namke communications

Accepting Commissions...

If anyone would like to have me work on a particular photographic assignment, please let me know via the Contact Form. So far, I have carried out a single assignment for a friend (portraits of their pet greyhound) which has been very well received (there's no point in spouting a load of BS at this point, I'd only get found out).

Since my experience is low, so the prices are too - I'm pretty much doing this to build a portfolio. Heck, if the assignment is interesting enough I may even do it for nothing... or at least just for expenses.

Cameras pt.2

So. The Ixus. Fantastic, so I got another one - and so far it hasn't been stolen. Unfortunately, the APS film format now seems to be dying out - it never did kill off 35mm with it's user-convenience being outweighed by the smaller negative and more costly processing.

Of course 35mm (the 135 format) didn't kill off roll film - 120 film, with its 6cm square negatives is still very much alive and kicking about 100 years after its introduction. Reckon we'll still be using Compact Flash in 2094?

Getting rid of The Past...

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, I used to get the NME every week, along with Melody Maker or Sounds, or any number of other music papers. Now, being someone who keeps hold of things for more than just the week of release, I now have boxes and boxes of old music magazines/papers.

And it's time to get rid of them (I think).

But where? They don't sell on eBay, and there don't seem to be outlets for this kind of stuff as there are for comics (which I also have some piles of).

Bye-bye MySpace

Just a note for anyone wondering where my 'myspace' pages have gone (oooh, I bet there are loads.): Well, I have just cancelled my accounts (namcom and minimism). It's not like I spent any real time on there, and it was just another thing for me to feel guilty about.

There was nothing there couldn't already be found via google/youtube anyway.

What is it with 'Other People'?

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the heads of people, and wonder whether there should be some credo like Google's "Don't be Evil" for the general public.

Something like "Don't be a C***" would probably do.

Getting serious....?

This photography lark might be getting a bit more serious... I've just joined York Photographic Society, enrolled on an evening class ('The Art of Photography'), and subscribed to Black and White Photography magazine.

Here's looking to better pics!

Music journalism. Or at least a choice of what to read...

For years now (must be at least 10?) I've been a subscriber to The Wire. This follows up a youth of religiously buying the NME, Melody Maker and Sounds (mid '80s to the mid '90s if that kind of thing matters) along with the odd issue of Record Mirror, Jamming, and a whole heap more. During this period first Sounds, and then MM shut up shop, and the NME started to become less relevant, so eventually I became an ex-reader.

(Scene from) It's a Wonderful Life ?

This was getting on for 6pm in York on Friday - concerned customers all over the UK withdrew over 1 billion UKP from Northern Rock amid concerns for some of its investments. Of course, taking away 1bn pounds is going to make it much more stable now, isn't it?

Yashica FX3, Agfa APX400, Rodinal 1+25 10 minutes

Cameras pt.1

My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 177X which I was given for a present (Christmas I think) when I was something like 9 years old. This was a fixed-focus camera with 'cloudy' and 'sunny' settings, and using 126 cartridge film. If it was too dark, extra light could be supplied by 'magicubes' - little plastic items containing four flash bulbs. The pictures (when they'd been developed and you'd got them back from Boots) were square which, looking back at them, seems a bit odd.

CGI experiment...

Created in Blender this is a CGI experiment - animating in response to music (The track is my n2_4 - available through Robots and Electronic Brains magazine).

Created in 2004.