New content added to the web site

Wow! I finally got around to doing it!

Been so busy over the summer, with my day job and weekend work shooting weddings and such that I haven’t added anything to either this blog or the web site in quite some time. Well, today that changed.

I’ve added a new section to the site which features some of my Photoshop work. I called it Before and After, because it features a selection of images showing the original photos and how they looked when finished. A slider overlay lets you compare the two on top of each other. Pretty nifty. I may expand this section, as there are many good photographers, and there are many good Photoshop artists, but for some reason the two skill sets come together rarely. I think I may be on to something here, especially when I also have the skills to put finished artwork on to a wall mural, car decal or coffee table photo book. Which brings me nicely to the second thing I added today…

I’ve added a selection of photos from a wedding I shot in June (thanks to Aaron and Kat for their permission) to a new page in the Photography section, which can be found HERE. Click any image to see it closer. I shot over 700 photos that day, and as you can imagine they took some time to work through. These are some of my personal favourites. I also made a photo book for the happy couple, and hard and soft covers are available for viewing or purchase using the links below. When I gave the newly-weds their hardcover photo book I also presented them with a framed 16 x 20 poster of them walking smiling back down the aisle. The poster has already been given pride of place on their main wall. I know, because they sent me a photo of it.

It’s been a busy summer. Nice to have time to get back to what passes for normal around here. Now, I probably should get to work on my own wedding photos, it’s only four weeks to our first anniversary…

Hardcover: http://blur.by/1uoN5p8     |     Softcover: http://blur.by/1qFZeCs

Yuk It Up, Go On…

OK, so who wants to laugh at this ageing techie?

I decided that yesterday would be the day I gave my 32Gb iPhone a much needed clean up. With less than 1Gb free space remaining, I need to give myself some breathing space. So, I import all the photos and videos from the iPhone  into a ‘dump’ folder I made on my desktop, which I use for just such purposes, then I wiped the phone. OK so far. 15Gb now free and hundreds of photos and videos to wade through later.

Then, two days later, I find that somehow that dump folder does not contain all the things I copied over from the iPhone. Not sure how it happened. These are personal files, just snaps for the most part, so I wasn’t perhaps as careful as I should have been. Whatever happened, the end result is that none of the videos and many of the photos were simply not there. I’m not going to blame the computer. I’m going to blame the user. Whatever I did, it was what my geek friends and I would term an epic fail. Still, I’m not beaten yet. Far from it. We have plans for this scenario.

phoneSituation: The iPhone is empty. None of my iPhone backups have that material, because I cleared those out as well during my purge. Well, I don’t need it any more, right? I have copied everything to the computer for safe keeping! Except…the desktop folder doesn’t have it and, of course, like a good little techie I have emptied my recycle bin. Bum. I’m still not beaten yet!

Good job I have File History configured and turned on… I am going to thank myself for being sensible enough to use this fantastic feature, and be grateful to Microsoft for adding it to every version of Windows since version 7. With File History, your documents, desktop files, Libraries and any other folders you want are monitored and backed up to a location of your choice. More, any changes to those files are also backed up. What does that mean? Imagine you wrote an essay or a spreadsheet, then made changes and wanted to go back seven versions to the original draft or layout. That’s why it is called File History. You can keep as many versions as you want, automatically. So…

I just rolled back a couple of days and found the original files that were on the desktop immediately after I imported them from the phone. All the photos and all of the videos are there, happily waiting to be restored to their original location. Two clicks and two minutes later, I’m sitting watching one of the videos that would otherwise have been gone forever. Nothing missing. No damage. No harm, no foul. In this instance, Microsoft came through and delivered exactly what they promised, right when it was needed. They don’t get enough praise for that. So from me to Microsoft, well played, Microsoft, well played indeed.

Time to go. I have a whole bunch of photos and videos to wade through.