Photo Credit: “Hey DJ” by Thomas Hawk

Due to work and other commitments it’s been a while since I last posted here. In the meantime my RSS client periodically trawled the great ocean of the Internet and landed a rather decent catch of prime linkage. So, without further ado, I present a link anthology - the very best that’s passed before my radar over the last week or so. Continue Reading…

Photo Credit: “404 sign, Love Hotel, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan” by gruntzooki

After reading Ian Lloyd’s The Perfect 404, I’ve revamped my “Not Found” error page to be a little bit more useful because, as Lloyd writes, “a user-friendly website will give you a helping hand.” Previously my 404 page simply stated that an error had occured and offered links to the home-page and archives. I knew I could do better than that! Continue Reading…

I must confess that I am an addict. I have become addicted to creating computer-generated images. Having recently posted about Processing and Oxidizer, I have found another image generator called “Context Free.”

Context Free “is a program that generates images from written instructions called a grammar. The program follows the instructions in a few seconds to create images that can contain millions of shapes.”

Creating images with the software is a piece of cake. One can download from a gallery of “grammar” files or create your own scripts. Downloaded scripts can have their output modified by entering a three-character code into the Context Free application, leading to millions of permutations of the work.

It’s a fascinating program to play around with and some of the output is simply stunning.

Best of all — the software is free, open-source and is available for Windows, OS X and various flavours of Unix.

The promise of advanced fabrication technology that can copy itself is a truly remarkable concept with far reaching implications.

Continue Reading…

Having read Smashing Magazine’s recent article, “35 Phenomenal Fractal Art Pictures” and being stunned by the images presented within, I wanted to have a go at creating my own fractal flame image.

A quick Google led me to the free OS X software, Oxidizer. A few minutes of experimenting and I was soon creating great fractal images of my own.

It’s great fun and I highly recommend you give it go. Post your best images in the comments.

Photo Credit: “Last Days of Autumn” by don2g

It’s that time of year when the trees turn golden, the sun stays close to the horizon and the early morning mist rolls down off the hills. That’s right folks, autumn is here again (fall for our American friends). The days are getting shorter and the nights longer and you’re likely to spend more time indoors than out.

In short, it’s the perfect time to “reboot” your weblog with a new design or feature set. Why not take inspiration from nature’s glorious autumnal colours and refresh your website. To help you along the way, I’ve put together this little list of website design “thingies” that you might want to integrate into an autumn reboot.
Continue Reading…

On June 21st 2008 my sister, Rachael, married her husband, Darren — and I was given the great honour of photographing their wedding. Today, following months of getting to grips with Apple’s Aperture 2 and Adobe’s Photoshop CS3, I am delighted to present a selection of my favourite photographs from that day.

All photos were taken with my Nikon D80 DSLR camera. The lenses used were the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D and the Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S DX. I also used the Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash unit both on-camera and as a remote slave. I shot exclusively in RAW and post-processed all photos with Aperture on my Apple Power Mac G5. A handful of photos were further processed in Photoshop for various effects. Click any photograph to view an enlargement.

We begin with the obligatory portrait of Rachael taken once the hairdresser had finished doing her thing. Doesn’t she look gorgeous?
Continue Reading…

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