Wirral Egg Run Photos 2008

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Wirral Egg Run

The Wirral Egg Run is a charity event that is held every year the week before Easter. Bikers gather at New Brighton with their easter eggs or donations and then ride through the Wirral ending up a Clatterbridge Hospital, to drop their eggs off for children in hospital over the easter period. Donations are collected for the Jellybean children’s appeal raising money for children in hospital.

There’s always a good turnout, whether it’s bikers or spectators, and it’s said that it’s the largest event of it’s kind in Britain, if not Europe. It’s hard to keep track but it’s estimated to have around 5,000 bikes involved and raises 1,000’s of pounds for the jellybean appeal each year.

I first went on the Egg Run in 1998 and I haven’t missed too many since then (only when I had the kids), my husband rides a motorbike so I ride pillion on that. I really enjoy going on the Egg Run and it’s great to help out a charity and the children in this way. The rain held off this year as well which is always good. Ooh I’ve just noticed while writing this that it’s 10 years since I first went on the egg run, it doesn’t seem that long ago!

Photos

Below are some photos that I took on this years egg run. This is where it’s handy to have a point and shoot as there isn’t a lot of space on the back of the bike to carry anything else! It’s hard though to capture the huge amount of bikes that take part, you only get a glimpse from the photo’s of part of the long line of bikes that snakes it’s way around the sea front at New Brighton. And it can take over 2 hours to complete the route because of the volume of bikes.

Mandy

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New Photography 101 Course

This blog is about my journey as a photographer, and what I am learning along the way about digital photography and experimenting with it.

All journeys have a start and a finish although the part in the middle can be different lengths there is always a start and a finish.

Although I have taken photographs for years I have only just started to seriously look for information about, and try experimenting with digital photography. So I am at the beginning of my journey with digital photography. And I want to find and learn the basics of using digital cameras, so I have a strong foundation before moving on to more difficult stuff.

I use a point and shoot Traveler DC-5080 at the moment, but I am starting to feel restricted by the capabilities of the camera. So I want to buy a DSLR camera so I can start experimenting with shutter speeds and aperture settings etc… But DSLR’s cost a fair bit so I want to know more about them so I can use it to it’s full potential, rather than just having an expensive automatic mode!

I’ve just read a post on the Digital Photography School Blog that could be the answer. Next Monday they are going to be starting a weekly (about 12) Photography 101 - a basic course on the camera, looking at all the basics of camera design, use and how they work. If it’s successful there may be more! I’m definitely going to be following this course it sounds like just what I am looking for.

I’m enjoying my journey as a photographer and looking forward to where it could take me.

Mandy

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TPB Monthly Round Up #2

It’s time for TPB (The Photographer Blog) monthly round up, I can’t believe it’s the end of the month already.

This month I have enjoyed exploring other photographers sites, here are three of my favorites:

Natalie Norton Photos, I first read a guest post that Natalie had done on the Digital Photography School blog. I like her style, she has a refreshing view towards photography and obviously loves taking photos. I also like the fact that you can see her journey with photography and how she has grown as a photographer.

The Blog is Found is the blog for The Image is Found website by Nate and Jaclyn a married couple who are professional photographers and this blog is a journal for all of their professional work. Which gives a great insight into what it is like to be a professional photographer with a personal touch.

And then last but not least a site that I found on Stumble Upon called The Visual Record. It’s got loads of information and some great photographs.

I do love Photographers blogs I think it’s a great way to share your photography and get to know other photographers. But they are so hard to find, or I just haven’t been looking in the right places!

Mandy

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Do You Have a Flickr Account?

I have to admit I didn’t know anything about Flickr until very recently. The first thing I learned was that it is part of the Yahoo Group, and I learned that when I heard about Microsoft putting a bid in for Yahoo.

So why am I interested now?

Well it’s not because Microsoft may be taking over. I am going to be starting my own photography Project 365 and I was trying to decide how to share the photos. This blog is all about my journey as a photographer so the fact that I wanted to share them wasn’t even a question, but where is the best place?

I did think about sharing them on the blog as that was the obvious place, but Project 365 is about taking a photo a day for a year, so that’s a lot of photos. So just adding the photos in between the other posts seemed messy, I felt that the project is big enough to need some separate attention.

But at the moment this blog is still new, building and finding it’s feet, so I don’t feel it’s right to start another blog or photoblog in case it took me away from here.

So I started to look at photo management sites. And the most popular one that you always hear about and everybody seems to be part of is Flickr. Now I don’t know why I have never considered using a photo management site before, I suppose I just haven’t felt the need. But it makes a lot of sense now, I can upload and share my Project 365 photos and link to them from this blog. I will also be doing monthly updates here about how I am finding the project, so joining a photo management site seems a much better solution.

Flickr

As I said earlier Flickr is owned by Yahoo which means you can use your Yahoo ID (if you have one) when you sign up. They say it’s most likely the best photo management system on the internet with millions of users and all types of photographers. I’m most interested in the creative commons feature which gives you flexible control over your images and who is allowed to use them. I am looking forward to trying out Flickr to see what it is like.

Flickr’s two main goals are:

1. To help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them.
2. Enable new ways to organize photos.

So in a week I have gone from knowing nothing and not being interested in Flickr, to starting my own account and looking to join a Flickr group to do with Project 365, to meet other photographers doing the same thing. A pretty sharp turn around!

Mandy

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Project 365

Could you take a photo a day for a whole year?

I have recently read on Photojojo about this Project 365 - take a photo a day for a year. It was originally started by Taylor McKnight back in 2004 and he has recently done it for a second time. Photojojo are encouraging everyone to have a go and see how it changes you as a person and as a photographer.

It sounds really interesting, the thought of taking a photo a day for a year is a big commitment, and a bit of a challenge to think of something to take every day. But I imagine it would be very interesting, and at the end of the year I would have a huge album of photographs to look back at.

And taking a photo a day for a year can only improve my photography skills surely, or else completely put me off photography for life! Either way it will be fun finding out.

I am definitely going to do it and I am looking forward to the challenge. I haven’t decided yet whether to post the photos here or to use Flickr and share them there (I don’t know anything about Flickr - yet), but I will be waiting until the beginning of next month to start the project just to keep things nice and tidy, and give myself time to prepare!

Why don’t you too take up the challenge and start your own project…

Mandy

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TPB Monthly Round Up #1

New monthly feature

Today I am starting a new monthly feature. During the past month I have found some really good sites to visit, but instead of posting about them all over the place I thought I would create a monthly round up feature, on the last day of the month to keep them all together.

So TPB (the photographer blog) Monthly Round Up is starting today. Once a month I will share the good sites and information I have come across in that month, and they will be in the News and Updates category for easy reference in the future. So here is January’s:

Digital Photography School by Darren Rowse, a really helpful blog for tips on any kind of digital photography. There is also a Digital Photography School Forum that is a great place to meet other photographers, I have just joined!

DSLRBlog by Chis G, another good place to hear people’s opinions and share some of your own, also good for news about digital photography.

The Online Photographer by Mike Johnston, if you are after something a bit different to the normal photography blogs then this is the place to go.

These were my favourites of the month and I have been spending a fair amount of time reading them and enjoying them this month.

Mandy

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What The Heck Is RSS And How Does It Work?

I had no idea what an RSS feed was a couple of months ago, but you can learn quick.

But why should I care?

Good question. First, here’s why you should care. Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don’t have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be “taken off the list.”

One click, and poof… the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you.

That’s right… no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

You won’t need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.”

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel. With just one click. Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool! Umm… So what the heck is RSS?

Alright! Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest. As you surf around the internet you may find there’s lots of useful blogs and information that you would like to follow. So if you’re anything like me you have a long list of bookmarks. Which is all well and good, but you have to keep checking back to each blog checking for updates and that’s very time consuming.

That’s where ‘Subscribing to a Feed’ comes in. When you subscribe to a feed you are sent the posts every time the blog is updated, whether you choose email or feed readers. But the main point is, it keeps everything in the one place so it’s easy to track what the different blogs that you are interested in are doing. You can be reading any amount of blogs through their feeds and every time the blogs are posted to, they are updated in your feed reader. And that cuts out all the surfing around checking the blogs individually, a great time saver.

You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed – you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

If you actually want to know how RSS works, click here.

What the heck is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like My Yahoo or My MSN, you’ve got RSS capabilities built in. That’s how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appears on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. Some of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point are Bloglines, Google and Yahoo amongst others and they are free and easy to get started with.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function. The next version of Internet Explorer will add this feature as well.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it’s really not.

So how do I Subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for the subscription or feed options

If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner to aid in the subscription process (like The Photographer Blog and many other popular sites), you’ll likely see the standard RSS icon, which takes you to a page that will give you an array of the most popular feed readers so you can select yours, and you’ll go from there. For instance I use the Google feed reader. This is the standard RSS icon:

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems.

So there you have it… RSS is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it’s a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it’s good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing, and that our message is not nuked by an overzealous spam filter. Click Here to Subscribe to The Photographer Blog

100% “NO-SPAM” Guarantee

But if you do prefer to have your blog updates sent to you via email then you can have the convenience of your fresh Photographer Blog content being sent straight to your email inbox.

A service called Feedburner handles all my RSS feed and email updates and it is 100% safe and spam free! Myself or Feedburner will never share, trade, sell, deliver, reveal, publicize, or market your email address in any way, shape, or form. Period. You will receive a confirmation email with an activation link that you will need to click and that’s it. Whenever the blog you are following has new content, you will find the posts from your feed in your inbox. Click Here to Subscribe to The Photographer Blog by Email

It’s just up to you and which type of subscription you prefer?

If there’s anything here that is confusing, or you have a question, please leave a comment or email me and I’ll be happy to help!

“Thanks to Copyblogger for a helping hand with this RSS mini-tutorial.”

Thanks

Mandy

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Hello and Welcome to The Photographer Blog

So what’s this blog all about?

Hello and welcome to my new blog, The Photographer Blog. My name is Mandy Jones and I will be sharing my journey as a photographer, and my love for photography - taking them, looking at them and enjoying them. I’m waffling already.

I will also be exploring stock photography and what it has to offer including: buying and selling photographs, the copyright and licensing laws behind it, and I will be trying to sell some of my own work and taking a look at the results!

This is a brief introduction to this blog giving a sample of what I want to cover with it. If you would like to find out more information on this blog, then you may like to take a look at the about page where I go more into more detail.

Or, if you are interested in blogging and how I started this blog, then take a look at my other blog, Build A Blog. Where I look at what I have learned about blogs, blogging and building them and how I’ve got to this point, using this blog as a case study following how it was created.

Enjoy!

So I hope you enjoy The Photographer Blog over the coming weeks and months, and visit often to see it grow and take shape. As much as I am looking forward to writing it myself. If you would like to catch all the information and updates for The Photographer Blog, then please subscribe to my RSS feed and never miss a single one!

Thanks and I hope to see you again soon…

Mandy

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