A South African friend (not sure what relevance the South African bit has) has put together this little product photography group on Google+ and we’d like as many of you as possible, from all levels and abilities to come and join us.
We’re all in it to learn as well as teach so drop by and say hello, all are welcome
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
first off I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who read these random ramblings of mine, I’ve now reached the landmark of 100 wordpress.com followers and having that support and following has been great. As some of you longer term readers will know I started rambling around on the web in frustration at shoddy customer service and to give poor Mrs Bunny Chow a break from listening to me whining. At the time I’d never even read any blogs and had no idea that this community even existed or dreamed that I could become part of it.
Blogging has become a hobby for me and keeps me out of trouble, I became really down a week or so ago when a close friend began questioning why I would be “doing shit drawings and putting them all over the internet” well my friend I do them because it’s my hobby and I gain pleasure from it and thanks to you good people out here in the blogosphere seem to gain something from my photography and art, I could have retaliated in person and attacked his passions and questioned what led him to do what he does in his free time but I was grown up enough to drop it and remember that art is subjective, just because he might not like what I am doing that’s entirely his right to make that decision and whilst my feelings at the time were deeply deeply hurt and poor Mrs Bunny Chow had to listen to me griping and whining, having allowed myself time to simmer I realise that in reality I would defend to the end his right to his opinions, I may not agree with them but the internet is a wonderful democracy and if he chooses not to enjoy my artistic that’s his prerogative, I’m not going to give up my hobby because it doesn’t float the boat of someone else, be they a real life friend or the occasional internet troll.
Next I’d like to talk about artistic inspiration, it’s a topic I’ve covered a couple of times before in these pages but would like to touch on again inspired by the lovely Patricia over at Pixygiggles who asked about artistic Mojo and how creativity can be commanded, well the simple answer is that it can’t be commanded, well at least not by me, there are plenty of weeks that go by where I battle to keep taking pictures but I keep going. I draw my inspiration and ideas from a variety of sources, Google+ and especially the Project 52 list have thus far inspired at least 34 posts with plenty more to come, Nick and Shannon from www.nickexposed.com and http://seeingspotsphoto.wordpress.com/ have been equally inspiring with their monthly community collaboration projects.
Then there are just people like the aforementioned Patricia who goes out of her way day after day to share her interpretation of the world and what it means to her at any given time, I’ve discovered so many people who inspire me to go out and create on a daily basis, I don’t share every failure with you but I do share plenty of them and do you know what sometimes I cringe but more often I’ll just look back with pride and think I created that, sure I’ve learned a lot about photography in the last year or so and might approach things differently if faced with the same opportunities today but isn’t that what learning is all about, do golfers ever shoot that perfect round and think sod it that’s enough I’ll quit now?
Phew this is turning into something of a rant, deep breath, I started writing today because I wanted to thank all of you who have welcomed me and inspired me to keep going and enjoy myself, at the end of the day this is my little fiefdom but all of you make it a happy little fiefdom so thank-you for being you.
My last little ramble is to ask opinions of phonography and the proliferation of filter apps like instagram and hipstamatic, I keep changing my mind about them, they’re fun, they’re quirky, they’re always in your pocket but the pictures that come out of them are crap, yet it’s that same crapness that I somehow like about them and keep finding myself drawn back to even when editing my photographs from my camera I find myself drawn back to retro feeling editing styles, is this because of the cliché or just because it’s what I’ve always found aesthetically appealing, I’m not sure I can answer that at the moment so I’ll leave the floor open for your thoughts.
The pictures interspersed throughout this post are not new, they’re just a few I’ve chosen because I liked them and felt like sharing them, I’m pretty sure they’ve all been seen in these pages before but if they’re new to you I hope you like them and if you don’t then that’s fine too.
Comment your lives away.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
when I first started this blog I’d never even read another blog or even given much thought over to blogging as a means of communication.
My early posts were mostly long rambling complaints about terrible customer service I’d received from a succession of terrible companies and restaurants and I was seething and boiling over to the point of driving my nearest and dearest to distraction so rather than continuing to vent my frustrations on those nearest me, I started ranting, initially on blogger and then shortly after emigrating wholesale to WordPress. Rather than finding a niche early on as my anger faded I began doing a few reviews and even wrote what remains my biggest hit as far as search engine traffic my glowing review of the service provided by the Courtney Boot Company. As a side note, nearly a year on from getting my boots back I’m still wearing them daily.
I also began writing a few posts about becoming a father for the second time and my thoughts and feelings surrounding that as almost everything I read or heard would discuss the mothers thoughts, fears and perspectives, that’s not to put those down it’s simply a comment about the lack or support I could find for us blokes who’re too tough and macho to talk about our feelings with real people, and where there is plenty of support out there for mums there’s not a lot out there for dads.
In the run up to the new year I gained a little fervour for food blogging and launched www.mrbunnychowcooks.com which initially gained great traction but fell largely by the wayside when I managed to stab myself and began my Ouch series, I also began my project 52 at the start of the year, rekindling my long-held passion for photography and bringing another change of focus to these pages.
Anyway what I’ve been meaning to get around to with all of this rambling is what initially brought you to www.mrbunnychow.com do you visit regularly, do you know me personally, do you like reading about me blowing a gasket, do you like looking at pretty pictures, do you subscribe or just pop in occasionally having seen a link or comment on another site.
Blogging success has never been and never will be my aim I’m just a curious geek wondering who my readers are and why you are.
Please do comment below and let me know as much or as little about yourself as you are comfortable with.
alternatively you can always send me a private message via rantingmrbunnychow@gmail.com
I hope you’re all well out there
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
this is going to be my final post for this months Scavenger Hunt with Nick and Shannon
can you complete the line from the song for this Lyric Quotograph?
continuing on with my quick posts for Nick and Shannon‘s July community collaboration scavenger hunt I want to share this doodle of mine of a Zebu or Brahman style bull to fit the category for what’s your sign.
I have not shown anyone any of my doodling since I was at school many many moons ago and ummed and aaaahed for a long time before posting this but eventually decided that even if you think the drawing sucks then at least I’ve had the courage to show it, better to try and fail than not try at all.
Have a Great weekend guys
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
the theme this week was architecture and given that I’m lucky enough to live in a city full of wonderful architecture all I had to do was get on a train and take a picture of St Paul’s, the Tower of London, or even one of the modern monstrosities like the Shard or Gherkin.
Now where would the fun be in that, it’s just not my style to do things the easy way and anyway I really wanted to try to capture some of the gritty old buildings in my own town of Croydon (a suburb on the Southern outskirts of Greater London) it doesn’t have the best reputation and I’m sure that some of you at least will remember the images of large swathes of it being on fire during last years rioting.
I’ve lived here going on for 10 years now and despite one burglary have been fortunate enough to personally avoid any incidences of street crime or antisocial behavior, maybe I look tough or maybe I just look poor, I certainly am not stupid enough to think that this isn’t a tough area and I don’t take too many risks.
anyway this weeks theme has turned into a bit of a photo essay with lots of grimy gritty shots and odd injections of colour.
end of terrace
Above is the end of terrace shot I chose for my actual project submission mostly because I like the strong contrast and lines.
opposite end
This is the opposite end of the same row of terraces.
Grimey Pub
despite walking past this pub almost every day it is so dingy and grimey that I’ve never even ventured through its doors and I like pubs with atmosphere and sawdust on the floor.
honestly it’s lovely
There’s a really odd mix of light industrial buildings mixed in with Victorian era terraces, if it wasn’t for all the satellite dishes this picture could have been taken any time in the last 100 years.
what happened to the window
see there is colour here, one wonders what happened to the window though.
union doors
I love the way these doors look like a union flag
door to nowhere
I can’t recall if it was the door or the pipe that were wonky
an injection of colour
I just liked the lines and colour of this factory
come and visit
it’s a truly lovely corner of south-east England
beach house anyone?
I can honestly think of no reason why there is an Art Deco beach apartment block in the middle of this industrial estate.
who knows
again I’m at a loss as to the point of these decorative touches.
it’s not all bad though
there are some truly lovely architectural touches too.
And nature is even trying to reclaim some of the more hideous buildings
There is even some interesting textures available to be had
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little porthole into my local architecture and the area where I live.
Next week we’re going to be talking about love and what that means so keep your diaries free.
Please let me know what you think in the comments section below
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
I know, I know poor form from me with week’s 22 and 23 being published almost simultaneously I’m sorry I’ll try to keep them more evenly spaced in future.
After the relative nightmare of Week 22 I found this week easy to select as the theme was Straight Out of the Camera something my hatred of the droll of post processing approves of greatly. I’ve mentioned before that if I can’t make a picture work with under 30 seconds of post processing (read a quick crop and maybe exposure adjustment) then I don’t use it.
I know that this is laziness and that the greats all work on their images either in the darkroom or digital darkroom, but I’d far rather be out there shooting than fiddling around in front of the computer wondering if this filter or that filter adds more to the image in front of me.
So with no further waffle I present to you my artsy, rusty bicycle.
Straight out of the camera
As you can see I went for the shallow depth of field effect or bokeh created by using my 50mm lens wide open at f2, otherwise it is uncropped and untouched as it come out of my new to me Canon EOS10D.
I promise that over the next couple of days I will collate some of my other shots from the weekend away and share them here or you can alway pop over to my Google+ profile for all the latest.
I’ve also shared some long exposure shots with Nick Exposed and Seeing Spots, I cannot say for sure if Nick and Shannon will be featuring my shots this time as I was late submitting them but stay tuned to these pages and I’ll get them up here regardless.
Until Next time
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
this is the last post that I’ll be doing showing my quotography efforts but I do plan to share some stuff from Nick Exposed and Seeing Spots as well as whoever else from the project takes my fancy.
Part one of my own posts can be found here and part two here
The third and final quote I had to work with was “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” which was from Thomas Edison the commonly agreed inventor of the carbon filament light bulb as well as being the man who brought electricity to the masses.
My thought process here initially was to find something like an abandoned shop or discarded book or guitar, but the more I thought about where this quote had come from I realised that I had to do something with light, Edison himself tried hundreds if not thousands of different filament materials before settling on carbonized bamboo threads.
As many of my regular readers will know by now I have recently had access to a decent DSLR thanks to The Falklandislander and decided to try my hand at a little light painting, something that would never have been possible without the efforts of Thomas Edison.
The technique is really quite simple, take a long exposure shot, in this case 30 seconds and either move the camera or light source around to create the light trails you can see.
You can get very technical with it but I chose to keep it very simple just going for a shaken look.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed my take on these quotes and I can’t wait to see what other people come up with for theirs.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
with a little less preamble here is part two of my share for my quotography project with Nick Exposed and Seeing Spots.
If you missed part one you can find it here.
My second quote was “every artist was first an amateur” which was initially said by Ralph Waldo Emerson an American Essayist who I know next to nothing about. I didn’t even bother doing any research as you will see from my below photo it wasn’t necessary, as my son The Monkey Boy comes home from nursery looking much like this every other day.
who needs paper when you can draw on your face
I hope that my thought processes are making sense to you.
Part three will follow shortly.
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
This week I’m going to talk to you a little about technology, which was the suggested theme for this weeks project 52 post.
Things may get a little geeky at points and I apologise for that I’m passionate about a number of geeky things though so you’ll either have to skip this one or put up with it, you never know you might learn something that will be useful in your life. Actually I doubt that you will unless you are slightly geeky.
left to right we have FujiFilm HS20EXR, Canon EOS 10d, Canon EOS 650
I mentioned recently that I’d managed to buy an old Canon EOS 650 film camera but wanted to borrow a lens to ensure that it all worked before investing any further in it, well I put out the shout and an old friend who I’ll call Mr Falkland came through and has leant me not only three of his lenses but his incredibly beautiful Canon EOS 10d semi professional body so that I can have an idea of what the lenses to before wasting valuable time and money on film and shooting blind. I know he’s an occasional reader so thank you Mr Falkland, I am hugely touched that you trust me not to break it. I plan to make the most of your incredibly generous loan and learn as much as I can.
Going into a little more detail about the picture contents included we have my trusty HS20EXR which looks dwarfed in this company, I still love her though, she’s a great camera and hugely flexible. The strap is obviously not original and is a retro look GoTo strap purchased for me by Mrs Bunny Chow as a 4th anniversary present.
Squashed into the middle and barely visible is Mr Falklands EOS10d fitted with a Sigma 30-100mm (I’m working from memory here so could be wrong) lense.
and then finally my Canon EOS650 in this instance fitted with Mr Falklands Sigma 18-30mm wide-angle lens and another GoTo vintage strap bought again by Mrs Bunny Chow.
I’ve not had much opportunity to play with either the loan or film camera as yet but will endeavour to get some shots done over the weekend to share with you all next week. (longer for the film stuff I suspect)
moving on.
The rather poor quality picture was taken with my new phone a HTC One X running Android in its latest Ice Cream Sandwich incarnation then skinned with HTC’s own sense interface. As many of my longer term readers will know I have been an iPhone user for a number of years now and decided to make the switch for a number of reasons which I’m going to list.
So what do I think so far?
Pro’s so far:
Con’s so far:
I’m still happy with the phone and realise that a lot of my niggles are more things just being different from what I have become accustomed to. Time will tell if they are things that affect my next phone upgrade and whether I go back to iOS or stick with Android in the future, but that day is at least a couple of years away so we’ll have to see how things unfold and where technology has gone by then.
If you’d like to see more of my pictures there are plenty available through my Google+ account, be sure to introduce yourself as not everything is posted publicly.
Next week the suggested theme will be in the Kitchen so as well as taking some pictures for you I may even make an effort to revive the fortunes of www.mrbunnychowcooks.com
Until then
TTFN
Mr Bunny Chow
The life and photography of Mr Bunny Chow 