Churchill Still Walks In Parliament Square

Churchill Still Walks In Parliament Square, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Its easy to forget we are a country at War ,but walking down to Parliament Square in the heart of London, the seat of British power, reminded me. See my blog Tom's Mog for more on my thoughts on A Country At War

Postcards From London Series #3

*Samsung EX1 - 3 shot HDR (-1, 0, +1 EV)

The articulated screen/viewfinder on the EX1 came in handy again for this shot. Parliament Square is currently cordoned off with high fences so this shot is taken with my arm held up as high as possible to get a good viw over the fence. I can also use my monopod to get an even higher 'ground based aerial view' :-)

The very bright F1.8 Schneider-Kreuznach lens in the EX1 is excellent for bright light shots at ISO200 and gives a great level of detail and density from a relatively small 10 megapixel 1/1.7” CCD sensor. I feel I'm getting results from the 3 shot HDRs that are comparable to those taken using my 15 megapixel APS-C sensor Pentax K20D DSLR.

All in all a great result from this small easy to carry around 'enthusiast compact'. I am well pleased with my investment especially as it cost a lot less at 250GBP than a DSLR lens alone would cost me.

It can also shoot in RAW and I have done some experimenting in that regard but these shots are all done by combining 3 10mp 'superfine' jpegs. Excellent results from single RAW files also once you get the hang of the bundled Samsung RAW Converter software, although I still prefer using Adobe Camera RAW within Photoshop CS5.

Churchill Still Walks In Parliament Square but no one else can... Tom's Mog

Field of Pink

Field of Pink, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

"Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells"
— Pink Floyd Time (Breathe Reprise)

Postcards From London Series #2

*Samsung EX1 - 3 shot HDR (-1, 0, +1 EV)

Lovely 24mm wide angle view - the moveable and wonderfully bright AMOLED display on the EX1 makes it so easy to take low angle shots without bending over or getting down on the ground. I have always avoided compact digital cameras due to the lack of viewfinder but find this articulated display is giving me even more creative possibilities. The bracket function also makes it real easy to take three different exposure shots with just one press of the shutter. I then take these and combine them in Photoshop CS5 using the HDR Pro function.

More on the Samsung EX1 (TL500 in the US) and the process I use to make my Flickr photos coming soon.

Enjoy the springtime :-)

Large Benjamin

Large Benjamin, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

Just purchased a Samsung EX1 as a go anywhere compact camera for when I don't want to lug around my DSLR. So far I am very impressed... here is one of the first images I have shot with the EX1

Bud Light

Bud Light, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

Spring is sprung...

Broadband Dreaming

Broadband Dreaming, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

Is New Zealand destined to be but a sleepy backwater on the global information highway?

After 6 years here I'm just about fed up with the dire straits of the internet connectivity and the price of it here in this third world country that masquerades as a first world country. It's just soooo slooow and sooo expensive!! On top of that the Telecom NZ monopoly keeps having major outages of its new 3G GSM mobile network XT and its broadband (sic) offerings are laughable. I don't think it would be considered 'Broadband' Internet anywhere else but here and we pay dearly for speeds that are often not much faster than dial-up... and we have to pay per Mb/Gb... with data caps!!.

Sorry to harp on but I'm just fed up with the awful internet infrastructure here. I have been personally involved in trying to get it improved and get the government to invest directly and also create incentives for the telcos to invest in modern telecommunications/internet infrastructure... but it just gets worse, especially with increased usage of aging and creaking systems. There is hope and Fibre To The Door is coming... hopefully it won't take another 10 years to get it here.

So come on New Zealand get you act together or be forever relegated to a sleepy backwater on our greenblue planet, a nature tourism theme park you only come to when you want to be cut off totally from the rest of the planet!

...Thats my bitch and moan for today, forgive me :-))

ps: My photos travel to you over the telephone wires in this picture...

Best Viewed Large On Black

• Available high res and unframed at tomraven.com
• Prints, Cards and Posters available at RavenRedBubble

The Poetry of Clouds

The Poetry of Clouds, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

This image was created using a wordcloud generated at www.wordle.net/gallery?username=TomRaven using all my poetry of the last couple of years. The background is from a wonderful sunset cloudscape from the other evening.

Many thanks to Katie-Rose for turning me on to Wordle... I'm having loads of fun :-)))

A Wordle word cloud of my poetry.... cool :-))