stuffparty!

Feb
8th

Mon

Caravan, Falun 2010 (via Karl Gunnarsson)

From a roll I shot yesterday. Yesterday! And scanned tonight. Too bad there seems to be some crap on the negative. Will have to have a chat with the guy at the lab.

Feb
7th

Sun

ingalunda:

2late4adate:

oldfilmsflicker:

(via beniciodeltakemenow)

Jesus, how many people could pull off this shirt and make it look fucking cool? But then, Benicio could wear a bin liner and look cool.

Also, this photo makes me wish for my hair to get more grey in it…

Who reads the papers? - Yes, Prime Minister - BBC comedy (via BBCWorldwide)

Oh, good times. I fancy watching those again. I remember enjoying them even as a boy not yet into his teens. Still, there are nuances I pick up now that I didn’t pick up then. Notice Hacker’s rather terrible ’80s suit and then notice Humphrey’s rather classic, nice suit. Can’t say I’m all too keen on the shirt colour myself and that tie will hardly win me over but… never mind that, look at the contrasts.

I’m babbling again, aren’t I?

Seminariegatan, Falun 2009 (via Karl Gunnarsson)

Policemen have started carrying guns – big, visible, frightening guns – quite widely. And I don’t remember us discussing that. Did I miss a meeting? The last conversation I remember was all about the pride we take in our unarmed British force. You know, the ones whose weapons (a truncheon, a whistle, who knows?) are tucked discreetly on to their belts, under their long jackets, beneath those slightly silly hats that make them taller than everyone else, because they are supposed to be reassuring figures, easily identifiable in a crowd, representing more of a help than a threat.

Somehow, they have been reborn as a tooled-up army of Schwarzeneggers. And I don’t think we did discuss it. I think we gradually noticed it happen and we subconsciously thought: “Well, yes, terrorist threat, 9/11, 7/7, WMD, homegrown assassins in our midst, few more armed police about, hope I get to Tesco before the semi-skimmed milk runs out.”

But that’s not a reason. Even if you believe the country is riddled with terrorists waiting to explode, that shouldn’t spell official, widespread guns. When I was a kid, the newspapers fuelled our fear of IRA bombs. The impression was, you could hardly walk down Oxford Street without getting blown up. But I remember, I remember, how proudly people spoke about our unaffected lives. We shopped there anyway. We carried on as normal, assuming we wouldn’t get unlucky.

Not now. We accept, somehow, even though we must understand how vast are the statistics against our being at a bomb scene, that we will queue for three hours at the airport, won’t carry water, won’t carry toothpaste; we will fill in extra forms and hand out extra personal information whenever we hear the words “heightened security”; and we will see armed police on the street. Why? How will that help? Unless we put 20 armed police on every street, they’re never going to be in the right place at the right time – and if the right place at the right time is an underground train carriage where a man unexpectedly blows himself up, a gun wouldn’t stop him anyway. That’s just firing bullets into the stable door after the horse has detonated.

And he stood there, Tony Blair, he stood there, well, he sat there, and he made that little church-and-steeple out of his fingers and he said the Iraq war had “made the world a safer place”. Really? Really? If it’s so much safer, how come we need all these hired gunmen that we didn’t need before?

—

Victoria Coren: He stepped out of the dark with a gun… | The Observer (via crowth) (via brilliantology)

Reblogged because I couldn’t not reblog it.

Feb
6th

Sat

pedestrian crossing (via Mightyhorse)

thisistheglamorous:

Make your own here.

(h/t davislove)

Hmmm… wasn’t it the ever-loving Jesus who sicced bears on some wicked children?

(Still, hilarious.)

I’m just going to go on and assume that this is caused by masturbatory googling.

Would that be “oogling”? As in a cross between ogling and Googling.

Edit: Actually, I’m just going to take this as a hint that I should learn to spell the name of one of the most recognised women in the world.

Le sigh.

nevver:

Pop Sensation

Wait, someone killed Hillary Clinton?

Having a single focal length forces discipline in framing. Having massive depth of field should make you pay more attention to composition. Consider that much of the time, the “isolation” people seek from fast SLR lenses is really a dodge against what is or is not sitting behind the subject.

—

Dante Stella

I think using a zoom is harder than a prime lens. It adds yet another variable to the whole process. Some day I might be good enough a photographer to effectively employ a zoom for concerts, for example. Otherwise, I prefer primes. I’m no prime snob but there are several reasons why I like them better in general.

But, really, it was the second part of the quote that made me post this. Thin depth of field is often a dodge, as Stella says. Not always and sometimes it’s an effective tool but to me it’s sometimes simply an unwanted side effect.