Popular Flickr subject matter

I thought it was about time I compiled a list of what i notice to be popular flickr subject matter.


'Bokeh' (out of focus light sources that make pretty, colorful circles

Attractive women doing the 'take a photo every day for 365 days' thing

Attractive women (no theme)

A bit of an attractive woman

Writing on hands / body

Stuff with something written on a piece of paper next to whatever it is. Usually a coffee or something like that.

Hands making the shape of a heart over a belly button

A ring stood up in an open book, lit so the shadow makes a heart shape

Kittens / baby animals in general

Pictures of pets with sickeningly cutsie titles

Those freakish Japanese 'fashion dolls'

'Thank you for so many views on my photostream' dull as hell self portraits / screen grabs

Flowers really, really close up

Pictures of dogs taken close up with a wide angle or fisheye lens

Extreme off-camera flash work

Other pictures photoshopped into polaroids in the picture

Water/colorful liquids splashing in wine glasses

Bugs humping (macro, of course)

Out of focus things brought into focus by a water drop in mid air

Something poorly exposed, badly framed with boring subject matter... with a clever, 'poetic' name

Around f/1.4 or f/1.8 aperture (usually taken on a Canon 350D)

Pandas!

Update: Jumping. Just people jumping in the air.

Update: Balloons. Preferably black balloons in white, softly lit airy locations. Polaroids of Balloons are good too.

Tate Local

The Tate Modern has kindly moved their turbine hall floor to Valentine Place, SE1.

Nearest tube: Southwark

Showing for a limited time.

Ameeeewwwrica

If you haven't yet seen the new American passports, I suggest you search for some images on Google right now.

Following that, I suggest you get a new one yourself, even if you're not American. In which case you'll have to apply for citizenship and then get one before a Democrat gets voted in.

Seriously, they're the most amazing pieces of propagandist artwork I've ever held in my own hands.

o2 makes mistakes too

Found on the o2 website.

Must be something in the water today, or maybe since I saw Photoshop Disasters I've been subconsciously looking for website cock-ups.

This poor web designer did a quick copy-and-paste (probably while muttering "I'm a designer, I'm not supposed to be copying and pasting frickin' content... always with the frickin' content. Jesus".

Fair enough, though, art school never told me I'd spend half my life copying and pasting stuff.

Microsoft Typo

Just found this on the Microsoft website.

Well done boys.

-UPDATE- Try clicking on the 'Connect and share anywhere' image. It goes here.

Again, well done boys.

A thought on routers

I've been thinking, why don't people take the opportunity for comedy
names for their wireless interweb routers more often?

A while back I was thinking of compiling a list of 'good' Bluetooth
device names. I have a couple written down at home.

Ok everyone, let's get interactive here: use the comments bit on this
post to suggest a couple 'good router names' for others to use.

As an example, I'll share one I can pick up from near my home:

"buy_internet_from_flat19"

Fire away!

Sent from my iPhone

Am I on MySpace?

No.


This is a Firefox plugin that warns you that you're on MySpace with the message,

"You appear to have navigated to a page on internet cesspit MySpace.com
This is probably a terrible mistake.

Would you like to rectify this unfortunate mistake?"

All in good fun, I assure you.

I also had to post this

Dalston Kingsland Shopping Centre, London

Lomostrobism

So recently, I've been into this 'DIY-on-a-budget-home' lighting thing that many people are calling 'Strobism', after the interblog that has made this way of thinking about photogaphic lighting very popular and accessible: Strobist.com

Also, I just found that Lomo are now making all sort of flash equipment - maybe not the cheapest for the quality you get, but certainly fun and quirky.

The gadget pictured above is a slave flash, which is a flash that flashes when other flashes flash, allowing you to.. well, have more than one controllable light source in your photograph. It's quite tempting to buy lots and lots of these things and stick them all over the place.

They even have a lave flash that you screw into the lighting fixtures in your home which sounds like a bit of fun.

Maybe I'll treat myself to whatever's cheapest next pay day.

Custom Made

In short, if you have a girlfriend that likes vintage furniture, hand made things, Animal Crossing on the Nintendo DS and cats, you should go to this website and buy her something.

They're also very friendly people, and if you sign up for their newsletter they'll even tell you when their website is down, and when you can buy more cute woodland animal print purses. Oh, and if you want to meet them, they have a little market stall, either in Spitalfields or Brick Lane... they might move around, not sure.

More iPhone Stuff: BBC iPlayer

[photo by me]


Ok, trust me, it's not my intention to turn my blog into an iPhone or Apple fan blog (they do exist, and they're run by REAL Apple geeks. I've never downloaded an SDK, whatever that stands for).

Anyway, BBC's iPlayer, a 'watch TV you've missed online' service is now available on the iPhone via interwifi at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.

You can't watch it on the bus quite yet as 'the EDGE network is too slow to stream video', but if you take a bus through Moorgate on your commute, The Cloud network should soon be signing some pieces of paper that allow iPhone users to watch iPlayer while out and about, which will lead to comedic instances of people walking into lamp posts while watching, hopefully.

In the meantime, just put EuroTrip on your iPhone to watch on the bus, it's amazing.

The BBC blog talks about it all here, too.

Hot nuts

I had to post this.

Lovely as a tree

Beyond the trendy logo, there's a great website and lots of information about making your big print jobs less negatively impactful on the environment.

I'm the new office 'green nazi', by the way.

Troika's Jealous Picture Frame

Troika: The objects that surround us are rapidly getting electronically updated with promises of greater intelligence and enhanced user satisfaction. This developing intelligence might set the ground for darker impulses, and soon greed, jealousy and revenge could happen electronically.

Ok, so these guys are genius. Sometimes they make me wish I did an MA. Basically this picture frame messes with TVs because it's jealous of them.

Click here to find out more, and see more of their crazy stuff.

No touch? What the...?

So I noticed there's a lot of stuff about iPhones and touch things on my blog. Well, since I last posted I got a job that isn't in a pub. Part of this job involved me making this no-touch interactive window thing happen for Orange.

See the ITN News coverage here:



Oh, and the company I work for is here

A few things about previous posts

I got one of those iPhones. It's pretty sweet. (Jan 21st 2007)[photo by me]

The patent application drawings for some sort of touch-sensitive Apple MacBook-looking thingamajig (May 5th 2006)are most likely the starting point of what turned into the iPhone: the Safari Pad. See Mac Rumors for more info.

Flickr's 4th Birthday

SO it's going to be Flickr's 4th Birthday on the 15th of March 2008, see:



How very exciting! I hope they give members some cool free stuff.

What I'm not looking forward to, though, is the 'explore' section of the webbysite being full of cakes, t-shirts, and emo girls with 'happy birthday flickr' scrawled on their arm with black lipstick.

Good luck everyone!

Breaking news: Waterloo International Signage is Rubbish.

spot the signage.


IT’S a nice modern idea, but it doesn’t work. It keeps the platform ceiling light and airy, and the trains decal-free, but putting the carriage numbers on the floor is nothing short of confusing.

In case you haven’t noticed, signs around the world are either on something to tell you what it is, or above the crowd pointing you in the right direction.

I’m not saying the signage at Waterloo International Eurostar completely ignored the concept of putting signs up high where everyone can see them and expect them to be. While each individual train carriage has its very own sign on the floor next to it, every 2 to 5 carriages, there is a sign that lets you know which carriages lie ahead. However, not noticing the floor signage and seeing “Carriages 5 – 8 [up arrow]” made me think my carriage, 5, would be a bit further up. Before I know it I’m being eyeballed by high salary city-types. Oh right, I’ve gone too far and I’m in the world of upper class. Turns out my carriage was right next to the sign telling me it was up there. Eh?

Now, I did only get 2 hours of sleep last night, and security took the coffee I just bought off me when I got to the x-rays, but I’m not the only one who was there asking the chap with a permanent look of, “can’t you count, you fucking idiot?” on his face, where to go.

[Ooh! We’re in the tunnel! This never gets old.]

Basically, I’m just wondering why they didn’t stick to the old system while still making it all modern and eurotronic. You know, crack out the DIN Mittelschrift and slap it on the carriages, have it laser-etched into brushed aluminum on overhead signs, hung from posts reminiscent of the Southwark Council area signs from those wires the cool Ikea ceiling lamps have?


Perhaps King’s Cross will get it right.

An old idea.

iPhone's nice, but what happened to that touch-screen laptop?

Well, here's my sketches from 2002, thinking about it.