David Phillips

A few years back, I was standing in a rock bar in Ibiza (the Pinguin Bar, but that's another story) chatting to a friend of a friend about photography. He introduced me to the concept of HDR over a few beers, so I went back home and did some learning. There are many places where you can read about how HDR works, but this is the quick and dirty answer. Cameras can't see as well as the human eye (which is pretty shit hot when it comes to seeing stuff) - a great example of this is during F1 (Grand Prix? Motorsport? Oh, nevermind...) where a car goes through a tunnel - as the end of the tunnel approaches all you can see is a huge white light. Now, when I drive my car through a tunnel and out the other side I don't have this problem, as my eyes kick the camera's arse at this.

I've been meaning to write this for a long time, as it took me long enough to get motivated to find out! If you search around there are some really good articles on the subject, but it's a whole heap of stuff that can get quite confusing if not explained concisely - and also there waaaay too much information for the fumbling amateur like me. It just freaks me out. So, what the fuck is aperture? Basically, the size of the hole the light comes through! So let's take a quick look at the setting on the camera. Really simple, it has a little 'Av' icon - you can see it pretty clearly in the photo. Select this and you'll be able to adjust the size of the aperture.

OK, so I need a new bed. Frames can be really expensive, and it's also pretty difficult to find something that's just right. So I searched around online and found this great blog by Ana White with a post about some beds she made. I wanted a UK queen sized frame, so decided to set about making my own SketchUp drawing. I also wanted to give the appearance of a 'floating' frame, so made some changes to the structure to allow the legs to be set in slightly. I am yet to build it, but thought I'd post my 'artists impression' of what I want it to look like. When I get round to putting it together, I'll post step-by-step instructions with detailed SketchUp drawings, and when I know it will actually work I'll provide a link to the Warehouse so you can download the file if you'd like to make your own. So anyway, without further ado, the picture!