I have had quite a few articles away from the blog over the past few days.
Here goes:
Fixing What’s hot on Google+ (Media Tapper) – (#75 of 366 X 2012 project)
Running out of ink (EuroTech) – (#76 of 366 X 2012 project)
WikiLeaks: Assange To Run For Office (EuroTech) – (#78 of 366 X 2012 project)
Apple in Hot Water in Europe. Again. (EuroTech) – (#81 of 366 X 2012 project)
The Pirate Bay To Hover The High Seas (EuroTech) – (#82 of 366 X 2012 project)
Shot with a Canon EOS 50D (w/ 17-55 f2.8 IS USM lens)
I spotted this windmill in the middle of a field while on a day-trip to Gozo last week. I’m not a big fan of heavy editing to give pictures a retro look (I know I do it, but not too often). This one just begged for it – I felt that as it is it could have been a shot taken somewhere out in the Wild West in the US some time in the ’60s.
(#80 of 366 X 2012 project)
P.S. Yes – I know, I’m lagging behind in posting my daily updates. I have been incredibly busy lately, and have been finding it very hard to cope with everything. What’s keeping me going is the fact that I know that most of the daily material is being created – I’m just not finding the time to edit and post it.
I have an excel sheet with all the photos I’m meant to upload and articles I need to link to and it does not look as depressing as the state of this blog 
Shot with a Canon EOS 50D (w/ 17-55 f2.8 IS USM lens)
Remember the Filigree shop from in the Crafts Village from yesterday? The rest of the crafts-people work from Nissen huts that were left over from the time when this area was a British military base with an airport.
The sun was going down and the shadows were creating lovely patterns on the corrugated metal of the huts. Even if the photo feels static I think that it works as a true representation of the area. Unfortunately not all subjects are as interesting and exciting as we would like them to be, but some (like this one) still deserve to be documented.
(#78 of 366 X 2012 project)
Shot with a Canon EOS 50D (w/ 17-55 f2.8 IS USM lens)
Visited the Crafts Village in Ta Qali (Malta,) recently and took a few shots in the area. The place is usually bustling with activity most of the day because tourists flock to it to buy gold, glass-ware and filigree at rock-bottom prices. After 5pm, however, it becomes a ghost town.
It offers many photographic opportunities because the crafts-people all work from huts which are very derelict. There has been a renovation project in the pipe-line for over ten years but nothing has ever materialized. In the meantime no one spends money on making their place look ice just in case the renovation project suddenly becomes important once again.
One of these days I aim to re-visit when the shops are open. Shooting the artists at work would be another lovely opportunity.
The shot has no special techniques. I simply reduced its saturation (colour levels) significantly in post-processing to make the place seem even more desolate.
(#77 of 366 X 2012 project)
Shot with a Canon EOS 50D (w/ 17-55 f2.8 IS USM lens)
An experiment in extremely shallow depth of field. These are miniature clay snakes that were being prepared for a crafts lesson. Offhand I can calculate a depth of field of a couple of centimetres (around an inch at best). To achieve this I went in close, zoomed in as much as possible and opened the aperture as wide as I could.
(#74 of 366 X 2012 project)
Shot with a Canon EOS 50D (w/ 17-55 f2.8 IS USM lens)
This is a photo of one of my favourite haunts – a small bar in Lija, a village that is adjacent to Balzan (the village I live in). It accommodates around 20 people at its fullest, but it can usually get quite noisy. Since seating is limited, getting there quite early is imperative, and once you’re there you surely don’t want to leave. I go there with my friends, with my wife, with my parents – basically anyone who cares to join me. Drinks are dirt cheap and with every round bought you are served with 4-5 plates of “nibbles”. Usually you get to a stage where you have to stop them from getting you more food.
As if this was not enough, the bar’s owner, Sonny, is not only a great guy, but he is also a brilliant magician. At some point during the night, if you’re lucky, he will start performing tricks for his customers.
Onto the photo. I took this early this morning (at around 6.30 am), which is one of the few times this place is closed. Since the wooden Grasshopper sign is covered by the canvas one there was a major difference in tonality and I therefore had to go for HDR. I bracketed by two stops each side when taking the shot and fused the images in Photomatix.
(#73 of 366 X 2012 project)