Fallen leaves and Blogger colour

click photo to enlarge

Over the years I've been generally quite happy with Blogger, the Google-owned service that provides the blogging platform I use. It is free, easy to operate, easy to adapt, doesn't require me to host advertisements and it is very reliable. It has fewer bells and whistles than Wordpress, a blogging service I use for a different site, but overall I prefer Blogger for the reasons listed: it does all I require.

However, a while ago something happened to the way that my photographs were displayed. Instead of showing just as I had prepared them, as soon as I uploaded them the colours became over-saturated. I take a lot of care in preparing my images and the last thing I wanted was for them to glow with artificially bright colour. I searched to see if there was a reason for this but came up with nothing. So I muted the colours of the shots I posted hoping to compensate for what was happening. It did somewhat ameliorate the effect, but I wanted an answer to why it was happening and a better solution. A search some time later turned up the answer. At a point I couldn't determine Google's Picasa photograph hosting had been placed under the wing of Google+. A feature of these galleries is that photographs there are always made brighter because Google in its wisdom has a feature called Auto Enhance turned on by default. Why? I can only think that they assume people like the "vivid" or "saturated" look of TV, magazines and some phones and cameras. Well, many don't, and so I looked for a way to turn it off. After much searching I discovered that the only way to do so was to join Google+. I was not happy with that at all because I've deliberately ignored all the social media services for reasons I won't go into here. But, Blogger is free, I pay nothing for it so I can demand nothing of it. I had no choice but to sign up to Google+. I did with bad grace and in a minimal manner. I then turned off Auto Enhance, found all was well, and I now carry on as I was, and ignore Google+. At some point I intend to find out if I can exit from it without Auto Enhance turning back on again.

I was reminded of all this when I took today's photograph of fallen acer leaves we came across in Lincoln. When I looked at the camera screen after I'd taken my shot I showed it to my wife. The colours weren't saturated, they were unnaturally muted! I assume the white balance was wrong. But I was out shopping and photographing only incidentally so rather than change it until I got it right I made a mental note of the brightness of everything and went on my way. I was glad I did because when we came to the fallen willow leaves the camera recorded the colours perfectly. Go figure!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blogger address changes

click photo to enlarge

Anyone visiting a Blogger-hosted blog in the past couple of weeks may have noticed a difference in the web address of their destination. Google has rolled out a change that, once again, doesn't seem to have been formally announced, or if it has, was so low-profile that I missed it.

It works like this. If you live in Australia and visit PhotoReflect (for example) the address you saw in your browser before this change was http://photoreflect.blogspot.com. Now, however, it will show http://photoreflect.blogspot.com.au. If you live in the UK you'll now see http://photoreflect.blogspot.co.uk, and so on for each country. You can still use the old address and you'll go to the blog, but your browser will now show your country's identifying letters. So, to all intents and purposes, for both the blogger and the blog visitor, there is no need to change anything or do anything different.

Given that last statement I imagine some of you may be wondering why there has been this change. Apparently it's to do with giving Google greater facility to control blogs based on country of access. The change makes it possible for Google to more easily block or censor a blog in one country, where this is required by that country's laws, without the blocking or censoring applying to every country right across the world. On the face of it this seems a reasonable compromise on Google's part. However, the ramifications of censorship are not always immediately evident and it will probably take a while longer before all the implications of this change surface.

All of which has nothing to do with photographs of quail eggs. These were a gift from some friends who keep domestic quails and I thought I'd photograph them in all their mottled, muted delicacy before we ate them boiled for lunch. If you've ever eaten boiled quail eggs you'll know that their small size and thin shells can make preparing them a very fiddly and frustrating experience. However, we received this tip that makes the task easier and I pass it on so that if you are ever faced with the diminutive darlings you'll know what to do. First tap the egg to break the shell, then roll it on the plate or table under light pressure from your hand and - voilà - the shell will now peel off much more easily in larger pieces.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/4 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blogger image backgrounds and those rings

click photo to enlarge

Many people have increasing concerns about the power, reach and intrusiveness of Google. Blogger is owned by Google and is one of their many free offerings. From the time I started using it in 2005 there has been the facility to add advertisements to a Blogger blog and for the blogger to make money (usually very small amounts) from so doing. The Google word for this is "monetize", a horrible construction. I've never had the desire or need to do so, and this blog is advertisement-free, a situation I don't foresee changing. Of course part of this process involves Google making quite a bit of money from the advertisements, based on key-words, that are placed in the blog. Consequently I suppose that by not using advertisements I'm taking advantage of Google's benevolence. But, they don't seem to mind so neither do I.

I do wonder, however, if Google has its ear closer to the ground than even the conspiracy theorists imagine. In the Comments of a very recent post there was an exchange of views concerning the effect of the white background that accompanied the enlarged view of a photograph. On some subjects it doesn't work very well, is overpowering, and is at odds with the black background of the blog pages. Well, quite soon after that date the background to enlarged photos was changed to black. Were Google listening in, or was it one of the planned incremental changes that are regularly rolled out? Whatever the reason - and it hasn't been trumpeted anywhere by Google that I've noticed - I like it. And, at the risk of pushing my luck I'd like to suggest that it be retrospectively applied to older posts too.

All of which has nothing to do with today's photograph of abseiling workmen on Tower Bridge in London. I spotted them as we walked past the other day. They appeared to be doing something electrical, perhaps installing the enhanced lighting that will illuminate it during the Olympics. I read that, in addition, a set of large, illuminated Olympic rings will hang from the bridge during the Games. When I first heard of this proposal I tried to imagine a worse combination of the insensitive and the tawdry. But I couldn't.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm (plus crop)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blogger Lightbox and traction engine drivers

click photo to enlarge

Blogger is an entirely free blogging platform that works well, is regularly updated, and serves the needs and desires of millions of people. Consequently, it seems a touch churlish to complain about changes or shortcomings. If it was a service that users paid for then voicing grievances might seem more reasonable, but when no money changes hands it can appear somewhat ungrateful. And yet, few companies give away products without receiving something in return, and presumable Google (who own Blogger) gets something to its advantage from the service. Moreover, user feedback is useful to anyone who sells, operates or markets a product, and it is with this in mind that the following observations are offered.

A week or so ago, with no warning, Blogger introduced a "Lightbox" view of enlarged images set against a black background. Prior to this the clicked image had been displayed in the top left of a white screen. I don't mind the new black background because it complements my template colour - but of all the changes to the viewing mode it's the only one that I'm happy about. The fact is, the Lightbox view doesn't work at all with some posts four or five years old - the old system kicks in. Worse still, with some posts a couple of years old the screen goes black and a tiny red rectangle appears, but no enlarged photograph. So, far from working across the Blogger platform, as advertised, it works on newer posts only intermittently or not at all on older posts. Others have deplored the fact that to escape the Lightbox you have to click an "X", whereas regular readers use the "Back" arrow. Doing that now takes you out of the blog, which isn't what many want. Photobloggers (though not me) have also complained that the Lightbox view doesn't allow them to show their photographs at full resolution because it restricts the size of display and compresses the image in order to do so. There is a rising clamour for Blogger to make this new feature something you can choose or ignore when you configure a set up. That would be the best option and, given Blogger's usual responsiveness, I expect that to happen - but not for a while!

Today's photographs come from the Bicker Steam Threshing event that I featured in a couple of earlier posts here and here. In retrospect the large photograph is better than the earlier photograph that I posted of the traction engine driver.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Spires, views and hits

click photo to enlarge

Ever since July 2010 I've used Blogger's in-house hit counter to analyse the traffic that comes to this blog. It's called "Stats" and it gives a reasonable summary of information: not as much as some of the other free offerings - I also use StatCounter and Google Analytics - but enough for it to be my main port of call. Regular readers of this blog will recall that in August 2010 I posted a list of the top 10 pages by hits and speculated on why they were popular. I looked at this information again recently and found some interesting developments and, once again, more questions. The current 1 to 10 (with last August's placing in brackets) are:

1 (1) Tree shadows and architectural drawings
2 (2) Lichfield Cathedral
3 (5) The corrugated chair
4 (new) Old tools and toffee hammers
5 (3) Promenade silhouettes
6 (new) Views with spires
7 (new) The story of a blog post
8 (new) Church music
9 (new) Colour or monochrome?
10 (new) Rooks, hoar frost and adverts

I find it interesting that only four of last year's top ten feature in the current list, though given the relatively short amount of time I'd been using Stats when I did the first survey perhaps that's not so surprising. As before I'm given to wondering why these particular posts receive more hits than others. However, one of the newcomers is, I think, particularly noteworthy. The entry, View with spires, dates from as recently as May 24th 2011, yet in that short time it has become the 6th most viewed blog post with 351 hits. Not as many as the number one with 2,101, but a high number (for this blog) in quite a short period. Why? The photograph isn't what I'd call my best, and the writing that accompanies it is unremarkable. So what is it that brings so many viewers to that particular page? I haven't a clue!

Incidentally, in October 2010 I noted the top ten countries providing the hits for PhotoReflect. Here is that list compared with today's:

2010 (2011)
1 UK (UK)
2 USA (USA)
3 Australia (Australia)
4 Canada (Canada)
5 India (Germany)
6 Germany (Netherlands)
7 Netherlands (India)
8 Brazil (Poland)
9 Italy (France)
10 France (Russia)

Much less of a change here: eight countries remain in the top ten, with Brazil and Italy being replaced by the newcomers, Poland and Russia. The connection of all this with today's offering is tenuous, but my photograph sparked the line of thought that resulted in the subject of this blog post. The Swaffham church shot is a view with a spire, a lead-covered spire that looks like a later addition to a tower of about 1500. However, it seems that a spire was part of the original design, was replaced by a Gothick version in 1778, and the one we see today is a rebuilding of the eighteenth century incarnation that dates from 1897.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Another template change

Another day, another template change. The issue with text wrapping (or not wrapping) around the images prompts me to try this "stretch" template that adjusts to the size of the browser window. Now, if I can find a way of posting the full size image in place of the smaller vesion that Blogger posts, so that I can do away with people having to click to see the larger photograph, then I'll have achieved something. There is, apparently, a way of doing it by modifying the html of the post template, but life's too short for that sort of under-the-bonnet tinkering! I'll continue my search for an easier method.

Addendum:
I've found a way of uploading large images, but with a width of 800 pixels (the size I use) the text wrapping problem is re-introduced!!! I'll need to think a bit more about this.

Template tinkering

Someone recently drew my attention to the fact that the template I've used for the past few months doesn't display the text correctly in conjunction with a photograph posted in landscape format. This only happens with Internet Explorer. What happens is that it sorts the first few words into lines of one letter each on the right of the photograph until the bottom is reached, after which the formatting is fine.

Being a long-term Firefox user I was blissfully unaware of this. It must have been affecting quite a few people since IE is still the most widely used browser. Consequently I've switched to one of Blogger's default templates that doesn't have this problem. I'm not especially keen on it, but it will have to do until I find a better solution.

Addendum
Nothing's straightforward is it? The problem I set out to cure is fixed, but a new one is introduced. On this template IE (even with v.8) inserts a big space between the images in a post that has two photographs: Firefox continues to display correctly. More evidence of Microsoft's desire to make the rules of the web rather than follow the internationally agreed standards.