A mobile revolution!

There's some amazing technology coming out across the handheld platforms and one such example is QIK.

This software basically hijacks your mobile phones camera and streams the sound and pictures straight to 'youtube' style website. What makes it special is that it does this in near real-time.

That means that as you are streaming the content, its being displayed and it's this 'live' element which makes QIK so impressive.

Visitors to the website can also interact with the content creator via built in 'live chat' which gives instant feedback which is once again, in near-realtime.

At the moment, QIK is invitation only and in alpha testing so we can expect to see even more features added to the impressive list I've already mentioned. One feature which is already here though is blog integration, which allows your live or recorded clips to feature directly into a html webpage or blog.

You can check this out for yourself here.

One feature I found really impressive was how this 'live content' is much more impressive to the casual surfer. Knowing that its possible to view live videos being shot away from a webcam is impressive in itself but then to be able to interact with that person takes it to a whole new level altogether.

I checked out the mobilediner via QIK and then was also able to visit the website too. Who would have thought that I could interact with political bloggers in the USA, sat in Starbucks by the Whitehouse in realtime via the QIK website and their N95 handset...

Life in HD

My video work should start to look a little sharper now thanks the the JVC Everio HD3 camcorder. Although I'm only shooting at 720p rather than the 1440p that the camera is capable of, I am quite impressed with the images from such a small camera.

If you'd like to take a look at my first vid, fresh from the camera's disk drive then click here.

HD camcorders are becoming quite affordable now and although It can be a bit tricky to set up your computer to edit and export on widescreen HD,the results can be really impressive and I'm looking forward to applying some of my photography skills to film making even if they take ages to export and compress!

My MacBook can't cope with 1440p HD so at the moment, here's the stats for anyone who cares.

Camera: JVC 3CCD Evero HD3
CPU: Macbook 2.0ghz Dual Core with 2GB ram
Size: Uncompressed, full quality 2.9gb / H.264 Compressed normal to 227mb
Software used: Final Cut Express 4

Photography Exhibition

Sunday was a busy day for me as I put the finishing touches to a special exhibition of photography which opens at the Wythenshawe Forum later on Monday.

The work will be on display for two weeks and the photographs have all been taken by my students who studied on a course which I developed (pardon the pun!) and delivered for Manchester city council.

The work started a number of months ago when another BBC freelancer and friend contacted me to ask if we could write a short course to introduce people to digital photography, so we got together and devised a four week course which was aimed at complete beginners, to show them the ropes and get to grips with some of the current crop of digital compacts.

I then tutored around sixty people from four different community centres around Manchester and we looked at the basics along with some of the more advanced techniques of how to get the best out of even the point-and-click digitals.

I suppose its a common mistake, but lots of people often think that you need to spend mega £££ to get equipment thats good enough to take an award winning photograph, and while it can help, I think most people found it refreshing to find out that its not a necessity. All thats really needed is a 'good eye' and a bit of luck by being in the right place at the right time.

Some of the group were just intrigued by what they could achieve with their new piece of kit whilst others wanted to incorporate photography with their own art-related hobbies and one lady (Janet) was learning how to take better pictures for her blog.

Whatever the reason for being on the course, I feel that digital photography has something to offer most people who give it a go and even as Damian and myself devised the course, I began to plan for a special exhibition which would be used to showcase some of the photos taken by those on the course. Its this exhibition which finally saw the light of day today and as we stood back from the pictures which had just been hung, I felt very proud of each and every photographer represented there.

It would be easy to finish my post be saying that the course went well and that I'd like to do another but I'm hoping we've achieved more than that. I'm hoping that we've inspired some people to take a closer look at the world around them and I hope that we've helped others to realise that they have the skills to learn and grow in areas that they never thought possible.

Sometimes, we may think that as we press the button down, we are showing people whats going on in the world outside of the camera lens, but quite often we are also allowing people a glimpse inside our minds and sometimes even our hearts too.



The photographs may be seen for two weeks at the Wythenshawe Forum, Manchester.

Winner!

I had a nice little surprise last night when I found out that I'd won a photography competition that I'd entered.

The subject for the entries was 'movement' and I posted a picture that I took in Blackpool on my little Sony T9 digital compact. I think this goes to show that the main thing that counts with photography is spotting the right moment to capture and framing it well.

The world famous photographer Herni-Cartier-Bresson, called this the 'decisive moment' and in in this age where so much emphasis and importance is put onto the equipment, its nice to 'escape' from that and use a camera like the T9 which is refreashingly simple to use.

The competition was run by Talk Photography. An excellent resource for any snappers out there :-)

The long arm of the law, with only a short reach

As some of you may know, my car was broken in to last week while I was working in Manchester and just when I thought it had been an expensive week for me to be a car owner, I saw the yellow fluorescent jacket of the Traffic cop telling me to pull over.

My offence was going 48 in a 40 at 11.02pm on a quiet dual carriageway, in fact there were more cars queuing up to be 'processed' than there were on the road... Anyway, as I drove off with a 60 pound fine and points to accompany it, I couldn't help noticing that the £60 fine equals the amount I had to pay for new glass when my car was broken into.

Isn't it rather ironic that the police don't seem to cracking down on crime, rather catching motorists unawares at 11pm?

Where were they at 4pm last Thursday?