It's just me, Dan

Thought I would write a bit about football and racism. Seems nowadays it’s good to kneel at the beginning of a football match to help ‘kick out racism’.

Well on Friday night I photographed a football game and as promised, all the players knelt at the beginning. Very admirable.

When the game began, the racist chants started. It seems Wales is the target of many English racist chants ‘Always sh*t on the Welsh side of the [Severn] Bridge’ to the tune of the Monty Python song.

Apologies for the slight delay in the blog this week, I’ve been waiting for the result of my job interview I had last week.

The good news is that I was successful in the application as a Lecturer in Cyber Security at my local College. I also start a PGCE in September which will probably include a lot of work for the two year course.

Last week we said our final good byes to Ken Williams at the internment ceremony in Laleston. That’s the first time I’ve been to one of them; cemeteries remind me a bit too much of my own mortality really...

And Sunday was Father’s Day (21/6/2020). What started out as a beautiful day turned into a real mare. My delightful 13 year old daughter calling our dog f****** stupid. How to completely mess up a day. So disappointed.

This weeks photo is my very first attempt at Star Trail photography. I used my Canon 5D Mark 3 with my 24mm f1.4L wide angle lens. 

Shutter speed: 10.0 seconds

Aperture: f2.5

ISO 3200

Yes, clock up another week in lockdown. We said goodbye to Ken last week, this week, thankfully no one passed away we knew. It was Mrs Mint’s birthday last week and for some unknown reason, it always rains on her day. Sunny the day before and bright the day after but on her day - RAIN! Maybe someone up there is telling her something!

This week I made some phone wallpapers using #Lightroom depicting the Carmarthen Quins players. I’d previously bought a new domain from iwantmyname.com in New Zealand to shorten the Quins posts on Social Media. Bit.ly have started charging so I’m transferring it over to my new company, Rebrandly. It had some good hits too, over 200 in the first week!

No, exactly, this wasn’t a good week. I’ve decided to blog once a week from now on, always on a Sunday morning.

This week my Step Father In Law passed away. It wasn’t a sudden death as he had been given days to live weeks ago. Still a terrible shame though, especially for my Mother in Law but she has the determination to live life now to the full.

This lockdown has got me thinking of other things I can do. As Mrs Mint is an excellent baker, I thought I would give baking bread a go.

So here is what I did yesterday (Thursday the 14th of May, 2020).

That’s the first draft of the dough made...now to enlarge it....ooooooo Mrs....

And finally the end product, in all it’s glory ...

Well, I've finally converted from Photoshelter to SmugMug. It wasn't really a difficult choice as Photoshelter were becoming very stale. Add the fact that I could not add a video to the site made it simple really.

What also helped is the direct upload from within Lightroom using a plug-in, direct from Adobe. Yes, Photoshelter has one too but it was just another reason to swap.

I like the ability to change a template to my own taste; sometimes the original template becomes non-recognisable.

This should be shown up in the detail.

As we are all in a lockdown situation in the UK, I'm going to try my hand at writing a proper review. 

This week I am reviewing the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD drive I have recently bought from Amazon. I use SSD's in my iMAc which sits in my study but for everyday use, I have another Mac, a 2018 MacBook Pro. As you may or may not know, this particular Mac doesn't have a direct USB connection, only USB-C types (admittedly there are four of them). 

Inside the MacBook Pro is a 512GB SSD which is blindingly fast compared to the iMac. So I decided to go and invest in a small, portable SSD device to accompany the MacBook when I am out and about, especially at Sporting Events. I can set Photomechanic to copy to a second drive whilst either at the Media Centre or in the car on the way home. 

 Having read some reviews, it came down to a choice of two, the SanDisk or the Samsung T5. To be fair, the Samsung did appear to have some better write ups but wasn't so robust as the SanDisk. So I paid £49.99 on Amazon.co.uk for a 256GB SanDisk Extreme; a slight discount as the packaging was damaged. It arrived after some time due to the lockdown; I'm certainly not complaining though. Thank you to the delivery drivers for your work.

So opening the box, it contains the usual documentation from the supplier in about 10 different languages, the drive, the USB-C cable and USB adapter.

The drive is really pleasing on the eye and has a plastic back with a rubberised coating on the front. Only one connection at the bottom for the USB-C connector and a large ring at the top to clip onto something. I  have seen some photographs with a carabiner being used; I don’t think I will be using one though.

Taking the leaflet out, the drive in all its’ glory...

Has a really comfortable and grippy surface on the front.

Here is the first negative about the drive, however, as the connecting cable is ridiculously small in length. It is only just over 4″ long so it needs to be extremely close to the computer you are using it for.

After plugging the drive into the MacBook, it is recognised straight away. A Finder window shows the software available to assist Mac and Window users. I deleted the Windows executable file (.exe) and may in the future download the recovery software, specifically for the Mac.

I used the ‘Blackmagic’ app to measure the speeds and to give you a comparison, this is the internal SSD drive of the MacBook:

and this is the result for the SanDisk:

The claimed write speed on the SanDisk was ‘up to 550MB/Sec’ so 524 isn't too far away (around 95%).

I know, it has been a while since I wrote my last entry...

This week i managed a first; being published isn’t new but being on the front page is. I photographed the Porthcawl Comprehensive School’s production of ‘Sister Act.’ This is my second time of shooting the production, last year was ‘Oliver.’

The musical is based on the Whoopi Goldberg story where a Night club singer witnesses her boyfriend shoot a suspected informer. She then goes on the run and hides in a Convent where her lifestyle changes are met with aghast by the Nuns there.

The school’s cast did an astonishingly good production and the local rag, the Glamorgan Gem wrote up this article.

Many years ago, in the early 70′s, my Dad brought home a ‘brand new’ Range Rover. It was a horrible colour and looked like something out of a design studio. We both thought it would never catch on. Big tyres, big wheels, seats like sofas. It was a bit of a novelty as my Dad worked in Rover’s when British Leyland were in Rover Way, Cardiff.

Anyway, this week, I am picking up my new LR Discovery Sport, limited edition. 

I can't wait.

This week I had the pleasure (?) of shooting South Wales Police RFC against Dyfed Powys Police RFC in the #PSUK Rugby competition at Abergwili, home of the Carmarthen Quins.

Not my usual place to shoot rugby in Carmarthen and oh how wet did I get. The rain came down for the entire game, almost sideways.

Dyfed ran out winners by 35 points to 22 in the end and will progress to the semi finals.

This weekend I’m back in Llanelli at the Scarlets v Cheetah’s game on Sunday and I’ve been asked to shoot hockey next week. Should be different...

Tonight I’m off west again, however, not to Carmarthen but to Llanelli where the Quins play, kick off at 19:15. I hope the weather stays dry but at least Parc Y Scarlets keeps you relatively dry due to the overhang of the stadium roof. Thank you to the designer of it for that...

This week I gave a talk to Pyle and Porthcawl Photographic Society about my Sports photography with a second half on Internet safety. It went down really well and it seemed people were grateful for the assistance.

Last Saturday the Quins played Bargoed and won a good game, scoring five tries to get a bonus point.

On Sunday I shot a netball game, South Wales Police Ladies played Kent Ladies in the UK Police Cup. They went down by a big margin, 36 to 24. If only they had a shooter...

Last weekend we snuck away to London for the weekend and my better half and daughter went to see Cirque du Soleil in the Royal Albert Hall.

Monday saw me shoot the Porthcawl Comprehensive Musical Production of Lionel Barts’ Oliver. There certainly are some talented kids around...