Bills Posts

We went to the Camera club this evening, we had an excellent session on Macro photography. Now, I did take some pictures, but I haven’t transferred them off the camera onto the computer. So tomorrows post will be about tonights activity, sorry about that.

Today’s header picture comes from an encounter on my morning walk. I wanted to buy a battery for my handheld anemometer, and as I turned to go in to the one shop that waas open at 6 in the morning, I encountered this little beauty standing in the doorway. Now, I honestly expected it either to go in to the shop or the shopkeeper to come out with something. Actually, the shopkeeper seemed a bit fed up with the fox, so I can’t help wondering if it is an opportunistic gatherer. I got my battery, and will be set up for the morning.

I don’t have a video for you this evening. I shot several clips this morning, and I’m really not happy with any of them. Tomorrow is #Breakfastclub day, so my little radio is on charge in preparation.

I got chatting to one of the dog walkers, at one point he thought that one of the swans was in trouble on the cockleponds. We were going to have a look and realised it was nest building – I don’t think it will be viable. They must nest somewhere ccloseby as we do see cygnets on the ponds, fairly mature ones though, not normally recently hatched.

I was a very pleasant walk if slightly frustrating in one respect.

Thumbnails are the small pictures that accompany typically a YouTube video, they are the advert for the video, and therefore the producer should attempt to make them as attractive as possible to entice you in to watch the video. The default if a thumbnail isn’t deliberately produced is to grab a random still from the video being submitted and use that, something YouTube does automatically.

I’ve known about thumbnails for quite a while, and I have to confess that I don’t produce my own – or at least I haven’t done. I may do so in future. Why am I writing about sommething like thumbnails when I’ve never bothered with them before? II noticed that after last night, when I posted a video as the header, no automatic thumbnail is showing – that may have happened before, but no recently, and I’ve not noticed.

I have to be honest with you and say that having posted a video here as I did yesterday has given me a bit of a bug. I’m keen to do it again. So I may post another sometime in the near future.

It’s private in the sense that if you have a llink, you can view it and share it, but people won’t find it.

It’s really not very exciting, but I did promise a video, and so here it is. The fact that I’ve added something to YouTube is, for me amazing. I do want to do more.

I should have done it last night, but I was really tired and just could not bring myself to engage with the YouTube publication process. Which actually, having just done it now isn’t really that bad.

It’s another short post tonight as I have left it a bit late, but if you are inclined to tell what you think about the video – is the quality of picture and sound OK?

One thing, if you know the area, you’ll note that i describe the route of the bus incorrectly. The order should be Lee-on-the-Solent and then Stubbington. Wasn’t thinking correctly, apologies for that.

It’s the weekend. Before i could do anything, I needed to sort out. Luckily, everything went smoothly.

It took me a bit of time to work out what i was going to do, and visiting the Apple Dumpling Bridge became a goal. One I didn’t achieve.

I did shoot a video, about two minutes worth. I won’t upload it now – to be honest, I’ve left it too late, and am too tired to engage with the youtube uploacd process.

I’ll try tomorrow – sorry.

Since buying the Insta360 flow Pro 2 gimbal for my birthday, I have been shhoting quite a few videos, practicing “speaking to the camera”. I have to say, that it is inot as easy as you might think. What I can say is that none of the videos I have shot will intentionally make their way onto YouTube, or here. Although tomorrow, I may post a short video here if it goes OK.

Why am I so adamant that I will not post videos that have been done to date? Mainly because they are not very good. There is one, though, that is three minutes long and isn’t an absolute disaster. I’ve been watching a fair few YouTube episodes made by people from the UK rather than the USA. The key differences are UK episodes are more relaxed meaning there isn’t the rush to get words out apparently without taking a breath.

The main problems I have are; 1. I do want to talk about the local area, but it doesn’t need to be a history lesson. there is a place for well-researched information, but mainly, when I speak to the camera, I go into a kind of stressed kind of reporter’s voice rather than sounding natural. My goal for tomorrow, then, is to produce 30 seconds to one-minute of video that I can post here.

Thursday nights is Thursday Night Net time, between 8PM and 9-ish. Tonight I was set up and ready and raring to go. The first round went OK, although I didn’t really have a grip of the evening’s topic.

By the time of the second round of overs I’d lost it completely. I probably fell asleep by the time of the second or third person was taking their turn. I woke up just in time to hear Dave, the net controller calling me. Of course I was completely flustered. I made up some waffle about having to be away from the mic.

Of course straight after the net finished – not sure what time that was, just after 9, I think I went on to the TNN zoom meeting, and told them what happened. Of course, everyone was laughing. Anyhow, I only stayed on for a couple of minutes. Going to go to bed now, good night.

I didnv’t go for a walk this morning. We were busy doing things before Elayne had to go out early, and a couple just didn’t go right. A sense of frustration was building, and I needed to calm down. Also, I was very tired and just didn’t feel right for a walk.

I was looking at some of the video I shot yesterday. Somehow I had managed to put the camera into slow motion mode, so whilst it looked interesting it was of no use at all. It has all been deleted,

If things go according to plan, I’ll have another go in the morning.

The picture is of Gosport’s Victorian railway station. It’s strange to think that Queen Victoria used to be a regular passenger passing through here. Just one of those little nuggets of history that are peppered throughout the town.

Tuesday Nights are Camera club nights, and this week Gosport hosted the next stage of the South Coast Photographic Federation (SCPF) League competition.

Our club isn’t at the top of the league, our club is in the third division. I haven’t got this quite worked out yet. The club produces Some excellent work. Perhaps we don’t submit enough images/. I’ll have to try and work that out.

The clubhouse was pretty full, with representatives from some of the other clubs, which was nice to see. I think if whoever hosts the next league competition is nearby, then we may have to attend. We’ll think about it when we need to.

In two weeks time is the last competition of the 24/25 season, Elayne and I submitted our maximum 3 digital images each, which this time we had managed to get ready in time – for the first time I think.

It was a most enjoyable evening. Next week is all about macro-photography, it’s a practical session so we are going to take our kit in.

Over the last few nights I’ve mentioned the latest history book I’ve bought, Rebellion by Tim Harris with the subtitle of Britains first Stuart Kings. I have to say that the book holds a lot of promisr, starting with the fly leaf which informs potential readers that the book covers the period from 1567 (The coronation of King James VI of Scotland) through to 1642, the outbreak of the civil war. This is exactly the period I have been looking for.

The intoduction adds to the promise, at the bottom of page 7 of the prolog, it declares that the purpose of the book to be “to explore why things went so disastrously wrong for the early Stuart Monarchy. Again, perfect, exactly what I have been looking for.

As I said yesterday, when I bought Diane Purkiss’s book The English Civil War back in August 2023 (the paperback version, with the gruesome cover, yes, that one – I’m still shocked it was so long ago) I don’t think I had read more than two or three pages when I stopped and asked myself OK, I know it happened, but why did it happen? Which was what started me on what I consider to be a rather magnificent historical adventure, and I still have a bit of a way to go.

I really liked the style of Dan Jone’s writings in The Plantagenets and The Wars of The Roses and the rise of the Tudors, and I liked the story of Elizabeth’s Bedfellows, which finished with her death and the coronation of James VI of Scotland as James I of England. I don’t mind that these two books will cross over in their timing.

I know that Tim Haris’s writing style will be different to the previous authors but even though I am just on the prologue, I’m finding it very readable, and am eager to get into the book.

I took this picture from the upper floor of the discovery centre on Saturday afternoon, it looks out over the open area next to the council offices. There’s a burger van at roughly the one o’clock position part of the market that is on in town. The burger van is a regular, although I’ve never indulged from this particular vendor.

The market this Saturday wasn’t a big one, but it was still nice to take a walk along the high street. A while ago, I got a bit exercised about the High Street, and the number of shop units that were closed.

When I was in my office this morning I found the list of shops that I had been working on, but had dropped when something else (I can’t remember what) grabbed my attention. Perhaps it’s one of those things that I can do slow time. I suppose a big question is why bother with it at all? A reasonable question. I suppose the only response I can give, is because I’m interested.