Thank you everyone for your nice birthday wishes! I had a lovely time had some awesome presents and a really lovely Mediterranean meal! And got a wee bit drunk too :shy:

[link]

If you click on the video box, it was shot by yours truly.

For some odd reason it cut out the last bit of the video... And I don't think I could submit it myself as it's Leeds' now.

Have a look tho!

is the day they announce the finished product. that's funny.

i'm loving it however! it's miles better than lightroom 2, in terms of details and noise and sharpening at least, and the vignetting is miles better! and it's much much faster than lightroom 2 as well.

highly recommended

btw i now have a 7d!

So far so good, but two major issues I'm having...

Firstly, I have always hated dA's way of resizing submissions, why can't they find a way that it keeps the image sharp and clear and free of mashed jpeg artefacts? even if they did it... at least allow us to drag large images as an alternative. Panoramas look hideous resized. I really wouldn't mind seeing an ugly resized rubbish if one can easily click to view in full size.

example on my laptop is: [link] it scaled my 1600px wide image to 1560px

and where have the comments (and anything else) gone in films? [link]

browsing the gallery seems to be buggy in chrome as well... will try disabling some plugins.

Even London has its fair share of snow!

So yeah I have made this Christmas Card with the team Hope you like it!

[link]

Oh and my photo at the National Theatre was quite well received If you are in London please go have a look!

I'm going back to Hong Kong on Christmas Day, which incidently all London public transports will not operate... Would be a mission to get to Heathrow!

LPOTY as in Landscape Photographer of the Year, I blame the extremely annoying text limit of Journal titles.

Earlier this year I joined this little competition, Take a View, which you submit landscape photos within the UK.

I submitted a few, and luckily enough I have one selected as Highly Commended in the "Classic View" category:



This entry is also featured in the book "Landscape Photographer of the Year - Collection 03"

They'll be having an exhibition of the competition entries at the National Theatre in London from the 5th of December 2009 to the 24th of January next year. There are some really awesome entries (in particular my favourites from fellow deviant ~Alex37 ). Very inspiring stuff, makes me want to travel right now! So yeah, if you happen to be in London for no particular reason, be sure to pop by Waterloo around those times and have a look, it's free!

I also recently went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum, it's absolutely mind-blowing. Go there if you haven't already!

Love you bye!

So from Friday to Sunday, I have been doing a cycling trip from Whitehaven all the way to Tynemouth in Northern England.



It was 140 miles of mountains and ups and downs and pavements and mud and crap and rocky paths and roadkills. I did this with 9 other amazing lads aged from 19 to 60, in aid of Cancer Research UK (you can still donate here: [link] ) I didn't have any time to train myself so I admit I went there totally unprepared. I could ride a bike but I couldn't get the hang of the gears, and I chickened out on the first day after 15 miles as I was the slowest and I didn't want to slow everyone down, apart from myself being really knackered. I went onto the van whose driver Brian who also was kind enough to provide bikes and navigate us for free in the course of the trip. (I guess I also have to account in the fact that I travelled to Newcastle the evening before and had to share a single bed with my brother, and had to meet up everyone at 6am that morning...)

So I decided on that day to take photos of the guys on the first day. The weather was really bad and there were quite a lot of uphill climbs. In between the gale force winds and rain, a window of sunshine peeks through the lake district and it was absolutely gorgeous.

I hopped back on the bike for the last 5 mile stretch of the day and arrived at Greystoke where we spent the night, before that we went to the local pub (and the only pub) for tea (that's what the Northerners say for dinner as we know it, dinner for them is lunch) and the food was lovely, I have never eaten so much in my life.

We had full English breakfast with black pudding the next morning, which was lovely, and we started the hardest day of the 3. The weather was really really bad, the rain and wind were blowing at our faces and it felt like tattoo needles when they hit my face. The entire morning was really difficult. We had a 4 mile ascent up Hartside mountain, I tried my very best there but the freezing wind made me go nowhere and I couldn't even push the bike, and we got pushed off our bikes if we try to mount on (down the hill that is). 3 of us eventually got picked up to the van and skipped about a mile and a half of winding road and we all had dinner(lunch) at the hill top café. I was shivering really badly and thought that was it for me in this trip. Same went to quite a few other guys. Instead after dinner we all decided to go for it and had a long ride down the hill, and the sun decided to come up and give us some time to dry ourselves. There were still a lot of uphill climbs after dinner and we really pushed the bikes rather than riding it. I rescued a frog in the middle of the road!

Eventually we arrived at a sign that says "Welcome to Northumberland" where we finally have left Cumbria behind and did a lovely descent off the hills, a little too lovely where two of our lads overshot a signpost and dashed at 60mph for six miles off the wrong course. Brian took forever to chase after them while the rest of us did a slow but steady climb towards Allenheads, where we spend the night. There we had some really really really lovely pub food and played Killer pool. The people at the pub were really friendly and we chatted for a bit. I also showed the lads how easily drunk I was by being bought a pear cider. Stuart, the organiser, filmed a bit of me being silly.

and today was the last day, while distance-wise it was the longest it was mostly downhill and flatlands. Apart from a 2.5 mile ascent early in the day (which the weather was really really bad, took a picture at the sign that says "Welcome to Durham County"), and another 1.5 mile ascent up the Pennines, the rest weren't too bad, although I was very cautious about going down hill and I have been lagging behind quite a bit. Had some fantastic sights and eventually arrived at Newcastle. Never did I realise how far Tynemouth was from Newcastle, that bit seemed to last forever, but I was really glad the other guys waited up for me at this last stretch and we all finished at the same time. Traditionally we had to dip our rear wheel to the water at the west coast and front wheel at the east coast and that's what we did.

I still couldn't believe I have made it and actually completed this trip, although I missed out quite a bit on the first day, it was still the biggest achievement both mentally and physically I have ever attempted in my life. I still can't say if I wanted to do this again, but I definitely am very glad I did this time. Made some really great friends and saw a lot of things, and made me realise that my limit is much further than I actually thought I was capable of.

Now I really have to go to bed... back to work tomorrow morning!

edit: here are some photos other people have taken and uploaded, will update as they come:

[link]

[link]

Check it out!

Make sure you check out the showreel!

Something I noticed about the difference between commuting in London and being in Hong Kong...

In London you will hear
"Mind the gap, mind the gap..."
that's pretty much it. and it only announces it when the platform does have a gigantic gap that you can throw your grandmother in.

Apart from the usual "The next station is... change here for Northern, Metropolitan, Hammersmith and City, Circle, District, Central, Waterloo and City, Victoria, Jubilee, DLR, Picadilly, Bakerloo, London Overground, East London line replacement bus services, and National Rail services, and International connection services"

In Hong Kong you will be completely fed up with
"Please mind the platform gap between the train and the platform", "Please hold the handrail", "Please give up your seat to those less capable to stand", "Please be reminded that eating or drinking is not allowed in the MTR trains", "Please mind the platform screendoors"
Mind you, they all come in three languages. Of course, it comes with the 12x ear-piercing beep and announcing the closing of the doors in 3 languages before the doors shut. Just shut them and leave already.


In London, we are having the most swine flu cases in Europe. What do Londoners do? They don't give a shit. It's just another flu, if I catch it, so be it. The only people I see wearing masks were Asian tourists at Selfridges. I think it looks stupid.

In Hong Kong, if you have swine flu, or even if you don't, people in bio-hazard gear will crawl all around you and lock you up in a ward while everyone around you wear toxic masks with millions of members of press tailing behind you. If you are an unlucky tourist your entire country will be blacklisted from travelling to Hong Kong. Hope you have enjoyed your stay and we don't look forward to seeing you again.


In London, when someone looking obviously in need for a seat, a seat will always be automatically emptied for the person in question without the constant battering of announcements.

In Hong Kong, when a pregnant woman enters the carriage, everyone immediately gets their daily shut-eye despite the constant battering of announcements. To be fair however, the MTR is sooo much more spacious than the Tube.


In London buses, especially late at night, at the back of the upper deck there almost always will have a few drunk strangers talking and joking with each other extremely loudly and occasionally lighting up a joint or cigarette. Strangers do tend to chat to one another on buses. They are most talkative when the weather is sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowy.

On the tube, people pass newspapers to one another. The trains are dirty and smelly and sticky and hot. It's always rather quiet however. I can't wait for the air conditioned trains.

In Hong Kong, the trains are always spotless. Always at 25.5°C. Always smells nice. Apart from that tasteless lady with a fake Louis Vutton handbag talking extremely loudly into the phone in broken Chinglish to one of her many servants.


In Hong Kong, if you stand on the left on the escalator you are likely to be a tourist.

In London, if you stand on the left on the escalator you are most definitely a tourist.


In London, it doesn't matter what colour your skin is, if you have a seat available next to you, it will be taken.

In Hong Kong, even if it is absolutely packed, if you are not Chinese, no one is likely to sit next to you, with the exception of extremely gorgeous white ladies or handsome white gentlemen. Even still that would only happen when all the other seats are taken. They think you smell funny.

In London, if there was a terrorist bomb that went off in the tube somewhere, people will find alternative ways to go to work. If there is a centimetre of snow, London shuts itself down and everyone goes to play snowball fights.

In Hong Kong, if there was a glitch in the system, people will still be waiting at the platform for the next train that would never come. However they would all be on their mobile phones. If there is a typhoon, everyone waits for the signal to turn to number 8, once it does, everyone leaves their perfectly safe workplace and risk themselves out to the wind and storm to go home or party.


In London, everyone is familiar with words like "Signal failure", "Partially suspended", "due to electricity problems...", "due to a person taken ill on a train", "due to an earlier incident of a person under a train" and plan their journeys accordingly.

In Hong Kong, they just don't happen. Everything works in pristine order. If anything does happen, expect to see it on the headlines the next day, and some high-up government official's resignation.


That said, I really do hate the weekend closures.


PS. I want to go! -> [link]

I wish I had more time. and motivation is a bitch.

So fucking hot ._.

Jeez everyone has updated their journals and put photos up now... except me... who just came home at 3am today and last night... gotta come back home earlier and sort the photos out!


so short journal is short, just wanna say i had a fun time, thanks for putting up on me, lovely meeting you guys... however i'm unbelievably terrible at remembering names... so if you have added me as friend today and i didn't add you back it'd mean that i don't remember you it'd be mostly due to a lack of photo of yourself in your account tho... as i think i do remember faces...

DRÜCKEN SIE HIER!

I'm so glad I read it or I'll just rot here in my home now.

So yeah, I'm pimping it here, and I look forward to seeing you there! A big bunch of people are going so I don't see why you aren't!

It'll be at 2pm at the Albert Memorial. It's kinda in the middle of a few tube stations, since my lovely Jubilee line isn't running tomorrow (and today...), I'll be taking the bus to Bank on Central line to Queensway, and simply walk through the park from there (the other stations might be a bit closer but walking on the streets aren't as attractive as walking through the park, and usually Central lines are much faster than Circle). I'll be getting a Starbucks at the station

So who's going that I know?

is!

btw I had a great time in Germany, didn't get to see the Alps up close tho, and the weather was a bit British, maybe next time!

So the latest "stable" version, 3.0.10, crashes every 5 minutes... how lovely.

I decided to give the 3.5 beta 4 a go, a little bit better, crashing every 30 minutes or so.

So I think I'm having rather enough when it decides to crash when I'm submitting deviations...

Which one should I go for? I do enjoy all the plugins and features of firefox, in fact, i never had a problem (that i could recall) before firefox automatically updated itself to 3.0.10. I'd happily go back to a version before that if i could!

I never really liked safari for some unfair biased opinion as i hate most apple stuff, and the UI is just plain ugly.

I have always used opera before firefox came into the scene as well, i loved the tabbed browsing experience and the mouse gestures, which i still use in firefox all the time. i am not quite sure what dragged me away from it anymore apart from the very ugly logo/icon (the firefox one is very cute), perhaps it used to render pages strangely as it's too conformed to standards when people didn't care when they do websites?

I also have ie8 on my computer which i have never used, not sure how good or crap it is yet but i have little faith in ie itself, bad name and reputation i guess. which exactly is what i think firefox is on a steady course to ruining.

so yeah. firefox sucks. on windows anyway.

ps. did anyone notice that youtube videos play so much smoother on safari on mac than firefox does?

Hello people, I wonder if you have encountered this problem with your Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 lens that the right side of the image is EXTREMELY blurry even when it should be in focus? And only on the right side, it seems to happen rather randomly as well, even at f/8 where the image quality should be optimal...

I think my warranty is expiring soon, but I am going to Germany in a week and I can't afford to go without it! What should I do?