The newly formed team got together for their first friendly this weekend, playing against their older peers at the club.
True to form, the Great British Summer is truly upon us and although the sun was shining the clouds looked more than a little ominous….

I haven’t gone mad, I was just thinking of a title for this picture and it dawned on me that it isn’t money that makes the world go round, it’s the world that makes money go round.

House is bare and Chrismas seems like such a long time ago – Haven’t even started to process the rest of the photos of the kids and unwrapping, let alone my Turkey dinner but couldn’t resist at least one festive shot, albeit 11 days late…..

Party season approaches, though in a couple of weeks the pretty, butter wouldn’t melt, princess you see hear will likely become a ghoulish monster, resplendant with bucket for treats and sweets as the neighbours draw the curtains and pretend they’re not in for the evening.

Nearly three weeks old, and now they’re quite speedy. Instead of lurching from one spot to another like a demented tortoise (or turtle for my overseas visitors) the little ones asre almost walking. It’s quite funny watching them fall over though. This one is ‘Number 1′, who aside from being bigger than the others was also the firsdt one to open her eyes.

The current 999 system came about via the Metropolitan Police in London as they found that their Police Stations were being overrun either by visitors to the station alerting them to emergency situations or trying to phone them in the growing trend of using the new invention, the telephone. Not every one could remember or knew the telephone number of the local Police Station. In November of 1927 the general public in London were advised ” if you have an emergency dial 0″. When the operators answers ask for the service you require. The Metropolitan Police maintained this service till 1934 then they introduced their Information Room with the famous number of Whitehall 1212 where all emergency calls ended up. Emergency calls via telephone kept increasing and telephone operators were unable to identify emergency calls from other operator service calls.
As is normal a disaster of some description was required to prompt government action. In November of 1935 a fire occurred in London in which five people died, in the inquiry which followed it became apparent that a system was required that alerted telephone operators to emergency calls. A parliamentary Committee called the Belgrave Committee examined the problems and set up various experiments in London. A great deal of discussion took place between the Home Office, the Police and Post Office. It was decided not to use 111 as this number can be dialled by phones which are faulty. 12 was not a good idea as at that time any one wanting a number on the 12 exchange would be barred because of the emergency calls. The same could be said for 222, this would have closed a big exchange in London and that could not happen.

999 was used because the numbers could be remembered easily, that they were all at the same end of the dial. It was relatively simple to convert coin boxes to accept 999 calls with out charge. The 999 system open in London in July 1937, it was 1938 before it reached Glasgow. It was the first service of its type in the world.

So, with a view to practicing, I got hold of some black foamy stuff, and wrapped it round the end of the flash to focus the light in a narrow field rather than having it spill all over the room.
The flash was then attached to the wireless trigger set to 1/16th power and placed on the floor so it pointed upwards to the space where I wanted to be. I took a couple of test shots to make sure my position and the flash position worked OK (f32 was too dark, f8 let too much ambient light in for the exposurte time I wanted).

Once I was happy with the effect, I then stuck the camera on the tripod, locked the focus just in front of a black tv screen and set the timer. I had a few duff attempts where I hadn’t managed to get myself in the shot, but finally got myself in the right place. The Flash was set to first curtain sync, so as soon as it fired, I slipped out of the shot and then used a keyring torch (one of the cheapy single LED ones) to paint in some swirly light.

Empty promises

Post processing was just a bit of sharpening and a conversion to black and white.
Aperture – F11
Shutter Speed – 10 Seconds
ISO – 100

Only had one decent photo as we were having so much fun. This tree intrigued me, as I couldn’t figure out if the fence had sawed it’s way into the tree as the wind blew it about, or whether the tree had grown around the fence.

Looks better larger – If you want to see a bigger version, try HERE
this

eye macro photo by dave frost

I guess I’ll be getting bored with the macro shots shortly so will have some “proper” photos up here again before the end of the month !!