Windows 7 Phone? Succeed or Fail?

The Windows 7 Phone is on it's way to the wild and it's raising a really interesting question - will Microsoft succeed or fail with it? There are two perspectives on it - one from the tech geek and one from the every day Joe Bloggs user.

Honestly I think that MS have gone down the correct path with this device. It has an extremely smooth and simplified UI. Now this doesn't seem like the ideal solution for us. We can't hack it, mod it, change it to be individual. But this was the beauty of the Apple OS. It was clean, basic and ultimately utilitarian. The every day user just wants their phone to work, no faffing, limited set up and instant gratification.

Microsoft have something of a 'Tech stigma' bought about by years of dealing with mediocre products and half assed approaches to support and updates. Even among the techy, MS have somewhat redeemed their image with Windows 7 - which I personally believe is the superior desktop OS out there - even more so (dare I say it) than OSX. MS have the advantage now of seeing who the market leaders are, what their devices are capable of and ultimately what the end user wants. Undeniably the iPhone has been the final word with smart phones in the past 3-4 years especially when it comes to UI and hardware design. It is stunningly simple and, up until the OS 4.0 roll out which broke anything below the 3Gs) slick as you like!

Android has been the result of a backlash against Apples aggressive and money-centric marketing strategy. 'Everyone wants Apple product so we'll screw them for every bit of cash we can and whilst we're at it we'll take the service providers as well'. Basically if you treat someone like crap for long enough then eventually they'll wake up to it and look somewhere else. Google with the Android OS has provided this outlet. Lets be honest about the Android operating system. It works, on the right hardware it's actually pretty slick. In it's basic form it's not terribly pretty and again, if we're being honest, this is where Google excels - they take and idea and get it out there as quickly as possible in a working and usable form. Design gurus they are not. It has been left with the likes of HTC to work on the GUI and make it attractive and far more functional. There have been other iterations out there not the least being Sony Ericssons X10 - but as we all well know the more these things are modified the slower they are to be updated.

So I believe that Microsoft could actually be onto something with the Windows 7 Phone. It is designed to appeal to the average joe user that 'just wants it to work'.

This brings me to where I think it could fail. Microsoft's strong points have never been making something funky or design-centric unless you take the XBOX into account (however I think that XBOX is a brand solely aimed at a youth market). For them it has always been the enterprise potential of their products and this is reflected in their earnings. The vast percentage of Microsofts profits come from it's desktop and server side operating systems and tools. Their one major entertainment success has been in XBOX and that largely has been down to having the right 3rd party developers on-board and some cunning price points on the console.

So clearly MS has the Enterprise side of things down pat, but every recent foray into the mobile entertainment market has been met with at best indifference and at worst scorn. Zune - failed, Windows Mobile (outside of enterprise) - failed with a current 5% market share, Kin smart phones - failed, tablet PCs - failed, Web-TV - failed, MSN Music - Failed. The problem with the majority of these things is that there was a better and more functional offering out there. Whether it was Tivo, iPod, iPhone and more recently the iPad, there has always been something more desirable and ultimately more functional for the every day user. Where this could fail is not in that it's a Microsoft product, not that the operating system is lacking, and not in the pricing but in it's desirability. When presented with a selection of phone and mobile operating systems, will the average joe go for a stock looking touch phone with a slightly flashy OS? That's the hard question with an even harder answer in my opinion. The possible saving grace? Android has proven that people are ready for something different and the risk to Android? Windows 7 Phone may just be that bit more polished, that little more pretty and have the right element of 'it just works'.

Sky in the Baubles - OcUK Photo Comp - September

Septembers theme was Curves. I found this one to be extremely difficult as curves are such an arbitrary thing and again prone to cliches. The ones that stood out the most to me were roads, cars light trails and women. I was tempted to head down the women path but having never done portraiture in anger nor having a large pool of knowledge when it comes to the lighting of such subjects I was somewhat stumped.


I had an idea of attempting to emulate and photograph the results of a couple of paper folding/cutting artists that have a presence on Flickr. Those of Richard Sweeney and Jen Stark.


Richard Sweeney - Icosahedron

Jen Stark - Over And OutLuckily, both for my sanity and that of my ever tolerant Fiance, another opportunity came up.

Kim, whilst walking down Piccadilly, spotted something that she knew would take my interest and it did that in spades! In the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Art on Piccadilly, London there is a central point where there is often a piece of installation art in place. For the time being it is a piece by a modern artist called Anish Kapoor. He is most famous for the Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago and I guess not having the massive space needed to emulate that in London he's taken a different path.

Tall Tree And The Eye:"Outside the Royal Academy of Arts in the Annenberg Courtyard, 74 stainless-steel spheres will appear to hover miraculously overhead. Look up, and the sky will be framed by thousands of shining bubbles as each element mirrors its neighbours ad infinitum."

This is a shot of the full sculpture:

This is my final entry for the comp that I titled - Sky in the Baubles:
This months subject is 'Energy'... I'm not sure what direction to take on this one - I think there is a bit of thinking involved!

Cosmic Girl - OcUK Photo Comp August

The August theme was Cosmic and this immediately brings to mind things like stars and light trails and anything to do with the heavens. Unfortunately I don't much like to adhere to the stereotypes so much like many of my other entries I thought out of the box.

The idea I came up with was based around the classic super hero look of a female super hero encompassed in energy floating upward whilst objects in her immediate vicinity floated also.

Much like this:

Kim and I headed out to our local park first thing in the morning once the sun was at a decent height. I didn't want to do it too late because the length of the shadows were quite important for me.

I initially took a series of photos from a way back using the Sigma 10-20mm lens but this caused a couple of issues. The first and most obvious is that with the lens being at 10mm there were some issues with it being too far away and there not being reasonable detail in the shot. The second was that being so far back the height that I could get Kim to jump at did not lend itself to the illusion of height.

So I moved the camera closer and also had a re-think on the eventual composition. My initial idea was to get as many random objects as possible floating around the circular area including perhaps my neighbors baby and perhaps a small dog. Not having any small dogs nor the baby at hand I changed my mind and went for things that were every day stuff but also as contextual as possible.

We start with a mostly empty photo:

The next trick was the actual photo taking. My first take on the process involved Kim standing on the step ladder and posing with the follow up a result of getting her to jump off the ladder and catching her mid air. After the first couple of attempts with the jumping off the step ladder I figured that I had to change the approach.

I had the top half of her sorted from the above shot so the next trick was to get her bottom half looking like she was floating. Obviously the jumping was the right direction on this - short of getting a harness and a crane which are slightly out of my means. The main issue here is that there is only so high a person can jump so I resolved to address the issue in the post work. Kim being the absolute soul of tolerance jumped up and down quite a few times each time with a variation on her foot positioning until I got what I was looking for.

You'll notice that the shadow and the feet are significantly lower than in the final image - it was purely in the post work that I shifted both Kim and her shadow upward to add to the illusion of height.

The next trick was floating stuff. This bit was pretty easy - I just got Kim to run around with various objects and either hold them or throw them ensuring that the objects shadows were easily resolved and her fingers were not overlapping the camera facing edges. I also got her to chase a couple of pigeons to give the shot a bit of movement.

The end result is a very basic composite of all the shots - if you have a clean background to work with then painting out any of the other layered shots is a very simple process. For balance sakes I moved some of the objects and their shadows around, straightened the image (my tripod is rubbish) and worked with the levels a bit. I cleaned up Kims arms because I had over exposed them a bit by using a brush created from her own skin where it was exposed properly and finally chucked a boarder around it.

End result:
Cosmic Girl

More Birdies! Eagle handling day.

For my Fiances birthday last year I got her an Eagle Experience Day based out in Eynesford in Kent. I'll openly admit that there were some selfish reasons for coming up with the idea as it was a day for two but I like to think it wasn't anything like buying my better half that tool kit she's always wanted...


I was more than happy to sit back and take photos and that is exactly what I did, again with moderate success. The day was 6 hours of one on one with some of the most stunning animals that we've had the privilage to meet.


Along the way we learned a few things too, some a little disturbing and some really interesting. One thing we learned fairly rapidly was that chicks come out of their egg still containing their yolk which subsequently goes everywhere the moment the largest bird that I have ever seen tears it to shreds whilst sitting on your gloved hand. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM!!! Did I mention that she's a vegetarian?


There were two stand out birds on the day and the first was Chilli the Bald Eagle. Interesting fact about Bald Eagles, they aren't called bald because of the white head but because of their overall colouration. A white and black horse is known as a piebald horse and when the settlers came to name the Bald Eagle it was for the same reason - they are a piebald eagle. Anyway - on to the photos!

The second was Nobel the Tawny Eagle. He was a really interesting chap that seems quite lazy even to the point where he would rather walk everywhere rather than fly. The even odder thing was that when he walked there was no waddle that you associate with pidgeons and other birds. He looked for all the world like a person, albeit a bit feathery.

So - presenting Noble the Tawn Eagle:

On the photography front...

I've been keeping busy on the photography side of things as well. I've managed to get through a couple more photography projects for the Overclockers UK monthly photo competition with moderate success.

The July theme was '5 Seconds' with the idea that all the photos should be taken using a long exposure technique of 5 seconds length or more. After toying with a whole set of cliched ideas using light trails, light painting, stars in the night sky and car trails I had an epiphany. Ok that's a little white lie, I nicked the idea off Top Gear, the motoring show on the BBC, where they were showing what I think was a new Lambo or Maserati or similar. They had a neat effect using neon tubes where they were waved along the length of the car but you could only see the light trails as they were being made. Being rather taken by the idea, I thought I'd have a go.

So I jumped on Ebay and found myself a portable neon lamp for around £20 which I thought looked around perfect for the job:

The next trick was to head up onto the roof of my apartment block and start experimenting. My initial idea was to run along the length of the roof and make some random light trails but this soon proved itself to be impractical for a couple of reasons. The first of which was a lack of context, i.e. the ribbons of light were neither coming nor going anywhere. The next issue was that as I walked/ran with the light my movement would translate into the ribbons, so for every step I made the ribbon would bob up and down. Now lacking a steady cam rig there wasn't really any solution to that so I changed the scene a bit and also the distance that I had to cover in the time span allotted.

Shifting the camera around to face the roof entrance to the building I cottoned onto what was to be the final composition and also the answer to my 'where are the ribbons going' problem. My other issue was resolved by forcing myself to be as smooth as possible. After around about 5-10 attempts I was losing the light and decided to call it a night, not before turning around and discovering that I had been entertaining some of the occupants of the hotel next door... oh well these are the sacrifices we make for our art!

So end result? It is a combination of 5 exposures all shot at around 25 seconds a shot and composited in Photoshop.

It's all been quiet here for a bit...

Motivation has been lacking of late for updating this blog and it's a shame because there has been a great deal going on. Having a little bit of time on my hands I thought I'd see if I could make some movement toward catching up a little.

I left off on a couple of music related things and since then I've come across a producer/artist that has really caught my attention. His name is Ulrich Schnauss and is an electronic musician from Germany. Having a little bit of a background in dance music and electronica I do tend to keep an eye out for these things although of late my inclinations have been more for heavy rock and metal. Still when something comes along of this quality I generally sit up and take notice.

Similarities could be drawn to the likes of Tangerine Dream, Orbital or perhaps the more mellow efforts of Chicane. In my own description I would say that it's a lush downbeat sound with lots of subtle audio layering, extremely easy to listen to and I would recommend his work. Enjoy...

Ulrich Schnauss - Clear Day

Ulrich Schnauss - Shine

DUBFX - Some people just have a stunning talent...

This boy just has a fantastic talent and demonstrates it in his street performances.

Artist web site: http://www.dubfx.net