I've got a dirty CCD. After my last, disastrous attempt to clean it I'm looking for new solutions. No pun intended.

Last time I went with the recommendation to use compressed air, "but make sure the tube/pipe/staw/whatever is clean before you let it anywhere near the CCD." So I did. Then between letting go and blowing air at the CCD - all the little drops of condensation that had instantly formed inside said tube/pipe/staw/whatever splattered all over it. Another fine mess. At least the charge to clean up the mess wasn't too bad. So - do I use a vacuum, eye-shadow aplicators DSLRClean™ or perfect fit (and Fuji recommended) SENSOR SWAB™. Mmmm.

The festivals and heavy weekends continue. This weekend it's the Virgin. She comes to town once every four years or so.

And Then there's Matthew's gig in Jimena de la Frontera.

Mmm: the local custom of the yearly running of the bulls (well they actually only use very small young bulls here - TBC) through the town goes down this coming weekend. Apparently a really unpleasant affair - Spain at its worst really. A macho - but ultimately cowardly - drunken mob hassling a poor confused beast down through the town. I hope to get some telling shots of these jerks from up close. Then again maybe it will prove to be incredibly powerful experience that encapsulates the majesty and suffering of life.

I doubt it.

Aside

The plugin that makes generating beautiful photo albums & slideshows off your flickr account dead easy in RapidWeaver.

Could be good, LAMP-esque as I am at the moment.

On a slightly different flickr note: flickr feeds to iPhoto.

I like.

Available here.

Contents (Starter & Deluxe Kit only)
• Holga Color Flash camera
The famous Medium-format dynamo - now with a built in flash and color-gel filters! Prepare to employ your trusty Holga day or night as the flash opens up new worlds of low-light images with the beloved Holga effects - soft focus, double-exposures, streaming colors, intense vignetting, and unpredictable light leaks. A "B" setting keeps the shutter open for as long as you like, and the dandy new tripod thread allows for smooth tripod mounting...

• 1 Roll of Black Opaque Tape
The perfect solution for light-leaking seams that you want to cover. This special variant of electrical tape will not leave a nasty glue residue after it's used. How nice! ...


* personal interest
** nice photo
*** good photo
**** great photo
***** david fucking bailey


Well...

Extensis Portfolio is still no good at doing what it should - metadata (in this case Photoshop ratings) written to files does not match the schema of Photoshop (or Bridge). Still happy with the Bridge. It would be nice if it could filter files by criteria other than its own labels or ratings though.

At last I understand the power of Adobe Bridge. The tool for embedding metadata into the image files themselves.

And then I reckon I've become an instant fan of Flickr. Well - when I say instant - I joined about six months ago. But that was all. Now I'm annotating my files with wonton abandon and sending them up to the big server in the sky. Amazing - just by dumping them there I'm getting hits. Good old Yahoo.

I'm dreaming of ways to kill-off my reliance on iPhoto. Its a lovely bit of software - and the new version is improved. But no IPTC/XMP/ITC metadata support is a pisser.

Oh - and Extensis Portfolio is back in use - but only as a niche tool. Another bit of software that really can't deliver. In this case it says it can. But can't. It's better - but can it embed the all important metadata back to the files - not in my tests it doesn't.

Now - just got to get round to tagging and rating my files properly. Ouch.

Get To Work.