Google Street View Australia
This picture shows the Google Street View of Commercial Street, Mount Gambier. The visual mapping service was launched in Australia today.
The sheer enormity of the task is quite overwhelming to contemplate. Read more
Flickr photo meme
Thanks to Delmer I took up the Flickr photo meme.
The concept:
- Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
- Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
- Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.
The questions:
- What is your first name?
- What is your favorite food? right now?
- What high school did you go to?
- What is your favorite color?
- Who is your celebrity crush?
- What is your favorite drink?
- What is your dream vacation?
- What is your favorite dessert?
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
- What do you love most in life?
- What is one word that describes you?
- What is your flickr name?
New video camera
I bought a Sanyo Xacti nine-megapixel video camera through eBay from Hong Kong before it was readily available in Australia.
The gadget has only just arrived and I haven’t had much time to experiment with it yet, but first impressions are very positive.
It’s small and shoots high quality. There are recording options for television standard or web.
I plan to use it on our drive across the country to hopefully film a scene of the Great Australian Bight and the houses we previously lived in at Ceduna and Port Pirie. If they work I’ll post the clips here in a couple of weeks.
More importantly, I hope Dad will be well enough and willing to speak on camera. That was a great suggestion from a friend of mine to capture a special memory.
Down the track I hope to use the camera for recording some web news at Mount Gambier.
Demise of the photo album
Is the photo album dead? Have digital cameras, computers and online storage solutions killed the album?
Reader Glenn made a good comment on the Schmap Australia post about digital images.
Digital photos don’t cost anything to take but they sure chew up your PC’s hard drive space. Then you have to burn them to CD ROM or DVD for long term storage. So instead of having a handful of negatives and prints in envelopes because we were all once so careful of the costs generated, everyone now has thousands of images in archives that cost hours to create! Most of them will never be looked at.
It’s a valid argument which can be taken a step further. Read more
Cheeky photographer hits bottom
The Federal Budget is dominating the Australian media and web space tonight. I’ve scanned the headlines and I’ll study the detail tomorrow.
Frankly though, I felt in need of some light relief. It’s been a stressful few weeks.
They say the toughest events an average person will endure are changing jobs, moving house and losing a loved one. I’m in the home straight for a trifecta. Read more
Schmap Australia
One of my photos appears in the new Schmap Australia Guide. It’s a picture I took of Mount Buffalo while living at Porepunkah.
The managing editor Emma Williams contacted me a couple of weeks ago and asked permission to use the photo if it was selected.
I’m not an expert photographer, but sometimes I fluke it for a good one. The great thing about digital cameras is you can snap hundreds of shots and not worry about the cost of processing.
I’m getting a video camera soon and plan to make a new hobby out of it.
Kalgoorlie Miner award winners
I’m really proud that two Kalgoorlie Miner photographers were recognised tonight at the Western Australian Press Photographer of the Year Awards 2008.
Mary Mills won the picture story category for her series on the Kalgoorlie Cup. Mary came second in the section for best country photographer and fellow Miner shutterbug Jodi Kingston came third.
Photographs are an understated part of the news media. It’s very true that every picture tells a story and good photographs should not be under estimated.
I’m fortunate to work with some of the best in the state.
Margaret: Self portrait
Maggie took this photo of herself. I thought there was something wrong when I took four pictures tonight, went to download them and found 47 items on the memory card.
Maggie and Jim agreed it was the female twin responsible for the other 43. There were pictures of the roof, wall, pillows, Jim at the computer and this artistic self portrait. Not bad for nearly four years old.
New camera: Panasonic Lumix
I’ve bought a new camera. It’s a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 which I picked up for $439.36 from Are-Jays.
I was looking originally at bigger and more expensive cameras, but the Lumix seemed to offer what I was after in a smaller and cheaper package. The online reviews were all positive.
I particularly wanted a strong zoom and high resolution. Key features of the Lumix are 7.2 megapixels, 10x optical zoom and 28mm wide-angle lens. The wide angle was a bonus for me and clinched the sale.
I’ve only just got the battery charged and I’m giving it a test run shortly at Michael’s soccer game. More later.
Online slideshow creator
I started noticing a few slideshows appearing on different blogs and wondered how they were created.
There’s a free service called Slideroll which enables users to easily upload photos and create slideshows using various effects. There is an option to add background music from Sonific.
I haven’t tested all the features yet, but it’s free, easy to use and a lot of fun. Here’s a slideshow of James and Margaret, embedding the code on my web site, or you can see my Slideroll page here.
Recent comments
- kelsey: i always get swooped when im alone but when somone else is with me they dont do it
- Aaron Hurle: Hi Michael, Oh the days. Reading your article was back when the Saints were going ok. They’ve had...
- Michael: Congrats Kelsey, we’re all proud of her.
- Kelsey: i was surporting her home! (im her cousin!!)
- Google Street View: Looks like a great place. I’m so glad Japan and Australia have now been “done”...
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