Homeward Bound

Art fair in Edinburgh, our first show in Scotland, is over and Jan is driving us home.
We did quite well and it helped us reach a new audience for my pictures.
Home by 11.30pm hopefully.
Just 2 shows to go, both next weekend; Jan is in Richmon upon Thames and I am in Buxton.
Big push on book images this week and a day printing.
Dave Butcher

Joe Cornish Foreword for Lake Light

Half-way through art fair in Edinburgh but thought I should let you know that Joe Cornish, one of the leading UK landscape photographers, has agreed to write the forword for my next book Lake Light

Joe has made his reputation using large format colour film photography. He has done a lot of work for the National Trust, including several books. It is a privilege to have Joe associated with my Lake Light book.
Dave

Edinburgh Art and Craft Fair

Jan is driving us up to Edinburgh. A bit north of the Lake District at moment.

We are doing an Art and Craft Fair in the Assembly Rooms on George Street Saturday and Sunday. Call in if you are around.

This is our first show in Scotland; I have lots of shots of the Highland, Islands and some new ones of Edinburgh.

Not all work though, mmeting good friends Mick and Kay from near Inverness on Saturday night, that will be a good night.
Dave

New Mobile Phone part 4

I think I may have forgotten to add the final report on my new mobile phone. The 3rd phone from Vodafone, a Blackberry 8520, to replace the 18 month old faulty Blackberry 8310, is working fine. It lets me pick up emails on all accounts, add blog entries on the move and maintain my web site while travelling around. Looks and behaves like the 8310 it replaces. I added one of my pictures as wallpaper because I otherwise needed sunglasses to view the bright red Vodafone screen that came with it.

Buxton Gallery Wednesday 25th November

I'm in the Gallery in the Gardens tomorrow, in Buxton Pavilion Gardens, from 9.30am to 5pm. Judging by the weather I will probably take the car. The last 3 trips I have walked and had heavy rain both ways. It's getting a bit trying! Would just like to walk in the dry for once.

Warrington Lecture

Back from lecturing in Warrington. Jolly wet return trip. Lots of standing water and rivers running across road. Difficult to see in the dark. Seems to have eased a bit in last few minutes.

Busy Time

I think I may have booked too much in diary.

Making good progress with new Lake Light book as well as shipping recent orders. All scans done and half of images tweaked.

12 new Edinburgh photos printed yesterday ready for show at weekend. Not done show in Scotland before so keen to see how we do. Looking forward to seeing our good friends Mick and Kay from near Inverness Saturday night.

More printing and image tweaking tomorrow.
Dave Butcher

Driving Home

Just travelling home after Art and Craft Fair at Sherrardswood School Welwyn. Delayed by 1.5 hours by accident near Northampton. We were well looked after by Jan's sister Lynne and her husband Peter who live a couple of miles from the venue. Unfortunately, no Voadafone signal so a blog-free weekend.
Lecture in Shrewsbury tomorrow night and day in Buxton Gallery on Tuesday.
Home around 11.30pm if we're lucky.
Dave Butcher

New Mobile Phone part 3

Third time lucky!

Received 3rd phone in 2 weeks today, a Blackberry 8520 Everything seems to work. Yippee!

Now back on line with blog, web editor and Outlook diary and address book. Just in time for going away to show in Welwyn at weekend.
Dave Butcher

New Mobile Phone part 2

Well that didn't last long! Wasted several hours trying to get it to work. Emails and blog were fine, browsing normal web sites was fine but the admin pages of my web site didn't properly load so wouldn't have been able to make edits on our travels.

The HTC Magic phone is being collected by Vodafone tomorrow. It was a nightmare to use and didn't link up with Outlook so no diary, address book, task lists or memos. Disaster. Not sure why the technical department at Vodafone recommended it in the first place.

Back to a new Blackberry tomorrow. Will keep fingers and everything else crossed that it all works.

Darkroom day today. Printing some orders from recent shows (Great Peak Fair and Sevenoaks).
Dave Butcher

New Mobile Phone

My faulty Blackberry Curve 8310 was replaced by a newer version (Blackberry Curve 8900) a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately the new version could not access this blog or my web editor. I now have a new HTC Magic Google phone which lets me blog again. Not as easy to use as Blackberry, it has a touchscreen. So blogs are back, now need to check web editor and links with Outlook for emails, calendar and address book. Fingers crossed it works.
Dave Butcher

Lake Light Book Image Scans Complete

Finished the last couple of scans for my Lake Light book today and edited a couple of images, including that for the book cover. We have about 140 images on our short-list from which to choose the 90 images for the book. Andy from 10th Planet Design in Sheffield completed the page and cover designs a couple of weeks ago, it will have a different look to previous books but with the same overall size, 80 pages and a price of £14.99. All on schedule for a March launch.

Had a meeting with Steven Brierley and Graham Walters of Harman Technology about the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC in March. Jan and I will be there on the Ilford black and white part of their stand. Lake Light will be launched there and I will be book signing from the first day of the show, Sunday 7th to the last, Wednesday 10th March 2010. There will also be an exhibition of prints from the book on the Harman stand.

Dropped off 97 roll films for processing with Neil Hibbs today. He runs the Harman Technology processing lab and they have a new professional service for films. I should have them back next week and will keep fingers crossed that all is well until I receive the processed negatives. These are all the films from my first ever trip to Scandinavia. Only the second time I have trusted the processing of my films to anyone else!
Dave Butcher

Scanning Day

Today I scanned 50-odd images for Lake Light, my new book on the Lake District. Tomorrow should see the last scans completed (about 30 left to do). Then I need to crop and tweak them before dropping them on the web site. Once we have them all the job of selecting the final ones for the book can begin. We need about 90 images, depending on page layouts, and will have about 150 images to choose from. The new Lakes images should start to appear on my web site from next week. I will drop a few on this blog before then though.

Having some problems with my new Blackberry, which I received a week ago. I am unable to type text in new blog entries. It lets me type in the title and web link but nothing else. A lot of my blog entries are done on my Blackberry while travelling around so this is a serious problem for me. Will see what Vodafone say tomorrow.
Dave Butcher