Analogue Photography and why I love it
Today, 90% of all cameras sold are digital. They have millions of pixels, and m ore functions that you could possibly want.
Why then is my favourite camera at the minute a piece of plastic that looks like you should be giving it to your 6 year old?
Well, because it’s a Holga.
Holgas have developed somewhat of a cult following over the last 10 years, particularly since the Lomographic Society begun marketing them. They are a VERY cheaply made camera, with a simple plastic lens, and plastic construction that doesn’t even fit together all that well. What this gives you is light leaks galore, and some of the most wonderful vignetting and soft-focus pictures you could hope to come across. I bought mine last year, and only recently have I started to get into it. I scanned a couple of rolls into the computer last weekend, and the following are a couple of exaples of what you can do with a Holga:
The photo on the left is a double exposure shot, and the right hand picture shows both the vignetting and light leaks characteristic of the Holga.
I could get neither of those effects with a regular digital camera. THAT is why I will ALWAYS be a film photographer as well as digital!
I love technology
I got an Android phone a couple of months ago and I’m still learning all the cool stuff you can do. Like post to my blog while on the bus to work!
Gone a while
So, I haven’t posted an update in some time.
This is due to many things – primarily because my host had a crazy database crash and totally lost the site. Fortunately I had a backup so I could restore the 6 posts…!
The last year has been a bit of a crazy one for me. I got a job which I thought was going to be awesome, and it was. Unfortunately a certain member of staff thought they could do my job better than I could and made it their life’s work to make my job hard. This led to me deciding that management (at least for this company) was not really my favourite thing in the world, and I was just going to go back to being a peon. This has in turn, led to me becming a lot happier, partly due to the fact that I am leaving my current position and taking a job with my boss from 3 years ago, who has the need for another pharmacist. This should lead to a much happier Jon, and more time to do random things like update the blog!
Told you I was a nerd….
Yesterday I picked up The Star Trek Original Series 1 on Blu-Ray for $40 from the Warehouse! Considering it’s listed on Amazon UK for GBP 50 I think that’s an absolute bargain! There’s some excellent extra features on there too, as well as remastered Hi-Def goodness of course! 
The Christmas rush
This has certainly been a strange year..
Normally by the 16th of December I would be calling for the general public to be beheaded en masse as they clamour for months worth of prescriptions they don’t need, as they are not going away, and we’re not closed for Christmas. This year however, that hasn’t happened….
I can’t for the life of me work out whether it’s because the years of trying to get through has finally worked (I doubt it) or whether the general decline in retail has caused less people to be around in the shop. We’re still doing the same number of prescriptions as we ever have, but things just seem that little bi different this year…
It remains to be seen whether I still think that in 2 weeks time however!
New Star Trek Movie
Whitcoull’s had a sale on Blu-Ray last week, and as I recently got a PS3, I thought I’d treat myself to the new Star Trek film on BD. We watched it last night, and I had a few thoughts.
Firstly, I was blown away that it was actually pretty damn good! I thought it was very well written and acted, especially as I really can’t stand ‘Lost’. There was just enough of a nod to the old-school Trek to make even the most die-hard Trekker happy.
The effects didn’t seem at all incongruous to the rest of the film, an inherent potential problem with any film of this genre, APART from <Spoiler Alert> the bit on Delta Vega where the big insect thing chases after Kirk – it just, for me, didn’t look quite right.
My major gripe was that they reduced Scotty to a comic character, akin to Reg Barclay in TNG. Simon Pegg is a much better actor than that, and I can only hope they flesh out his character more in future films, and use him in as much of a supporting role as the original Scotty. Along with that, the way that old Spock gave Scotty the Trans-warp beaming equation was eerily similar to the way Scotty gave the formula for Tri-aluminium to a guy in ‘The Voyage Home’……
Zachary Quinto IS Spock! He looks remarkably similar, and he’s got Leonard Nimoy’s air of quiet detachment about him too – I whole-heartedly approve of this casting!
Overall I thought it was very good, and I’m really looking forward to hearing of another in the pipeline. Even Catie liked it (not that she’d admit it to anyone!)
For the Win
Crumpets
Why do they always go mouldy so quickly?
We bought some last Sunday and had one each, leaving 4 in the packet. We went to have the rest on Tuesday night, only to find they had gone mouldy, WELL before the best before date!
What is it about crumpets that makes them always do that? Is there some special mould growing ingredient added into the mix?!!
Website relaunch!
After this site has been through various incarnations of a blog about my thoughts on emigration, and a photoblog, I’ve decided to go back to a bog-standard boring old blog, of which there are zillions out there.
I’m going to attempt to post at least every other day with random thoughts about anything and everything, including, but not limited to, work, games, music, movies, food and drink!
I’m sure no-one will read it, but it’s an outlet for my extremely small creative side!
Stay tuned!
