10,000 Views!

Krakow suburbs in the dark
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I've finally passed 10,000 views on my flickr photostream - a fact about which I am inordinately proud. Of course, I've seen some people with 10,000 views on a single photograph, but I'm pretty happy all the same.

I've also found a wonderful little website for keeping track of what you've read and who's read what: Library Thing. Notice the little widget to the left of the screen? This is one of the things you get with LT, and frankly I love it. I've taken so many ideas from the site as to what I should read next, all I have to do now is actually read something instead of spending all day on the internet.

And on Thursday, I'm coming home, back to Blighty. I'm excited, more than I thought I would be.

In ur flickr account deleting ur photos

Man in a suit sleeping on rocks
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I've finished purging my flickr photostream of the unworthies.

All I need to do now is go through the various sets I'd made and reorganise them - for instance, I've only a few photos left from Prague so there isn't much point in having a "Czech Republic" set. I'm really happy that I've spent the time going through my whole entire photostream - it brought back a lot of good memories of some great times and wonderful places - and more than that, it's made me realise that my skills as a photographer have improved immensely in the last four or so years. Let's hope the trend continues.

Oh, and the final tally? 925 photos remaining, so I've deleted nearly half of what was there. And the best thing? It's my weekend as of nine o'clock tonight, so I'll be able to spend the next three days burning a hole in my memory card ready to upload a whole bunch on Monday.

Signal Versus Noise

St Mary's through the trees
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I was looking through my Flickr photostream recently, and I was amazed at the amount of crap I've uploaded. I actually kind of feel sorry for those poor souls out there who have attempted to navigate their way through the detritus of the digital age.

At the weekend, I had clear past 1700 photos online, which is fine if they're good or they mean something, but in most instances they don't. So I'm having a good clean through. I want to achieve two things - get rid of the bad and unnecessary, and make sure everything is titled. No more "jai001" and so forth.

I've also realised something very important - the act of taking photographs has been a lot more pleasurable over the last few years than actually looking at the results. I'm hoping that by the end of the week (or the start of the next) the pictures I have left online will be the cream of the crop and will go some way to capturing the joy I felt when I clicked the shutter release.

I'm down to 1471 photos so far - so that's nearly 300 erased, and thankfully so.

The sun sets on the tramline by the Nowa Huta steelworks

The sun sets on the tramline by the Nowa Huta steelworks
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

This photo is quickly becoming one of my favourites, and also one of the most popular on my flickr photostream. It's the kind of photo that makes me think I should be more selective about what I upload and share - or in other words, that I should be more careful about my signal to noise ration. I'm quite tempted to spend a couple of hours at the weekend going through my older sets and deleting a lot of the photos that have never been looked at, or simply aren't that good. It's better to have two or three good photos, I should think, on their own, rather than in a group of twenty that you have to look through.

I'm trying to decide what to do this weekend. There's a good possibility that I might be going to the Wielicka saltmines with some of last months' celta students, which should be interesting. It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and therefore worthy of at least a couple of hours of my time. Might be expensive though - certainly more so than the trip to Nowa Huta which only set me back about 5 zloty's tram fare.

Three in Explore

Waiting for the tram
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I'm very happy. This photo just made it onto Explore over at flickr. Very few of my photos have been so successful - the other two that make up the complement of my work there are from the India trip two years ago. Go me!

I'm also up to 87 different photos being "favourited" by the flickr community, which makes me very proud. The one of Oscar flying through the air is up to 10 favourites and is my most popular shot, even though a lot of people don't seem to really like the image itself. But then, it is a photo of Oscar, so what's not to love?

Tram number 15, Nowa Huta

Tram number 15, Nowa Huta
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

This could well be my favourite shot of all those I've taken since coming to Krakow. I'm quite pleased with myself for having taken it, but at the same time a lot of credit goes to the immense amount of pollution around the steelmill where this photo was taken.

As I was walking back along the tramline I noticed my photographing exploits were not meeting with much admiration from truck drivers and other passers-by. In fact, on several occasions I'd just about steadied myself for a shot when there would be a loud horn blown practically in my face by a passing truck. I later learnt that the part of Krakow I was venturing around isn't frequented very often by tourists, and that the best word to describe the locale is "dodgy". Oh well, I at least got some good photographs out of it.

What picasa sees

What picasa sees
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I can't believe I've picked up some sensor dirt again already. Well, actually, I can very well believe it, considering that I changed lenses out in the middle of nowhere (Nowa Huta) on the side of a most polluted road by the most polluting steelworks. Still, the photos were good so it was worth it.

I can't believe I spent so long happily breathing in this muck. I'm surprised I can breathe at all now. I should have worn one of those Chinese face masks. Thank you picasa, thank you so very much for showing me what was in that cloud of smoke that poured so incessantly from the steel mill smoke stack.

I saw Casino Royale the other day, and now I want to see it again. It was as excellent a film as I could possibly have hoped, and far more excellent than anything since Goldeneye. Parts of it were just brutal, and that's what I think Bond needed to become - brutal. Just like in the book Fleming wrote half a century or so ago.

Organising Flickr

Sammy ponders life in Miami
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I've really grown into Flickr in a big way. So much so in fact that I've deleted all of my South America pictures from my photostream, in order to go back over all of them and edit and crop them so that they're just right. Then I'll be able to share just my best photographs rather than a million competent ones, which will be much better.
I'm also getting ready to move again - this time to Poland for a month to do the CELTA. Turns out I've been mispronouncing the name of the course, saying it with a hard "c" rather than the "c" in "celeron." Oh well.

Photos, Photos

spiderlike2
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

My new macro lens finally arrived today. I took it out with me after work and in the space of 16 minutes (I checked the date stamps on the files) I managed to take 114 photographs. Now obviously you haven't got time to look at 114 photographs but I have gone to the trouble of uploading some of them so if you don't mind...

And in case you're wondering, the lens is a Sigma 50mm macro, and it is beautiful. I should take a photo of it sometime, it's that great. It has this little gold band at the top by the lens cap, and it feels weighty and substantial like it means something. It is easily the best lens I've got, even though it cost as much as a good compact camera (ouch). I love macro photography, so it'll get enough use to justify its pricetag - by the end of the week I should think.

Getting Flickr'd

A monumental view of Helsinki's cathedral
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I'm slowly getting up-to-date with my travels on Flickr. With any luck I'll have all my photos uploaded by the time I head off down to South America.
I'm loving my new Nikon D50 like you wouldn't believe (unless you're from Dixons in which case you'll probably be sick of hearing about it). I took 170 photos today alone, all of them of Hector and Oscar in the paddling pool. Maybe one or two of those will be worth showing, and given time they'll be on flickr too, but the priority still lies with the pictures. Check them out.