The Settle Down Cafe

I found this cafe a few months ago and have decided that the unique decor and friendly staff as well as freshly made food, make me want to share it with others, the food and coffee as well as an assortment of teas and soft drinks at reasonable prices make it truly worthy of a visit in themselves but it has also been voted 2 years in a row in the Observer food guide as the best cheap eats in the North.

The Basement Coffee House

This good little indie coffee house is based in Newcastle at 9 - 11 Carliol Square Newcastle NE1 6UF 0191 2411534. The interior is well lit and the staff very friendly, they serve a good selection of hot and cold drinks and fresh food, I tried a cappuccino and it was of better than some of the main stream coffee chains, as well as good food and drink they also have free WiFi so you can keep up to date while enjoying your repast, remember though I am doing this for pleasure not profit as I think Indie Coffee Houses deserve more support.

Mikaids and The French Oven

While out for a wander I came across this great little coffee shop Mikaids for those interested it is at 17 Grainger Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 5DQ this is a great little place with nice friendly staff, a great varieties of teas and coffees and good food at very reasonable prices. I had myself a cappuccino and a sandwich the cappuccino was very good and the sandwich was excellent and made with fresh artisan baked bread from the French Oven 27/28 Grainger Market, after finishing my snack I decided to check out The French Oven and found the range of breads and cakes they make daily really good and fab tasting so this is another place I would highly recommend you take a look at the next time you are in Newcastle.

The Jackson Saga Rumbles on

Well once again the Jackson family drag Michaels name into court blaming the tour management company for hiring Murray when they knew he had a drug problem but the one question no one has really bothered addressing is if they knew why were they not there trying to get him off the drugs and why did they wait until he died to come out of the background and claim that everyone but he was to blame for his drug addiction because to be honest while tragic there is no real difference between what happened with Michael than has happened with other superstars for example Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison to name but a few, feel free to disagree if you want.

Another Photography Rant

Yes I am having another rant about photography, I had a nice little debate on twitter yesterday and came to the conclusion everyone has their own ideas what constitutes photography. My view is to try and get as much right in camera so I have very little to do on my computer it was the same when I used film, but some people reckon every photo that comes out of a digital camera has to be edited but I say no yes you may have to resize for printing or with people photos fix red eye, and like I say each to their own my main bug bear is when things are added or taken out just to make the photographer feel they have taken a great photo to me that just shows they are good with computers and editing software so as such anything produced by those means should be represented as digitally enhanced images. That is one reason I stopped entering photo comps as I knew as soon as I saw some of the judges comments complimenting them on the use of their editing skills with my minimalist approach to editing I stood no chance. Well thats all for now and as I said at the start everyone is free to their own opinion so please no sarcastic comments. Oh and by the way I have had photos published so I think I no a little about photos.

The Minions Strike Again

Well the minions have struck again I was getting all set to go for a wander with my camera when guess what happened yep you guessed it Arthur Itis and C. Oldweather ganged up on me to prevent my wandering and roaming with my camera first Arthur struck when I woke in agony from his bone jangling curse in my joints particularly my hands I cursed as I had spent a couple of hours the night before cleaning and checking my camera gear for my treat, even the painkillers were conspiring against me as they only made Arthur recede into a dull throbbing ache and then if that C. Oldweather decided to turn up and snow on my parade and drop the temp to minus six degrees centigrade so instead of going out and about I curled up on the sofa with a nicehot cup of coffee and proceeded to eliminate every creatureand person I came across in Skyrim.

My take on photography

Before anyone goes all huffy and starts spitting their dummy out I would just like to say these are my opinions if you agree or disagree that is entirely in your hands. I very rarily use editing software for anything other than cropping and resizing ready for printing I do however try various tricks in camera to get various effects like changing the white balance using differing shutter speeds and screw on filters and I only use 3 of them U.V., POLARIZER and RED. I also if rarely follow any of the so called rules of photography to the letter as the first thing you notice when you read how some professional photographers get the shot they are talking about they throw them out the window so to speak, my main rules that I have are the photo that I take is good as long as I am happy with the result and if anybody asks me to take photos for them as long as they are happy with the results then so am I, for example my sons wedding anybody who knows me knows I am not confident taking photos of people but when the so called professional dropped them in the proverbial about 4 days before their wedding I reluctantly agreed to take their photos for them as it turned out one or two people were not happy with them but the main people my son and daughter in law were over the moon with them. So my take is you will never please all the people all of the time but as lkng as I am happy that's all that matters.