Or at least I’ve now finished putting up my pictures from it onto My London Diary. It has taken me even longer than usual, partly because it was a busy month for events – and so has October been since then, but also for other reasons.
A couple of extra things had been occupying my time. Producing the work for the show on the gardens of St John’s Wood, mainly hidden behind high walls, started in mid-May. I finished the photography at the start of August, by which time I’d photographed around 20 gardens, including half a dozen that for various reasons were not included in the show. People almost always underestimate the amount of work involved, after all it only takes a fraction of a second to take a photograph. In fact I spent around 40 minutes working in each of the gardens on average, but that was only the start of it. There was of course travelling time – and the journey from my home takes well over an hour each way, but also the time spent at the computer producing the panoramas from between three and around 18 exposures. For the average garden this was probably between four and eight hours. Producing the show catalogue – an 80 page Blurb book – added several days of work, and it took another day or so for proofing and delivering the final files for the show to the printers.
This isn’t a complaint, it was a project that I enjoyed and I learnt quite a bit from it. However perhaps it was because of all the extra work that my computer complained – and a month after I’d finished my work on that show – and had also worked on and printed the dozen pictures for the East of London show decided that ‘enough was enough’ and gave up the ghost. Apparently overheating had fried its memory.
For once I was lucky, and found a computer tech guy who knew his stuff, but although he quickly diagnosed the problem, getting replacement memory for this five-year-old computer has proved a problem. I have it back and running now, with more efficient cooling, a better power supply and yet another hard disk (making 4), the replacement memory isn’t quite right, and gives the occasional blue-screen when you least expect it – we are still waiting for a replacement for the replacement memory to make it fully usable.
Meanwhile I’d ordered a new computer. They promised it in 5-10 working days but it took 14, and again isn’t 100% fit, with an odd video problem that kicks in under stress. There seems to be a slight incompatibility between my Eizo monitor and the Radeon video card (we’ve tried two of them) and I’m wondering what to do about it. But it isn’t that bad – today I’ve been working for three hours without a problem, so I’m beginning to catch up on somethings – like My London Diary.
You can probably guess which events the four pictures in this post come from in the following list of links:
East London Photomonth Opens
Enough Is Enough – Abolish Vivisection
Silent Vigil For Yemen At Downing St
Intifada 11 Years Protest at M&S
Apprentice Boys Carson Memorial Parade
London Oddments
March For A Secular Europe
Wreath For Victims At London Arms Fair
Flash Mob Against Dale Farm Evictions
Arms Fair Fracas At National Gallery
DSEi Protest at BAE Systems
Down the Drones City Arms Fair Protest
Secret Gardens of St John’s Wood
Dr Zig’s ‘Bubbles Not Bombs’ Protest
Arms Fair Protest At Parliament
9/11 Anniversary – EDL & MAC
March Supports Dale Farm Against Evictions
Candlelit Vigil Against NHS Privatisation
Protest At Climate Change Deniers
Tower Hamlets Unites Against EDL
Protest Against Repression In Syria
Alternative Action Anti-Sharia Protest
Brian Haw Peace Protest Continues
And of course you can find out more about all of them and see my pictures on the September 2011 page of My London Diary.