I live along a road off St. Asaph Avenue in Kinmel Bay, near Rhyl. I decided to go for a walk along the coast with my Olympus SZ-31MR camera and take some pictures to see how it fared. It was cloudy outside, and as it was a Winter's afternoon (last Saturday), there wasn't loads of light from the sky and there was a lot of haze.
Still, here are a select few of my favourite shots that I took:
I call this one (above) 'Stairs to the Sea'. I had to get in the right position to get it exactly right. After about five minutes of bracing myself against the strong winds and stabilising the camera in my hand, I took it. This is on 'Dramatic' scene mode. The camera changes the contrast, colours etc. for me, so this is actually without any 'computer' enhancements!
This one is the best of all my photos taken during my walk. Anyway, I call the one above 'One Destination' because whatever path you take - the sky, tarmac, sea wall or rocks, you're going to the same place. I like how they all lie adjacent to one another.
It was half past two when the Sun was in this position so you know that it's Winter! The camera was on Auto mode in this one. It's difficult to adjust to normal colours of the camera after using the 'Dramatic' scene so much, but it's much more natural.
This isn't Flickr or Instagram, so I won't publish a whole set of photos I have taken. But I hope the ones above tell a story for you and show a little of the Kinmel Bay environment.
Do you want the originals of any of these three photos? Just give me a comment and I'll send it to you.
PS. I've found out what bird that is below that I photographed - it's a Long Tailed Tit. Thank you RSPB website
PPS. Merry Christmas!
It's a cry from the deep. The deep, dark and sordid situation of being unemployed. But it's not just that, it's also the fact that I am really rather a unique person and I can't seem to find any 'job' that will fit me. That's a terrible excuse isn't it? There's no excuse to be unemployed! Get off your backside and start printing your CV a hundred times and hand it out to employers.
Yeah, unfortunately that's not how things work any more. Everything is online isn't it. 'Upload' your CV, 'click' this link and that link, 'insert' your name and address and be added to the Excel spreadsheet of hundreds (well, maybe not that many, but who would know from this end?) of keyboard pokers with worse grades but probably more experience than you.
If you know this feeling, then I sympathise with you. Look, I know the position that others have - the sceptics - and no doubt us job-seekers have in our mind every time we enter the dreaded Job Centre. It's almost as if just entering the doors, you have to have your head down. You've failed. You're 'one of those'. There's no reason to smile. No reason to look people in the eye. You've no pride. Nothing.
That's the wrong attitude. It depends who you are. I finished my Sixth Form college with four As and one B. And I took English, Maths, History, Geography and General Studies. The B was in history and I actually got an A* in English. I applied for University in 2010. It didn't work out. I then retook the year in 2011. Same thing happened. But I won't go into detail here. So I didn't go to University. Instead, I got a job via a random phone call to a friend of mine, who just turned to me and said "Here's your job". As a Christian I believe this was God's work but as I said I'm not here to go on a tangent.
The point I am trying to make is, I like to think a lot. I'm a thinking person. Yes, I can actually do stuff, physical work, talking to customers in a shop, typing things, admin, boring stuff. But... I would feel out of place. As if, this really is not my reality! I finished 6 months of being a Marketing Apprentice (bad move) on 31st October this year, beginning on the 16th May. Office, every day, computer, typing. I hated the environment. Then I got lazy and got used to it. I didn't work as hard as I should have. Nevertheless, I had some great ideas for this small business and it helped. I made a good positive impact that I can be proud of.
Unfortunately, the salary was not so tasty. A mere £3.65 an hour. I know it's an apprenticeship, and the minimum for those are £2.65 (can't believe this is legal), but I'm 20 years old! That's an insult! So as you can imagine the issue never really cropped up in the office except when I mentioned it. But that, is a story for a another day.
So, all this 'evidence' is pointing to one thing. One, it's near on impossible to find a job that you're even more than half happy with. You're told to go for anything. You're just a number that has to be assigned to some sort of workplace. It doesn't matter what, as long as you're not claiming benefits. Two, you feel depressed. You get up late, your mind becomes clouded with irrelevant thoughts. You become confused and disillusioned, which means not knowing where you want to go or what to do in life. It's easy to feel hopeless and you've probably visited your GP already.
So I continue the job hunt. I search on government approved job-seeking website of Universal Jobmatch. I also check the careers site of the major supermarkets and some stores. I don't cross my fingers or do any superstitious rubbish, however. I pray to God to give me a good job. I also pray to show me where he knows is best for me. It might not be a job, but I continue doing what the government says I should do because I respect authority. After all, they are the ones paying me £54 a week to help me with my living costs.
It's been a very long time since my last post. That's essentially because I didn't really keep my blog updated at all really. It must happen to a lot people. I mean, that's why you see a blog that has only a few posts or has stopped completely about a year ago. But who cares, this is my own spot for writing stuff and now I feel like writing so I'll write. And yes, my new camera (Olympus SZ-31MR) has arrived from Amazon. I've had it about a week now and I am so impressed with it. It has 14 megapixels which is far too much to actually be useful, but what I am really anxious about, or was, is the picture quality. It's very very good. I actually bought it for £105 with free delivery on Amazon's Black Friday deals.
So I have been busy taking pictures of the birds outside in my back garden and I'm not bad a photographer, so attached are some results:
So this little bird you can see above is one I have not seen before, but it was hopping around the branches of my apple tree and looking nice and fluffy so I thankfully got some relatively clear shots when it was standing still, which wasn't very often :-)
Unfortunately there's not a shot (out of about 7 in total) with it facing my camera and it's beak visible, as a twig always got in the way. I went on the RSPB website to find what species it might be and after entering the details of its feather colours etc. it seems it's either a brambling or a whinchat. But I'm still not sure so if you know, please tell me.
The photo above is the only one I snapped before the little fluffball fluttered away (wow, unintentional alliteration). As you can see, that stupid twig is blocking its beak. I think on the RSPB website it said a thick beak (even though it is small) would mean it's a Brambling and a thin beak would make it a Whinchat so that twig is actually more annoying than it thinks it is. I'll snap it off my tree tomorrow. It's the best one I've got of its face, so it will have to do. I'm sure someone knows.
I don't want to make this post too long as you'll lose interest, but I think now after not really knowing what this blog should be about, I'll dedicate it to my photography. And I like nature and landscapes so expect photos of the outdoor environment. And birds, because I've also put out some bird feeders this afternoon with peanuts and sunflower seeds so... we shall wait and see. But definitely more photos to come, definitely!
