Chez Spud » Nikon

Nikon stash for sale

spudballoo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:46:47 +0000

Bertie Showing us how Buster Pants, originally uploaded by Busters Mum.

Love that photo above, taken by my Dad’s wife. Love how Bertie is trying to impress us with his impression of their dog panting…meanwhile I’m ignoring him and taking photos of the dog….and Trudy has focused on me, not Bertie, in this shot. WAAAAH! Poor Bertie…

Roll up roll up Nikon gals…I’m selling my D70, my Tokina 11-16 2.8 (aka the SOOOOOOOOOOOOOPER wide) and my Nikon 18-200 VR 3.5-5.6 (aka the ultimate walkaround lens, it’s wide, it’s zoomy, it’s toptastic).

Any takers? Email me! Probably one for the Brits/Europeans in terms of postage costs and possible customs costs.

Bring on the D700! Yippee for new kit! Nikon of course…what else?

London Calling

spudballoo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:28:07 +0000

Giddy. That’s what I’ve been all day, giddy. I went to London. On a trip. On my own with no husbands or children or pigs or pigs ‘n’ wigs or anything. And it was absolutely blissful. I spent the day with my ‘wife’, BFF and brilliant photographer Lyanne; we went to an exhibition, we walked miles in hurty shoes, we took thousands of photos, we had lunch, there might have been wine, we giggled, we gossiped, ears must have been burning…hell, some of them must have been SMOKING. She taunted me with her shiny new 3G iphone and I tried hard not to collapse in a rage of jealousy. It’s been a rough week Chez Spud but I feel so much skippier now (it’s a word), and all nicely buoyed up for my cheeky little jaunt to Paris next week.

I could witter on but I thought I’d do the day in pictures. There are a LOT, so if photography’s not your thing..move along…nothing to see here…see you tomorrow for another treasure.

Here I am at the station REALLY living dangerously. Look! Little Miss Goodie Two shoes has a foot (only one mind) OVER THE YELLOW LINE!! Note to self; those chucks are nowhere near as comfortable as you think they are. Relegate to ‘only wear when in a very good mood’ pile. This one is an iphone/camerabag photo:

Hoorah, here we are in London Town. A camerabag photo of the station roof:

First on the agenda was a trip to the National Portrait Gallery, and a twirl round the BP Portrait Award 2009 (we were stalked around the gallery by a museum ‘bouncer’ after getting a bit too close to a few of the paintings…Julockha are you reading this?) and the brilliant, brilliant Gay Icons exhibition. Alas no photos allowed but you can imagine: gallery, people, whispering etc.

Next we hit Trafalgar Square to watch the One & Other ‘exhibition’ which is too bizarre to describe meaningfully. Click the link to see it happening live! 24 hours a day, for 100 days, ordinary Brits are spending an hour up on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square doing ‘art’. We saw a man flying coloured paper airplanes out to the crowd. It wasn’t that interesting and my photos were awful. So I started taking photos of the wife instead:

Oh and she started taking photos of me. Who needs ‘art’ when you can take photos of your buddies?

Right around now we had a debate about the relative merits of matrix metering and spot metering. Because we are THAT clever. Conclusion? Spot metering is crap. Just in case you needed to know.

Things took an unfortunate turn when we stalked a photographer with some serious gear, only to find it was a Canon. Argh, soul…troubled…eyes…bleeding. We so we hoofed it from Trafalgar Square which was then sullied for us, we shall not speak of it again, and made haste to the South Bank.

And look! Something very strange had happened to the trees along the South Bank. More ‘art’:

A few yards on we found yet MORE street art, a photobooth. In we jumped, wrote a few words about ‘our time on the South Bank’ had our photo snapped and it was uploaded to Flickr immediately. Cool. Cooler…it was wine o’clock lunchtime.

After lunch we shambled up to the Hayward Gallery but didn’t make it in to the gallery, we were too entranced by the fabulous, newly painted bright yellow staircase. I’m not a big fan of concrete constructions but Lyanne adores brutalist architecture. I have to indulge her because, well, she’s my wife and that’s what you do. But the yellow was surprisingly appealing:

Not content with oohing and arrrring over it. We got in it! And then we took pictures of ourselves in it. Lyanne took pictures of me:

And I took pictures of Lyanne:

And after that things degenerated somewhat…

Oh no. And now what is she up to? What the HELL is she doing up there? Ah, right..sing along…near..far…wherever you are…

I recovered myself enough to take my favourite shot of the day, the underside of Waterloo Bridge:

And all too soon it was time to make the trek back to The Country, and my boys. The littlest of whom ran at me on my return and clung to my legs declaring, seriously, ‘Oh Mummy. I lost you!’. Final snap, a camerabag offering again, is the bridge over the tracks at my local station. I liked the pattern of the light.

Here endeth the lesson! And CHEERS to anyone that made it this far xxx

A place of reflection

spudballoo — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:10:13 +0000

Playing along with Jane of Spain Daily, and her Corner View. This week it’s ‘A Place of Reflection’.

Controversially, I snapped this with my old Sony P&S. The Nikon is thus sulking and pretending not to care, but I can tell that she’s hurting inside. Don’t worry trusty Nikon, it was a spontaneous shot..I was pig feeding…making them talk to Extranjera re wig preferences…pig whispering if you like? Then I spotted ‘the shot’, what’s a girl to do but point & shoot? Don’t be hurt, I still love you the most…fret not..it’s me not you..kiss and make up?

This is my office. If I was remotely creative I’d call it my studio, damn I wish I was creative. But it’s definitely a place of reflection both figuratively and, because of all the glass, literally. The desk is in the corner pointing away from the fabulous view down the fields. When I sit on the sofa to ‘do some reading’ I inevitably end up doing nothing, just watching the world go by. Although that seems to involve watching foxes pick off baby bunnies at the moment, sob.

I’m off to soothe the Nikon somemore. Nikon whispering…

Edited to add more photos, none of the inside, it’s REALLY boring! Think, peach swirly wallpaper. Hmm, redecorate?

At the bottom of the garden..office to the right

On the day it was installed...looking rather bare!

Edited again…Nikon wanted to show what she can do…clearly feeling threatened by the Sony P&S. Sheesh, talk about insecure…

Nikon has the final word