Then I came across this tutorial on creating high-key black and white portraits over at DPhotoJournal. It’s a very simple but effective technique and I’m getting much better results with it.

The rest of the site looks pretty good too – a mix of reviews, tutorials, free downloads and photographs. If you’re interested in photography it’s worth having a look around.

I am sure that when I’m in my 50s, I’m going to look back at all the photographs I have of my smiling children out on spring-time walks, or on trips to the park and I’m going to have a wonderful rosy-glow memory of outings with my offspring, delighting in every moment of their company and wonder why I didn’t do it more often.

Conveniently, I will have forgotten about the constant bickering, about the argument over the ownership of a random stick from the ground, the “my legs hurt, we’ve been walking for YEARS” whine and the realisation that they’re DESPERATE for the loo just as we’re at the furthest point away from the nearest public convenience.

I will also have failed to recall the frog-march across roads with their wrist in a death-grip hold as they’d just tried to run off into direct traffic. I will have consigned to oblivion the military operation that was needed just to step out of the front door only to return three times because they haven’t got their jumper, their shoes or a favourite toy.

I will be able to completely blank out the fact that the snapshot in question was the only 30 seconds on the entire trip where they were even vaguely happy and co-operative.

After all, this is why I take photographs. Family outings are just so much more pleasant in retrospect, especially with judicious use of Photoshop’s clone brush.

On the first of January, according to Naan family tradition, we went to visit a zoo with the kids. It’s a good choice – they get to run around and see lots of interesting animals, we get to take lots of photos. It’s a win-win.

What’s that got to do with resolutions? Well, now I’m starting to work my way through all the photographs I took and process some of them, I realise that I haven’t a clue what most of the poor creatures are.

So, next time, I’m going to remember to take a photo of the enclosure label after each and every animal shot. It would have made my life so much easier.

The problem is, one of the aspects of Flickr culture seems to be to join as many groups as possible. In order to get images the biggest audience, it’s common to see photos posted into multiple groups and it easily becomes the photographic equivalent of a hit and run.

I’m ashamed to say that my participation in most of the groups I belong to is simply to add a photo now and then. I don’t participate in any discussions. I rarely comment on other’s photos unless they’re on my contacts list. I’m not the only one, there are many many groups who have thousands of members, but their discussion boards are like ghost towns. The group becomes anonymous and loses its community.

So, I’ve had a prune. I’ve culled masses and masses of groups from my list and have got down to nine. Nine groups which have got a great community and I want to participate in. I’ve subscribed to their RSS feeds for both discussions and photo pools. I’m going to be an active member of just those nine groups.

I can do that.

So, it’ll probably be that most of my photos disappear into obscurity because they don’t fit neatly into any of my groups any more. It’ll also be interesting coping with a vastly extended RSS collection which was already fairly hefty. I’ve probably sabotaged any chance of my pictures being “interesting” enough to hit Explore ever again.

But at least I’ll feel part of a community again.

Quite honestly, he looks as if there was never a time he didn’t wear glasses. My handsome little man.

I stepped out this morning with jumper and coat, expecting to be surprised and swelter as it looked so sunny outside, but was soon zipping up my coat and forcing the kids to walk more briskly to generate some heat. Still, as long as its sunny, I don’t mind the autumn – it’s the thought of dreary days ahead which makes my heart sink a little.

Its not just my mood that suffers when the light is low. I feel like I’ve hardly picked up my camera the last few weeks and I want to get back into the habit of it, without the inspiration or enthusiasm to go with it.

Worse, I seem to be filling up the memory card with photographs, then having to discard all of them due to basic stupid errors such as camera shake, poor focus and dismal composition – all of which are exacerbated by the poor light conditions. Not so good when I’m supposed to be writing photography tips for the Fotonomy blog. Don’t do what I do guys, do what I say.

But today I went out (not far, just my back garden) with a tripod and a plan. I took a total of eight photographs and I was pleased with three of them. Maybe I’ve broken past my photographer’s block.

Now all I have to do is keep the momentum going. Oh, and get back on track with the tip writing.

The idea behind the blog is to give useful camera and photography advice, discuss photography-related hardware and share tips. It’s primarily the companion blog to the Fotonomy photo sharing site, but will hopefully be useful to everyone interested in photography.

I can’t even begin to express just how ludicrous and ill-considered this legislation is. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if further restrictions on amateur photography in public places followed suit – probably to save us all from “terrorism”.

Of course, I’m guessing that councils and the government will continue to be able to store images of children and us in public places via CCTV. Silly me, they’d make sure the new law didn’t apply to them, wouldn’t they?

The e-petition is here. I strongly believe that if you even so much as own a camera and are a UK citizen you should sign this and publicize it as much as you can.

Update: with further investigation, it appears that the petition itself may not be about what it first appears. This article in Amateur Photographer details the confusion that has been caused and states that, on the contrary, the UK government has no such plans to restrict photographers’ rights.

The petition creator, Simon Taylor, explains on his website more about what he intended with the petition and also has a link list of rights violations in the news which make for interesting reading.

Either way, I apologise if I inadvertently mislead anyone with the above blog entry. I’m leaving it as it stands (other than this addendum) as I hate post-event editing at the best of times, and if it shows me up as an idiot then that’s my problem not yours!

But also, the spirit of the post still stands true – our rights are gradually being eroded in the midst of media panic of terrorists or paedophiles and it’s worth being vigilant for those erosions.

It’s also worth reading today’s post on the Digital Photography School blog about Photographers Rights and Photographers Privacy Advice.

However, if you do decide to sign the petition, you should know what you’re really signing for.

Sorry.

For those who don’t know what minicards are, they’re a half-sized business card – you can use images directly from your Flickr account, set up the crop you want and then you have six lines of freeform text on the back – contact details or whatever you want, really. I had a terrible job working out which images I wanted and ended up with 25 different designs and as a result, not many repeats.

I bought them because Akra had received some of the free ones a while back and they really are rather gorgeous. I thought they’d be handy for internet meets, or to hand out if I got any queries photographing in public. Of course, the reality is they are so lovely (I keep taking them out the box, admiring my handiwork and saying “my precioussssssss”…), I’m rather loathe to give them away.

I don’t have to give them away, do I?

It should have been a fairly straightforward delivery. I was due in for the whole of the day, excepting three trips out of ten minutes each (one to take Akra Jr to school, one to take Li’l Bhaji to nursery and the final one to pick them both up again). All day.

You just know that the parcel will arrive in one of those ten minute slots, don’t you?

So, I hurry off to school for the first trip. It’s raining so I’m hoping that Akra Jr will be allowed straight in so I can minimize the time out of the house. He goes in the doors and I turn around relieved, ready to frog march Li’l Bhaji back home quickly to wait in for The Parcel [tm].

That’s when a sobbing Akra Jr appears at my shoulder and refuses to go to school – a “friend” of his had called him a name, and Akra Jr being a fairly sensitive soul took it very much to heart. It took a fair while to calm him down and get him back through the doors with at least a slight hint of a smile on his face.

I get home, I’m convinced there’ll be a “sorry we missed you” card through the letter box, but obviously my luck is in as they haven’t been yet.

I’m rabidly twitching curtains looking for a delivery van. One arrives. It parks outside a neighbour’s house – are they in the wrong place? Should I run out?

Ooo… he’s reversing out, he got the wrong house… he’s parking in front of mine… YES…. YES!

I have never been so disappointed to receive a crate of wine in my life.

Back to waiting. I know I should do something to keep myself occupied. Li’l Bhaji is happily doing jigsaws “By Myself, Mummy”. So I do some cleaning – it needs doing anyway. Of course, the windows got extra special attention. Time ticked slowly onwards. Lunch came and went. It was time to take Li’l Bhaji to nursery.

More frog marching (poor lad) and then just as we get to the door I see the Initial City Link van pull up the road. I know odds are on that he’s aiming for my house next as their depot is a fair distance away.

The poor child was signed in to nursery super fast (don’t worry, he actually completely ignored me and went straight for the painting activity, I’m not that self-obsessed) and I RAN all the way home. I had the advantage that it’s actually slower to drive round than go via the footpaths, but still, I very nearly gave myself an asthma attack and had to take several puffs of ventolin on entering the front door.

I arrived TWO MINUTES before he did… [insert smug look here].

The things people will do for their cameras.

There were about four boxes inside each other – it was just like pass the parcel for grownups, with tantalising pictures of the camera inside to tease you as you removed yet another layer.

Eventually, however, I got to the prize. The Canon 400D with the 18-55 lens kit, a 2GB Sandisk Ultra II and a Hoya UV filter.

All I had to do then was wait 90 minutes for the battery to charge up.

Now I have a grown up camera, does that mean I have to start taking “proper” pictures?!

Still, due to stunning lack of communication by the company I originally ordered from, including (but not limited to) no indication that the item was out of stock until after I was expecting it to arrive, I have cancelled.

So I have had to accidentally hit the checkout button and accidentally fill in my address and credit card details again – with Jessops this time – who, ironically given the above article, are one of the few places that do have stock of the Canon 400D (albeit in silver rather than black).

Should arrive tomorrow. Hopefully.

Update: just got the dispatch notice – yay for Jessops!

Last year, we went to Dudley Zoo but because I spent most of the time making sure the kids didn’t fling themselves into the tiger enclosure or hurl themselves down the steep steps or get themselves adopted by the chimpanzees (and let’s face it, it would have been months before anyone would have noticed them in THAT enclosure…), Akra got all the best photographs.

So this year, I had a cunning plan. HE got to be responsible for the children so I could focus more on having fun with my camera.

Guess what. He ended up with all the best photographs. Harrumph.

By the way, I think if Paintshop Pro’s Smart Photo Fix was really smart, it’d retake the photo from a better angle for you and stop the animal moving… I’m just saying…

Just when the mouse was hovering over “buy”.

I then accidentally typed in my name, address and credit card details (damn those pre-filled forms…)

Then the mouse just flung itself over to the “checkout” button.

I just don’t know how it happened, yer ‘onour.

In my defence I had saved up for a good 60% of the cost and only needed a little creative accounting in order to make the most of the January Sale price. So my guilty feelings are slightly mitigated. I’m just out of practise spending so much money on something purely selfish.

I’ll let you guess in the comments what it might be… the clue is in the category.

The completed wheel, which was a composite of 144 photographs taken of the same 12 scenes throughout the year, can be seen on Flickr (click the thumbnail below for a closer look).

I shall be tidying up the Wheel of the Year project pages over the next few weeks, and hopefully (with permission) posting other people’s entries too.

Now what am I going to do with myself NEXT year?!