9 posts tagged “flickr”

Latest photos

Apr 19, 2008
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Here is just a sample of some of the photos which I have been uploading to my flickr account recently.

This was Cadet Corps parade - the first one of the new term, so obviously some of the kids had forgotten their uniform, or couldn't find it, or put it in the wash,or.......The certainly didn't seem too pleased to be on parade! I took a series of shots with all the cadets looking various shades of miserable.

Later on they cheered up as they got on with the afternoon's activities. Some of the RAF were doing a command task - blindfold challenge - but that didn't stop one boy from posing as soon as he saw the camera.

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I've also uploaded some pictures from my holiday in Spain. This one is from a series of two boys play fighting on the beach - again they seemed to respond well to the camera.

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I've also added some old photos - here's one of some students on a Duke of Edinburgh Award overnight walking expedition in the Cotswolds. This was 2005.

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Finally I used fd's flickr toys to create a mosaic of photos featuring my wife.

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School Photo-Gallery

Mar 12, 2008
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PhotoGallery

After having shown you some of my flickr photos over the past few posts, I thought I would show you something of what I do at school. I spend a lot of time taking, collecting and uploading to web galleries photos about all aspects of school. The school web gallery is at http://deancloseschool.info/photos and you are welcome to go and take a look. Not all the photos are taken by me - some are taken by students and other staff. Strictly speaking, it is internal - there is an outward-facing marketing website and photo gallery. Mine is aimed at students and parents and is more candid and less strictly controlled than the marketing site.

The website is coded by hand in html and css, but the galleries themselves are created using a Mac program called Galerie, fed from iPhoto and uploaded using an Ftp program called CyberDuck. I have been using a MacPro since last September and have found it gives me a much more efficient and much faster workflow than I had previously on a PC where I used Photoshop Elements, PicSizer, Picasso and Filezilla. I do have PhotoShop CS3 on the Mac but mostly I can do everything I need to do using iPhoto - straighten, crop, adjust exposure, contrast and colour - and even remove offending items like car number plates. And of course, delete all the unsuitable images. Our parents sign agreements for us to take and use photos but I do try to be careful that photos are appropriate, and we don't identify any of the youngsters.

Parents and students alike seem very appreciative of the galleries and they are extremely popular with an average of 3000 page views a day and 250 unique visitors a day. There can be 4000 hits an hour and a gigabyte a day download - not bad for a school of some 450 students. By the way, my hosting company is Siteground who give me 750Gb storage and 7500Gb bandwidth for £3 a month roughly, so I've got plenty of room left. I actually have four websites with them, one for online learning using Moodle with nearly 150 courses; this one for photos and videos, one for backup and testing of Moodle, and a fourth one we use for Drupal (for the school theatre), Wordpress (for a student blog/cms) and Gallery (for a new version of the photo gallery).

Flickr Beach and Surf

Mar 4, 2008
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In my last three posts I have covered photos I've taken which relate to trains, people and flowers. But under the heading people I excluded all my beach and surfing photos since I have so many - mainly taken last summer during a visit to my son in San Diego, California. So now's my chance to share some beach and surf photos. I hope you enjoy them.

The first few shots are surfing and skimming:

Those a re just a selection from the hundreds of shots I took last summer - most of which are on flickr. Some have had lots of views, some not so many; but (sadly I think) quite a number have not had any views at all. Of course, before you can stand up on your surf board you have to get out there, so are a few more:

And now for some of my favourites - the ones on land:

Catch some more on my flickr account! Or look at my "Best" collection which has sets automatically created by dopiaza's set generator.

Flickr Trains

Feb 28, 2008
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In previous posts I've shared some of my favourite/most popular photos from my flickr account. We've had flowers and people. I think getting good pictures of flowers is relatively easy, people slightly more difficult, but I can't say I feel at all successful taking photos of trains. The pictures generally don't seem to portray the raw power of the huge beast, or the romantic flavour of the smoking, steaming, hissing creature. I shall keep trying, but I hope you like some of these I've taken over the past year or so.

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The three photos above are 92203 Black Prince at Cheltenham Racecourse station in Gloucestershire; 30777 on the Great Central Railway at Loughborough, and an engine under restoration at Loughborough, England.

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Diesel railcars taken at St.Ives in Cornwall, England and at Mayrhofen in the Zillertal, Austrian Tyrol. The next one is an electrically powered inter-city train at Jenbach in Austria.

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The next two were taken on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway in England and feature 92203 Black Prince and a prairie tank 5542.

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This one was taken in the Zillertal, near Mayrhofen in the Austrian Tyrol. Most of the trains were diesel but a few trains a day were steam hauled old-fashioned passenger cars.

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This is my favourite photo from a trip on the Swiss railways and was taken at Wengen near the famous Eiger mountain. The train goes up to Kleine Scheidegg where another train goes to up to the Jungfrau Joch, the highest railway station in Europe.

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The engine above is 26043, a class 26 diesel I and others have been working on for the past six years, trying to restore it to full operational status. Last year I did a lot of work painting it (the picture shows it before painting!). The controls are being finished now, and it is being prepared for a topcoat of paint, ready for action in the summer, working on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway in England.

Flickr People

Feb 24, 2008
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Last time I showed you some of my flower photos from my flickr account, so this time I thought I would show you some of the people.

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Couldn't decide which ones to leave out! Hope you like them!

Flickr Flowers

Feb 20, 2008
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Recently I've uploaded some flower pictures to my flickr account and had a fair few comments and favourites so I thought I would reproduce a few here. Hope you like them.

Flickr Mail

Feb 3, 2008
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I've just received an email from Sara Tonin on Flickr and I thought I'd share it with you - I hope Sara doesn't mind.

She writes:

:: Mr Leigh...
You are my hero. You teach, your participate in life, you
dress up in pink (you did dress in pink, didn't you?), you
seem like you're having fun. I am inclined to cross the
pond and enroll in ANY of your classes. Thank God there
are folk out there like you.
Happy Sunday to you, Sir.
Your Latest Fan
Miss Tonin
Might I list you as a contact?

As a teacher who often feels not appreciated, I found this very encouraging. Thanks Sara.

Flickr interest

Oct 26, 2007
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For the last half year I have been uploading photos to flickr with varying degrees of interest from other people. I have now got nearly 7,000 photos online and have had nearly 15,000 views. My most popular photo (a lady surfer) has had over 1300 views - my least popular photos have zero views! And there are other sources of interest. The photo above (of Crystal Pier, Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA) has been included in Schmap's guide to San Diego. The photo below (or the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway at Toddington,UK) has been included in a UK and Ireland photo blog.

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I have also been asked for advice on lenses to use for surfing photos, for help in academic research on tagging, for assistance in taking photos of rare eucalyptus trees, and for permission to include a photo (of my mum and dad) in a student magazine (the following one). flickr turns out to be more fun than you think!