Late last year, restaurant chain Frankie & Benny’s launched an initiative to ban families from using their mobile phones whilst having dinner. As in, handing over your phone to the restaurant while you ate, and then getting it back at the end if you were a good family and ate up all your greens. I, as well as many others, was outraged at the restaurant’s audacity, controlling streak, as well as just the general tone of disapproval of people who use phones at table.

I’ve needed a new phone for a while, and was umming and ahhing about what specific iPhone to go for. In the end, I went for the 8 Plus and now I wish I had shut up and bought it sooner because the dual-lens camera is totally incredible. I’m not a natural photographer, but every single photo I’ve taken this past week or so is the best photo I’ve ever taken, thanks to the camera.

To celebrate some exam success this week, I was whisked off to the Apple store to purchase some Beats goodies - bluetooth in-ear headphones, and their mini portable speaker, the Beats Pill. Both are a lot of fun, however it was an impromptu off-the-shelf purchase that has turned out to be the real revelation. I’m always keen on gadgets that make photography more accessible. In this day and age of leaving the house with powerful photographic equipment tucked in your pocket, adding peripherals can make things even better.

I’ve stumbled across an interesting problem that hasn’t bothered me for a while. The past few months have been hectic, with all the travelling and working and stuff, but it has resulted in me actually leaving the house and taking a handful of pictures here and there. When I got back from Houston, I suddenly remembered that I had a Flickr account. I hadn’t checked in for a very long time, since before they updated their accounts to give you oodles of space for free.

So much love for this. I often forget to check xkcd but every time I do, there’s always something that resonates.

Since I’ve been catching up with my news and views on Feedly, I’ve been making good use of the “Save for Later” feature - particularly when I stumble across things I might want to blog about. I managed to scrawl out something on that New York swimming pool, but the rest just isn’t inspiring me for a full post. With that and the fact I’m struggling with the heat, I thought it might be better to round up some of the things I’ve saved recently in brief, rather than leave them languishing forever!

I managed a quick visit to my parents over the weekend - something long overdue. We’ve had some unseasonably hot weather recently (although what is seasonable these days?) and it really felt like spring and summer were here to stay. Of course, today it’s cold, but that makes looking at these photos all the more pleasant. It’s always nice to visit my mum and dad’s garden as they put a lot of effort into it and the results are clear.

I’m going through one of those phases where I’m working on so many projects, that this here blog falls lower down the list. I know when I’m just posting Film Watches and Casual Reader reviews that I’ve got a little bit busy all of a sudden. I’ve got several items I’ve been meaning to write about, but there isn’t time, or I’ve written myself out of words on something else, or I’m just too darned tired.

I’ve just finished watching this video (via Kottke) of a photographer who collects the best moments of sporting events and collates them all into one image. That’s oversimplifying it somewhat, why not take a look? I love the concept. A picture captures a snapshot in time, but why not extend that idea to bring in lots of singular moments into the one image. It also reminds me very much of something.

With a reformatted Mac comes the opportunity to start things over, to organise better. I decided that I would try out iPhoto in all it’s proper glory - as in attempting to use it as a photo library, instead of as just a way to get pictures out of the iPod. I’ve sorted everything out into Events, which was pretty dull, and then I took a look at the face recognition part of it.