It’s not been a bad start to 2012 on the website front, so i thought i’d do a little roundup of the highlights.

The new RichFlintPhoto | 50mm Tumblr blog is set to stay, and i may even invest in a better theme for the site later this year. It difficult to describe the difference between a Tumblr blog and the WordPress/Blogger, so lets just say it’s a nice, quick, daily updated addition to the blog family. Check out 50mm on Tumblr at http://richflintphoto.tumblr.com/

I also invested a little more time in my main blog including a review post of the content and publication application SlideShowPro Director. I haven’t done a review on the blog for some time – years probably – but i was so impressed with the SlideShowPro software that i thought i HAD to do a review. No sponsored review – i bought the software with my own money – just a simple review of what SlideShowPro Director offers.

If you are waiting for the release of the well overdue podcast, then you’ll be glad to know that I’ll be recording it over the next couple of days. It should have been released (or do they escape?) by now, but a sound card failure delayed the recording. I really do need to get some kit to make it slightly easier to record i.e USB microphone. Expect the extended December/January photography podcast with news and links very soon.

OK, OK, I admit it. I severely underestimated the amount of work needed putting together the Norfolk project book. This week i added more images to the gallery for the project on my website, and it suddenly dawned on me the task that lay ahead. It’s pretty damn big.

I want to do a good job on this book. No, actually i want to do a fantastic job on this book, and it seems only right for me to take my time doing it. I have hundreds of images to go through, and i have to choose a total of 100 for the book. I can’t really do that without having some idea of what i’ve actually got. The images i’ve shown so far are just a fraction of what i shot. I haven’t really gone through the work in detail, apart from the occasional quick scan through the negatives and digital image files. I really need to collate all the work. I thought i could do it all in 3 months. Ha!

With that in mind,  i’ve decided to delay the release of the Norfolk project book until early 2013. It will give me this year to thoroughly go through the work and see everything, every last bit of the project. It seems pointless to rush the book, and I already have a book planned for later this year with images of Scotland, so i will produce a book in 2012.

I’m looking forward to exploring and producing images in an area of the UK i’ve never been to before. Scotland looks fabulous. I’ve already started using the impressive power of Google Earth to help me spot the best shooting viewpoints, check out the surrounding area and plan what images i want to take.

“Some pros are dabbling with digital but most still shoot on film“. A remarkable claim by the great Eamonn McCabe made on BBC Radio 4 recently. I’ve been a fan of McCabe’s work ever since i first saw his sports photography in a copy of amateur photographer around 20+ years ago. In this case though, Eamonn seems to have got it rather wrong.

The problem is, is that photographers tend to believe that everyone works like they do – I shoot mostly on film, so therefore everyone else does. Only they don’t! Photography is a fascinating business because it is made up of so many practitioners doing photography their own way. We customise it to our own way of seeing, thinking and our attitudes to the world. We build our own methods, philosophies and believes, creating our own view of photography – and then we guard it fiercely. I’m right, you’re wrong!

For my part, I shoot digitally and on film. I love both and always will, but i am aware that there are photographers, out in this big bad world of ours, who will NEVER touch a film camera ever again. Likewise, some photographers stay away from digital photography. That’s a decision that they’ve made, just like i made a decision to use both digital and film. That’s the beauty of photography – we mould it into what we want, and no mould is exactly the same.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Just a simple photograph. Most family albums contain photographs like this one.  A young lady holding a child, the photograph probably taken around the mid 1930′s by the fashion. She could be anyone.

Click. We often take photographs and then forget about them. In this age of easy digital photography we seem to be taking more and more. I just wonder how many family images will make it to become 75+ years old. Click. Moment captured, moment gone. We don’t appear to realise the value of something until much, much later. Photographs, like a good wine,  get better with age. They even attain new meaning as they get older. Photographs constantly develop long after the camera, computer or chemicals have been put away.

I remember when i was about 16, being shown an old photograph of my Grandpa on his motorbike. He would have been around the same age as me when the photo was taken, sometime during the mid-1930′s. Until that point i realised that i’d always thought of my Grandpa as the old person he was. He had never been young – at least, I’d never really thought of him as ever being young. The motorbike photograph opened my young eyes to the fact he HAD been a youthful, adventurous and care free person once. Once there was just my Grandpa, the open road and his motorbike. Then came the war.

Coming back to the photo above, i have a confession. I do know the lady above, or at least i did. When this post publishes, i’ll be at a funeral service for my Gran (or should i say Nana – the term Grandma made her ‘sound old’ she said ) who died at the age of 96 this month after a stroke. It was kinda hard to associate the frail old lady i used to see at the care home with the youthful person in the photo, but they are one and the same person – separated by 70+ years or so. Time and photography often conspire together to taunt us.

I won’t end the post on a sad note (even if it is a sad day) but I’ll finish with something that has always made me laugh. Some years ago, when i was a photography student, my Nana was chatting to friends and proudly talking about what her grand children were up to. Finally it got around to me  ”Our Richard”, She proudly stated “ Is studying pornography (pronounced by my Nana as porn-e-ography) at art college”. Fortunately  i wasn’t there to die of embarrassment and someone, thank goodness, corrected her on my behalf We all know what you mean Nana.

Dedicated to Elsie Davison 1915 – 2011

The new website design allows easier expansion of the website. Already a number of ideas have come to mind.  The other benefit is that, at least so far, the design seems to be functioning perfectly – no hidden gremlins to work on.

A number of new website features have (or will be) introduced over the coming months. Check out the new news section to find out what’s going on.

During the early part of 2011, the website was rebuilt with WordPress used to power it. I’m immensely happy with the way that decision turned out. I’ve become a BIG WordPress fan and the website will continue to be powered by this fantastic content management system.

The problem came with the theme i choose. What worked well on the demonstration page, turned out to suffer from a number of problems.  I’m not bad with websites, so i was able to repair a number of issues myself, alter the CSS and PHP code where necessary, tweak the design and beat the theme into what i wanted. More needs to be done, and the solutions aren’t simple. This is why I’ve decided to move on.

Some of the problems can only be fixed by PHP coding a solution. I’m not THAT good. My PHP code skills are basic. There are no upcoming update releases to solve these issues (it turned out that the designer of the theme has abandoned his creation and no one seems fussed about taking on the case). Enough is enough. A theme should work straight out of the box. This didn’t and still doesn’t.

I could spend another year figuring out how to fix these problems…. but i’m not going to.

The new website design, including some new features, should be up and running by January 1st 2012.

Another three  photographer profile posts are due to be added to the website over the coming months.

To check out the photographer profile page click HERE

A common sight where i live – a low flying RAF Tornado heading along the valley.

It’s with a great deal of pleasure that i can announce the launch of my first photography book release called Sea, Sky, Sand and Street available from blurb.com.

Based on this year’s Solo Photo Book month project, this brand new 7×7 inches (18×18 cm) photography book has been completely redesigned from scratch and features a new layout design, over 70 photographs including a number of new images and more.

For the next sixteen days (check out the book preview to spot why it’s 16 days) the soft cover version of book will be available to buy for the introductory price of £16.95 plus £4.99 postage. The sixteen day period will end on midnight September 10th when the price will return to £18.95. A hardback edition of the book is also available.

The new Sea, Sky, Sand and Street book in softcover and hardback can be purchased HERE

Man distributing pamphlets in the street at Wells-next-the-sea, Norfolk.

As I mentioned in my last audioboo, I’ve decided to use these b&w images for this year’s Solo Photo Book Month project. Forty photographs will be used in total and the book has to be ready by August 1st.

These photos were taken initially as a bit of fun but I like the style and, more importantly, I’ll be too busy to shoot anything when I return from Norfolk. Putting them together for a book seemed a logical idea.

Next year I intend to use a 5×4 to do the book. That will be a challenge indeed.

A walk through Fakenham Market. The town still retains a good and bustling market while other market towns around the UK struggle.

Took this image last night of a boat at Morston Quay, Norfolk. Rather like the tones I’m getting with certain b&w setting on the iPhone’s Hipstamatic app.