When it comes to best time of the day it's a close call between first thing in the morning whilst out walking with the streets yet to be filled by commuters, and the dinner time, when the smell of food floats through the air telling me it's time to shut the laptop. Love my food.
I used the Diptic app to pull together the selection of pictures, LabelBox to add the text and finally Instagram for the filters.
It was quite overcast this morning as Manchester seemed to be suffering a smog hangover, but by mid-afternoon the sky was the most beautiful shade of blue.
I took this photo using an app called Tiny Planet, which I'm playing around with at the moment, then Instagrammed it without any filters. Whilst the app doesn't do much I love the little that it does. I'm getting the best results shooting outdoors especially with a strong blue sky like this. I'm not sure how effective it will be in winter when the sky is grey, but whilst we've got this weather I plan to create as many planets as possible.
I nipped out to M&S for my lunch today and stumbled upon a scene of utter delight in the otherwise vile setting of Piccadilly Gardens. In amongst the drunks and homeless that frequent the area were a handful of kids having unrestrained fun in the sun. Their joy was infectious. Cheered me more than the 2 for £3 salad offer I'd just purchased. It reminded me of what a joy it is to just not give a shit sometimes, an attitude we should all consider on the odd occasion.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Don't get me wrong, I stopped being precious about the internet many years ago. Once I started bullying people with the fact that 'if my 74 year old mum is on Facebook you should be too' then I had no right to decide who is and who isn't welcome to the party.
I didn't even know The Royals had their own Youtube Channel. I was hoping it was going to be something Harry had set up after coming in from the pub but was somewhat disappointed to see they've done a pretty good job. You can watch the wedding streamed live, follow the procession and even upload your own good luck message, which given Youtube's wonderful community spirit should provide the moderators with a tough week.
So this is me. This is how I look at exactly 11.20pm, April 18th 2011. Well, it's a fairly good liking. The short back and sides is all mine but I could never grow a beard that handsome. I've just not got it in me. All the scribbles have been done using the Doodle Booth app. I'm not a great photographer but I do love Instagram and the social loveliness that surrounds it.
I had a long discussion with a friend who is a massive Flickr fan and I was desperately trying to explain why I love Instagram's social functionality over Flickr's. The best I could offer at the time was that the mobile-only-ness of it all made it feel quite special. Whilst it isn't really a location app in the same way Foursquare is, the immediacy of 'snap it share it then see what your friends have been doing in the last few minutes' makes it very much about location. You could say it's a constantly changing gallery of art from your curated friends delivered to you wherever you happen to be. There's also a lovely and warm 'wish I was there' feeling I get as I skim through my timeline pictures. That's the best I can do, which isn't great given how much I bloody adore the thing. It really does give you a great perspective of how others see things. It's great to see how some people find interestingness in places others don't.
I refused to buy an iPhone when they first landed because of the quality of the camera. Seems insane now given the brilliant things you can do with the array of smart photo apps on offer. Here are a few more I've been playing with...
Hipstamatic - Some very nice film, lens and flash variations on offer
QuadCamera - Multiples of pictures stitched together
CameraBag - More nice effects
Everyday - Helps positioning for your 'photo of yourself everyday' project
TiltShiftGen - Lovely app for your retro minature pictures
LabelBox - Great for adding labels to your pictures
Color - Pictures from people near you. In principle I like it, but yet to try it out with enough people to really test it
Lots of sun,a dash of madness and plenty of tea. That's how all Sundays should be.
Dogs as dead pop stars. What's not to like about that? It's all in the eyes. A moment of genius.
I resisted temptation yesterday when I passed this box of singles filled with tracks from my youth. A year ago I would have bought the whole box, but since I've decided to declutter my life rid myself of such 'useless' possessions it would soon find its way into landfill, whilst making a junk shop owner a couple of quid richer.
What caught my attention was the record at the front. It was the Spitting Image classic 'The Chicken Song'. It grabbed me because I've had puppets on my mind for the last few weeks. It all began with a great conversation with my mate Rob about puppets and how you don't see them as much as you used to. He manages an artist and the pair of them are cooking up something really interesting with puppets soon.
Anyway, later that night another friend tweeted that he had been having a Twitter conversation with Sooty and the next morning I walked into work and Chris Moyles was talking about puppets with the team. Spooky or just me desperately looking for a reason to make a music show hosted by puppets?
There's this unwritten rule in the world of fashion that once you spot something 3 times in a short space of time then it is officially a trend. Were puppets trending?
Anyway, the puppet spotting continued. On the way back from SXSW there was a great display of puppets at Atlanta Airport and the following weekend there was a programme on BBC 4 called 'When The Stranglers Met Roland Rat', a TV show about pop music and childrens TV. Watching that really hit home how many puppets were on TV in the 70's and 80's often crossing the line between children's TV and stuff for adults. Last week I met someone who was named after one of the Muppets - How frikkin cool is that? My mum called my Hugh becaue it was my dads name and being the last of 6 they simply ran out of ideas.
So I'm trying to work out if there is a genuine resurgence of interest in puppets or is it just me spotting puppet moments because they are loitering somewhere in the back of my mind. Is there a reason behind this current interest like the pop tribes I talked about yesterday or is my spongy brain playing Derren Brown like tricks on me? Did technology advances in animation kill off the puppet in the 90's and is it really time for the return of the Rat. Come on Rat Fans, make your voice heard.
Last week I started doing 30 Days of Instagram. It's a bit like 30 Days of Music only with pictures. If you've not had a fiddle with the Instagram app yet then download it and get stuck in. It's heaps of fun. I thought it might be an idea to begin pulling my posts all together in one place. So, here you go...
Day 1 - A 'what were they thinking' moment
Day 2 - A 'great way to start the day' moment
Day 3 - A 'this is where I work' moment
Day 4 - A 'deja vu' moment
Day 5 - A 'what I wore today' moment
Day 6 - A 'round our way' moment
Day 7 - A 'never noticed that before' moment
Day 8 - A 'temptation' moment
Day 9 - A 'that made me laugh' moment
Day 10 - A 'sums up my day' moment
Day 11 - A picture of me
Day 12 - Today's headline
If you start doing your own feel free to follow my moments or adapt to suit your circumstance. Drop me a line too, I'd love to see what you come up with.
I hurt my back through a combination of leg weights, yoga and radical enthusiasm. Been in agony all weekend. I had to cancel a week in London so that I could alternate my working arrangement between sat at the desk and lying down on the sofa. My boss advised me to fill myself with pain killers and move around occasionally. So, at the end of the day I went for a walk.
I usually walk every morning. I love it. It clears my head and prepares me for the day ahead. I think not going for a walk at the start of the day contributed to my bad back grogginess so the evening stroll was welcomed. Down by the canal I noticed this bit of graffiti and took a snap. As I passed on the way back I looked again and realised that it'd been there for some time. I knew that because it was written in the same paint and style as another bit of gaffiti that makes me chuckle every day. Why had I never noticed this bit before? The next picture I took was one of the clouds covering the sun.
Looking back I couldn't help wonder if I would have noticed the rather dark graffiti and the heavy clouds had I been feeling better. I doubt it. Taking a picture every day forces you look for interestingness in places you might not have noticed interestingness before. Looking in the right frame of mind can change your perception once again. It can shine a light in dark spaces, remove obstacles and produce a clarity that wasn't there before.
Hope my back gets better soon.