a compact camera then don’t worry, your lens is already wide enough.

Avoid Touching the Camera

Chances are that it will be dark enough and the movement you generate while pressing the trigger (even when using the tripod) will be unnoticeable. However, it is best if you are using a cable or ratio trigger (if you have a DSLR), or just set your camera on the timer. Even P&S now have an option for a 2sec delay, that will do.

Long Exposure and Aperture

As I said above, you need to give time to the fireworks to explode and spread in your frame, so you need to work with long exposures. How long? to be honest it is trial and error. For  the image above I used 4 seconds. You also want to get a good depth of field. I won’t get into details but try to increase the number in the aperture as much as you can without getting ridiculously long exposures (you don’t normally want to get above 10secs).

Remember the long exposure will give you a better chance to capture the fireworks. But the longer it gets the more fireworks will get cramped in your frame so it is a matter of taste and it will depend on how big the area is and the firework programme.

A Starting Point

If you like the image above and you will be facing similar conditions, then this are all the settings I used. They could be a good starting point for your first frame :D

Exposure:       4 seconds Aperture:       f/16 Focal length:  10mm ISO speed:      200

Now go out and shoot and don’t forget to share with me your results. I hope you find this helpful.

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Beneath murky waters - Revisited

If you follow this blog you might remember this post about the Manchester Canal. Well at that time I asked my friend Francisco (aka Darth Tradd) to write a short "Noir" story for me relating the canal with some obscure crime or something, he has a great imagination and I'd say he can write as well.

Sadly, he was busy at the time and I had to come-up with my own story to accompany the pictures. A rubbish story to go with some very good pictures of rubbish floating by the canal, I had to say all that to avoid saying "rubbish pictures" but I digress. After almost a month Francisco got some time and wrote this piece for which I'm very grateful! (he even linked back and included my pics).

If you follow this blog in English I'm sorry, the story is in Spanish so chop chop and head to the closest Spanish Institute so you can read it within a year's time. :D

Gracias Paco!!


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Curry, Blogs and Bloggers!!!

If you follow this blog in English bear with me this post had to be written in Spanish but the blog will come back to normality soon, I promise.

Bueno pues empujado por el buen Francisco (aka Dtradd) tenía que contar lo que sucedió el pasado Jueves Santo en Manchester.

Me contaba el buen Paquito (eso le va a encantar!!) que anteriormente cuando los blogs no eran tan comunes la gente hacía mucha alharaca cuando se reunían a contar sus experiencias como "bloggeros". Así se dieron reuniones apodadas como: Tortas y Blogs, Chelas y Blogs, Tacos & Blogs, etc. De ahí el título de esta "meme" (como diría el buen Juan).

Bueno pues en esta ocasión tocó en la lluviosa ciudad de Manchester. Aunque la reunión no se hizo específicamente para hablar sobre blogs, si estuvieron presentes varios bloggeros de afición ya muy comprobada - el ya "linkeado" Francisco, Juan y Hector. Ellos tienen mucho mas tiempo escribiendo mientras que mi bló aún no cumple ni el mes.

(Hay que presionar el More>> para seguir leyendo)

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La reunión empezó muy bien con unas chelas para abrir el apetito en el Varsity (Oxford Road, aparentemente muy fácil de confundir con otro cerca del centro) y después de que llegaron otros amigos nos fuimos a un restaurante (Pink Garlic) a disfrutar de un curry.

Para ser sinceros el curry no es lo que más me atrae pero eso no me detuvo (ni a los otros) de comer como si recién hubieramos salido de una larga vigilia en el desierto.

Si bien es cierto que tire el mango lassi como no se olvida en apuntar el buen paquito pues en mi defensa tengo que decir que la mesa bailaba un poco por lo que se cayó mi botella de agua sobre la jarra de delicioso mango lassi. Además, el efecto fue positivo puesto que el susodicho tuvo que moverse al final de la mesa. Sus aventuras amorosas estaban atrayendo demasiada tensión y se me estaba terminando el tema de conversación al no poder mencionar a la nueva susodicha que era en realidad el "hot topic" de la semana. Bueno, eso si es que existe porque la verdad no la he conocido en persona.

La verdad fue bueno poder ver a Juan y a Hector nuevamente pues se marcharon de Manchester poco después de haberlos conocido (Hector a Oxford y Juan a Alemania).

Tristemente pensé que alguien mas tomaría las fotos y no lleve ninguna cámara conmigo. Pero aquí incluyo una foto de hace tiempo en la que aparecen Juan y Hector respectivamente a la izquierda de la foto.



y otra del buen Francisco aterrorizado por las alturas. O mas bien por lo enclenque del teleférico.




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Why a Blog?

Well the truth is that I just felt I was missing something after noticing some of my friends having their own blogs and having fun with them. I also follow some blogs about photography like Strobist and with this WEB 2.0 mentality I thought I should try to contribute somehow.


So if I manage to amuse you for a few seconds then mission accomplished!!!
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