I’ve been having fun with a clever little utility I’ve found called John’s Background Switcher. What it does is change your desktop background periodically (you can set it to change every hour, every day or whatever you fancy) from either a list of specific pictures, a folder on your computer or (best of all) from Flickr (by person, by tags, group or random – loads of different settings to ensure you’re not bored).

This is brilliant for someone like me who is so indecisive I change my background image frequently anyway – particularly fun when it pulls a photo out of my flickr archive that I’d completely forgotten about…

Well, I’ve updated my Wheel of the Year with the photos for March. I had a lot of fun doing them this month (although it was a rush fitting it all in the day again) – it’s quite nice going somewhere knowing the exact shot you’re going to take and I’m building up more confidence taking pictures when there’s passers-by around without worrying about what they’re thinking.

I also got to show off my new Dana Scully haircut! Well, okay, if you squint until I’m REALLY blurry, and if I had been bothered to blow dry it into a sleek bob you might JUST mistake me for Gillian Anderson…

… so send David Duchovny round my way, k?

With much love and thanks to Miss L who went out of her way to bring big smiles to two very excited little boys’ faces. (Oh all right, I was the most excited of all!)

She was a little mean though – she wouldn’t swap him for my ageing Micra. Can’t think why…

Sorry I haven’t posted for a couple of days – I’ve had the lurgy and I’ve been left feeling fairly drained and uninspired. In combination with the start of half-term, any productivity has completely gone out of the window!

So, I shall just leave you with a quick link today – something useful for those of us in the UK who always feel slightly unsure what our rights to taking photographs in public places actually are:

The UK Photographers Rights Guide – handily downloadable as an A4 printable PDF so you can dish it out if ever you get a query while out and about.

My heart sank as soon as I saw it as an entry for the Monthly Scavenger Hunt – “someone you don’t know holding hands”. I loathe taking candid shots at the best of times, and knew this would be the most difficult item to find in the hunt.

Yesterday was my town day. It took me ages to find the setting on my camera phone to turn it into silent stealth mode, but I got there in the end after accidentally taking lots of pictures of my feet (no, I’ve deleted those now – shush). I wandered around the high street with Li’l Bhaji strapped in his pushchair, attempting to look non-threatening and ready to casually look puzzled and fiddle with my mobile if I saw anyone look vaguely couply.

Of course, this is Worcester on a wintery Wednesday morning. Everyone in town is on a mission, mostly on their own and mostly with carrier bags in both hands. It wasn’t looking good. There were a few elderly couples taking it at a more leisurely pace, but they favoured the arm looped through the other approach, which is just shocking in this day and age – don’t people hold hands anymore?!

After an hour I gave up and came home. Flash forward to school picking up time – I’m running late as Li’l Bhaji overslept in his lunchtime nap (he’s coming down with the most awful cold and is very snotty grotty). I’m just getting my coat on when I notice a couple walk past the window holding hands. I don’t think I’ve EVER got my shoes on so fast! They were quite a way ahead when I got to the position I could take a quick shot on the camera phone, but I managed it and still got to the school on time. Promptly forgot all about it.

Later in the evening when I had chance to sit down and catch up with my Flickr groups, I remembered the photo and got the phone out. Got my bluetooth gizmo out and plugged it into the laptop’s USB port. A big fat nothing. Cue several hours of trying to point the phone at the computer in different angles, waving it around a lot and screaming “BUT IT’S THERE!” as the connection failed yet again. The one photo I probably was never going to get again was stuck on the damn phone.

Sod it, I thought – I’ll pay to email it to myself – this is *important* (did I mention how addicting the Monthly Scavenger Hunt was?). Four email attempts timed out later I was ready to pay big bucks – MMS time. Nope, the file was too big to MMS. Bugger.

Eventually, with a lot of swearing, a lot of uninstalling and reinstalling we managed to get the photo over to Akra’s computer. He then tried to dump it on my desktop – the reinstalling had somehow broken the network. At this point, I’m fairly certain the photo is cursed – see I *told* you candid shots were bad karma. Fortunately, the network seemed to fix itself after a reboot and the photo was duly opened in Paintshop Pro – finally I could see my shot at full size.

Oh.My.God. It’s abysmal. I know camera phone shots are never great, but this one was grainy, out of focus and very blurry. You could hardly see the couple in the distance. If it had been ANY OTHER SHOT it would have been put straight into the recycle bin. But no – this was going to have to be a rescue job – I’m not going through all that again. I know – black & white – the coverer of all sins!

And bugger me… it didn’t turn out half bad!

So how far will you go for a photo?

This new gadget adds a whole new dimension to the camera toss photography technique. The Satugo is billed as the world’s first bouncing ball camera, although I’m guessing that it isn’t the first and won’t be the last camera that was thrown at something – only this one is supposed to return to you undamaged.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be in production yet – just in the prototype stage (shame, because the whole concept is growing on me, despite the suspicious lack of demonstration photographs). Then again, the concept images make me laugh – can you really imagine the camera: a) reaching the seagull; b) pointing in the right direction; c) timing the photograph for *just* the right moment; and d) falling back to earth somewhere other than next door’s pond when it’s done?

I hereby nominate it for a “yeah, right” award if there is one somewhere on the Internet (there’s bound to be, isn’t there?)

Well, I’ve updated my Wheel of the Year for February and put it up on Flickr. I’ve ordered them so you first see the January photo for the scene with February one following to make it easier to compare. Looks quite nifty watching the slideshow.

On the flip side, the kids were playing up all afternoon (embarrasingly while we had a visitor) so I’m feeling tired and drained and not a little pissed off. So I’m now going to collapse in a heap in the corner with an archers aqua. Feel free to register your participation for February using the Wheel of the Year Contact Form and I’ll sort it all out tomorrow.

Just went out for a walk with Akra Jr and an old Kodak digital (fixed focus so he could handle it). This was his best photo. Not bad for a four year old, is it?!

… at least while on Flickr.

Yesterday, I had a pretty cool day – and it proves my personal theory that it’s the little things in life that make us the most happy. The day started with the discovery that one of my photos on Flickr made the top 500 interesting on explore – for the first time EVER. Okay, so its highest ranking was No. 440, but to me that is pretty awesome. I was glowing all day, much to the bemusement of my real life aquaintances who are, of course, blissfully unaware of my online alter-ego.

The amusing thing is, that the photo (a line of five “me”s – all merged together) was a way of getting me out of photographing a queue in public. I am painfully uncomfortable taking pictures in populated places (unless obviously touristy) at the best of times, and an attempt to get my final scavenger hunt item was wrecked by a passing van. I couldn’t screw up the courage again, so instead made it “easier” on myself by having more wardrobe changes than a Las Vegas Showgirl… Still, having five of me around is proving quite handy. The one dressed in black is currently clearing up the kitchen for me while I faff about on the computer (what do you mean, she isn’t?! Damn…)

The middle of the day passed uneventfully, with the added complexity of Li’l Bhaji discovering his inner toddler (notably he’s learned new shoving, screaming and tantruming skills and putting them to good use). Then, at bedtime, the magical…

“Mummy!”

I asked him to repeat it. “Mummy! Mummy!” I rush in to show Akra this amazing new feat (for the non-parents in my audience, just quietly move on to another post, the gushing won’t take long) only for Li’l Bhaji to look completely innocent of all charges and giggle inanely. Take him back to bed… “Mummy! Mummy!” … take him back to Akra… silence. He repeated this a good four or five times, delighted to find a new trick to delay bedtime. He then blew kisses to me from the cot – another new trick.

Oh all right then. I won’t sell him on Ebay quite yet.

I’m really getting into photography again at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s the new camera, the change of scene over at Flickr or just getting involved in exciting photo projects such as the Wheel of the Year and the Monthly Scavenger Hunt Flickr Pool. It’s probably a mix of all of them. Either way, I’m getting lots of enjoyment and inspiration to using my camera lots.

I’m still mainly in awe of most of the pictures I see from other people – I’ve got such a long way to go to getting the most out of my camera. It’s always rather humbling when you see some amazing photos produced with a very basic camera (such as this amazing guy who apparently is using a 3 megapixel Olympus – now that’s talent); it also serves to remind yourself that you’re not going to become a better photographer by owning just a bit better camera, a better lens, or whatever is currently completely out of your reach – you become a better photographer by taking lots of photos.

And, I may not be good now, but looking back over the photos I’ve taken in the last year… I have improved. That’s quite gratifying to see even though I’ve fallen in and out of love with the camera over the days and months. This time next year, I’ll have improved a little more.

I just have to keep snapping…