Life at Present - The Re-Do

Hello Life,

If you are reading this for the first time then you may notice that there are previous posts on this blog. Purely they where my earlier and very inconsistent attempts to maintain a blog. This is due in part to my own inconsistency and not really knowing what I wanted to blog about.

This problem is the only consistent thing about me and social media. Even on Facebook I very rarely post a status, I'm not one that has much too say on my day-to-day life. My fiance however uses it as her own form of blogging.

And, so as I write this early December 2016, a mere two days after my fiance's twenty fourth birthday I have come to a conclusion what it is I wish to write about. And that is photography, my passion and obsession. But first I would like to give a history of myself and photography.

'Warning very long ramble bellow!'

So in we go:

My first real memories of photography are at a zoo in the 'Lake District' in Cumbria England. I had with me two disposable 35mm film cameras. This was back before digital had really found it footing. I was around the ages of six to eight years old, its a little fuzzy. But I remember this trip to the zoo as my first conscious use of a camera and caring about what I framed and what I shot with it.

It was because of this trip that my father gave me his old Praktica film camera, a case and two lenses. The camera was used once by me and then forgotten the pictures never developed and that was that.

Fast forwards to the summer of 2007, my family got a free digital camera. It was tiny had a small optical viewfinder and took decent pictures. However, it also did video at a whopping 240p. Now me and my brother had just been both given our first Pc's from our grandparents. On this computer was a little program called Windows Movie Maker.

And so with the help of my little brother and two friends I shot and acted in a short 30 minute horror known as 'The Mine'. It is a horrendously rubbish film, but it was great fun to make. So I became obsessed with film-making and researched everything I could. It was also around this time High-School became a living hell and I had a complete and utter breakdown lasting till 2009.

Originally as my grades fell by the wayside I intended to to A-Levels. However instead I opted for BTEC Science. I got the grades and aced the interview. However last minute I decided Science was a safe option but not what I wanted to do. And so I enrolled into BTEC National Diploma in Film & TV Production.

Aside from a rocky carryover from High-School it was awesome and I passed with triple distinction. Equivalent to three As at A-Level. However a close relative of mine passed in the second year, and due to its suddenness and my relatives young age I decided to collect as many photo's and videos as I could into a montage for the funeral. This sparked one of the greatest obsessions in my life, photography. I became obsessed with freezing the moment, however my desire to be a screenwriter eclipsed it whilst it was still in its infancy.

Roll on University and Film & TV Production. Three fantastic years of my life, I met amazing people and learnt many things, including that I was apparently not half-bad at acting as student film would go. However photography dug its heels in and as me and my friends starting shooting Weddings, Gigs and so forth for a bit of extra income I veered from video to photography very heavily. 2014 and I left with photography finally truly in my heart and a 2:1 degree to my name.

Then came jobseekers and looking for employment. After three horrendous months I bagged a job working at a nearby petrol station. It was good, however the high the university left and my mood plummeted into fear of stagnation in this job. Enter a short but emotional relationship and I had another breakdown resulting in hospitalization. I am not proud of it but nor am I ashamed of what happened and I will speak freely without fear of judgement. Months later I was diagnosed as Bi-Polar, a diagnosis that actually helped me bring closure to my time at high-school and why I was the way I was in certain situations and so forth and so on.

So this all happened and through absolute happenstance I kissed on pure impulse my now fiance and then current friend of eight years. I carried on working at the petrol station and managed to bag a few photography jobs here and there but nothing substantial. I was stagnating and I knew it and loathed it. However through again happenstance I bagged another job in another city (just a train-ride away) as a camera salesman. A job I love and surprisingly have adapted too really well. Que a few more photography jobs.

However due to my low hours and income I again felt stagnating there was no financial progress nor movement. And so I successfully applied to study a Masters in Photography part-time over two years. Now I have two years of study ahead of me I also feel it is time for me to push ahead with my photography. To pick myself up and either make it a viable hobby or career. And so this is the true purpose of this blog, for me to give short or long updates as I progress with my aspirations. In the end unless I can say I have truly tried then I have failed already.

And so on we go. Thank you for reading.

Reece Hudson,

The Late thoughts of the Pentax Q

I have had the Pentax Q for around a year now having acquired it just before my twentieth birthday. Now approaching twenty one and with more knowledge of cameras and photography under my belt. And the Q having two holidays abroad and numerous other shoots under its belt I felt I might as well as give my thoughts on it.

The Q is for fun, it is not for professional use, it is for fun. Let me stress that. I own a Canon 600d and have used 5d Mkii before. I am also eyeing up moving into the Micro Four Thirds sector due to size and space compared to DSLR's. And as a filmmaker the GH4 has piqued my interest. I currently only own the 01 Standard Zoom lens for the camera and seeing as buying any other other (non-toy) lenses would cost me more than what I paid for the camera and 01 lens I currently don't see myself making a purchase anytime soon. (No matter how much I want more flexibility with the system).

The quality of the Q is surprisingly good. Though grain can become an issue very quickly and make images look horrendous but other than that it handles itself very well. The zoom itself is a good lens starting wide-open at f2.8 but then moving to f5 by the time it is fully zoomed in. This slightly annoys me as the telephoto zoom offered for the system is a constant 2.8 why not have the same for the standard zoom so that they are on par?

The build quality of the camera is brilliant. It feels solid and robust in my hands the only cheap thing about it to the touch is the lens. I actually prefer the Q's build quality over my Canon. The screen at the back is good and clear though the focus assist could be improved with peaking to make it much easier to determine focus, something which I have missed without realising it until editing later. The pop flash annoys me, its cool and reminds me of a transformer and can be convenient in some rare moments but not always.

For the year I've had the camera I've wished for an EVF on it. It makes taking a picture for candid or street photography much easier in my opinion and helps calm my nerves (relatively new to street photography) about photographing strangers. I've puzzled over how an EVF would work in the camera itself and it wasn't until I saw Sony's RX100 Mkiii that I saw the solution. Throw in peaking and this camera would be a fluid brilliant nifty little thing.

Autofocus is reasonable in its speed, its not lightening quick but its good. However it struggles when people are moving into frame and on occasion has caused me to miss a shot. The camera's RAW handles well and allowed me to edit a picture taken with the built in flash and recover a lot of over highlighted areas and restore white balance and so forth.

I enjoy the art filters though I generally have mine stuck in Monochrome shooting Jpeg and RAW allowing me control later but also allowing me to see in B&W not sure what other Photographers think of this but I enjoy it, I enjoy seeing the world in Monochrome through a camera. To me Monochrome is timeless and to me the whole point of Photography is capturing a moment forever.

Colours can be evocative and inspiring drawing emotions out of people, but when you eliminate them the picture seams to tell a story so much easier and quicker. Allowing a viewer to truly see the moment frozen in time.

Overall I love the camera itself. I love how small it is and its convenience of use. Keeping it fully manual as well gives a pleasure point and shoots don't really give whilst shooting. My main problem with the camera is its focusing aids and lack of EVF. Though the latter is truly just my own opinion as I have still managed to get some great shots with it which shall be uploaded in a separate entry. Or you could look at my flickr account as some of the photos in there are from the Q.

Flickr Account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98471286@N05/

Note: I am not a professional Photographer, nor am I a paid reviewer, these are purely my own thoughts for more details on spec look elsewhere either written or YouTube cheers.

Molotov Jukebox

Hello guys. Apologies for not posted anything on this due to University and Life swallowing time and thought and such. The joy. 

But anyways I am here to talk about a six piece British band known as Molotov Jukebox. I have recently come to enjoy their music. And my thoughts after just over a week of listening to them is why the bloody hell has it taken this long for me to know of them.

I am a massive music fan. My love for music covers almost all genres and many decades. However within the last decade or so my thought is that the music industry has become lacking. You flick through music channel after channel to pretty much the same songs or artist on an ever eternal loop. So when I came across Molotov Jukebox with their unique style I was very intrigued. 

I would like to say I came across this band through music which seams like it should have happened. However I found out about the band due to its leading lady. Natalia Tena who is also a very talented actress. Fans will know her as Ellie from About a Boy (2002) or Nymphadora Tonks from the Harry Potter series starting with the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and more recently Osha the Wildling from Game of Thrones (2011-Present).

Finding out that she had a band called Molotov Jukebox intrigued me. So I hit YouTube in search of this elusive band. Now having bought all the songs of theirs I can and I can happily say to anyone if you don't after reading this search out the band and listen to them then you are sorely missing out. 

Now though a music fan I would not claim to be an expert or even a player of any instrument (tried and failed) I am throwing this out here purely on the basis that in around a week this band has become equal to my fave band of all time 'Nirvana' in the place of number 1. in my list of fave bands/artist. A feat which hundreds of other bands/artist have failed to do even after years of being listened to by me. 

The band is unique combining- Accordion, Violin, Guitar, Bass, Drums and Trumpet together in a multitude of styles. And they really do cover many genres yet retain their own distinct style which they have dubbed: 'Gypstep'. Each song holds its own brilliant beat which makes you want to just get up and dance and smile. They hold a very upbeat and charismatic feel to their music as if they truly love what they create. Something that to me becomes lacking in some of the more well known bands. Molotov Jukebox give of the feeling of grabbing life and enjoying it. 

Now I'm not saying you must like this band or else for all I know they might not be your cup of tea however they are well worth a listen to. And my apologies if this comes across as a ramble about this band I have come to love but alas still worth a listen to. 

Here is a good video to introduce them: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIgGH9K3dw 

Quote of the Post -  Life is a song - sing it. Life is a game - play it. Life is a challenge - meet it. Life is a dream - realize it. Life is a sacrifice - offer it. Life is love - enjoy it.

Me, Myself and I: A Rundown of my Equipment now and Future....

Ok so first of my equipment as a writer is generally:

Microsoft Word: For Novel, Poetry, Short Stories and any Character Profiles and Treatments for any Scripts I happen to be writing.

Celtx: For script writing though I am slowly shifting over to Adobe's Story I currently still use this as a script writing tool due to most my friends using the same program enabling scripts to be sent to each other and Doctored much easier.

Adobe Story: With my purchase of Adobe CC I had myself a look at Story. I am still learning all the programs features but for the moment I am happy enough with it to state it is now my main script writing program. A program I am currently writing a script called: 'Whisky.'

I either write upon my custom built PC or my now old Asus Eee PC netbook. The little thing which I expected to be a short investment until I could buy myself a descent laptop has exceeded my expectations and kept me quite happy and content. I am currently looking for a new portable machine to write on currently my eye is being drawn to the 13'' Macbook Air by Apple. Hopefully I would like to get it whilst it's student discount still applies to myself but we shall have to wait and see.

For Photography/Filming I use:

Canon 600D: Originally bought for purely filming. The photography aspect of the camera itself didn't really impact me until recently when I became slightly enamored with Black and White photography. I currently own three lens' for the camera these are as follows: 18-55mm & 50-250mm Kit lens. Along with the 50mm Prime 1.8f also known as the 'Nifty Fifty'. They serve their purpose well and give me a good range to play around with. Though some L lens would prove better but we shall come to that.

I also recently (for my 20th) acquired the Pentax Q and its 5-15mm lens. This camera is a camera purely for fun. It's tiny form factor and good photo quality for what it is and it's price which I got for £150.00 is fantastic to play around with. I put it in a tiny camera bag and carry it around with me without any hassle allowing me to take a picture on the go without a cumbersome DSLR backpack full of lens.  

Now earlier I mentioned about L-Lens. Though brilliant kit I myself am not really interested in them. Because I see my future in photography as in my next camera in the mirror-less sector. Mainly the Micro-Four-Thirds area of Mirror-Less. This is mainly due to pricing, size, portability and quality. The camera I would love to own for photography is the Olympus OMD E-M1 now I'm not going to review it as I have no hands on experience but seriously 'E-M1' into YouTube and will see many brilliant reviews about the camera.

I also mentioned earlier that I own Adobe CC. Which I use for post on short/student films and or photography. And of course my script writing for Story. Now I have only been using Adobe software for a short amount of time having been converted from Sony Vegas Pro within the last year or so curtsy of my friend Dan.

My perfect future kit is: The Olympus OMD E-M1 and a few nice MFT lens. And a dedicated camera for filming preferably in RAW as RAW is just cool.  But my next main buy will have to be a portable yet decently powerful laptop for Writing and Lightroom usage.

Now that's a bit of a run down on my equipment and equipment aspirations (we all have them) and just a view upon myself and so forth. I shall be posting an overview of the Nifty Fifty Canon Lens on Weds and every Friday or Saturday will be a small ramble such as today's. At the end I shall put a quote I found and enjoyed ranging from any topic.

Hope You Enjoyed,

And I leave you with this: 'When you fall for someone's personality, everything about them becomes beautiful.'

First Blog -

Hello, I'm Reece and this is well my first ever blog so hope it's actually ok-ish in stuff and things. I am a Writer/Photographer and other things but mainly those two. I will be blogging about Writing and Photography. With writing mainly rambling about techniques I use for writing and so forth. Though far from a professional maybe they might help you with a new perspective on things. For Photography I am still learning so I will be talking about that and reviewing new and old equipment and generally discussing my thoughts on things.

I will also be reviewing and discussing Films and TV new and old. As a writer I look at various points in films to better get an understanding of how I could approach something in my ideas and so forth. I will be reviewing Film and TV that may have been out for years due to either me recently watching them or just to get my thoughts and so forth out there. I will review almost any form of Film and TV because in my mind if you want to understand and or make films looking at the good doesn't teach you how not to make a bad film and looking at a bad film can teach you just as much. Also no matter the film they may have done something unique or interesting in the making of the film that could help you or give you ideas to help you.

I also will throw any interesting articles in that I come across and so forth.
Hope you enjoy :)