From Russia with love 1

From Russia with love 1
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

James Bond tribute - the heart shape was formed by shining light through the red lens filter on to the open book. Incidentally, the book is Ian Fleming's "From Russia With Love", hence the photo title.

Newark Castle photo shoot 3

newark7
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Another shot from the Newark shoot. The full set can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/spowy123/sets/72157622609062179/

Newark Castle photo shoot 2

newark6
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Another shot from the Newark shoot

Newark Castle photo shoot

newark5
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Taken at Newark Castle, Notts

Pub

Pub
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Anyone for a pint?

Bridge view

Bridge view
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

HDR image of a bridge in York

The devil made me do it

The devil made me do it
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

A lil' red devil on the side of a building in York

Clifford's Tower

cliffords_tower_003
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Another shot from the York shoot that I think has come out rather well

York Minster

York Minster 004
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

I'm rather pleased with this image of York Minster. It was shot on a sunny day in late September. However, when I processed it, I felt that a moody black & white finish better suited the detail on the building & the drama in the sky.
This is part of a set I shot in the historic city of York, UK which can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spowy123/sets/72157622493267456/

puncturekit010_edited-1

puncturekit010_edited-1
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Puncture Kit a.k.a David Osborne specialising in bike beats & electronica. Part of a set taken at Nottingham's Big Day Out at Nottingham Castle.
My set of photos can be found on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/spowy123/sets/72157622480170356/

Cobweb

cobweb_002
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

Macro shot of a spider in its web. They shot was taken quite early in the morning, hence the dew on the web, which I think enhances the image.

Gargoyle Smudge Painting

gargoyle_smudgepainting
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

This is a technique I've started experimenting with following an article in "Practical Photography" magazine (Issue April 2008). Using a close up photo I'd taken of a gargoyle, I converted it into a realistic painting using the smudge tool in Photoshop Elements. I dropped the photo into the PSE Full Editor and duplicated the base image (duplicate layer). After this I selected the smudge tool with a rough round brush (set at 80%) and began to paint over the photo, alternating between normal, darken and lighten modes where appropriate. Once the 'painting' was complete, I changed the opacity of the painted layer (set to Normal) to 85% to retain a modicum of the original photo. Lastly I added a hue/saturation layer to get the end result.

Gargoyle_Triptych

Gargoyle_Triptych
Originally uploaded by mark spowage

My latest offering on Flickr. I shot this cheeky looking gargoyle from 3 different angles, then merged the images to create this triptych

Nottingham's beach in the square 2

Nottingham's beach in the square

Moon

I went out of my way the other day to go and see Duncan 'Zowie Bowie' Jones' debut film, 'Moon'. I'm so glad I did. It's an amazing piece of cinema. Sam Rockwell's performance as a lonely lunar miner is frankly fantastic. The theme and tone of the film is very much like the dystopian sci-fi thrillers of the 1970's (Alien, 2001, Silent Running, Soylent Green etc).

New Banner

I've just designed the logo for my new photobox gallery website. Incidentally, the name came from an 'off-the-wall' discussion I had with a friend about 'how you never see a fat ninja'. The name then just kind of stuck. I think its kind of cool.

Photo gallery

I've just set up a new gallery to showcase my photos. You can find this at:

http://www.photoboxgallery.com/3007988

There's not loads of content there at the moment, just one collection in fact. However, this is something I'm going to be rectifying over the next few weeks. By all means, please take a look and provide feedback if you wish. Thanks.

Holiday Cover

Whenever I go on holiday at work, I have to ensure that there is adequate cover for my job whilst I'm absent. Now if I have to do that for my role, you'd think a similar thing would apply if you were running a country. Seemingly not. In the middle of the worst economic crisis in our lifetime, when many of us are strapped for cash and so are holidaying at home (that is if we can afford one), Primeminister Gordon Brown has gone on holiday. Fair enough, we're all entitled to one. So up stepped Harriet Harman, for a couple of weeks to cover, but now she's off on her jolies too! Nice one, great planning there. Next up its Lord Mandelson to run the country...from his secret lair in Corfu. Corfu! How is this doing a proper job? This is like me going to Tenerife for a couple of weeks & claiming that I'm technically still working because the hotel's got internet access. Who the heck made this man a Lord anyway ? According to Frankie Boyle it was the Sith. So if you happen to spot the Death Star hovering over the Ionian Sea, you'll know that Frankie was right ;-)

Exorcist For Hire

I've just finished reading "Thicker Than Water" by Mike Carey. I've just got to comment on how brilliant it was. The novel is the latest featuring Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist who's rather like Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlow, not to mention John Constantine (unsurprisingly as Carey was the resident writer on 'Hellblazer' for a few years). Carey has a gift for gripping, enthralling plots, effortlessly blending gritty realism with fantastic supernatural stories. His vivid prose nicely conveys the cynical, worldweary perspective of the central character.
"Thicker Than Water" ends with a fantastic cliff-hanger that leaves the reader gagging for the next book. I have to say that I've thoughly enjoyed the series so far and can't wait for the next novel "The Naming Of The Beasts" which is due out in September.

The Wheel Of Nottingham

Location: Market Square, Nottingham, Notts
FYI: Was originally called 'The Nottingham Eye' until London Eye mgt got a bit miffed at that name
Taken by M Spowage

Green's Mill

Location: Green's Mill & Science Centre, Sneinton, Notts, UK
Taken by M Spowage

Graveyard

Location: The church on the rock, Nottingham, Notts, UK
Taken by M Spowage

Manga Girl

Created in Photoshop
By M Spowage

Reflections

Location: Nottingham Canal, Nottingham, Notts, UK
Taken by: M Spowage

Darwin

Medium: Pencil drawing, Photoshop
Created by: M Spowage

Air Nude Zealand

Brilliant! It seems Air New Zealand have found a fun way of making sure you pay attention during the air flight safety video - naked cabin crew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Mq9HAE62Y&feature=PlayList&p=96F0A8329A3767DF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

Wrestling Midgets Killed By Fake Hookers

This recent news article really made me laugh. Its really quite dark, but oh so funny. The Metro really picked up on a classic story. Well done to them. In short (if you'll forgive the pun), "the world of Mexican midget wrestling is in mourning after two of its most famous stars were apparently poisoned by fake prostitutes". The full article can be found here:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Wrestling_midgets_killed_by_fake_hookers&in_article_id=696603&in_page_id=34

Networked Student

I just thought I'd post this little gem from YouTube. This short film called "Networked Student" illustrates ways of embracing technology in order to find new ways of learning. This was discovered during the course of my OU studies (Beyond Google course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA

Open University success

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself at the moment. I've just got my results back from my computer marked assessment (CMA) for the Open University course I'm undertaking at the moment. I was lucky enough to have scored 100%.
Actually truth be told, this is a revised score. The original score was 95% as I'd got a question wrong. However, I raised an issue with the 'question' because there was a sentence missing from it. This made it a little tricky to answer. I guess this was me in Quality Assurance mode again. Anyway, the OU withdrew the question from the exam & rescored the results.
To be honest, I'm really enjoying the course, "Beyond Google" which is all about effective use of internet search strategies and processing of the results. Whilst I consider myself, to be quite computer savvy, certain areas have been quite an eye-opener for me. For example, I didn't appreciate how big the 'deep web' was (the bit you can't get to via search engines). Its reputed to be as much as up to 95% of the whole web. This is, of course, speculative as nobody actually knows how big the web is.

Yoda - HDRI

Just lately I've been trying out High Dynamic Range (HDR) images in my photography. HDR photography is a method of expanding the range of exposures, getting the best from the highlights, midtones and shadows. In order to do this, I've use Photomatix Pro software. This is available free on the web as a trial. However, you will eventually need to purchase a licence key to use it properly. For a more in depth explanation of HDR photography I can highly recommend the excellent Vanilla Days http://www.vanilladays.com/

Close up of a gravestone

Gothic Angel

The recent snow in the East Midlands was a great photo opportunity. Admittedly not loads of snow in this shot though. I took the camera out to the cemetery that's 5 mins walk away from where I work. It was also an opportunity to try out the telephoto lens I'd bought recently. In this case I'd planned to use it to take close up photos of the more ornate graves, whilst I stood at a distance from the subject. I quite like this method of shooting photos as it creates a shallow depth of field, thus making the subject stand out. Here's one of the better efforts.

Mean Machine

I'm a big fan of 2000AD, the British weekly sci-fi comic and have been reading it regularly for as long as I can remember. Here's a my tribute to one of my favourite characters Mean Machine a.k.a. Mean Angel. This is a quick pencil sketch that has been painted digitally using my funky new Wacom tablet. I hope you like it.

Eye Spy Gargoyle

More photoshop tinkering I'm afraid. I took a photo of this fabulous gargoyle that I saw I in the Hockley area of Nottingham. I was impressed with the level of detail on it. To make it even more realistic, I've blended in a couple of eye images in the 'digital darkroom'. It was quick and straightforward to do but I'm pleased with the overall effect. Sometimes, simplicity is best.
Incidentally, I think its supposed to be King Charles II, who has connections with the area.

Minos: judge of hell

This gothic photomontage is the result of an exercise that was in "Advanced Photoshop" magazine. It took a great deal of time, but it taught me a heck of a lot about Photoshop.

Twilight

Based on the first in a series of novels by Stephanie Meyer, “Twilight” centres on misunderstood teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). When her mother remarries, Bella decides to leave her life in Phoenix behind and go and live with her police chief father (Billy Burke) in dreary Forks, Washington. On her first day at her new school, Bella meets the handsome and mysterious, Edward Cullen (Hogwart’s alumni Robert Pattinson). However, Edward is no ordinary boy. He and his pasty faced family are, in fact, vampires, albeit ‘vegetarian, ones (they don’t drink human blood). Needless to say, Bella and Edward fall in love. However, their fledgling affair is disrupted when a bloodthirsty trio of vampires also arrive in town, the maddest one, James (Cam Gigandet) taking a potentially lethal interest in Bella’s blood group. It falls to Edward to save his soul mate.

“Twilight” is an overwrought vampire fantasy, clearly intended for adolescent goth-obsessed girls. What is surprising is, that despite its melodramatic foibles, and there are many, it still manages to entertain. It certainly isn’t the worst way to spend nigh on two hours.

Release Date Dec 19th 2008
Certificate 12A
Genre Action/adventure, Horror, Romance, Thriller
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke
Director Catherine Hardwicke