I'm afraid to say it....

Knowing what sometimes befalls a person when they make bold statements about things so I cringe when I think that I about to let this phrase loose on the world...

I think spring is here in England.

Flowers out all over the place, birds that have been gone are back (big babies, tough it out like the rest of us I say) and a general warmth that has been lacking is slowly creeping back into the ground. I do enjoy spring....

Amazing Macro Photos

Many of you know I have had a hand in running the Online Visual Artists Forum for awhile. One of the things we're doing over there is running bi-monthly themed contests with an open entry for members (yet another free service we provide you). You can see the last competition's winners on the front page and I'm amazed at what people can do with pencils and paint.

Now since I'm one of the "powers that be" I don't enter the competitions, but you have got to check out this current round of entries into the MACRO contest. Last count there were over 80 fantastic entries and my guess is that it will top 100 by the deadline of 31JULY.

So jump on over and take a look and feel free to cast your vote!

Boys and Their Toys

"Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

I am incredibly fortunate to have the above line apply to my line of work. I enjoy what I do. I like the travel, the people, the events I document.

I also love one of the benefits: gear, kit, tools... toys.

One of my latest acquisitions is a Canon 40D digital camera body. Back are some of my favorite functions from when I lived in the "F" world (F for film of course) such as spot metering and more frames-per-second but also an innovation for the digital SLR world: live view.

Simply put, I can now see through the lens on a nice bright 3.0 inch screen on the back of the camera which lends itself quite nicely for macro photography when your camera is in an odd position such as when I was photographing the read/write heads of a crashed hard drive. When hooked up to my computer I can even remotely locate the camera while watching what is before the lens on my screen. I can see some fun and exciting bird and (hopefully) wild mammal images in my future.

Love my job, love my job, love my job....

~James