<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539</id><updated>2010-01-04T21:50:30.087Z</updated><title type='text'>365 to 42</title><subtitle type='html'>A year in photos, unconnected images taken by me during my 41st year and now beyond!</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>473</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-6672229707630604472</id><published>2009-12-23T00:01:00.000Z</published><updated>2009-12-23T00:01:00.330Z</updated><title type='text'>Happy Christmas.</title><content type='html'>It’s CHRISTMAS, well it will be in just 2 days and as I don’t think I will get the time to post on the day it’s self  I wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas (and if I’m having a really good time and don’t get round to posting before) a happy new year.&lt;br /&gt;To help you celebrate here a picture of a snow man who I came across in the middle of a wood, miles from anywhere, but he look so jolly I had to grab a shot or two.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/frosty.jpg?t=1261512937"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/frosty.jpg?t=1261512937" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/gene+autry/track/frosty+the+snowman" title="'Gene Autry - Frosty The Snowman' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Gene Autry - Frosty The Snowman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-6672229707630604472?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/6672229707630604472/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=6672229707630604472' title='7 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6672229707630604472'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6672229707630604472'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-christmas.html' title='Happy Christmas.'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>7</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-5869079132392889508</id><published>2009-12-18T17:16:00.003Z</published><updated>2009-12-18T17:21:07.776Z</updated><title type='text'>Its SOOOOOOOO cold!!</title><content type='html'>A very quick post today as the rush before Christmas is taking over all my time. The main area of work at the moment is getting a load of shots done for the Leek blog so that I can pre post over the holidays to have some time away from the computer, not that I won’t be able to keep off it for more than a few days! The hardest part about trying to build up a stock of images is that when I get a good one I post it right away (Saturday’s image on the &lt;a href="http://leekdailyphoto.blogspot.com/"&gt;Leek blog&lt;/a&gt; being a very good example as I wanted to save it but just could not resist posting it).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today’s picture is just right as it is freezing out there at the moment. It was taken a few weeks ago up by the Mermaid pool before the sun was up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/mermaidpool3.jpg?t=1261156549"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/mermaidpool3.jpg?t=1261156549" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/suzanne+vega/track/freeze+tag" title="'Suzanne Vega - Freeze Tag' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Suzanne Vega - Freeze Tag&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;font-size:10;" &gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-5869079132392889508?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/5869079132392889508/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=5869079132392889508' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5869079132392889508'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5869079132392889508'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/its-soooooooo-cold.html' title='Its SOOOOOOOO cold!!'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-7277192157855608701</id><published>2009-12-16T11:14:00.003Z</published><updated>2009-12-16T11:38:58.935Z</updated><title type='text'>X er size!!!</title><content type='html'>Yes the dreaded E word has raised its ugly head again, Exercise, I’m not getting any younger and certainly not getting any thinner so it been decided that I must do more of it if I’m to realise my ambition to be the oldest and fittest person on the planet when global warming finally finishes us all off. To complement my swimming, I’m up to ½ a mile now; I am also looking to join a Pilates class! On top of that the new me is cutting down on the beer and trying to eat less!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To help me do all this I think I will need a goal to aim for and one of the possibilities is to train up for something. The something I have in mind is the Great North swim, now this is still in the planning stage and I’m not sure I will try it but a 1 mile swim in the open water of Lake Windermere, in September, is certainly looking like a good idea at the moment. If nothing else it will make sure I keep the swimming up and give me at least one weekend in the Lake District next year.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keeping on the watery theme here is a shot of water rushing over a local weir.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/steps.jpg?t=1260960978"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/steps.jpg?t=1260960978" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/happy+mondays/track/step+on" title="'Happy Mondays - Step On' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Happy Mondays - Step On&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;font-size:10;" &gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-7277192157855608701?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/7277192157855608701/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=7277192157855608701' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7277192157855608701'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7277192157855608701'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/x-er-size.html' title='X er size!!!'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-5401863853271090976</id><published>2009-12-14T08:15:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-12-14T09:40:05.644Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - FAIL blog</title><content type='html'>While blogging I always book mark interesting blogs as possible blogs of the week, then on a Monday I sit down and wade through them to pick one for the post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I have not had as much free time of late so the blogs book marked are all from some weeks ago and when I revisited them all, there were around 10 blogs, I found that very few had been updated that recently and some not at all. Now as a blog of the week I would rather pick a blog that is on going, than one that has died, so I came to the conclusion that there would not be a blog of the week this week, until I looked at this blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://failblog.org/"&gt;FAIL blog&lt;/a&gt; is not an indictment on all the other blogs I had book marked but a blog devoted to all things wrong, from bad signage to errors of judgement to the just dam stupid, some of it can be in bad taste and a little adult orientated, but occasionally there are real gems in amongst the so so pictures. Take &lt;a href="http://failblog.org/2009/12/11/friday-rewind-golfing-fail/"&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, a real case of what happens next and a great example of what not to do on top of a mountain.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Photo today is a reworking of a shot taken in Yorkshire earlier this year, hope you like it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/yorkshiretree.jpg?t=1260778488"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/yorkshiretree.jpg?t=1260778488" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/guns+n+roses/track/jumping+jack+flash+%28live+acoustic+-+rolling+stones+cover%29" title="'Guns 'n' Roses - jumping jack flash (live acoustic - rolling stones cover)' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Guns 'n' Roses - jumping jack flash (live acoustic - rolling stones cover)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-5401863853271090976?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/5401863853271090976/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=5401863853271090976' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5401863853271090976'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5401863853271090976'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-of-week-fail-blog.html' title='Blog of the week - FAIL blog'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-714616650292624837</id><published>2009-12-11T18:05:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-12-11T18:46:42.538Z</updated><title type='text'>Magic round about.</title><content type='html'>Trying to write a post while watching Top Gear on BBC iPlayer is not a smart move, a ¼ of an hour later and this is all I have written. Still its one of the best things on tv at the moment and due to the BBC changing the time without any real reason on Sunday I missed the first ½ hour, thank god for the iPlayer.&lt;br /&gt;The picture today is the one mention in the last post, it was such as great thing I had to capture it, but it did take a bit of work. First of all its 4 shots stitch together then it has been tone mapped to get the exposure just right. To finish I took out a couple people that were cluttering up the back ground and de-saturated the back ground.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/magic.jpg?t=1260554679"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/magic.jpg?t=1260554679" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/simple+minds/track/ghostdancing" title="'Simple Minds - Ghostdancing' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Simple Minds - Ghostdancing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-714616650292624837?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/714616650292624837/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=714616650292624837' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/714616650292624837'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/714616650292624837'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/magic-round-about.html' title='Magic round about.'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-9048189853990759828</id><published>2009-12-09T00:01:00.000Z</published><updated>2009-12-09T00:01:01.531Z</updated><title type='text'>Tatton park at Christmas</title><content type='html'>Went to Tatton park over the weekend, looking for some Christmas cheer, the ridicules thing was that after searching the web Tatton park seemed to be the closest place doing anything the slightest Christmassy and that was nearly 30 miles away. When we got there it was a great disappointment as the Christmas gift fair was over priced and very small compared to other events that we have been to there. The only saving grace was this Truck that I managed to shoot; it was part of a travelling fair ground ride which if I get time I will also try to post a picture of.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/schammel.jpg?t=1260271363"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/schammel.jpg?t=1260271363" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/foo+fighters/track/all+my+life" title="'Foo Fighters - All My Life' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Foo Fighters - All My Life&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-9048189853990759828?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/9048189853990759828/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=9048189853990759828' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/9048189853990759828'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/9048189853990759828'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/tatton-park-at-christmas.html' title='Tatton park at Christmas'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-5183996328941793470</id><published>2009-12-07T00:01:00.000Z</published><updated>2009-12-07T00:01:00.384Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - Cake Wrecks</title><content type='html'>Blog of the week is the fantastic &lt;a href="http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/"&gt;Cake Wrecks&lt;/a&gt;, when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. I stumble across this site weeks ago and just knew it was a must for blog of the week. The site is mainly pictures with some very funny comments added, as it suggest in the title it is mostly very bad cakes but interspaced with some really good ones so you don’t lose heart with the baking world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/chains.jpg?t=1259946656"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/chains.jpg?t=1259946656" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+cranberries/track/linger"&gt;The Cranberries - Linger&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;via &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-5183996328941793470?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/5183996328941793470/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=5183996328941793470' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5183996328941793470'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5183996328941793470'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-of-week-cake-wrecks.html' title='Blog of the week - Cake Wrecks'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-8411949976305193465</id><published>2009-12-04T16:41:00.001Z</published><updated>2009-12-04T16:44:25.045Z</updated><title type='text'>Christmas is coming!!!</title><content type='html'>The madness that is Christmas is starting to take hold both at home and at work. At home it manifest its self in a manic spree of cleaning and tiding to get everything sparkling just before we hide it all under a layer of decorations. At work it pays not to sit at your desk too long or risk being covered in tinsel and bubbles. In our house most of the present choosing is done by Caz, with me being given the casting vote, although if I pick the wrong thing I get over ruled. It is all part of the fun trying to get the right thing for everyone, but it’s made so much easier when they have wish list and you know that what ever you get it will be right.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture today is an early morning shot taken near Rudyard Lake, the low mist and great light really does not show in most of the pictures I took, but this one was the closest.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/morningmist.jpg?t=1259944815"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/morningmist.jpg?t=1259944815" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/bran+van+3000/track/drinking+in+la" title="'Bran Van 3000 - Drinking In LA' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Bran Van 3000 - Drinking In LA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-8411949976305193465?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/8411949976305193465/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=8411949976305193465' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8411949976305193465'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8411949976305193465'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-is-coming.html' title='Christmas is coming!!!'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-5038183756384390277</id><published>2009-11-30T08:46:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-11-30T10:16:03.418Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - Eating Olives with My Dog</title><content type='html'>The Blog of the week this week will either be a classic that will run and run, or a flop that peters out after only a few short posts, I think that it will be the former and one day you might even see a book of the blog! So for a chance to be in almost at the start pop over to &lt;a href="http://eatingoliveswithmydog.blogspot.com/"&gt;Eating Olives with My Dog&lt;/a&gt;, sounds like a great title for a book,  and catch up with what I hope will be the start of a great adventure and a great blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My blog posts of late have been rather short and sometimes nearly none existent and I think its time for an explanation. I work part time and in April went off sick with an injured shoulder and neck, about the only thing it stopped me doing was using a PC for any length of time (blog post at this time were written over a large number of hours and even days), but by September I was well on the mend and started back to work. While off work I had made the momentous decision to become a full time photographer at some point in the near future and had started to raise my profile and try to get some paid work, this was all going great until I started back to my old job when time started to become a factor in all that I did. Although my heart lies with the photographer, my head likes the regular income from the part time job and things started to be put on the back burner, both blogs have taken the brunt of the cuts as you will know just how time consuming they can be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Normally this would be fine as I have managed to do the blogs for nearly 2 years and hold down the job, but add in the attempts to get photographic work and it had all become a bit much and life has started to slip a bit. Now this could be a good point to say that I was going to quit blogging and to be honest I have just sat here for a while thinking that I had written a fine ending to the blog without realising it, but I would miss it too much, getting comments, reading blogs and posting pictures all have become such a part of my life I could not imagine going on without them. So I will try to be a better Blogger and if anyone needs a photographer you know where I am.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Photo today is of the colours of autumn that we had here just a few weeks ago.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/Autcol.jpg?t=1259570708"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/Autcol.jpg?t=1259570708" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/oasis/track/morning+glory" title="'Oasis - Morning Glory' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Oasis - Morning Glory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-5038183756384390277?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/5038183756384390277/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=5038183756384390277' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5038183756384390277'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5038183756384390277'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-of-week-eating-olives-with-my-dog.html' title='Blog of the week - Eating Olives with My Dog'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-9216293063355799714</id><published>2009-11-27T16:27:00.003Z</published><updated>2009-11-27T16:31:53.155Z</updated><title type='text'>Real?</title><content type='html'>What do you think?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/rushhour.jpg?t=1259339205"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/rushhour.jpg?t=1259339205" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+bangles/track/in+a+different+light" title="'The Bangles - In A Different Light' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;The Bangles - In A Different Light&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-9216293063355799714?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/9216293063355799714/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=9216293063355799714' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/9216293063355799714'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/9216293063355799714'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/real.html' title='Real?'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-4203866341236321837</id><published>2009-11-25T00:01:00.000Z</published><updated>2009-11-25T00:01:01.664Z</updated><title type='text'>Manchester.</title><content type='html'>No blog of the week this week as I missed Mondays post, due to the fact I was having such a good time away from my computer living it up in the big city, Manchester to be precise, getting all the Christmas shopping done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In fact the whole weekend has been a break from the normal, although not as much fun as Monday, with 4 whole days off work we were able to do just what we wanted and on Sunday I came up with the great idea to decorate the kitchen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What was I thinking, I thought we could do the whole thing in a day, wrong, I still have loads to do and the weekend is a distant memory, still it will look good once it is finished.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Manchester was great, we got the train from Macclesfield and by 10 am we were in the centre of the city with the whole day to our selves. The plan was to shop, grab a good meal at lunch time, see the Christmas market and have a ride on the big wheel and unusually for me it all worked out wonderfully, we even missed getting soaked by the heavy rain.. Caz got most of the things she was looking for and I came away with 2 new books and more importantly an idea what she wants for Christmas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To finish off the day is style we stopped off at our favourite Mexican restaurant in Macclesfield El Rio’s where the food and welcome was as good as ever.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture today is one of a set taken around the site of Leeks newest supermarket, at the moment it is still an industrial estate but soon work will start to remove the old buildings to build houses and the supermarket. This building is to remain though, it a &lt;a href="http://www.brindleymill.net/htmlfiles/history.html"&gt;water mill&lt;/a&gt; built by &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brindley"&gt;James Brindley&lt;/a&gt; in 1752. If you could look right through this building you would be looking at the spot the poppy photo was taken from the last post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/watermillhdr.jpg?t=1259053524"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/watermillhdr.jpg?t=1259053524" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+smiths/track/this+charming+man" title="'The Smiths - This Charming Man' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;The Smiths - This Charming Man&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-4203866341236321837?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/4203866341236321837/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=4203866341236321837' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4203866341236321837'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4203866341236321837'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/manchester.html' title='Manchester.'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-6382570430626614825</id><published>2009-11-20T17:30:00.004Z</published><updated>2009-11-20T17:49:29.144Z</updated><title type='text'>Bees to honey</title><content type='html'>Today a shot taken during our very short summer, I’d gone out just to photograph this patch of wild flowers that had been planted on waste ground near my local pub and as I was composing a shot this Bee just happened to fly by. One of those great little moment’s that happen far too infrequently, but are all the better for their rarity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still on the subject of Bees, like Bees around honey is a very good description of some of the young lads at work when they realised that one of the more eligible girls was newly single. It’s great fun looking on from outside at how cool they are trying to be, while to every one else it so obvious what’s going on, it makes me cringe to think just how bad I looked back in the day as I’m sure I was no where as confident as the lads are today.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/bline.jpg?t=1258738146"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/bline.jpg?t=1258738146" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/kate+bush/track/hounds+of+love" title="'Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic;font-size:10;" &gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-6382570430626614825?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/6382570430626614825/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=6382570430626614825' title='8 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6382570430626614825'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6382570430626614825'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/bees-to-honey.html' title='Bees to honey'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>8</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-6264280488260300170</id><published>2009-11-18T10:05:00.003Z</published><updated>2009-11-18T10:51:52.115Z</updated><title type='text'>It's a blank page!!!</title><content type='html'>I write my blog posts on a word document and then copy and past them over to the Blogger page; I do this because with my dyslexia it helps to see the words in a familiar style and word also helps with the spelling and layout much better than Blogger. Each time I sit down to write a post I still feel intimidated by the blank page, even though the document now runs to 153 pages and 95,500 words, more often recently I also find I struggle to get across what I want to say, again intimidated by having to fill a page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the things that keeps me going is the great posts written by the many bloggers I read, although I sometimes spend too long reading them and end up having no time to do my own, so it comes as a shock when one you love vanishes from the world. Take ‘won’t let life define me’ I loved this blog but all of a sudden I can not get to see it, I known that its not the first to go and it won’t be the last, but it still feels like losing an old friend without having had time to say good bye.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I must admit that when I reached day 366 I was tempted to finish the blog, it is a big commitment to keep posting and photographing, but on the plus side it does keep me writing and taking pictures and practice in both is never time wasted. Also with out the blog I would not have experimented with my picture to the extent that I have done, after 20 years of taking pictures my range of skills have increased more in the last 18 month than ever before. Today’s picture is testimony to that, it’s a shot taken last winter for this blog, but it never made the cut until I HDR’ed it earlier this week and fell in love with it. The shot is of the Great ridge in the Peak district.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/greatridgehdr2.jpg?t=1258538709"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/greatridgehdr2.jpg?t=1258538709" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/james/track/sit+down" title="'James - Sit Down' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;James - Sit Down&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-6264280488260300170?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/6264280488260300170/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=6264280488260300170' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6264280488260300170'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/6264280488260300170'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-blank-page.html' title='It&apos;s a blank page!!!'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-139789842539870788</id><published>2009-11-16T11:52:00.001Z</published><updated>2009-11-16T12:15:25.463Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - Pixel darkroom photography</title><content type='html'>No post on Friday last week as I had nothing but negative thought and did not want to bring anyone else down at the start of the week end. Now I have had a few days off I’m all smiles again and getting on with life, two complaint emails sent off to my two most trust on line photo suppliers, results in a few days I hope.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Blog of the week is a new one to me and a fairly new one to the web as well with only 30 posts so far, so a chance to get in at the start before every one else is following him. &lt;a href="http://www.pixeldarkroom.com/blog/"&gt;Pixel Darkroom photography&lt;/a&gt; is a 365 day photo blog, just like this one used to be 460 post ago and shows a great range of skill even with so few post already done. The best bit for me, apart from being grateful I am not starting one again, is that he shows how some of the photos were taken, lighting set up and camera positions, great if you want to try the shots yourself. So pop over and have a look, I’ve noticed that he gets very few comments and I well know how much encouragement I got from a few kind words.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Photo to day is a shot of Loch Lomond taken during our week on Scotland, the building is a power station I think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/lomond.jpg?t=1258372333"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/lomond.jpg?t=1258372333" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/monty+python/track/always+look+on+the+bright+side+of+life" title="'Monty Python - Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Monty Python - Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-139789842539870788?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/139789842539870788/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=139789842539870788' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/139789842539870788'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/139789842539870788'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-of-week-pixeldarkroom.html' title='Blog of the week - Pixel darkroom photography'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-5893209838078999521</id><published>2009-11-11T00:01:00.000Z</published><updated>2009-11-11T00:01:00.764Z</updated><title type='text'>Remember</title><content type='html'>It was the silence that first struck me and then the lack of movement. On Leek’s busiest street the total absence of movement was beyond strange, more so given that there were more people in view than I had ever seen here before, in fact the only things moving were the flags on the monument.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The monument, one of the reasons that we were here, a great clock tower made of Portland stone, engraved around the top with the names Hooge, Loos, Ypres, Somme, Bellenglise, Ramicourt, Bohain, Lens and Gommecourt some foreign fields that are forever England, names that used to stir strong emotions in previous generations, although now names that are nearly forgotten in the minds of most.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still the silence holds sway over the crowd, not a voice can be heard, not a car, not even a bird, nothing seems to dare to disturb the moment, as 100’s of people stand and honour our fallen. Then the bugle sounds, shoulders relax, heads raise and a few tears are swiftly wiped away, people start to move and a wave of sound builds as the crowd slowly comes back to life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The 2 minutes silence for remembrance Sunday 2009 has finished, but for me my work has just begun, I have made my way here to try and photograph the event for my leek blog.&lt;br /&gt;Sundays for me are normally family days but I really wanted to capture this, as the Monument is the real centre of the town and this is its big day, but as I walked towards the crowd the last post sounded and all noise stopped and not just all noise but all movement as well. So I too stood still, head bowed and gave thanks for all our brave men and women, who’s number continues to grow, who gave their lives so that we can live ours in peace and comfort.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once the silence was over I walked around the crowd, photographing the sights and marvelling at the number of people that had turned out on a cold Sunday and also at the great age range as it was not just the old, but people from all generations, all I think aware of this ceremonies new found relevance as more of our troops are sent into harms way.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What started out as a normal photo shoot left me very moved, far more than in other years, I think because its not all history any more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/remember1.jpg?t=1257883587"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/remember1.jpg?t=1257883587" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/band+of+the+blues+and+royals/track/therell+always+be+an+england" title="'Band Of The Blues And Royals - There'll Always Be An England' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Band Of The Blues And Royals - There'll Always Be An England&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-5893209838078999521?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/5893209838078999521/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=5893209838078999521' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5893209838078999521'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/5893209838078999521'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/remember.html' title='Remember'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-7336906717363074776</id><published>2009-11-09T10:32:00.001Z</published><updated>2009-11-09T11:13:21.878Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - the DawnTreader Picturebook</title><content type='html'>When surfing the net I come across loads of great blogs, the ones I find the most interesting or entertaining I bookmark in a folder entitled blog of the week and when Monday comes round I open the file and see what I’ve got. For a few weeks one name as kept drawing my eye but has lost out to more recent finds, until I clicked on it today. At first I was unsure why it had made it in to the folder in the first place, although the name alone would make it stand out as I think it is just so cool, &lt;a href="http://dawntreader-picturebook.blogspot.com/"&gt;the DawnTreader Picturebook&lt;/a&gt; is really just a collection of everyday pictures, so why is it in the blog of the week folder?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well for a start as I have said the name is so cool and the pictures are far from ordinary, they just look it until you start to notice that there are slight differences to what I would expect to see. These are the sorts of pictures I take for my Leek blog and although they look familiar there are differences in the buildings and street furniture that remind me that this is a totally different country, but it looks so like home. The next thing that I found on rereading the blog is that it is just the tip of the &lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/13956409908791716009"&gt;Dawn Treader&lt;/a&gt; iceberg with 3 other blogs, each well worth a visit and one of which is on the list for blog of the week. So although this is blog of the week it could also be Blogger of the week.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now for an ordinary picture from Leek, this is a shot of the local scrap yard taken last winter in a snow storm, I have HDR’ed it and boosted the colour a bit, I just love the feel of the shot and all the detail.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/scrap.jpg?t=1257764767"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/scrap.jpg?t=1257764767" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/simon+%26+garfunkel/track/the+sound+of+silence" title="'Simon &amp;amp; Garfunkel - The Sound Of Silence' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Simon &amp;amp; Garfunkel - The Sound Of Silence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-7336906717363074776?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/7336906717363074776/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=7336906717363074776' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7336906717363074776'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7336906717363074776'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-of-week-dawntreader-picturebook.html' title='Blog of the week - the DawnTreader Picturebook'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-1584967711230463401</id><published>2009-11-06T19:46:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-11-06T19:49:22.412Z</updated><title type='text'>Stuck for words</title><content type='html'>Been out and had a nice meal and a drink and am now stuck for words, so here's a picture and wishes for a great weekend.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/ribb.jpg?t=1257536715"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/ribb.jpg?t=1257536715" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/fleetwood+mac/track/songbird" title="'Fleetwood Mac - Songbird' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Fleetwood Mac - Songbird&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-1584967711230463401?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/1584967711230463401/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=1584967711230463401' title='6 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/1584967711230463401'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/1584967711230463401'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/stuck-for-words.html' title='Stuck for words'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>6</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-4988004589111877557</id><published>2009-11-04T09:40:00.001Z</published><updated>2009-11-04T09:44:46.378Z</updated><title type='text'>Heros</title><content type='html'>Watching the late night news a couple of days ago I was struck by the big difference between the two main head line stories, first was a story about the death of a solider in Afghanistan, next, given nearly equal billing, was a story about the birth of a footballers child. What on earth were they thinking of letting these 2 stories share the head lines, it devalues the first and gives way too much weight to the second, it really makes me wonder what this country has come to when second rate star managing to give birth rates as a major news story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the first story, yet another very brave man loses his life in Afghanistan, while fully supporting our troops, I cannot see us winning there and the main reason for that is that I don’t think the people of that country really care. From the refuges sitting on the French coast trying to get to here, to the presidential candidate that throws in the towel and a president that can not even win out right, a rigged election (and I think we are going to the dogs). Why are we wasting our best over there is beyond me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think that a lot of it has to do with our fearless leaders spending too much time trying to fiddle their expenses and not enough time doing their jobs. Still this will all be a thing of the past when we sign over the running of the country to Europe, probably some time in the next few years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/heros.jpg?t=1257327640"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/heros.jpg?t=1257327640" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/saint+etienne/track/youre+in+a+bad+way" title="'Saint Etienne - You're In A Bad Way' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Saint Etienne - You're In A Bad Way&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-4988004589111877557?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/4988004589111877557/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=4988004589111877557' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4988004589111877557'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4988004589111877557'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/heros.html' title='Heros'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-4800283181627810997</id><published>2009-11-02T11:36:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-11-02T12:10:14.874Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - Writing to reach you</title><content type='html'>Another girly blog of the week this week and about all it has in common with last weeks is that it is very well written, which is very appt as it is called &lt;a href="http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/"&gt;Writing to reach you&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This blog is the ramblings of an American grad student living in southern California, its intelligent, funny and never afraid to try something new, check out the &lt;a href="http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/10/02/vlog-a-week-in-the-life/"&gt;video blog&lt;/a&gt; done over a week, it gives an insight into a different way of life far removed from my own, one of the reasons I love reading other peoples blogs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Had a great weekend mostly down to the fact we had friends staying and on Saturday went for a 13 mile bike ride, only the second ride of the year, and I’m now feeling the results as I stand here writing this. I have just been to my osteopath who has given me a clean bill of health, as long as I keep up the exercises and won’t need to see me for 6 months.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture today is of the main bridge at Chatsworth house.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/chatsworthbridge.jpg?t=1257163600"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/chatsworthbridge.jpg?t=1257163600" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/travis/track/writing+to+reach+you" title="'Travis - Writing To Reach You' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Travis - Writing To Reach You&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-4800283181627810997?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/4800283181627810997/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=4800283181627810997' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4800283181627810997'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4800283181627810997'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-of-week-writing-to-reach-you.html' title='Blog of the week - Writing to reach you'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-7118598783645712117</id><published>2009-10-30T16:24:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-10-30T16:49:09.980Z</updated><title type='text'>The Daemon drink</title><content type='html'>I work part time in a large office, I share this space with around 80 other people and on the whole they are amongst the brightest people I have ever worked with, until they mix with alcohol.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now in their defence I must start by saying most of them are quite young (at their age I would have never held such a responsible job, in fact I’m surprised I do now) and given that life is short who can blame them for going out and having a good time, but there is a price to pay for all that fun and the next morning when you have to face you workmates is when you pay it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Take Mr X, a man used to spending late nights in the arms of a pretty girl, but when that girl works in the same office, regardless of how desirable she is, he just knows he will have to face a day of comments befitting of the best carry on films and also know’s it will only stop when someone else succumbs to the daemon drink and over shadows his latest exploits.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This relentless cycle of drink and regret serves only to provide entertainment to those of us old enough not to be able to go out and do the same, but what fun it is to sit back and watch it all. Today, what promised to be a long and boring shift turn into one of the most amusing days I have had in years and all thanks to Mr X and the long memories of his work mates who remembered just how much stick he had given them in the past.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture today other HDR shot of the great ridge taken early this year.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/Greatridgehdr.jpg?t=1256919828"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/Greatridgehdr.jpg?t=1256919828" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/amy+winehouse/track/amy+winehouse+-+amy+winehouse+-+08+wake+up+alone" title="'Amy Winehouse - Amy Winehouse - 08 Wake Up Alone' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Amy Winehouse -  Wake Up Alone&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-7118598783645712117?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/7118598783645712117/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=7118598783645712117' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7118598783645712117'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/7118598783645712117'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/daemon-drink.html' title='The Daemon drink'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-8355428160085473722</id><published>2009-10-28T09:23:00.003Z</published><updated>2009-10-28T10:14:51.271Z</updated><title type='text'>High dynamic range imaging</title><content type='html'>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to represent more accurately the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs, which in turn are known as low dynamic range (LDR) or standard dynamic range (SDR) images. Tone mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well that was easier than try to explain what it means, but what does the technique offer to a photographer. Well first let me explain how I create my images; I take a single raw file and pass it through photomatix, I then take the resulting HDR image and edit it in lightroom and Photoshop till I get the look I want. This means that for me there is only one extra step to get this look and the good part is that the best images for this are flat dull ones, just the sort of photos that you take because it looks so good at the time but nothing when you get them home, of which I have 100’s.&lt;br /&gt;The resulting image, at its best, has a painted quality where all the detail is visible, great for buildings and complex scenes, and given that the images were not really usable in their original form, even better for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now some people don’t like this technique, they don’t think they are real photos, but what is a real photo, I take raw images with my camera, resulting in a 10mb file, after they have been converted to a real photo, a jpeg, the file size is around 4mb, just what have I lost in that 6mb? This technique does not add anything that was not there already, it just was not visible in the normal image, although you would have been able to see it when you were looking at the scene and maybe that’s why some photos don’t seem to look like we thought they should.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This shot is of a large tractor on our local cement works, taken while it was snowing on a very cold gray day. At the time I thought it was a great study full of textures and colour, but the original file was gray and flat, if I added contrast I lost the detail in the snow, if I lightened the image I lost the detail in the ground and sky, if I darkened the image to get more sky detail, I lost detail on the tractor, the image was a complete loss and no chance of getting a second go. With HDR the shot has that detail and colour that I saw when I took it, here are both shots the top is the HDR just in case you can not tell. Click on each image to get a full view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/VolvoBM.jpg?t=1256721777"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/VolvoBM.jpg?t=1256721777" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/NonHDR.jpg?t=1256724469"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/NonHDR.jpg?t=1256724469" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+rolling+stones/track/paint+it+black"&gt;The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;via &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-8355428160085473722?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/8355428160085473722/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=8355428160085473722' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8355428160085473722'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8355428160085473722'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/high-dynamic-range-imaging.html' title='High dynamic range imaging'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-4088531735448636668</id><published>2009-10-26T07:41:00.002Z</published><updated>2009-10-26T09:16:08.459Z</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - A Tykes progress</title><content type='html'>Blog of the week for this week is the wonderful &lt;a href="http://tykesprogress.blogspot.com/"&gt;a Tykes progress&lt;/a&gt;; it’s a very girly anonymous blog, which means that reading it from a male point of view is like getting the daily news from a different planet. She has such a way with words that I feel drawn in and can picture the scene without really having to make any effort, for me this is the best sort of writing. My favourite post by a long way is this &lt;a href="http://tykesprogress.blogspot.com/2006/07/little-cultural-exercise-batteries-not.html"&gt;one&lt;/a&gt;, be warned it has an adult theme but should not really upset any one, but do not read at work unless your colleagues are used to you crying with laughter at your desk.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture today yet another HDR shot, a lot of people asking about these so I will go in to more detail on them and where to find more information on Wednesday, this shot is of  3 shires head, but taken from a way down the river.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/3shiresheadhdrstream.jpg?t=1256542846"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/3shiresheadhdrstream.jpg?t=1256542846" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+beatles/track/hey+jude" title="'The Beatles - Hey Jude' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;The Beatles - Hey Jude&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-4088531735448636668?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/4088531735448636668/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=4088531735448636668' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4088531735448636668'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4088531735448636668'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-of-week-tykes-progress.html' title='Blog of the week - A Tykes progress'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-898719485088526723</id><published>2009-10-23T15:56:00.003+01:00</published><updated>2009-10-23T16:06:05.477+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Rutland HDR</title><content type='html'>Years ago I trained to do a parachute jump and for weeks afterward went down to the airfield to try and get the jump done, only to find that the weather was too bad to jump. This gave me an exaggerated heightening of the senses where wind was concerned, as high wind speed was the reason we could not jump. When I took up photography the same thing happened as regards light, I started to notice light levels and the way light fell onto everything, it changed the way I look at the world. Now it’s happened again with my discovery of HDR pictures.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It started last Friday when I was choosing the blog of the week for this week, I had a site book marked and spent some time checking out the wonderful HDR pictures on there, come Monday I again found myself looking at those great images and thinking that I should give it ago, so I did. My first attempt went on to the Leek blog on Thursday and now it’s the time for this blog to get the HDR treatment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This image has already appeared on the blog as a standard photo and was suggested by Caz as a good candidate for the treatment, she was right as always, it is the church on Rutland water, now a visitor centre/museum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since I started to do this to my pictures I have started to look at everything in a new way, even the dullest drabbest scene now has promise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/RutlandHDR.jpg?t=1256309781"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/RutlandHDR.jpg?t=1256309781" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/simon+%26+garfunkel/track/bridge+over+troubled+water" title="'Simon &amp;amp; Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Simon &amp;amp; Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-898719485088526723?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/898719485088526723/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=898719485088526723' title='6 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/898719485088526723'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/898719485088526723'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/rutland-hdr.html' title='Rutland HDR'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>6</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-4113186232387525973</id><published>2009-10-21T10:43:00.002+01:00</published><updated>2009-10-21T11:53:40.931+01:00</updated><title type='text'>What colour are you?</title><content type='html'>What colour are you, are you male or female, gay or straight, what god do you believe in (if any) and why the hell should the answers to any of these questions have the slightest relevance to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To be honest I don’t care one bit what the answers are and would rather you did not say, you read this blog and even sometimes comment and as far as I’m concern the fact that you do the first qualifies you to do the second as well as any one else. The reason for the questions was to high light the fact that it really does not matter who you are, you are you and that’s fine by me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But some people think differently, take this article on the blog &lt;a href="http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2009/06/pdn-passive-racism/"&gt;Duckrabbit&lt;/a&gt;, its all about the fact that they perceive that the photographic industry is inherently racist and highlights a photo competition judging panel as a prime example, mainly because they are all white. They claim that it should more closely reflect the ethnic makeup of the society that it is in, this from a uk based blog that’s header picture has only one ethnic group in it. Are they in the right or are they racist for only seeing the colour of the judges skin, check out the names of the judges in the post and the majority are not the fine Anglo-Saxon names you would have expected. The main point of the post is that being an all white panel they will tend to vote for whites, but the judges won’t see the photographers or their names, all they will see is a photograph, which they will judge on its merits, based on their years of experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This morning on the news an article was saying a Politian was going to pick more women for parliamentary seats, forcing their appointment if necessary on the local parties, shouldn’t we be picking the best people for the job and not trying to fill quotas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’m all for equality and seeing every one gets a fair deal, but when we start to take race, sex, age or religion into consideration when judging people that’s the point when we stop becoming the defenders of an ideal and start becoming its attackers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A sheep, regardless of colour still tastes better with mint sauce.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/sheep.jpg?t=1256118204"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/sheep.jpg?t=1256118204" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/queen/track/its+a+hard+life" title="'Queen - It's A Hard Life' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Queen - It's A Hard Life&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-4113186232387525973?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/4113186232387525973/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=4113186232387525973' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4113186232387525973'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/4113186232387525973'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-colour-are-you.html' title='What colour are you?'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8968347335729666539.post-8879857950100922184</id><published>2009-10-19T07:57:00.002+01:00</published><updated>2009-10-19T08:37:20.963+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Blog of the week - Wood and pixels</title><content type='html'>Blog of the week this week is &lt;a href="http://woodandpixels.blogspot.com/"&gt;Wood and Pixels&lt;/a&gt;, it’s a photo blog is a similar vain as this one, by that I mean that unlike some photo blogs the words are just as important as the photos, but that just does not make it an illustrated blog as the photos are far more than just a side show to the writing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Photography comes in many different styles, some are well received by nearly everybody, take a good landscape shot for example or a good black and white portrait, but the bulk of the images on this site may well split the vote as they are processed as HDR photos.&lt;br /&gt;Now HDR images seem to have taken the place of digital images in the “must hate” category by that group of photographers whose ancestors clung on to glass plates while the rest of the world moved on to film and they themselves clung on to film while the rest moved on to digital.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;HDR (high dynamic range) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to represent more accurately the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. This produces a very different type of image that at first sight can look just wrong to someone used to looking at normal photos, but in the right hands (and I have seen very few that get it right) it can be an art form that blurs the line between photos and painting. In my opinion this blog produces some of the very best you are likely to find, remember it’s a blog not a one off gallery, he is producing these day after day and the quality is mind blowing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would be interest to known what you think as I see this area of photography growing into an art form of its own over the coming years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just like to add my congratulations to Jenson Button the F1 world champion a great drive yesterday and a fine example of how hard work and tenacity will get you what you want.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My picture to day is far removed from HDR, it’s a grab shot taken on Settle station with very little time spent on the computer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/settlestation.jpg?t=1255935425"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/btraffordphotos/settlestation.jpg?t=1255935425" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------&lt;br /&gt;Now playing: &lt;a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/queen/track/we+are+the+champions" title="'Queen - We Are The Champions' - open on FoxyTunes Planet"&gt;Queen - We Are The Champions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;"&gt;via &lt;a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips"&gt;FoxyTunes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8968347335729666539-8879857950100922184?l=365to42.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/feeds/8879857950100922184/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8968347335729666539&amp;postID=8879857950100922184' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8879857950100922184'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8968347335729666539/posts/default/8879857950100922184'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://365to42.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-of-week-wood-and-pixels.html' title='Blog of the week - Wood and pixels'/><author><name>Brett</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11807796517043303774</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='15036371893548512070'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>5</thr:total></entry></feed>