Well I've managed to get well and truly behind with this blog and the website that it partners.
I decided at the start of the year to make a pictorial website based on my home town of Urmston and its surrounding areas – Flixton, Davyhulme, Stretford & Salford Quays.
The initial thought was to upload pictures on a weekly basis for 1 year so that people who were interested could see the area through the 4 seasons of the year.
At the outset I figured it would take maybe a day or a day and a half per week to create and maintain. In the event it's literally taken over my life and is swallowing up nearly all my time.
However on the upside I'm hoping that the lessons learned will be utilized on my Boland Free Images website.
After taking a month to add an additional navigation menu to the right hand side of Urmston Manchester.com I took a break on Sunday and went walking with one of my local walking clubs.
I am also a member of a National walking club so if you're not handy for my local area and are looking for a good well organized club then please feel free to check out FOOTPRINTS Walking Club – as you will notice if you go to the website the club is divided into Northern & Southern events
Lightroom 3 – How to Import Your
Images From A Memory Card
Lightroom 3 can be used to take the images from your memory card and copy them onto your hard drive while at the same time entering relevant data about each image into your Lightroom 3 catalogue. You can simultaneously copy the images to a second storage place (an external drive for example) as back up and this way your images are doubly protected.
At the top of your Lightroom 3 interface you can see the 5 modules – Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web. For this procedure you'll be working in the Library module.
On each side of the interface there is a left and right panel. It's in these panel's that you are offered various options to apply to your images as you import them.
When you enter a memory card into your computerLightroom 3 recognizes it and automatically opens with all the images checked (default setting). If you're working elsewhere in Lightroom 3 and want to start an import then you would click on the IMPORT button found bottom left.
You can uncheck or check all the images using the CHECK and UNCHECK buttons, again lower left, or just check those images that you deem good enough to import.
Lightroom 3 – The Right Hand Panel
Once you have made your selection you can then move over to the right hand panel and decide which options you would like to choose.
You'll notice that amongst these options are File Handling, File Renaming, Apply During Import and Destination. The nice thing about these options is that you can expand them or fold them away simply by clicking on the option title or arrowhead beside it, thereby giving your interface a nice uncluttered look.
El Camino Del Rey – The Scariest Walk In The World
As many of you know I belong to a couple of local Walking Clubs and try and get out with them once or twice a month to recharge the batteries and just try and get some clean air into my lungs. Apart from the exercise and beautiful views of course I do my best to try and capture some of the UK's best scenic views on my camera.
I've only been a club member for about a year and a half but have been collecting photographs of British towns and cities for 5 or 6 years. I always had the intention right from the start to record these pictures in Blog or Website format and make them freely available to anyone who'd like to use them.
Course like everything else related to IT everything seems to take longer than anticipated (for me at least) so it's only recently that I've started to build the structure for these sites and start to populate them with original content.
A short while ago I came across the above video on YouTube and I have to say it made me feel quite sick and light-headed just to watch it, however it certainly has a fascination of its own – I suppose a bit like we all like to be scared by a good thriller or horror movie.
The first version of the video that I found was a copy of this original so at the time I had no idea, where in the world this scary pathway is. Last night I was out with a walking buddy called Harvey and we were sat in a pub and I described this video to him. He told me that it sounded from my explanation very like a path he had personally negotiated in Southern Spain. I have to say that my estimation of Harvey went up to almost hero-worship level to think he had actually traversed this daunting path.
So today I got to digging around and of course found the original version of El Camino Del Rey (translation: The King's Little Pathway) made by a guy called Daniel Ahnen, dated 28th 12 2009 and a location of, El Chorro. Andalusia Spain.
For his description he interestingly uses the words of John F Kennedy
"I think all of us must be willing to give some of ourselves to the most exacting discipline of self-government. The magic of politics is not the panoply of office.
The magic of politics is participating on all levels of national life in an affirmative way, of playing a small role in determining whether, in Mr. Faulkner's words, freedom will not only endure, but must also prevail".
One of my first thoughts immediately followed by a zillion others is HOW, WHEN, WHY, why how or when would anyone build such a walkway. You can find the answer on Wikipedia.
Building El Camino Del Rey
It was built in 1901 (hence the delapidation) to facilitate the transportation of materials between two hydroelectric power plants at Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls. The building of the pathway that began in 1901 and defies all sense of gravity and engineering was finished in 1905.
The path was traversed by King Alfonso Xlll which is what gave it its present name.
It's a mere metre wide and rises as high as 100 metres (350 feet) above the river below.
As you can see by Daniel's film it is in a highly dangerous state of disrepair with large gaps and holes in the concrete. The concrete remaining must of course be absolutely suspect (especially to a pie-eating dude like moi) – YIKES!
You can see from the film that the original pathway also included a hand rail which is pretty well all gone now. There is a safety wire that you can see on the film but it's pretty obvious that Daniel Ahnen is moving far to swiftly to be attached to it.
El Camino Del Rey has claimed the lives of several people in recent years so after two fatalities in 1999 and 2000 local government closed both enterances.
Restoring El Camino Del Rey
However the good news for all adrenaline junkies reading this blog is that the provincial government has come up with 8.3 million euros to restore this amazing route.
Work is due to start in the middle of this year (2011) and expected to take about 3 years to complete.
See you up there in the summer of 2014 (I'm the dude wearing the brown trousers!)
Fabulous pictures of El Camino Del Rey by http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabirulo/
I would have to say that Daniel Ahnen and his buddies do amazing feats together. They class themselves as workers that climb and I have to say I love their philosophy of life.
They like to test their limits, physically and mentally and I have to say I am completely in awe of what they do and what they've achieved in this particular field of endeavour.
I did try rock climbing ONCE, many years ago and I would have to say that it was the most frightening experience of my life.
What I like about these boys is that they appreciate that to really grow and experience life to the fullest you have to leave your comfort zoneas often as possible – put yourself on the edge so to speak.
It doesn't really matter how you do this – as long as you do, do it from time to time. Try speaking in front of a group of people, learn to fly, learn a new skill – push the envelope – you'll be glad you did.
Just to finish this El Camino Del Rey – The Scariest Walk In The World I urge you to check out Daniel Ahnen and his buddies at their web site. There is lot's to watch and astound you, of that I guarantee, in fact I lost a couple of hours without trying.
I would absolutely recommend that if nothig else watch the two videos entitled Highlining In Saxony and The Totempole
You can find them here: http://www.youclimb.de/index.php you'll be glad you did. Just a final tip – use the full screen link on all these videos for best appreciation.
Once you get your head around howLightroom 3 actually operates then the whole understanding process becomes a whole lot easier. When I say “How Lighteroom 3 actually operates” I am referring to the process of HOW it actually catalogues your image files and any enhancements that you make to them.
The first thing about this process to understand is that Lightroom 3 does NOTstore hard copies of either your images or your enhanced images in its Catalogue. What it does do is catalogue exactly WHERE on your PC, Mac or external device your original hard file copies are stored. Then when you make enhancements or any changes to an image, it stores those changes in the catalogue, in the file relevant for that particular image, as a set of instructions that need to be carried out to reproduce the image plus any enhancements or changes that you have instructed.
So you may say “Well Big Deal – So What?” Well It means that you can have your images scattered all over your computer and/or external hard drives but your catalogue is in one place and providing any external drives are connected and switched on Lightroom 3 will always be able to find your images easily and quickly.
There is massive savings of hard drive space afforded through this system as a file containing sets of instructions is obviously very small compared to a copy of an image file. You can make copies or duplicates or enhancements of any of your pictures but they are always just files containing sets of instructions on how to produce the image whether it is a print, a slideshow or an html file for the web.
In other words let’s say for example that you take one image but save 10 different variations of that image after enhancing it in 10 different ways. Under normal circumstances that would mean saving the 10 different copies as hard copies somewhere on your hard drive – now that sounds like a whole lot of memory – and that’s just for one image. Comprendez amigos?
Compare that situation to saving 10 separate files of instructions to be attributed 10 different times to one original and you can see that 10 files of instructions is hardly negligible in terms of memory storage.
Another massive advantage of the Lightroom 3 system is that your original is NEVER ever altered in Lightroom 3 so you can feel free to experiment enhancements of your images to your heart’s content without any fear whatsoever of damage occurring to your precious original. Your original file is always protected so you will never lose any of the information that it may contain.
Lightroom 3 – Organizing Your Images/Photos
Using Lightroom 3 you can Import your photos directly from card or camera and copy to your hard drive or drives and also enter them into the Lightroom 3 Catalogue all in one smooth operation.
Organize and managehundreds or even thousands of photographs and enhance them without affecting or altering the originals
Share them with clients and friends and social networks such as Facebook, Flicker and SmugMug etc.
Lightroom 3 helps you to organize and manipulate your photographs in the easiest and quickest way possible leaving you more time to do what you like doing best which is of course taking more pictures.
The beauty of Lightroom3 is that you can use it to enhance your growing library of images and more to the point have a way of finding specific imagesquickly and easily.
This software makes it easy to find that one special image that you need and having found it you can enhance it until its polished up to just the way you’d like it to be.
Remove annoying spots or quickly change contrasts or even convert your images to a stunning black and white.
You can even change one or two images or a whole folder of images by creating a one click setting. Get the all-important information added to each picture with a quick pre-set saving hours of work into the bargain.
Lightroom 3 Time-saving Templates
An absolutely fabulous feature of the Lightroom 3 is that you can completely customize your print layouts and even make print templates with numerous print sizes – build up over time a series of templates – what a time-saver that is.
How about creating fabulous slide shows and adding your own choice of music to them right from within Lightroom 3.
That’s not all, just as you can make great templates for printing how about creating stupendous web galleriesfor your web pages.
As Adobe say, Lightroom 3 is like having your own digital darkroom and assistant in one helping you to manipulate and organize your photographs so much quicker so that you can do more of what you like doing best – taking more pictures.
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The re-union is a big 50 year anniversary – opened for business in September 1961 and closed approx.1991 – renamed St. Anthony's Catholic College. There have been several re-unions of ex-pupils over the years although I must confess that this … Continue reading →
Hi everybody. Just a quick hello and a brief message to tell you what you can expect to find on this blog. Well first of all my name is Michael and I've been thinking of creating this blog for some … Continue reading →
There is massive savings of hard drive space afforded through this system as a file containing sets of instructions is obviously very small compared to a copy of an image file. You can make copies or duplicates or enhancements of any of your pictures but they are always just files containing sets of instructions on how to produce the image whether it is a print, a slideshow or an html file for the web.
