I duly obliged and send them a link to my Flickr set and told them to take any they wanted and so now I’ve got some photos in the Thanet Extra! There are some published on an online article (with an odd gallery widget) which you’ll have to click through to get to my photos, but rather impressively they are in the print edition too (15/1/10 edition).

Don’t worry if you haven’t got this week’s Thanet Extra as you can view it online here.

The pages with my photos are:

Page 2 pdf (original photo)

Page 3 (original photo)

page 5 pdf (original photo)

One of my ‘Targets for 2010‘ was:

5. Take more photographs - and ones that other people may find interesting

And I think that having some photos in the local paper constitutes some fulfillment of that target. I’ve set the bar high now so will have to see if I can get any more photos published throughout the year.

This was the cue to all the children to come out and play.

Today we’ve had no more snow and some of the snow is now either thawing a bit, turning into slush, or turning into ice. I had to go into Ramsgate town this morning for a dental check-up and so I took my camera along too.

If you want to see more photos then click here to go to my Flickr set.

Tom posted a list of ‘Targets for 2010‘, and clearly defined them as “not new year’s resolutions” which is probably the way to go as I would say that New Year’s Resolutions usually have some negativety attached to them rather than being something positive to aspire to e.g. Give up sweets, drink less alcohol, etc.

So I might as well put a few targets on here, and see if I can complete any of them, and just like Tom I’ll try and keep you updated as at least I can always come back to this post as a reference.

1. Decorate spare room – I have a room that is currently storing junk, but which needs to be fully decorated (plastered, painted, carpeted, etc).

2. Pay off credit cards – I’ve currently got £2439.30 on my credit cards which is mostly debt I racked up whilst renovating the house having spent the majority of my savings on my deposit (plus some other bits). It is interest free until May, so I’ll try and get rid of some of it and then find another interest free card to transfer over to.

3.Lose a substantial amount of weight – OK, this is always in there. We know what needs to be done, so just do it.

4. Cycle to work at least once a week – I like cycling, I am only 2.3 miles from work, so I should cycle more. Yet again it’s that simple.

5. Take more photographs - and ones that other people may find interesting.

6. Visit more places - Okay so quite wide-ranging but I now have a ladyfriend who I would like to take to places other than Thanet.

That’s it for now then, and we’ll see how things go.

Check-in/Security Cabins

Check-in signs

These signs haven’t been put -up yet, and so there is no indication for when the service will start, but are a good sign (excuse the pun)  that the port is getting prepared for that time. You can see a few more photos here.

Tungsten white balance used to get bluer effect

cropped a little closer to get more detail

A slightly redder effect on this one

The lens with the best magnification I’ve got is my Canon 70-300mm IS USM lens, and at maximum zoom the camera needs to be on tripod and triggered automatically. I haven’t got around to buying a remote for my Canon EOS 450D (on my shopping list for a long time) so I was using the timer function instead. Lastly I had to use a quick shutter speed, 1/1000 of a second in this instance as the moon is extremely bright and you will just get a glowing circle if you use the automatic settings, instead of being able to see some detail.

At the end of the day this is a camera I’m using and not a telescope but I’m happy with the level of detail seen. I’ve got a few more moon photos here if you’re interested.

Keith Loutit is a Sydney based photographer who employs this technique on his videos and they truly do look just like model miniatures. Here is a selection of some of his work from his ‘Bathtub’ series focusing around the Sydney ports:

Bathtub II

Bathtub V

If you want to make your own tilt-shift/smallgantics video and have Adobe After Effects then this tutorial will help you out a great deal with step-by-step instructions.

It won’t work with just any old photo but when it does work then I think the results are pretty good and really do look like snapshots of miniature model worlds.

Here’s some of my photos and I would suggest you click on them and view them full-size.

Model of Deal Pier

Model of Maritime Museum, Ramsgate

Model of boat on Vltava River, Prague, Czech Republic

Model of Canary Wharf, London

Model of Viking Bay, Broadstairs

The good thing was that there were loads of bands and artists to photograph and I got a few good photos. Nothing amazing but I was happy with them, and will do for promotion for next year’s Ball.

Arcadian Kicks performing at the Summer Ball

You can see more photos here (over 300 so only if you have time!) and you can see the video below.

Enjoying the sunshine

Still enjoying the sun

Sitting on my newly flowered Sage plant

It wasn’t just the butterflies that were enjoying the Sage though as the Bees were out too collecting nectar from the flowering Sage plant.

A bee collecting nectar from a flowering Sage plant

For a few more photos I took of the butterflies and bees head over to my flickr set.