Jamie Dumont

009 — Dragons and a new timeline

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Redundant. That’s what they tell me I am. Re-dun-dant. A weight lifted from my shoulders with every syllable. Merely an accelerator to the timeline I had promised myself.</p>

Writing software was a creative act for me: problem solving within a set of constraints, where the strength of your work correlates with the restrictions imposed on you. Whereas a career writing software is a different animal. It’s a long walk into a strange landscape of make-believe. The language shifts into something foreign and your simple desire to solve problems becomes lost. To survive you forge hard-won experience into a suit of armour. But the armour is heavy. It makes you slow, inflexible. And dragons await, ready to cook you alive inside it.</p>

Yet again I find myself needing to seal this profession in a box for a while. However the lock is mine, and won’t be removed for anyone’s hunger but my own.</p>

Convention dictates this situation demands an intervention, a war council where a decisive plan of action is established. Instead, I’ll direct my attention towards work that excites my curiosity.</p>

That looks like print experiments for Makers</em>. That looks like balancing a 50mm with a 21mm. A twist on a classic pairing.</p>

008 — Morning Light

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It was the second coffee that woke me up. Not to the day but the year I had lost.</p>
I’m writing to you from my office, a box of a room. Only pockets of desk and floor remain visible amongst the clutter.</p>
I last wrote to you a year ago, not long before returning to writing software for work. Thousands of lines of code turned into mortgage payments, supermarket trips, and car repairs. Photography never did that, at least not for me.</p>
My camera has grown comfortable in its bag. My journal reduced to shopping lists and apologies to a former self.</p>
Then autumn came.</p>
Monday. The morning ritual of school run and then coffee and then the glow of my computer screen and then the next coffee and— Except as I walked through the door, light struck my kitchen table. Warm, vibrant autumn light. A pause, then a dash for my camera bag.</p>
A candle stood on the table, caught in a shaft of brilliant morning light. An actor on a stage. My hands fumble with a camera unfamiliar to me, but a clean frame forms after four or five attempts. I keep glancing at the scene as I make my coffee, before inevitably its waft carries me upstairs to work.</p>
Back to my desk. Back to what pays. Back to more code, or emails. I forget. Only an hour before my body again asks for coffee and I oblige. Empty cup in hand, I headed downstairs, where I found the light had changed. Here was my actor, wrapped in a soft gentle light. Gone was the contrast, the rich colours, the focus; replaced with a haze and sense of openness.</p>
One hour. The same stage transformed. A single snick of the shutter this time, the camera coming back to my fingers more readily now.</p>
The kettle boils, waiting for me to stop flicking between these two images on the back of the camera.</p>
The first rich with drama and mood, recalling evenings exploring the pools of light within The Mulberry’s dark interior. Beacons of intensity in the gloom, where conversations, moments of consequence played out to the rhythm of Harry and Jay’s dishes.</p>
The second image light and airy, it was like those summer evenings where the sky and the sea race each other to the horizon, breathing hard enough that it’s unclear where the two meet in the haze.</p>
Back and forth between drama and peace; both mundane, yet absolutely real. Both reminders of work that existed beyond my box of a room.</p>
The kettle grew cold as the camera warmed in my hands. Eventually I returned to the lifeless glow of my monitor without the second cup of coffee. I didn’t need it. There would be more coffee tomorrow, more lines of code to write. There would be morning light. Maybe I’d be there to see it.</p>
— Jamie</p>

P.S.</strong> — In the year since I last wrote to you, I haven’t been working on Makers</em> — the photography and writing project I started before life got busy.</p>
This newsletter, newly-named Spring Tide will be my way of beginning that process again: sharing quiet notes about making things slowly, with care.</p>
If you’re still here, thank you for waiting. I’ve missed this.</p>

007 — Ghosting

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a moment, hasn’t it!</p>
I’m Jamie and you signed up for this newsletter just as I took some time away over the summer. A break in my work during the school holidays was semi-anticipated — I’m the parent with the flexible schedule so got to spend 6 weeks (goofing off) with my son. He’s only five and this is his first year of schooling, but it already feels like these vast swathes of time together won’t last for long. Being kind to myself, I put no pressure to accomplish anything other than swimming, surfing and adventures together.</p>
The future of this newsletter</h2>
The break came at a good time though. I’ve been in a quandary of what to do with this site. I’ve debated platform, content, design, format, purpose and whether I should even continue! Six issues is early for such a major inflection point, but I realised after issue 003 that some course-corrections were required. Namely…</p>
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Ghost loves stats about members. I love conversations with members. Yet this is the first thing I see every time I login.</figcaption> </figure>
Platform</h3>
I’ll possibly be migrating away from Ghost before my annual subscription renews next April. I chose Ghost initially to break the repetitive-site-building-funk I was stuck in, but I just feel at odds with the platform.</p>
Ghost clearly sees a cohort of subscription-paying members as the ultimate end game for creators, which it may well be. Craig Mod has written extensively</a> about the permission that memberships grant, and I find the idea seductive from a creator’s perspective.</p>
However can I really, with good conscience, add another subscription to the world? We’re all sick of them now!</p>
Building a suitable website from scratch that matches my ethos and values will be a monumental investment in time, but one I think might be worthwhile longterm?</p>
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Send me an email</a> if you have opinions on using subscriptions to support self-publishing.</p>
Newsletter</h3>
Newsletters will be published roughly every two weeks, and will contain a mixture of updates on projects, interesting links I’ve found and ideas. Think of it as a curated summary of what goes into my notebooks. This issue is a great (albeit a touch introspective & meta) example.</p>
Essays</h3>
Much of what I want to write deserves more time and space than a regular newsletter affords. The internet at large is a firehose of half-baked ideas, but rather than contribute to the din, I’ll publish essays of depth and quality a few times a year. I hope to offer these as offline PDFs, perhaps as well as printed copies. Could these be a viable alternative to subscriptions, as travel photographer Roman Fox</a> has decided?</p>
Ethos</h3>
An idea that I found when reading CJ Chilver’s</a> book “Principles for Newsletters”</em></a> is what pushed me over the edge, and convinced me to make these changes.</p>

Your site, blog, and newsletter should be 100% you. It’s where you build your reputation. You own the reader experience. […] You own every pixel of your subscribers’ experience.</p> </blockquote>
“Owning the experience”</em></strong> is a concept that I’ve decided to adopt more widely as a useful North Star. It’s prompted me to tighten up my image editing and be more ruthless when culling — actually deleting and forever letting go of images I’ll never share. I don’t want anything appearing under my name that doesn’t meet my values.</p>
The rosey, professional all-is-well facade is something I’m being mindful to keep away from. So many of us online — particularly creatives — feel a highly polished veneer is necessary. Thanks to conversations with readers, it’s clear that we all struggle with the same hang-ups and insecurities. Imposters Syndrome</strong> is widely talked about — if only in hushed tones — amongst software developers, but I’m certain it affects all of us.</p>
The best way to help quiet this sense of not being worthy is to talk openly and frankly about what you’re working on. What’s not gone well? Why are things not as you expected? Because projects rarely go as planned, yet we pretend they went without a hitch! Even this issue presented me a load of problems…</p>

I came back after some time away from the website, thinking I had complete clarity on how to proceed. My next steps were obvious. This plan didn’t survive first-contact with the actual work however.</p> </li>

I’d long thought that issue 007 would discuss the colour grading of recent James Bond films. A cutesy play on the leading zeros in my issue numbers, but something I wanted to explore regardless. The change in format of this newsletter means that exploration has been bumped to a longer essay. Should I even mention the 007 link I had planned? Too late I guess!</p> </li> </ul>
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When something as simple as a single newsletter can go awry, surely we can all see that large, intricate projects, that possibly depend on many people, access and timing are almost certain to have hiccups.</p>
Issue 003</a> where I discussed “The Builder’s High”</em> and my issues with burn out and YouTube addiction was a heartwarming lesson. The fantastic response from many others who found some (hard) truths, shows it’s probably been the most valuable-to-other-people article I’ve written, despite being the most personal. This isn’t a license to turn these pages into an Agony Aunt, but it’s an indication that there’s space to be honest and more human in what we share. Whether that’s in person, or across the internet.</p>
</picture> This was actually last January but could have been yesterday!</figcaption> </figure>
Updates</h2>
The past few weeks have been spent getting back in the swing of things since school started. I’ll confess that little work has been accomplished as we’ve had a surprise run of good weather and good swell. Naturally I’ve been surfing most days, enjoying a new board from none other than Ollie Cooper</a>. It’s a huge jump down in size (5’7”) and volume (~33 litres) for me — you can see it compared below to my other wooden board made by Bosiny</a> — but I’ve already had a load of fun with it. It catches waves more easily than boards a foot longer, but is so fast and agile. It kind of defies belief!</p>
This particular board was shaped whilst Ollie was at OPEN — where my photo shoot took place — which is now unfortunately just a memory. It’s nice to have a physical reminder of that place and the people I met there.</p>
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Sending the Leica M2 to Cameraworks</h3>
After a brief chat with Alan at Cameraworks, it was decided that shooting a test roll would be a waste. The negatives from the last roll indicated a rapidly worsening issue with the shutter, if only it’s tension. A full strip down and rebuild — along with fitment of a Rapid Load Kit — should see it back in my hands just before Christmas. This feels like a long time, but Alan was quick to point out it’s roughly a year earlier than the camera’s return date had it been sent to Leica in Wetzlar!</p>
Cameraworks offer excellent repaints — and were responsible for the M2’s current coat of Olive Green Cerakote — so I briefly considered a repaint to match my black paint M10-R. On balance I decided getting the camera back in my hands sooner was more important than its colour. Besides, I bought this specific M2 because of its unique Olive Green colour and that repaint could buy a fair few rolls of film!</p>
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Of course I had the urge to shoot film along with a quantity of soon-to-expire rolls after sending the M2 away. Fortunately a trip to visit family in Guernsey coincided with calmer waters, and presented an opportunity for another beleaguered 35mm of mine — a Nikonos V. This particular camera seems to drag its shutter, or behave as if it’s in Bulb mode whenever it hits the water. Fine when on dry land, but I’ve yet to get a full roll without at least a handful of overexposed frames. You can feel the shutter clicking at odd intervals, so you know when you’ve lost a shot.</p>
Weirdly, every shutter speed operates correctly when testing it without film. It defies bench testing. Theories of leaks were quickly put aside, leaving perhaps the rapid change in temperature as it’s issue?</p>

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The not-faulty-Nikonos documenting family swims (including my Dad's first 'Castle Swim') whilst on Guernsey.</figcaption> </figure>
I opted to shoot it manually whilst in Guernsey, using the meter for guidance but selecting the correct speed as I was often shooting into the sun. Two totally unspoilt rolls of 36 exposures apiece would suggest that issue actually lies with aperture-priority. The meter knows what shutter speed is correct, and the shutter timing is accurate enough — electronically controlled, rather than mechanical — so it’s safe to assume that whatever circuitry joining the meter to the shutter control to enable aperture-priority is faulty. Another win for mechanical, manual cameras. At least now I can look forward to a winter of gritty Tri-X surf photography!</p>
Links & recommendations</h2>
A better scanning backlight</a></h3>
This is a fantastic write up from Jack Whittaker on what it takes to scan colour negative film (C-41) well. Even companies charging serious money for scanning backlights aren’t using narrowband RGBs as far as I can tell. Jack explains why it’s important.</p>
Andrea Bianco</a></h3>
I discovered Andrea’s website after searching for info on the Nikon Z6 II (he doesn’t think much of them by the way). I was also starting to examine the colour grade of “No Time to Die” and was struck by how similar (and good) the colours from the Positive Film filter in Andrea’s beloved Ricoh GR2 were. He puts this little camera to exceptional use</a>, demonstrating it’s not about the camera, but the photographer holding it.</p>
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“Ripley” on Netflix</h3>
This black and white series starring Andrew Scott has been doing the rounds with many people recommending it to me for both the story and the cinematography. Beyond using monochrome exceptionally well, it’s a masterclass in interesting composition, lighting and sequencing of frames. This is one to examine closely!</p>
I would often get a “did you also shoot it in colour?” when showing my wife monochrome photos. After watching Ripley, she understands why I love black and white so much.</p>
“The Perfect Couple” on Netflix</h3>
Another short series that at the outset looks to be the usual shallow Netflix content, but belies a good story and some belting lines from fun characters! Directed by Susanne Bier — who was also behind ”The Night Manager” which I loved — it creates a wonderful who-dunnit mystery amongst a wealthy family with plenty of secrets to hide. Recommended as something to watch over a couple of weekends, not taking anything too seriously.</p>
Thanks for reading. Next time I’ll have some updates on the site as well as Native Grain (yes, for real this time)! À la perchôine! 1</a></sup></p>

The friendly “goodbye” said in the traditional language of my home island, Guernsey. The language was called “Guernesiais” or Guernsey Patois, and is rarely spoken now outside select phrases such as this. ↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </section>

006 — Editing Notes from Native Grain Bakery

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This week has been all about juggling half a dozen projects, and largely at the whims of the weather. All I’ll say is that I’m glad it’s Friday! The couple of sunny days were put towards the (cursed) fence that I’ve building for what feels like an eternity now. The race is on to get it finished before school summer holidays start in two weeks time. There’s been a little software development happening again (!), but the main creative focus of the week has been Native Grain’s entry into my “Makers”</em> project.</p>
</picture> Sketch —plan is too strong a word— of the fence construction.</figcaption> </figure>
I feel guilty because it’s taken me far too long to make a start on this photo story. Truthfully, when the films came back with one roll ruined it completely took the wind out of my sails. This week, I wanted to tackle the photo edit — rather than just cherry-picking images— and begin the process of turning my interview into a transcript and then onto something you’d want to read.</p>
Typing out the transcript took a full six hours. I can’t quite type as fast as we talked so there was a lot of going back-and-forth, pausing, resuming and rewinding my recording. 6500 words now lay before me — printed, so that my yellow marker and red pen can go to work — but with some obvious themes glaring back at me.</p>
The photos however, don’t really tie together yet.</p>
This was the first time I’ve shot both digital and film (in any meaningful volume) on a single shoot. But, having spent roughly six months learning from colourist-extraordinaire Nick Watson</a> when I broke my collar bone last year, the plan was to use what I learnt to push and pull my digital files until they sat comfortably amongst the analog images.</p>
Whereas I would once enthusiastically add a film-look to all my digital images, it’s something I rarely do now; preferring to let each medium have its own voice. The digital-to-film-grade felt justified here to keep the images cohesive. That was until this came back from the lab…</p>
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What a light leak!</figcaption> </figure>
I shot two rolls of Kodak Tri-X, one of Kodak Portra 400 and one of Cinestill 800T and it was the Cinestill that took the hit. It was the last roll — indicating it could be the camera — but all the other rolls were fine — indicating that perhaps a loading, handling or development error was to blame.</p>
I’ve still not put another roll through my M2 yet so I can’t be certain. The leak is consistent with the focal plane shutter playing up — it jammed in sub-zero temperatures last year — but there’s occasionally a pattern in the leak that makes wonder whether I’m seeing overhead lights or windows?</p>
Anyway, it’s a problem I need to resolve at some point. What’s certain is that I can’t use the Cinestill shots in the final story, which is a shame as I like most of them; even with the leak.</p>

</picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure>

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Shots from the lost roll of Cinestill 800T</figcaption> </figure></p>
I think the overall colour-palette of these images is good — and not what I’d associate with 800T normally. The strong orange and blues work really well in this setting, and rating the film at 400 ISO to allow for LED lighting rather than tungsten has left the images looking brighter than normal. I usually love 800Ts halation, but here that red glow is actually very distracting.</p>
Before seeing any film scans, I had started to grade my digital files towards the usual hues you find in Portra. Instead, the Cinestill might serve as the inspiration as it feels more balanced and lighter. It’ll leave me finding another use for the images shot with Portra though, because the two are very different!</p>

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Kodak Portra 400</figcaption> </figure>
Splitting the difference between the two, I ended up with the images below. These still need a lot of refinement — the white balance is a tight-rope act between the warmer spotlights in the ceiling and the much cooler sunlight from the shop front windows — but adding a touch of blue into Kez’s green top and a little magenta into the oranges on the work benches seems to balance out nicely.</p>

</picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure>

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Experimenting with different tones and hues in the digital grade</figcaption> </figure></p>
Overall I’d say that they look neither like 800T or Portra 400, so perhaps my notion of grading the digital files as their own medium wasn’t quite so far off base! The same can actually be said of the black and white images. Tri-X was fantastic as always, but mimicking it on the digital images doesn’t quite land for me. Recreating the grain structure — and how the grain is quite high contrast within itself — proves quite tricky, and perhaps not worth it?</p>

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Kodak Tri-X (400TX) on the left and digital on the right.</figcaption> </figure>
There’s still something about all monochrome films that just feel different to digital conversions. Despite having less dynamic range and more grain, I always seem to end up with gentler tones on film. Almost certainly a deficiency in my editing of the digital files though. Let’s just appreciate the photojournalistic-goodness of Tri-X for a moment.</p>

</picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure>

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Kodak 400TX</figcaption> </figure></p>
Lots of decisions to be made in this edit yet! But testing the waters and experimenting early on is important. It’s how you find what a series of images might want, rather than impose your style on it every time. Maybe that’s why my photos don’t have “a look”? Maybe I’m still working out what my “look” is…</p>
Something I noticed during this edit — and you may have picked up on it already — is how many images are in portrait orientation! Near enough all of them!</p>
This is noteworthy because I used a Leica M2 and M10-R for these photos, and portrait is not the rangefinders natural stomping ground. They are much more cumbersome to use when tilted upright — nothing is really in the right place anymore. Add the high, jaunty perspective I’ve used in many shots to accommodate both the subjects hands and face and it made for an awkward shoot. The fact that >90% of my images were shot this way, despite the sub-optimal ergonomics, tells me I was constantly looking for more vertical space than my lens offered.</p>
I used 21mm, 50mm and 35mm for this location. The 21mm was used for 48 images, the 50mm for 191 images and 35mm for a huge 429 images! Despite struggling with the distortion of the 21, it’s clear the lack of vertical space in the 35 was an issue. The 50mm shots in portrait aren’t an issue because I was often layering both Casio and Kez into an image front-to-back, or taking a very clear portrait.</p>
Using the 35mm as I did, I lost the “environmental” part of an “environmental portrait”. I was using it like a short 50mm.</p>
Now, the bakery was tight, with lots of obstacles to manoeuvre around; but I don’t think that was the issue. I’ve been a 35mm shooter for a good few years, and as I mentioned in my last issue, I’ve been getting much more comfortable taking pictures close to my subject. In fact I’d go as far as to say I feel more comfortable in close — standing across the room with a telephoto makes me feel like an unwanted onlooker. I’m now looking for a clear subject filling the frame but with enough context to place them in their environment. I’m getting close enough with a 35mm now that I’m starting to lose that context.</p>
Time to start experimenting with the 21mm more, or maybe see if I can borrow a 28mm and see whether it could be my primary focal-length, replacing the 35mm.</p>

Bit of a scattered email this week, but it matches the state of my brain quite well. I’ve had conversations with other readers recently about the concept of “Do One Thing Well”</strong> — borrowed shamelessly from Hiut Denim — which is certainly appealing at the moment!</p>
However, I can’t see any projects that I’d want to give up at the moment, so I’ll either need to get comfortable being pulled in so many directions, or wait to see what falls by the wayside.</p>
Next week, I’ll be forging ahead with editing the interview with Casio and Kez from Native Grain, whittling my 700+ images down to a couple of dozen finals and perhaps delving into the colour grading from some of my favourite films. Until then!</p>

005 — Greg Williams is the cheeseburger your parents could barely afford

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

That header is correct. I did actually write those words. I’ve not gone crazy. I’m Jamie — of sound body and mind — and you probably signed up for this email on madebyjamie.com</a>.</p>
Let me explain myself. A while ago I watched “The Menu” — a horror film more accurately described as a twisted thriller, that tells the story of a burnt-out chef exacting his revenge on the industry that destroyed his love. It’s a good film and I’d encourage any creative person to watch it; but I can’t make my point without revealing the plot. Spoilers inbound.</strong></p>
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Our protagonist Margot — Anya Taylor-Joy — is hired to accompany Tyler — Nicholas Hoult — to an exclusive dining experience at the legendary restaurant Hawthorne run by chef Julian Slowik — Ralph Fiennes. Her presence throws Slowik as all the guests and staff at the restaurant will all die that night — deservedly in his mind — but she wasn’t meant to be there.</p>
Tyler — her evening’s employer — is a sycophant, endlessly deconstructing and analysing Slowik’s work. Other guests include investors dictating the chefs direction, critics responsible for the demise of restaurants, unappreciative regulars and sell-out actors. Slowik all holds them responsible in some way for the tortured existence he finds himself in.</p>
As the evening escalates and people start losing appendages along with their appetite, Margot is rebellious and outspoken in the face of what’s to come. She shows no reverence for Slowik, no sense of defeat or contrition as the other guests do. She hasn’t wronged Slowik, and he even begins to see some of himself in her as a fellow service worker. Through this burgeoning connection she is able to discover that Slowik started his journey flipping burgers, and the smiling, warm young person shown in a photo bares little resemblance to the grim figure she is now pitted against.</p>
In a moment of confrontation and complete role-reversal she boldly states she doesn’t like Slowik’s food and would like to send it back. She claims that Slowik has taken the joy out of eating, instead replacing dishes with intellectual exercises. He cooks with no love, only obsession. — “Even your hot dishes are cold.”</em> — Worst of all she is still hungry and would like a cheeseburger. A real cheeseburger.</p>
In some very tense repartee, Slowik claims he’ll make her feel as if she’s eating the first cheeseburger she ever ate; the cheap one her parents could barely afford.</p>
As he cooks it, the love — and joy — for cooking is evident again. No obsession this time. Margot manages to flip the script, teaching Slowik one last lesson. It’s enough to save her, but not everyone else.</p>
All of this might go some way to explain my cryptic headline, but the film left me pondering what does this metaphorical cheeseburger look like in photography?</p>
When you strip away all the pretence, the analysing, the deconstructing, the expense of endless cameras and lenses, the snobbery, what are you left with? Who</strong></em> are you left with? The humble cheeseburger was a fantastic illustration of simplicity and honesty. Where can we find that parable when picking up our cameras?</p>
I’ve been delving deep into photo books lately, trying to escape the superficial work posted to social media. Having photos published in print is a great bar for quality, but much like my English-literature teacher in college; it’s easy to read too much into the work. Perhaps incidental choices by the author get interpreted as deep metaphors that simply didn’t exist before. Slipping and sliding towards lots of fluffy-talk around art, purpose and meaning is unfortunately too easy with photo books. This is one of the traps “The Menu”</em> takes aim at.</p>
Two photographers that managed to avoid their fate in this regard were Andrew Paynter (who I’ll write about in the future) and Greg Williams.</p>
Greg Williams</a> is a photographer best known for his candid photos of film stars before and after glittering awards ceremonies. I first encountered his work as I’m a big fan of Daniel Craig’s depiction of Bond, and Williams was a specials photographer on all five movies. His photos are impromptu glimpses of the world behind our favourite films and actors, but sometimes with technical imperfections.</p>
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Ralph Fiennes and Daniel Craig on set during the filming of 'No Time To Die'. Copyright Greg Williams.</figcaption> </figure>
Ralph Fiennes and Daniel Craig on set during the filming of “No Time To Die”. Copyright Greg Williams.</p>
A naive version of my past self dismissed his work for this reason. He was presenting blurred, out-of-focus images as some of his best! He had access to Hollywood’s bright and beautiful and still missed focus?! I was missing something…</p>
I dug even deeper into his work, learning about his history as a photojournalist in conflict zones of Burma, Chechnya and Sierra Leone. His really gritty, hard-hitting editorial work for the Sunday Times, contrasted with silly and fun projects. After a particularly draining assignment his editor offered him carte-blanche for his next one, and William’s chose British cinema.</p>
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I won't publish any spreads from inside the book, but I will recommend buying a copy!</figcaption> </figure>
Skip forward roughly 16 years and Williams published his book “Photo Breakdowns”. Alongside this book, interviews and videos have fleshed out a really clear picture in my mind of what Greg’s work achieves and what sets it apart from other professionals work. In fact it shares all the best attributes of non-professional photography!</p>
To begin with, his work at awards ceremonies was like any other photojournalist — very much an observer, taking candid shots, often from quite far away. These were shots where in his own words he was “stealing the moment, hiding behind the camera”</em> with no engagement from his subject. It was the classic documentary style of photography that I’ve pursued (outside of family photos) since I started. That reportage aesthetic and authentic perspective has been my aim, with perfectly timed and composed shots of unscripted moments being the Holy Grail.</p>
Weird, considering that I skimmed past all of Greg’s photos that matched this description. They didn’t hit home for me at all. Instead I was drawn in by the images where he is obviously a participant in the scene from behind the lens. The subject is engaging with him, with the camera, and there’s a deep connection between the two. This is the style that I associate with his images now, and it’s what I missed first time around.</p>

“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field”</p>
— Peter Adams</strong></p> </blockquote>
Instead of being a passive observer, Greg interacts with the subject — even directs them — to coax the image and the character out of his subject. He’s close, often with a small camera that he’s not even looking through. Instead, he’s reaching around to fist-bump or clink glasses, or pulling a silly face over the top of it. His images are about as far from what we collectively call photojournalism, but in many ways are more honest and true. They acknowledge his presence and that of the camera, and that this changes the dynamic.</p>
</picture> I remember the side-eye another photographer (who was 'all-in' on documentary ethics) gave me as I helped a runner fill their water bottle, joking with them as I took this photo in 2022.</figcaption> </figure>
I chanced upon images like this previously, most often around friends and family, but occasionally on assignment. Over time these simple, one-point-perspective images where the subject is engaged with me and the camera have become my favourites; with a strong memory of the event etched into my brain.</p>
Each photo in Greg’s book comes with some commentary on the image and simple metadata like camera, focal length, etc. It’s easy to spot when his new style started to cement itself as not only do the images change, but so does the equipment he uses and how he talks about the subject. You really feel the connection as you read his captions, and they add depth to the images. They are a memory, an event in two people’s lives. Certainly not an image that neither subject or photographer were particularly aware of having taken.</p>
Watching behind-the-scenes footage of Greg work, it’s easy to see why! His interaction with the subject is all-consuming. During his — exceptionally short — shoots, there’s nothing else outside of him and his camera. To see a photographer work with such a strong presence in the room is peculiar, but the results are undeniable.Another photo from almost two years ago that I had passed over.</p>
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Eerily similar to...</figcaption> </figure>
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Lea Seydoux on set of 'No Time To Die'. Copyright Greg Williams.</figcaption> </figure>
It’s not about the gear, but Greg makes mention of his Leica Q/Q2/Q3 so many times it’s hard to ignore. This up-close role is obviously one that the 28mm Leica excels at and is perfectly deployed in this use case. When an image is slightly out of focus, it will be because Greg isn’t looking through the viewfinder and checking the camera chose the correct focus point, instead he’ll be pulling a face or laughing to get the reaction you see. Arguably the photo only exists when one of these two things happen.</p>
Greg’s other choice is a 75mm which works well for the headshots at the same working distance as the 28mm does for the wider shots. Both 28mm and 75mm are focal lengths I don’t have, and awkward on my camera; but beyond persevering with my 21mm more — a lens I chose to push me out of my comfort zone — I’ve been adopting Greg’s approach more in my demeanour whilst shooting and what I’m looking for during the edit.</p>
</picture> </figure>
I would have skipped straight over this image previously — possibly even deleting it without thought due to the very soft focus. Having learnt to be less critical of technical flaws and instead looking for the feeling; it’s one of my favourites.</p>
</picture> </figure>
The photo above is perhaps my favourite image from recent years. It’s one of two photos I shot that day. At 21mm on my old Leica M2 loaded with Cinestill XX, I eyeballed the exposure and spent just long enough focusing to catch my wife’s eye as we sat down to lunches. It’s not a posed photo, but there’s an awareness of the camera that makes the image so much more engaging.</p>
</picture> </figure>
Greg is very open about how long it took him — years! — to be able to disarm and relax his subjects so readily. I can pull it off with those close to me, but to be able to walk into a room with a complete stranger and get that level of engagement is a skill that will take me much longer to master, and I can see why Greg considers his short, minute-or-less shoots such a point of pride.</p>
His advice for learning this skill is that it comes through trial and (mostly) error. Always be talking, interacting and collaborating with the subject. He feels that most people take competent photos, but that it’s not enough and you need to have a unique perspective and singular voice in how you communicate that to the world. It’s clear that his perspective embraces people as they are, which draws out a level of intimacy and connection that is rare, even moreso amongst the celebrities he works with.</p>
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Love the 21mm perspective. Don't love the expired purple lomochrome! 🤦🏻‍♂️</figcaption> </figure>
Personally, I don’t think you’ll encounter a photographer whose work better embodies the cheeseburger metaphor from “The Menu”</em> than Greg Williams. In a fine-dining context the cheeseburger is out of place; but it’s so full of joy that it’s secretly the dish you’d rather eat. I’m certainly on the lookout for more opportunities to make cheeseburgers with my camera — OK I’ve taken it too far now!</em></p>
If you’d like to learn more about Greg’s work then I can thoroughly recommend his book “Photo Breakdowns”</em>, some</a> videos</a> of his</a> on YouTube</a> and even his course</a>. The book “A Lesser Photographer”</a></em> by CJ Chilvers is also full of ideas like this, as is his website</a>. Both have helped me refine what I want out of an image.</p>
I’d like to know what you think. Have you encountered Greg’s work before? Do you like it? How tortured was that cheeseburger metaphor?! Let me know with an email</a>!</p>

004 — The Ollie Cooper Edit

Jamie Dumont — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After getting waylaid building a fence without a single screw or nail — a runaway project that will give one hell of a Builder’s High</a> when it’s done…</em> — I finally managed to sit down and take another pass at the edit of my time photographing Ollie Cooper</a>.</p>
I like to tackle creative tasks in a single sitting if I can; a method I learnt from Frank Chimero</a>.</p>

I’m a big proponent of ‘once through, cleanly’</strong>. You think about your idea, sketch, then put some glue in your chair and bang it out in one sitting. All of my best work happens this way: posters, collages, essays, outlines for talks, and so on. The work seems to be more cohesive and the energy more concentrated and palpable. If you sit down and what you make is bunk, you walk away, come back later and start over. You don’t keep any of what you’ve done before, you only retain the memory of what went wrong. It’s a silly method, but it works for me.</p>
— Frank Chimero</strong></p> </blockquote>
Tackling an edit this way forces you to act on instinct and cull aggressively — an ethos I find important to keep signal-to-noise ratio high in my archive, keeping it smaller, easier to search and less expensive to properly backup. Some photographers keep every frame in case they later find gold. I don’t. I’ll happily delete 95% of a shoot if the images aren’t meeting my standards. When I’ve previously kept every photo and later revisited it — as I’m doing today — I may find some OK images I missed first time around; but they still don’t make the final cut.</p>
With this method, that cohesive energy that Frank mentions is tangible. A narrative starts to form as you pick out the best images, and I find sequences readily make themselves known.</p>
Using Capture One Sessions for all my edits, I can easily copy the whole shoot and start afresh whilst maintaining past edits, or do as I did here — hide all the edits and select images with a colour tag rather than a star rating. This approach easily allowed me to cross-reference the two edits and see which images made the cut on both occasions.</p>

Worth noting is that I find Capture One — specifically a Session based workflow — to be vastly superior to a catalog based one in any other software such as Lightroom. Previously, I’ve been outspoken against Capture One’s business strategy. Their behaviour is straight out of the venture capitalist textbook, and caused me to question the software’s viability if they keep making shortsighted decisions.</p>
However, their releases the past six months have been better, and they’ve addressed the needs of their core customers — digitechs and studios — but I’m still treating them with suspicion. I’ll write more about my workflow, backup strategy and software choices in the future.</p>

When I published the photo story on jamiedumont.com in 2022 I had 32 final images. The first pass in this edit saw me cut down 657 photos to 241, with a further pass taking that down to 149 images.</p>
At this point I was definitely culling workable photos. It was a case of picking the best rather than removing duds with obvious deficiencies. I found myself splitting hairs to cut a series of similar images down to a single best.</p>
I toggled my past colour grades on-and-off as I went, deciding to stick with the black & white style I created first time around — which I named “Dust” — for everything in the glassing room due to its tricky colours, and using a subtlety adjusted version of my colour style “Bay” for the shaping rooms. I don’t think the initial colour grades were too far off the mark, but were a touch heavy handed — as everyone is I think when they first start — and my time spent under the tutelage of a professional colourist this past winter meant I noticed things I previously hadn’t.</p>
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The clearly defined drop of resin makes this an obvious win for the top image</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
I rarely got to choose between different compositions in this edit. The 35mm focal length and M10's minimum focus distance of 0.7m meant I was often missing cutaways and close-ups.</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
A good example of picking the best from a similar series of images.</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
A shot that I missed during the 2022 edit. Still didn't make the final cut though...</figcaption> </figure>
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After (left) and before (right) the colour grade (Bay). Mostly correcting the green cast with White Balance and adding some contrast with Curves and Levels.</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
Selecting between these two proved near impossible for me. Which is your favourite?</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
Another set of images where I can make arguments for either.</figcaption> </figure>
</picture>
This was about as snap-happy as I'd get on this shoot. Four images from a scene, two obviously inferior and then virtually nothing beyond crop and a slight smile between the remainder.</figcaption> </figure>
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Left is the better of the two regardless of grade, but a good example of how mono cleans up the tricky colours of the glassing room. </figcaption> </figure>
This edit produced 22 final images which were all a subset of the original 32. Allowing for a broader edit when these photos are used in the eventual “Makers. Volume One” that I’m working towards, I earmarked another 30 or so images that might be useful for backgrounds and overlays.</p>
My first edit was pretty much there with very little improvement to be found for the extra few hours spent. I’m happier with the grade and removed the added grain from the 2022 edit which I think makes for a cleaner, tighter image. I don’t try and make my digital files look like film anymore, preferring to just shoot film if that’s the aesthetic required.</p>
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Roughly 50 images pulled for use in 'Makers. Volume One'.</figcaption> </figure>
What’s clear after two years additional experience and learning is that this shoot lacks an obvious narrative. I took heaps of “action” shots, but very few cutaways or environmental shots for much needed context and depth. Everything I know of the place that Ollie worked, and his personality is missing from the photos.</p>
Viewed alone, it’s painful to acknowledge how much the transcript of my interview with Ollie patched up the glaring holes in the images.</p>
Were I to tackle this shoot again, I’d ensure I gave myself the extra images to build a compelling narrative. Equally, because the process of making a single surfboard is split up into distinct processes carried out days apart, I don’t have the thread of a singular board being made to tie the images into a logical sequence. Most importantly, I would also aim to give a better sense of Ollie and his personality.</p>
Throughout the shoots, we were constantly chatting, laughing, joking and having a great time. Looking at the photos though, it looked like I was the typical documentary photographer — an objective observer intent on not influencing the scene. That’s an approach that I’m increasingly moving away from, having studied the work of Greg Williams, who shoots acknowledging that his presence alters the scene and the subject; which I find to be a genuine way of working that produces engaging images. I’ll definitely be writing more about Greg’s work, as it’s an ethos I want to explore fully.</p>
The equipment that I used — a Leica M10 and Voigtlander 35mm f2.5 — definitely influenced the outcome too. The M10 was extremely new to me, and I remember being hyper-aware of nailing focus with the rangefinder. Combined with the single focal length and minimum focal distance of 0.7m, this likely explains the number of similar compositions and scale.</p>
I’m much better with a rangefinder now, and happily use longer focal lengths and wider apertures, but I viewed this set whilst considering 28mm as my primary focal length, rather than my current 35mm. There’s certainly images where the extra space and context would have helped, and I could have made the perspective more exaggerated than I already did; but I would have had greater issues with detail shots/cutaways, and would certainly have relied on the unique perspective of the 28mm as a crutch. Inconclusive…</p>
Taking another pass at these images has raised concerns about Makers as a whole, because I suspect my later shoots might share similar shortcomings. With that said, the discussion I want to explore in this project is broader — where these Makers fit in an increasingly automated, mass-manufactured world. These images could easily illustrate and add colour to that narrative, even if they can’t stand alone. I think that I’ve unwittingly given myself a writing project rather than a photo one.</p>
“Makers”</em> was originally about building a portfolio — a foundational exercise — and I think that’s the purpose it still serves. It’s my vehicle for putting words and images together and committing them to print. Whether it’s objectively good or bad is irrelevant if it serves as a launchpad for more stories and more printing!</p>
With peripheral projects winding down, I should be able to increase how often you receive these emails, hopefully building up to once per week. I’ve got a good list of things I’d like to talk about, but I’d also be interested to hear from you. Is there anything I’ve glossed over you want to know more about? Is there an aspect of photography you don’t think is discussed enough? Please send me an email</a> and let me know!</p>

003 — The Builders High

Jamie Dumont — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve forgotten who I am then I don’t blame you, as it’s been a couple of weeks. I broke the cardinal rule of this newsletter — consistency. I’m Jamie Dumont and you probably signed up to this newsletter on madebyjamie.com</a> where I write about Makers.</p>
Today I want to tell you about someone important. Someone that is partly, and but directly responsible for everything that I will ever publish here.</p>
I started this newsletter wanting to talk about more than just photography. Picking up a camera is just the most recent act of making for me, but there have been — and still are — so many more.</p>
This attraction to creating things has been an almost ever-present feature in my life. As a child I built a tree house, driving my Dad nuts by raiding his tools and leaving them out in the rain. The garden got covered in sawdust when I made myself a wooden ramp for my mountain bike or a skimboard for hot summer days down at the beach. Music, design, photos, bikes, cars — there was always a project. When I moved to London I lost the space to make physical things, but fell in love with writing software and cooking. There has always been an activity in my life that allowed me to bring something into the world that didn’t exist before.</p>
Often these creations weren’t great — I distinctly remember the ramp being hair-raising on account of the radius being far too aggressive — but whatever the result I loved the process.</p>

Discovering Michael Lopp’s article “The Builder’s High”</a> (a whole-heartedly recommended read) crystallised a behaviour that I had unconsciously become reliant on. Most of my teenage and adult life I’ve used Making to stave off malaise and foul moods. That was, until I hit complete burnout.</p>
It’s hard to pinpoint when this started, but I had been working as a software developer for about eight years and had become disillusioned with what I was producing. The results of my efforts still weren’t at the standard I wanted them to be. Whether it was solo-endeavours falling short under the astonishing volume of work required to build quality software, or collaborative projects marred by bureaucracy and lack of cohesive vision. Hours at my computer, my face illuminated a corpse-like shade of blue in front of the screen, had drained the high that once came with building.</p>
I tried to pull myself out of the spiral numerous times with side projects that I had lofty ambitions for. But the burnout was strong and I faltered at even the slightest hurdle. I lost the ability to quickly build anything and in doing so course-correct. Every project seemed too large, too slow and too intimidating; and suddenly the lifebelt I had always relied on stopped pulling to the surface and became a weight that dragged to the depths.</p>

At my lowest I turned to YouTube for distraction which predictably only made the situation worse. Any friction with my work would prompt me to seek solace in a video. By this point, photography had become flotsam to cling to as I let my last professional software work slide below the waves, but (again, predictably) YouTube’s photography content made my situation worse.</p>
True YouTube addiction — where minutes, hours, days, and eventually years are ceded to a rabbit hole of content and dopamine surges — is a different beast to what I experienced. No mistake, I’ve wasted thousands of hours on the site over the past six years, but I don’t believe I was ever in the grip of true addiction.</p>
Algorithms are widely cited as the source of this problem, and are undoubtedly exceptionally good at what they are designed to do — maximise time watched by any given set of eyeballs. But I feel the more insidious issue lies with the brain connected to those eyeballs.</p>
I have found — and it’s been echoed by others — that extended time on YouTube fosters a passivity and malaise that’s near-impossible to shake. It not only replaces the Builder’s High, but breaks the whole reward mechanism. You aren’t enjoying yourself whilst watching videos, but you’ll almost certainly enjoy anything else less. Not watching suddenly feels like work. Watching feels like switching off.</p>
Throughout, I knew this issue needed handling, but any efforts were all rather ineffectual in hindsight. Actions like trimming my “Watch Later” list of bookmarks — that represented about 100 hours of unwatched content — and later deleting my account altogether felt like big steps; but didn’t change the hours spent switched-off or how I was feeling.</p>

Ironically, the full-stop came about because of a YouTuber — he’ll hate that I’ve called him that! When going down the photography rabbit hole I stumbled upon Dan Milnor; previously a photojournalist, now a straight talking, no bullshit portal into the world of photography before it became Content. He talked common sense, dispensed hard-won wisdom through funny anecdotes and went on the most glorious rants about the industry. I immediately liked him.</p>
Over time you could sense that his frustration with Instagram and what passes for photography today was bleeding into YouTube. More shots were fired at unnamed YouTube-famous photographers taking pictures of gas stations or old cars, more references to creator burnout and even the odd threat to “run this ship aground and set it alight!”</p>
Turns out he was serious, and in a fairly understated video</a> announced that it would be his last on the platform and that he’d only be posting to his site Shifter</a>. And that was that. He was gone.</p>
After watching his departure video I decided to join him, and kick the YouTube habit for good. He did it as a creator. I did it as a viewer.</p>
We had sent each other a handful of emails prior, but I let him know that I was joining him.</p>
What followed was deafening silence. Having to listen, undistracted, to my own thoughts was excruciating. Why were my thoughts so scattered, why couldn’t I focus?</p>
Dan had immediately picked up books and began reading voraciously. I wanted to do that too, but only after I worked out what had happened in my brain and how I could unscramble it. I hadn’t finished a book in years — started many — but not finished them. There was no way I could manage one in this state.</p>

The struggle for a peaceful and quiet internal monologue was real, but just understanding that this problem ran deeper than hours spent watching was invaluable. I could pick up on where my past decisions had been externally influenced — monkey see, monkey do — and it allowed me to re-evaluate with independent thought.</p>
With this new found clarity I’ve rediscovered the simple joy of building. I still feel an abundance of friction but writing here and in my journal, taking pictures and later making sense of them, cooking, and recently building a fence (that will outlast me) all build on that sense of clarity. The Builder’s High is back, and every success fuels the next.</p>
Despite all our talk about support networks and help with issues, past a certain point every struggle is personal. It’s been a lot of work to get back to where I am today, and it’s taken time and timing. I may have gotten here eventually, but I stumbled upon Dan at the right moment. I was ready to hear what he was saying, and he made — and sold me on — the exact manoeuvre that would let me break the vicious cycle I had been stuck in for years. So when you read this Dan — thank you.</p>

002 — What's happening with 'Makers'?

Jamie Dumont — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You’d be forgiven for not knowing what “Makers”</em> is — my stalled-but-not-quite-at-a-standstill project exploring the work of small, independent crafts people. Nothing new has been posted since late 2022 after I started taking pictures for The Mulberry — a fine-dining restaurant in Falmouth. My time there produced the behind-the-scenes shots of a high-level kitchen at work that I had hoped for, but also led me down the rabbit hole that is food photography (more on this another time).</p>
With a fresh start — both here on the new site, and with how I’m approaching this work — I thought it would be best to take stock of what I’ve got, where the project currently is and where I may take it.</p>
This project — inadvertently — began in March 2022 with surfboard shaper and friend Ollie Cooper, who welcomed me into his workspace to practise my photography. After a fun few days I decided that I wanted to make more of the time taking photos than simply sharing the images on social media. I interviewed Ollie — my writing was rough after years making factual, concise notes around software development, so an essay was beyond my abilities — and posted the lightly-edited transcript alongside the images. And so began a self-assigned project, initially to flesh out my portfolio but quickly taking on a life of its own.</p>
The camera — and talk of a larger project — seemed to lower people’s guard and allow my (then) introverted self the chance to spend hours talking with, learning from and getting to know people who I otherwise might have only said a dozen words to. On the back of ten years software development — six of them working remotely — it was a wonderful salve to the cynicism and isolation I had grown accustomed to. My potential career change was initiated by burnout, but motivated by a desire for human connection once more.</p>
Exploring the work of other photographers (again, more on that another time) pointed towards the relationship between subject and photographer — good or bad — that’s required to make a compelling image. Until my time at The Mulberry, I had only spent enough time with Ollie to get over that initial awkwardness caused by a relative-stranger pointing a camera at you whilst you work.</p>
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Service at The Mulberry</figcaption> </figure>
Harry Cartwright and Jay Brady opened The Mulberry only six months before I started talking to them about the project. I had wanted a restaurant to feature in Makers</em> because I think a commercial kitchen creating food at a high level embodies what the project explores.</p>
Instead I found a slightly different, better story with Harry & Jay. Once again it’s a case of “more for another time”</em>; indicative of how much has changed and how little I’ve written about it!</p>

</picture> </picture> </div> </figure>
The synopsis is that I spent over a year learning food photography, changing my techniques, equipment and workflow to suit this genre of photography I had never before explored. Meanwhile my Makers</em> project, and the story of how The Mulberry came to be fell aside whilst focus stacking, colour grading and retouching came to the fore.</p>
So here I am, a little over two years since starting this project still with the only the component parts — several thousand images that might tell the story I hope they tell. I feel that Ollie’s is still the strongest standalone photo story. Due in part to the extra time I spent with him, but also that the interview format provided a strong way to summarise and share all the conversations Ollie and I had whilst I was photographing him work. It was a more honest, collaborative option than the write-ups I’ve published since; and a format I’ll be returning to.</p>
The images from each Maker are currently organised separately as Capture One Sessions, but I think the next step should be to collate the images and start the edit for the project as a whole, not just each Maker. Although each set probably needs another round of cuts too. You still have to get it right in camera, but I’ve learnt that a sequence of images — and thus the project those sequences become — succeeds or fails in the edit.</p>
Adding some extra mental wrangling to the equation, I’ve just completed a couple of days with Native Grain, a bakery in Truro. They’ve been inundated with photographers and videographers since their launch in November — such is the draw of their workspace (and pastries) — that giving them some space to relax before yet another photographer invaded their work was important to me.</p>
We spoke a fair amount about the idea this project aims to explore, and it was again a wonderful example of how this project is a collaboration — they had just as many thoughts and opinions on the narrative as I did. As an experiment, I used both digital and film for these photo shoots and I’ll be interested to see if there is any meaningful difference is how the different mediums convey the story.A preview from my time with Native Grain.</p>
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A preview from my time with Native Grain</figcaption> </figure>
So what can you expect from me over the next few weeks? I’ll be editing — and perhaps taking another pass at the colour grading of — Ollie’s story; as it makes most sense as a foundation for the rest of the project. It was before and it is now. I’ll be digging into the photos from The Mulberry and sharing some of my editing process and sequencing decisions. I need to work out the interview for Native Grain once the film has been developed and I’ve reviewed the images. I’ve also got a good amount to share about two photographers whose work is heavily inspiring this project, workflows, equipment, and more.</p>
In short, I’ve got plenty to say about Makers.</p>

001 — Hello World

Jamie Dumont — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Until today jamiedumont.com</a> was where I published my photography, and before that the blog that I wrote as a software developer. It’s been my online home — in many different guises — for eight years. However, it’s time to step away.</p>
The reason is simple — the website was distracting me from the work that mattered. Since switching careers there’s always been this question mark over what my website should be and how I should use it, further complicated by my dislike of platforms like Instagram. Even with the site wrangled into shape, I spent more time (re)building it than publishing anything: a clear sign I hadn’t fully made the leap from developer to photographer.</p>
Initially the plan was to use the photo stories on my site as book-making muscle building as a lower cost method of learning, using skills I already had. But my quest for “art direction on the web” was a fruitless distraction that took time away from the meaningful work of taking, editing, grading and sharing images. Agonising over layouts, typefaces and a myriad of details can wait for print.</p>
Perhaps most importantly, I wanted a newsletter to be central to sharing my work. The website and past attempts at a newsletter always felt at odds with one another, with endless debates over which platform an essay or given set of images should be shared on.</p>
With long running projects like my Makers series no longer needing a dedicated digital home — print being the final output now — everything could just be an email. Having an archive of those emails online, loosely organised and searchable with all the nitty gritty details handled — that I once loved but now loathed — made the decision easy.</p>
Ghost could host everything — past developer-minded hangups with the platform be damned — and I could focus on what matters. Photos, words & stories.</p>

365

Jamie Dumont — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

2023 was perhaps the best and simultaneously worst year for my photography. Whilst my work was more widely published than ever before, I took very few photos and enjoyed fewer still compared to prior years. Outside of paid work I barely touched my cameras, rarely carrying one unless there was an explicit need. When a photographer stops taking photos, their work only goes one way…</p>
Towards the end of the year I decided to combat this apathy in 2024 with an antidote in the form of the 365 project. As a journal keeps the intimidation of the blank page in check for writers; a daily image keeps a photographer engaged with the act of capturing a small part of life. The idea was simple: one photo, every day, for a year.</p>
My early photos were loose, not much more than snapshots. I was out of practice after all! But the first week still produced a few photos I liked. 004 looked to be a wash, but after a few texts I ended up going to my friends studio for a late night portrait session. That turned out to be more fun than I’d had with a camera in years!</p>
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[004/365] — Leica M10R & Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH @ f/4, 1/180s, ISO 800</figcaption> </figure>
I also worked out that I didn’t like publishing these photos via newsletter. This project was going to be the foundation of my newsletter — because as we’re all told “you need a newsletter if you want to have an audience”</em> — but to me it just felt like the wrong application of email.</p>
I was increasingly aware that my photos were a touch contrived most days. The images weren’t daily snapshots, but were being edited for variation in style and subject. Being divorced from my daily life and lacking a wider context and purpose they felt arbitrary. They weren’t incidental glimpses into my world nor additions to a larger body of work. They were falling into the nebulous middle-ground known as “content”. They only existed because the project dictated they existed. There was no story, no truth and — hell I’m getting really pretentious now — no art to them!</p>
Greater and greater extremes emerged in my work over the following 14 days. When I had the inclination, time (and conditions) I made strong images that prompted a lot of feedback on Glass</a>. Other days were a blur of commitments and terrible photos that were phoned in at the eleventh hour just to keep the streak alive.</p>
I hated the days when I was publishing photos that didn’t excite me and that I knew could be better. 21 days into the project it was clear what the rest of the year would look like and what I could expect from the remainder of the project.</p>
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[011/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, ISO 500</figcaption> </figure>
My hypothesis going into the project was that simply carrying my camera every day would eventually produce good photos and bring back the spark I had once felt. A sort of brute-force method for progress and joy. I was right, but not in the way I expected.</p>
The requirement for a daily photo was the forcing function that got my camera in hand. Camera-in-hand I then had the opportunity, but it was only when that opportunity aligned with intention that I took photos that felt like an improvement from last year.</p>
Intention followed by considered execution was where growth was going to be found and where I was most engaged again. In the absence of other motivations, a commitment to daily-publishing worked but it was messy and demoralising most of the time.</p>
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[021/365] — Leica M10R & Leica Super-Elmar-M ASPH 21mm f/3.4 ASPH @ f/3.4, 1/250s, ISO 320, ISO 500</figcaption> </figure>
Not particularly keen to continue riding this roller-coaster for a year, I tried to work out how this discovery could be harnessed to better accomplish the projects ambitions. I’m a strong believer in putting down a book that you aren’t enjoying; there’s no prize for completing it when there’s so many others that might hold more promise. With that in mind I felt no qualms about abandoning my 365 challenge — it had served its purpose and had shown how I could better achieve my goals.</p>
I’ll leave some of my favourite 365 images below.</p>
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[019/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G @ f/2.5, 1/4s, ISO 200</figcaption> </figure>
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[015/365] — Leica M10-R & Leica Summilux-M 35mm ƒ/1.4 ASPH @ f/4.8, 1/1000s, ISO 400</figcaption> </figure>
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[013/365] — Leica M10-R & Leica Summilux-M 35mm ƒ/1.4 ASPH @ f/2.4, 1/125s, ISO 1600</figcaption> </figure>
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[009/365] — Leica M10R & Leica Super-Elmar-M ASPH 21mm f/3.4 ASPH @ f/3.4, 1/90s, ISO 1000</figcaption> </figure>
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[008/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II @ 200mm, f/3.5, 1/1600s, ISO 100</figcaption> </figure>
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[007/365] — Leica M10R & Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH @ f/4.8, 1/350s, ISO 100</figcaption> </figure>
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[006/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II @ 24mm, f/2.8, 1/640s, ISO 100</figcaption> </figure>
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[005/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II @ 70mm, f/8, 1/4s, ISO 320</figcaption> </figure>
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[003/365] — Sony a7R V & Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II @ 50mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 4000</figcaption> </figure>

Yskynna Vertical Dance Co.

Jamie Dumont — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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All photos shot with Leica M10R and either Leica Summilux-M 35 f/1.4 ASPH. or Leica APO-Summicron-M 90 f/2</p>

Dynamite Valley Brewing Co.

Jamie Dumont — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As an (unashamed) coffee snob, I like good coffee and take a real interest in what makes one brew different from another. I try to link the different varieties of beans, the climates they grow in and how they are processed, roasted and brewed to the end flavour.</p>
Despite liking beer to the same degree, I knew virtually nothing about the process until I spent the morning with Keith & Gareth at Dynamite Valley Brewing Co.</p>
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Nestled under Dynamite Valley’s viaduct just outside Ponsanooth, is the home of one of my favourite beers. I stumbled upon them a few years ago and loved the simple, plain brown bottles wrapped in a “beer token” that invites you to their beer cafe on a Saturday and trade it for half a pint — a stellar deal if ever I heard one!</p>
When, one weekend, a slightly wayward cycle took us near the brewery, we decided to stop by and cash in some tokens.</p>
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Since moving to Cornwall, I’ve noticed the strong sense of community that surrounds each small pub. It’s not quite like that scene from a Western where a newcomer steps through the saloon door and the piano stops…but it’s sometimes not far off!</p>
Visiting Dynamite’s Beer Cafe couldn’t have been further from this experience. The regulars did indeed turn round and stop what they were doing, but only to come over and have a chat. Before long we were laughing and joking with new friends and our son was happily playing fetch with someone else’s dog. I hadn’t encountered such a warm and welcoming place in years, and knew I had to find out more. The incredible beer was just the cherry on top.</p>
Brewing beer starts early. The day that I joined Keith and Gareth they were going to be brewing 1600 litres of their golden ale “Gold Rush”</em> — a 15 hour process even before the fermentation begins.</p>

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The first stage requires pre-heating the mash tun with 67°C water and opening up the near dozen bags of grain that will make up this brew. Keith’s incredibly pragmatic attitude immediately became clear when one stubborn bag that refused to open properly was quickly and neatly slashed open.</p>

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Naively, I wasn’t prepared for the dust created when the grain started being tipped into the hot water. This is a hot, humid and messy process! Despite the countless bags being tipped in, the whole thing happened really quickly. The grain and water are mixed, with regular temperature checks throughout to ensure everything is evenly mixed.</p>

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Once the grain and water are fully mixed, they are left for about ninety minutes before a process called “sparging” begins, where 70°C water is washed over the mixture. This takes the mixture through the range of temperatures needed to fully extract all the sugars from the grain. The wort — the now solute-rich liquid — is transferred into the large kettle next to the tun, and Keith checks the gravity of the liquid with a refractomer throughout sparging to ensure that enough sugars and starches are being extracted.</p>
In an ideal world, they would heat more water than needed for this process to ensure exactly the right volume was produced from this stage. However, with energy bills now pretty much matching the raw ingredients in cost, Keith has been adjusting the precise recipe in a bid to find some extra efficiency in their brewing. All that’s left to do is wait, and keep checking the gravity and hope the output from the sparging meets the goal of 1600 litres.</p>
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Keith was fairly adamant that the rest of the process isn’t as visually interesting — just “men at work” preparing all the pumps and pipework needed to move their various brews between containers.</p>
However, I found the equipment interesting and wonderfully tactile. Coming from years developing software where I was staring at a screen and tapping at a keyboard it was pleasingly mechanical. It transpires that Keith used to be a chartered engineer and that the design and build of the brewery is largely Keith’s handiwork. As he explains it and all the small details that make it work, his pride is clear to see.</p>
A brew day is very much a “hurry up and wait” affair, but there’s always plenty to be doing.</p>

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Unfortunately, I had to leave shortly after midday, but not before the kettle had got up to the boil and the first lot of hops were weighed out and added. The smell was utterly wonderful. I’d recommend a brewery tour to any beer lover for that smell alone!</p>
Yet again, Keith was going to be altering his recipe. Their recent bags of amber have been resulting in slightly darker beer than normal, making their golden ale not quite so golden. Keith’s theory was that ten minutes less on the boil might counter this without any change in flavour.</p>

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The guys still had a long day ahead of them when I left — another 9 hours or more by the time everything had been cleaned and ready for the next brew! With loads still to do, both hard physical labour and taxing paperwork to keep everything traceable and above board; I can’t help but appreciate the effort, knowledge and utmost love that goes into the beer I drink.</p>
Craft beer has seen a wonderful resurgence in the past decade, but with news of more than a few local breweries having to close their doors recently, it’s under economic threat. If you’ve got a local brewery that produces beer you love, I’d implore you to get to know the people behind it. Learn about the process, find out how you can help. We’ve only just escaped from boring, flavourless, mass-produced beer — let’s not go back to that!</p>

If you’re wondering which of their beers is my favourite… I love their American IPA “TNT”</em>, but having recently tried the oatmeal stout “Black Charge”</em> from the cask I might struggle to choose just one!</p>
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Race to the Stones 2022

Jamie Dumont — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The start line early on Saturday morning was a funny place to be. The first wave was packed with veterans hoping to set a good time on the 100km course, so the normal nervous energy that accompanies a start line was heightened. Despite that it was relatively quiet compared to later starts. This was an all-business group of runners.</p>

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It was already a scorching hot day by the time we hit one of the first rest stops, and everyone was all about the fluids — either in their water bottles or over their head!</p>

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Question — should a reportage style stop you interacting with the world around you?</figcaption> </figure>
Base Camp at 50km marks the end of the race for some, but only the half way mark for others. From here it was a challenge for us to keep pace with the front runners as they headed out onto The Ridgeway. We skipped forward to the 80km rest stop hoping to find some runners gearing up for the final push to the finish.</p>

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The finish line had all the best emotions that I associate with an ultra. The impatience and anxiety as loved-ones wait for their runner. The joy and sense of relief as people cross the line at the end of a hot and exhausting day. The Threshold team however was steeling themselves for what was going to be a long night supporting their runners. Running back along the course gave me the opportunity to catch runners as they realised they had made it.</p>
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For some however, darkness didn’t mark the end. For them, it was just the beginning of a long night. Having worked with Centurion running I know that a runner’s demons only really come to the fore in the small hours. Even in summer, the night can be long when you’re chasing a seemingly impossible to reach finish line. I saw more than a few “1000 yard stares” that night.</p>
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Morning comes, and for some it’s a chance to start their second 50km race in as many days. Personally I’d rather a continuous 100km over another 50km with the aches and pains from the fifty yesterday!</p>
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THRESHOLD / MORE IS IN YOU</figcaption> </figure>

Dave Barry's 48 Hour 'Murph'

Jamie Dumont — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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108 Coffee

Jamie Dumont — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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Fixing my iPhone 7 Plus

Jamie Dumont — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

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I’ve been limping along with my iPhone 7 Plus for a while now. I try to get as much life out of everything I own, believing that you buy something to use until it no longer serves a purpose. It’s a given that carrying something every day for five years will cause some wear and tear, but my phone has certainly seen that and more!</p>
Having already written</a> back in 2017 about how this phone wasn’t quite living up to my iPhone 4S in the durability stakes I guess I should retract my previous statement now that time has proven me wrong.</p>
It’s got scratches and dents all over the case and the screen is cracked in multiple places. Notably, the glass across the lenses at the rear has got a crack over the 2x lens, which when using the phone in Portrait mode and pointing it into the sun creates the most wonderful flares! But, crucially it still works much the same as it did when it was new.</p>
Whilst I would definitely appreciate a newer iPhone for the improved cameras — the 7 Plus came just before Apple really found their stride with computational photography I feel — I decided that I would live with my iPhone a little longer and put the same money towards some new lenses for my actual cameras instead. In order to make it more comfortable to use day to day I thought I would replace some parts with new ones from iFixit.</p>

The screen</strong> as I could start to feel the cracks when using it.</li>
The battery</strong> because leaving the house after two years of lockdowns highlighted the ageing battery. That said, after 812 cycles it was still reporting 85% of its original capacity.</li>
The lens glass</strong> because whilst the flare it produced was nice sometimes, it was a pain at others.</li>
The speaker mesh</strong> because five years of pocket fluff had taken their toll and I wanted to restore as much water resistance as possible.</li>
The lightning port</strong> because it was starting to play up and sometimes refuse to charge.</li> </ul>

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The Sigma 105mm macro lens revealed the aluminium case was actually punctured!</figcaption> </figure> </div>
The issue was that the lightning port was sporting a lovely bend. iFixit’s tutorial to replace the port seemed fairly straightforward, certainly no more complex than any of the other repairs. However, I was struck by the number of people reporting in the comments that the repair had tricky parts to be extra mindful of and that in many cases it hadn’t worked or was causing issues with mobile reception, the home button and the dreaded “accessory not supported” warning.</p>
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I decided that I would take a different approach. My wife also had an iPhone 7 Plus that she had dropped earlier in the year and completely totalled. Not having the time or will to repair it at the time we just bought her a new iPhone 12 Mini, which left me with a perfectly viable donor for a simple screen and battery swap. I’d need to replace fewer parts — which made it less likely I’d cock it up! — and would also sidestep the punctured case.</p>

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Totalled!</figcaption> </figure> </div>
The iFixit Kit</h2>
I opted for “Fix Kits” for the screen and battery which included everything I’d need to complete the repair, not realising that it duplicated the exact same set of tools which is obvious in hindsight. Everything included felt high quality and the tools would certainly last multiple repairs. I also included a magnetic project mat in my order too for fear of losing any of the tiny parts or screws.</p>
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With instructions, a clear desk and fresh coffee at the ready I started the repair.</p>
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The Repair</h2>
Apple is often criticised for how “unrepairable” their products are, and having completed this repair, I can’t say I agree. They are well engineered and logically put together. Yes, they use glue for some applications but where they do it feels warranted. Yes, you need specialist tools but most people aren’t going to have drivers this size knocking about anyway, even if they regularly build computers.</p>
The most criticism I can level at them is the use of Pentalobe screws. This is often viewed as a low-key way of preventing people tampering with their devices, but given that Pentalobe drivers would always have been made to meet this need I think that argument holds less weight. Playing Devil’s Advocate it may just have been Apple doing what they do best; find a better way of doing the same thing as everyone else. These Pentalobe heads may have advantages over Phillips or Torx that Apple valued.</p>

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Removing the screen with iFixit tools</figcaption> </figure> </div>
With the screen opened out like a book there are two striking things:</p>

How large the battery is and how small the A10 Fusion chip is (not pictured here).</li>
The branding on the Taptic engine is a perfect example of “finishing the back of the cabinet”</a>. 1</a></sup></li> </ol>

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This image best demonstrates the scale you're working at inside an iPhone</figcaption> </figure> </div>
The rest of the disassembly is pretty straightforward. Remove the screws in the correct order and try not to lose any! The only part I struggled with was where the Home button’s flexible PCB was stuck to the screen and required a delicate touch so as not to bend the PCB too much.</p>
At this point I noted that the iFixit screen looked different in places to the original Apple one. It seemed to lack the structure and rigidity of the original. Fitting was a piece of cake though, with the glue “sticker” being easy to apply.</p>
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Using the iFixit Magnetic Project Mat to keep track of all the screws and parts</figcaption> </figure>
Conclusion</h2>
With the phone all back together I booted it up and installed a fresh copy of iOS. I noticed that the screen had a distinctly different colour cast to the original and when compared side-by-side with the semi-working phone it was clear that the iFixit suffers from a blue tint and reduced contrast.</p>
I did this repair back in November 2021 and whilst the colour issue hasn’t bothered me much, I’ve noticed that it’s more prone to the “squishyness” that LCD’s inherently have. Coupled with the Force Touch that this era of iPhone uses and it’s a regular reminder that I’m using a replacement screen.</p>
Would I undertake repairs like this again?</strong> Probably, no. Even with Apple now offering official replacement parts, I’m quite happy purchasing and using AppleCare. I’m fully supportive of the “Right to Repair”</em> movement and happily maintain other devices, appliances and cars; but am also very happy to leave my iPhone repairs to the professionals. By the time the parts and time are factored in, I think that AppleCare is fairly priced with the only inconvenience for me being that I need to send the phone away or take a day trip to a nearby city (Plymouth - 60 minute drive or Exeter - 90 minute drive) for a same day repair.</p>
Was the repair worth doing?</strong> Probably…I think I’ll be buying a new phone in the autumn when the next generation is released. If the next iPhone is only a marginal improvement over the 13 Pro then I may save a few pennies and just buy that one instead. Ultimately I would benefit from a better camera than the 7 Plus can offer, and that will be the main driver behind an upgrade.</p>

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Repairing an iPhone and photographing the process leads to a messy bench — if you're me at least!</figcaption> </figure> </div>

Credit to Brian Hertzog for making the only site worth linking to when I searched for a reference to this quote. Every other was dripping in pop-ups and tracking Javascript. Once again I’m reminded how awful the web at large has become. ↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </section>

Ollie Cooper

Jamie Dumont — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Surfing is synonymous with Cornwall. It’s hard to escape — literally — the hoards of British tourists that arrive come Spring, brightly coloured boards strapped to the roof. Surfing has exploded in popularity in recent years, with lots of people buying cheaper, mass produced boards for their occasional trip to the beach.</p>
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For the seasoned surfer — one that will endure the cold and wind to catch a winter swell — a hand made board is something special that deserves respect, bordering on reverence. For those people, a trip to OPEN on the cliff tops above Trevaunance Cove is a treat. Not only are there hand shaped boards to rent or buy, designs from the world’s best shapers but also the chance to shape your own under the guidance of OPEN’s head of production: Ollie Cooper.</p>
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Ollie has been almost single handedly responsible for every board that has come out of OPEN in the past year. Whether it’s one of OPEN’s much beloved Eggs, a custom Beau Young or one of his own designs; Ollie was probably pivotal in it’s creation. He’s a quiet, humble person but his enthusiasm and love of surfboard shaping is infectious. I spent a day watching him work, chatting about boards, surfing and life at large and he almost had me convinced I should put down the camera and pick up some sand paper!</p>

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OC — Ollie Cooper / JD — Jamie Dumont</p>
JD: So, when did you start shaping? We talked about your time at LOST in New Zealand, but how much had you done before?</strong></p>
OC: I’d done a bit, but not on a commercial scale. I think I shaped my first board late 2011 on a similar course to the one we offer here at OPEN, but with Luke Young in Plymouth. It was part of my uni course which was great. From there I ended up going back home, so tried to get some practice shaping boards in my garage and back garden — the classic DIY approach — but quickly realised it costs you ten times more to make those mistakes by yourself. So, I thought “I want to get a job in an actual factory”, and learn from what might be hundreds of years of collective experience in some factories. I wanted to learn how to do it all properly. When I moved down to Cornwall I managed to get a job with these guys [OPEN], helping out with ding repairs, sanding and doing a bit on my own. Slowly I started picking up more work, and didn’t mind working for free because I’m learning at the same time. I ended up spraying some of Gary McNiell’s boards and fixing fins here. Whilst traveling I worked for LOST and came back here after.</p>

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JD: And what year were you in New Zealand?</strong></p>
OC: Ah, I can’t remember now! I came back in 2018 maybe?</p>
JD: So quite a long time between when you first started and your time at LOST?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah, absolutely. In that time I felt I was quite confident at glassing, but the guys at LOST just tore me apart and rebuilt me from the bottom, which was quite cool.</p>
JD: I remember you saying it was a really steep learning curve. How did that come about?</strong></p>
OC: LOST was just a really lucky bit of timing. I was in New Zealand traveling and the day I ran out of money and realised I needed to pick up some work, the job popped up on one of the groups I followed. It was just like “Oh, OK, I’ll apply and see what happens”</em> not even expecting to get it; but Tommy [Dalton] was just like “When can you come in?”</em>. It was a six hour drive so I just said “Tomorrow!”</em> — It worked out really well.</p>

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JD: So how long did you work for them?</strong></p>
OC: Maybe six months? Not long, but we were making 12-14 boards a week so I racked up a couple of hundred boards whilst there. It’s a pretty crazy pace, but it’s a really nice setup where you have one guy that does sprays, one guy does dings, one guy does sanding, one guy does shaping, one guy does glassing so between us it was really easy. Anyone could step into the other roles if they needed to, but we had our specialities that we could get really good at.</p>
JD: And was that glassing for you?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah. Always glassing for me.</p>
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JD: They got you to glass some super lightweight boards didn’t they?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah, so we worked with Maz Quinn and a lot of the other pros around Gisborne. We were making ultra light, single 4oz top and bottoms and just trying to build those boards as well as you can with the limited materials. Just trying to make them last longer than a single surf.</p>
JD: We talked about how you use the techniques you learnt to make “regular weight” boards stronger. Is that something you’ve continued to do?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah. Building for pros, you’re doing the extra stages to try and make them survive a session, whereas here we’re glassing them at a regular weight but with those extra steps it’s the same weight as your regular shop-bought board but it’s going to last so much longer. That’s something I really care about, just making boards last. I’m sick of seeing boards that fall apart after six months under the feet of normal guys, not even pros. It just makes sense to me.</p>
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JD: How do materials play a part in the end result, or is it largely your knowledge that’s the difference between a board that lasts six months and one that lasts for years?</strong></p>
OC: I guess it’s a bit of both. There’s certain brands of fibreglass I prefer using, and some that feel stronger. Even if it just sits flatter whilst you’re glassing you get a better finish that’s easier and quicker too, but also making it stronger. We use an extra layer of s-glass on the deck of every board here which was originally built for the aerospace industry. It’s a much tighter weave at the same weight and is about 20-30% stronger. I’ve noticed on my own boards that I don’t get pressure dents in the first few months. They eventually happen but not right away.</p>

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JD: I have a friend that rides a kevlar board and it feels solid and totally different. What’s that about?</strong></p>
OC: You don’t really get much flex with kevlar or carbon. There’s something to be said for a bit of flex in a board. It gives you that feedback which is enjoyable. Surfboard construction has been improving for the last 30, 40, 50 years; making the board really strong but also feeling the same as they always have. If you as a surfer have to put six months or more into getting used to the new feeling then it’s just going to hold you back. It’s interesting, some of the new kids coming up learnt on epoxy and EPS and it’s becoming a bit more mainstream because they’re totally happy on them.</p>
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JD: I know it varies, but how long does each of your boards take to make?</strong></p>
OC: I reckon it’s 12-15 hours of working time depending on the length, finish and also whether you’re starting with a machine shape. Most of my own are hand shaped though. I think what most people misunderstand is that building a board is lots of short processes with drying time in between. Most boards actually take about two weeks on glassing alone, just to make sure everything cures properly and is perfect at every stage.</p>
JD: It’s easy to say “12 hours” and have someone think “2 days with huge lunch breaks”.</strong></p>
OC: That’s exactly what I worry about! I don’t like saying “12 hours” and then 2 days later someone asks “why isn’t my board done?!?”.</p>
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JD: You said that in your opinion shapers need to understand both hand and machine shaping, so that even if they have a preference they appreciate the other?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah, absolutely. There’s space for both. I understand the arguments that are made for and against each approach but it’s two completely different business models. Any one person should be able to do both; there’s skills involved in either side.</p>
I appreciate if someone can take just a saw and planer and make a beautiful board, but if they have a year-long waiting list it’s going to put people off. If they can’t sit at a computer and translate their hand shapes to the software, it’s only really holding their business back.</p>
At the end of the day every board here is hand finished, and glassing and sanding can change the end result a lot. All the important stuff like the rails and the concave which need tuning is done by hand still. It’s perfectly possible to make a good machine cut into a bad board. Even an experienced shaper could take another shapers machine-cut board a totally different direction in the hand finish.</p>

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JD: At OPEN you get guest shapers coming in. What’s it like to work with them?</strong></p>
OC: Oh, absolutely epic! It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to work here. I love gaining experience from other guys in the industry that made me want to do this in the first place. You get people here who would never normally shape in the UK and suddenly you’re working alongside them for one month, two months or in Beau [Young]’s case like five months!</p>
JD: I was surprised how long they stay. It’s not they’re here for a week, shape a dozen boards and they’re off again.</strong></p>
OC: It’s more than work. You come here, you hang out, have a good time and all learn something from each other. It’s such a good experience to see what they’re doing and learn every step of the way.</p>
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JD: So it’s not just a one-way thing? You’re learning from each other?</strong></p>
OC: I would never to pretend to be able to teach some guys anything because they’ve been doing it so long and are so good at what they do, like Neil [Purchase] for example. He’s a machine! I worked quite closely with Beau when he was here, and we’d discuss design theories and draw out new fin templates, tweaking tiny details. It’s a nice collaborative process. Other factories do shaping runs where shapers only stay a few days and bang out as many boards as possible and then leave, but there’s no back-and-forth.</p>
JD: Even with these guest shapers, you’re the one that does all the glassing?</strong></p>
OC: In most cases, yeah. For the past year or so I’ve been the only glasser here. Everyone likes things slightly different though. Neil has done some glassing in his time so has things he wants to see, and I think Josh Keogh is the same.</p>
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JD: I know you had a heavy summer last year with a big backlog and a shortage of blanks.</strong></p>
OC: Haha, yeah I’m not sure I saw daylight last year! The whole industry has exploded which is amazing but it’s hard to keep up with. We’ve started training some new people now who all have attention to detail and patience which is the main thing for me. You can’t teach those things. I can teach them how to sand, fix fins and glass. We’re slowly building towards a more comfortable schedule.</p>
JD: So it’s the attitude and personality you look for? Everything else can be taught.</strong></p>
OC: Yeah, completely. The way I see it is that if I spend an extra hour on a board either in the evening when everyone else has gone home or missing out on a surf, it might mean that board could last five, ten maybe even twenty years with the way we build them. A lot of the locals here are riding our boards and we’ll see them in the water regularly, and I don’t think anything would break my heart more than seeing those boards covered with dings and dents six months later. I want to see those boards for years to come!</p>
</picture> </figure>
JD: Whilst I was here you were teaching a couple of apprentices. Is mentoring — passing on skills — something you want to do more?</strong></p>
OC: I’m always up for making my life easier! It’s one of those things… Historically, it’s been hard to get into the surfboard industry. Nobody wants to teach you from scratch, so you have to go and teach yourself in your garage and make the expensive, frustrating mistakes.</p>
Trying to create a larger talent pool to choose from helps us because if we turn people away, they go make their mistakes but eventually become a competitor, which doesn’t help anyone. We need more people helping us and they need someone to teach them. There’s something to be said for building a factory where you’ve got a sick team of people all listening and learning from each other.</p>
JD: So if someone is reading this and thinking they want to do what you do, you’d tell them to find their nearest factory and start offering to help out?</strong></p>
OC: Absolutely! Some factories will say “we don’t have the time!”</em> because the industry is growing so much at the moment, but if you stick with it they will eventually come round to helping you. Turn up, hang out, maybe showing up with some beers — which is the classic way to earn some favours — pick up a broom and ask if you can help cleaning out the bays, or just watch if they are cool with that. In the long run that will pay off for everyone.</p>
</picture> </figure>
JD: Changing the subject, now that we can all travel again have you got a few surf trips planned?</strong></p>
OC: I’m trying to get back to Bali this year, it’s my thirtieth birthday in July and I’ve got a couple of weeks booked off work, which I’m really excited for. Other than that I’d really enjoy a trip to Portugal or northern Spain where there’s some amazing waves. My last trip was to Fiji and decided on my last day there that I need to find a way to make surf trips a regular thing.</p>
JD: It’s a tough balance between making boards for other people and surfing them yourself. How do you find that balance and not get burnt out?</strong></p>
OC: Yeah, keeping that right is really important to me. If the waves are good then I’ll get out and surf or find something new to appreciate in the area; Cornwall is sick. Sometimes it’ll need to be something with absolutely no relation to surfing, because when you’re surfing your own boards you’re still in “work mode”.</p>
I had a chat yesterday with an old friend who also shapes, and we were both complimenting each others boards but then critiquing the tiny details on our own. It’s great getting to work it out in the water but hard to disengage.</p>
I also like go climbing or get away somewhere like the Peak District that’s completely outside my normal bubble.</p>

</picture> </picture> </div> </figure>
JD: Is there one board that you’re riding more at the moment?</strong></p>
OC: I’ve just finished a new version of the fish that I’ve loved for like the last four years. Made a few changes to help it go well in smaller waves with a tighter turning radius which I really like, but still has that twin-fin straight up acceleration.</p>
JD: Are there any boards that you’ve had ideas for and want to make, but haven’t gotten round to yet?</strong></p>
OC: It’s been hard having been so busy lately, but I want to shape something that’s kind of verging on a performance shortboard. After my time at LOST, that inspired me to go a little more that way. When boards get that small and refined, there’s very little margin for error and it’s a good challenge.</p>
JD: That’s brilliant, thanks Ollie!</strong></p>
</picture> </figure>

When black and white isn't...

Jamie Dumont — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Vidit Bhargava had put together exactly what I was searching for when I Googled “web design colour value for oled black”</em>.</p>
Black and white images recede on my current website designs dark blue background, and some images clash if they have strong opposing colours. Not ideal when photos are the emphasis on this website.</p>
Figuring that a redesign with a clean, traditional black-on-white</em> palette would be unobtrusive and leave space for some creativity in the typography — an aspect of my site requiring refinement — I turned my attention to the alternative white-on-black</em>, “dark mode”. Much like I try to utilise all the dynamic range available in my photos, I thought I’d use whatever the digital equivalent of true black</a> is.</p>
In print, this particular CMYK value — that varies depending on which printer you ask — visually appears much darker than pure black. Digitally, this would equate to a pixel being completely switched off on an OLED display (which are now commonplace on mobiles). Predictably, digital offers a less nuanced, boring answer of “0”. No secret, trick-of-the-trade black values here!</p>
However, Vidit’s article explained why I don’t</strong> want to be using true black, or pure white for that matter. When a pixel in an OLED display is turned off completely, it takes fractionally longer to power it on again than to just transition its luminosity value. That creates the “smearing” effect that Vidit talks about when true black is scrolled on an OLED screen.</p>
After some experiments, I reached the same conclusion as Vidit — and as he recognises, Apple too — and settled on values of 5 and 210 for black and white respectively. The benefit in this instance is that now the text and surrounding design recede, letting the images coming to the fore.</p>

Artur Gruchala

Jamie Dumont — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled across this site when looking for information on how to process and optimise images with Swift. Coming from web development, ImageMagick was my go-to but I was curious about what tools might be provided by Apple.</p>
Artur’s post</a> about using the Metal API to smoothly render images was like a whole new world!</p>
His entire website is crafted with care. The tutorials are clear, the images beautiful and the whole thing is pleasant to read. I love functional programming, so his recent series about RxSwift</a> has been interesting reading and a good counter to the reams (relatively speaking) that is written about Combine.</p>

The Last Straw

Jamie Dumont — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It was a regular expression that drove me over the edge. I’m sure I’m not the first developer to be defeated by these horrific things, and I certainly won’t be the last. The difference was that I knew I was right — something that is never a given with RegEx!</p>
Normally the process of writing a regular expression starts with taking a best guess, failing, realising why it’s failing, fix it, still failing, realise why it’s failing, fix it, etc. It’s a process filled with a lot of little moments of schadenfreude. This was different.</p>
I’ve been working out how best to replace my Ghost website</a> and I was writing the first plugin whilst trialling Publish</a>. I needed to breakdown a line of text in a known format, pulling out the different scraps of information to later convert into an image gallery.</p>
The expression was complex but also simple once you looked at it properly from behind your fingers (RegEx invokes a “fight-or-flight”</em> response in most developers).</p>
^[-\*] \$image_row\!\[(?<alt>[^{}]*)\]$(?<path>[^{}]+)$$ </code></pre> …should match…</p>- $image_row![My alt text here](/the/path/to/the/image.jpg) </code></pre> …extracting the alt text and the path to the image file. Simple huh?</p> Well, this was my first time working with regular expressions in Swift, and it wasn’t working at all. I was sure I had made a mistake — mistakes are just part of writing a regular expression after all — but every program and tester confirmed it was correct. Still, the b\*$t\*^d</code> thing wouldn’t work in my plugin!</p> It transpires that Swift uses NSRegularExpression</a> which “conforms to the International Components for Unicode (ICU) specification for regular expressions”</em>. What the hell</strong></strong></strong> is that?!</em></p> It turns out to be a different specification for regular expressions that I’ve never heard of. It seemed to share all the operators of PCRE and Javascript regular expressions so I was still left confused as to why mine wasn’t working.</p> After more hours Googling than I care to admit, I came up with…</p> ^[-\\*] \\$image_row\\!\\[(?<alt>[^{}]*)\\]\$(?<path>[^{}]+)\$$ </code></pre> …which the keen-eyed RegEx connoisseurs will notice has extra escaping \ characters. Why these are necessary is anyones guess, but I’m sure someone knows.</p> As for me, it just highlighted why I’m making the shift from programming to photography. These paper-cut bug hunts are the equivalent of leaving your lens cap on, except that I can guarantee you’ll only make that particular mistake once, whereas this kind of bug hunt is a daily occurrence.</p> How this all came to be</h2> All I was trying to do was convert the markdown…</p> - $image_row![My alt text here](/the/path/to/the/image.jpg) - $image_row![Second image](/the/path/to/the/image.jpg) - $image_row![Third image alt text](/the/path/to/the/image.jpg) </code></pre> …into…</p> <div class="image_row"> <img alt="My alt text here" src="/the/path/to/the/image.jpg" /> <img alt="Second image" src="/the/path/to/the/image.jpg" /> <img alt="Third image alt text" src="/the/path/to/the/image.jpg" /> </div> </code></pre> What’s wrong with just writing the HTML? Admittedly there was going to be another plugin to produce proper <picture></code> tags with responsive images, but that’s by-the-by. I was making the classic developer mistake of trying to automate something that was easier to just do “the hard way”.</p> It also dangled a tantalising question in front of me. What if I just wrote all my content as HTML and forgo any templating and plugins? It might be slower writing an individual page, but what about all the time I saved not dicking about with all the frustrations of modern web development? The result would be truly future-proof and wouldn’t require that I stay current on whatever language or framework is building the site. I wouldn’t need to manage dependencies or development environments.</p> Of course there’s huge drawbacks such as manually needing to format code snippets, producing images in different formats and resolutions, managing shared HTML across pages, maintaining indexes such as RSS feeds, sitemaps and lists of recent posts on the homepage. Be that as it may…it’s tempting!</p>
Not your normal Saturday night cocktails Jamie Dumont — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 </picture> </figure> When my wife and I saw some cool little canned cocktails from a company called Moth Drinks</a> in the supermarket we thought it’d be fun to try taking some photos of them. We picked three we would enjoy drinking afterwards and headed home.</p> I had previously seen Adam Lehman’s (@up.and.adam</a>) incredible drinks photography on his Ghost profile, and trying my hand at something similar had been in the back of my mind ever since.</p> Armed with @bel_dumont</a> as my assistant, we spent a little over an hour on a Saturday evening playing around with lighting and props and ended up with the shots you see below.</p> </picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> Having not done any kind of product or drinks photography before it was all a little alien, but we had a laugh working it out. I was surprised to find that because we were controlling the light (as best we could with the equipment on hand) there was very little to do in post.</p> For some of the shots I was using the torch on my iPhone as a fill which gave a pretty ugly green tint to some writing on the can which was oddly hard to remove without skewing the whole colour palette!</p> I’ll definitely be doing more product photography like this.</p> </picture> </figure> Recently — November 2021 Jamie Dumont — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 </picture> @will.h.p running over St. Agnes Beacon</figcaption> </figure> Wow, things have changed the past few weeks & months! In no particular order…</p> Built and launched knowjack.media</a></li> Rebuilt this site and redirected all the old one(s!) to here</li> Switched out my camera setup</li> Completed my first paid photo shoot in 13 years</li> Decided I’m changing careers</li> </ul> Building knowjack.media</a></h2> When my friend Jack asked me to help building a website for his new media company, I knew I was in for a treat. When he told me that someone had already done the design for the site, I knew this was also going to be a challenge.</p> The curse of being both a designer and developer is that you tend to only design what you know you can implement. All the wacky ideas are replaced by conservative and generic layouts. This is useful because most of what we build for the web is tried, tested and true. We use what works.</p> The problem is that outside of a few pet-projects and experiments, every site starts to look the same. When Jack was talking about this site, one of his criteria stood out…</p> “It should look like it could never be built with Squarespace.”</p> </blockquote> By the time I got involved, the design team — Sam & India — had already done a fantastic job of making the site different. The branding was bold and the layout almost chaotic. A far cry from the normal boxes within boxes within boxes.</p> Ultimately the site was pretty straightforward to build. The asymmetrical layout was handled with ease by CSS Grid, albeit with a lot of testing across different screen sizes to ensure everything stayed legible and clear. Making sure that Jack’s photos looked great across every device without being slow to load took a little more effort however.</p> I started off exporting different versions of each image manually but knew that this needed to be automated to make changes to both the images and their resolution simple at a later date. Fortunately I found Zola which is a Rust-based static site generator that includes a built-in image pipeline. Before I knew it, I only needed to pass the path of a full size image to Zola and it would generate the two sizes I needed in both JPEG and WebP formats, along with all the HTML srcset</code> attributes.</p> The site is simple, but I really like it as a striking, stripped-back demonstration of what Jack does. It puts his photography front and centre with just enough supporting information to give it context.</p> Rebuilt this site with Ghost</h2> I’ve been experimenting a lot over the past six months with different website generators and working under different brands. This has created mess, sprawl and duplicated effort in lots of different directions. I think I had two current websites, two archive websites of different vintages and about half a dozen unfinished replacements. The time had come to clean up and start working with some focus.</p> I’ve ditched all the more “out-there” brand ideas and am sticking with the straightforward domain name “jamiedumont.com”. Not only did I already own the address but it’s fuss free and (relatively) easy to spell when directing new people to the site.</p> After months evaluating static site generators of various ilks, I was surprised to find that Ghost</a> made the most sense for what I want from my website. I recently wrote about my first impressions</a> which are mixed, but overall quite positive.</p> I’m still not happy with the theme I’m using despite already tweaking it, and Ghost uses a lot of client side Javascript which I tend to avoid if I can. I’ll be looking into writing my own theme that does as much as possible at build-time and on the server.</p> Switched from Fuji to Leica</h2> During the UK’s winter lockdown earlier in the year I purchased a Leica M2. It’s a camera that I’ve longed</em> to use ever since I started taking pictures, and I finally bit the bullet after finding the perfect one at Leica Store Manchester.</p> My poor Fuji X-T3 gave up a few of it’s lenses to facilitate the purchase and since then I’ve shot nothing but the M2 — the X-T3 just wasn’t fun to use anymore. Using film has been incredible fun and I enjoy the wait between taking the picture and seeing it. There were still times I missed the immediacy of digital though.</p> Knowing that I was heading back towards being a working photographer again I had to get familiar with digital once more. I took the Fuji out with me and came back with some lovely photos like the one below, but I still didn’t enjoy using it.</p> </picture> My son Jack at the beach</figcaption> </figure> In an impulsive (but well researched) switch I sold all my remaining Fuji kit and bought a Leica SL with L-to-M mount adapter. I was instantly hooked and shortly afterwards bought a Sigma 105mm macro lens too.</p> I have second guessed myself on occasions as the six year old SL does have it’s quirks and is definitely a step backwards in some aspects like autofocus compared to my old X-T3 and the Canon R6 I was also eyeing up.</p> Overall though I love the camera and am comfortable working around it’s limitations. Full write ups on both the M2 and SL are in the works. Big thanks to Leica Store Manchester</a>, MPB</a> & Park Cameras</a> for making the buying and selling of kit so easy.</p> Paid photography</h2> I’m wary of the term “professional photography”</em> as it’s overloaded with often unhelpful connotations.</p> A few months ago I was looking at getting some large C-type prints made by a printer I’ve used before, but was told that I didn’t qualify for the company’s services any longer as I “wasn’t a professional”</em>.</p> Whilst it’s hard to comment on an elitist attitude in photography having purchased two Leicas this year — which certainly come with their own baggage — I was upset because I see photography as an almost universally accessible creative outlet. Most people have a phone that is capable of exceptional images, and many create wonderful work in a professional setting with modest tools. What makes them — and me — less “professional”</em> in the eyes of this printer?</p> Anyway, I’ve been a content Lesser Photographer</a> for the past 13 years, just enjoying the process of taking pictures. As my software-induced burnout has taken hold I’ve been reaching for the camera more & more as a form of therapy. The Leica M2 with it’s stripped-back approach devoid of any digital assistance has been especially cathartic. I began imagining a future where making my living involved taking pictures rather than writing code.</p> Last week I got the opportunity to make it a reality by working with my friend Jack — yes, the one I mentioned above. I had previously confided in him about my possible career change and he was kind enough to ask if I wanted to help him complete a brief where he needed to be on-camera rather than behind it. I jumped at the chance and Jack came down to Cornwall with the prop to end all props — a new 2021 Land Rover Defender!</p> </picture> I've always loved the original Defender - but this thing is very next level!</figcaption> </figure> Jack was patient as he guided me through what was expected during and after a commercial shoot. He pointed out where I was making silly mistakes and what the safest approach to shooting was when images needed</strong> to be delivered.</p> I’ll write up a full photo story about the day soon.</p> Career change</h2> The cat’s already out of the bag at this point, but I’ve decided to scale back my development work in favour of more photography. I’ll be keeping my current projects going, but I won’t be taking on any new ones. I’ll still be doing a little development here and there to keep my hand in but the aim is to transition to photography completely.</p> I have no idea how long it will take to make the jump because I might know my way round a camera well enough, but I’m practically starting from zero. I only recently created an Instagram account again and have no network of photographers, clients, models and agencies to lean on. I’ve also got a lot more equipment to purchase to have a well rounded set up and need to starting working out what kind of photographer I’m going to be.</p> First Impressions of Ghost(Pro) Jamie Dumont — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Updated: 04 February 2022</span> Writing this review made me realise that there were too many niggles with Ghost to continue using it. The format that the content was stored and exported in was the final confirmation that migrating (again!) was the right move.</p> I tried a few options including building my own Ghost-clone using Swift and Vapor</a>, Publish</a> which is a Swift-based SSG, the veteran Statamic</a> and finally settled on the Rust-based SSG Zola</a> once more. I really wanted each of them to work, but on balance Zola gave me the most “out of the box” and the least compromises.</p> There are things I miss about Ghost, and I think it has it’s place, but I’m very happy with my new website built with Zola…for now! 🤣</p> </div> </section> I’ve just completed my 14 day trial of Ghost(Pro), and paid for my first month of the hosted service so I thought I’d jot down some first impressions.</p> What’s my background?</h2> I think it’s important to provide some context when talking about a product or service. Much of what we can buy these days is so good that a review is more about communicating whether a particular item suits your needs rather than objectively being good or bad.</p> So… I’ve worked as a web developer for the past 8 years but want to step away from it (professionally) to spend more time with a camera. I have the knowledge to build something like Ghost from scratch but am reluctant to spend the time to do so.</p> Over the years I’d estimate that I’ve evaluated Ghost and it’s hosted service Ghost(Pro) no less than a dozen times for my own website as well as others. Each time it’s never quite been the right tool for the job, mostly due to needing additional data structures attached to each post.</p> Now that I’m looking to spend less time in front of a code editor I thought I’d opt for something a little less DIY. My existing site was built with a Rust-based static site generator called Zola which was very, very good; but I wanted something that made writing photo stories straightforward. I wanted to concentrate on the content, not the development of the website.</p> What I like about Ghost</h2> Themes</h3> I looked at Wordpress, Ghost and Squarespace but have a rocky history with Wordpress and Squarespace. Theme development is not easy for either and despite wanting to limit my development time, I knew I’d want to tweak my site. Ghost is a sweet-spot here as the official and paid themes are very good, and custom themes and the development environment required is straightforward.</p> Doing a quick performance audit of a few of the official themes I was impressed. There are things I would improve on (more later) but they set a high bar for performance (SEO, speed, experience, etc).</p> I opted for some slight changes to one of the official themes for now, but because the documentation is good and the data structure limited; building a custom, ground-up theme is not out of the question if I find myself with a spare weekend.</p> Editor</h3> Photostories are going to be a major feature of this site, so building them needed to be friction-free. I found iterating on photo stories with a static site generator tiresome, and wanted a more visual editor. If I were to build my own content management system then Ghost’s editor would be my yardstick for the authoring experience.</p> Building articles with an engaging mixture of words and images is a breeze and encourages experimentation and play. The other “cards” like Bookmarks and YouTube and Twitter embeds have already proved useful too.</p> Platform</h3> The big selling point was that Ghost(Pro) is a managed platform whilst still being open source and having a self-hosted alternative if I ever wanted it. Squarespace offers the “platform” but migration is notoriously hard.</p> I could easily set up Ghost on a series of Digital Ocean droplets with a managed database and load balancer — it’s well within my skill set — but I simply didn’t want to if I didn’t have to. The cost for this setup is about equivalent to the second cheapest Ghost(Pro) tier, but a second, third and fourth site on my own infrastructure would essentially be free. That is until you consider the time required to setup and maintain them all!</p> I keep coming back to where I want to be spending my time: taking photos and editing them into compelling stories. Debugging servers isn’t part of that. I’ll likely be setting up more sites in the near future and I’ll likely use Ghost(Pro) again. Each site incurring additional costs means that each needs to justify it’s existence because even if hosting is unlimited, my time is not.</p> What I don’t like about Ghost</h2> This is going to sound very negative, but please remember I’m trying to find faults and using all my experience as a web developer to do so. I still opted for Ghost(Pro) despite these points.</p> Pricing</h3> I know the lowest tier at $11 per month is relatively new, but I really hate custom themes being gated behind the higher tier at $31 per month. That’s a huge jump! I understand differentiating tiers on staff users and number of members as that relates to scale and thus the cost to run, and in turn the value of the site. Making custom themes an upsell is intentional hobbling of the software and just feels like a money grab. Even if you have to make the lowest tier $15 per month to make the numbers add up, include custom themes across the board.</p> Search</h3> A professional publication where there is likely a lot of content needs good search and it’s currently absent on Ghost. The options</a> are:</p> Google’s URL scoped search. Functional but not a great experience.</li> Libraries like LunrJS which use Ghost’s API to build a client-side index. A good experience when content is minimal, but limited by a client’s local storage and an extremely inefficient way of doing things.</li> Offloading search to Algolia. The best experience and technical solution but requires additional (complex) setup and (possible) expense.</li> </ol> None of these appeal, but I’ll likely opt for Algolia as I know Lunr works best when the index is prebuilt rather than created on the fly. I’ve used Algolia before when building Bikesoup and it got pretty messy, but the webhooks that Ghost provide in some Netlify functions look simple enough to setup.</p> Ghost says that they would prefer to concentrate on the core competencies of the software, but I feel that search is pretty fundamental once sites reach a certain size.</p> I think a “quick-win” would be for Ghost to build a Lunr compatible index server side and offer that through an API endpoint. The search still happens on the client, but at least the index doesn’t have to be built there which is the more costly part of this method.</p> Code Highlighting</h3> I was surprised and disappointed when I found out my code snippets weren’t syntax highlighted and that the recommended solution was a client side library called Prism. Considering that Ghost runs on a Javascript stack server side I would like to see Prism used there instead.</p> Membership</h3> I think a lot of people were disappointed when Ghost shifted towards membership-sites rather than just being an exceptional publishing platform. I’m on the fence as I can see a future where I use the membership feature to support my work. That said — much like the search, and the syntax highlighting — I’d like to see more done server side.</p> Rather than loading almost 500KB on every page for the “Portal” I’d like to see proper pages for signup, login and account management instead. There’s no reason these couldn’t be themable, but I guess these files being absent in older themes was why client side JS was chosen instead.</p> Fixed data structure</h3> Having a fixed data structure was always the deal breaker every time I evaluated Ghost previously. There is almost always a piece of data that should be separate from the content. The tags will get you quite a long way with distinguishing content into collections, but it doesn’t help with assigning each post something like a location (lat & lng) or dates other than the publish date.</p> Even providing a customisable JSON object would be a big help. It would require the theme being used to know which key in the object to use, and content editors would need to be diligent in using it correctly, but it could broaden Ghost’s use significantly.</p> Routing</h3> The dynamic routes</a> and redirects feature is very useful, but I’d like to see a web editor for these settings, rather than downloading, modifying and uploading a YAML file.</p> jQuery</h3> I’m getting picky now, but I’d like to see the official themes use vanilla javascript rather than rely on jQuery. Whilst it doesn’t do any harm, straight JS is good enough to use without libraries and should be the example being set.</p> The commonality in what I don’t like</h3> You’ll notice almost all of my complaints are features being offloaded from the core software server side to additional client side javascript. This is code that the developers building themes have to maintain and the end-user has to run on their device. When a company offers a premium publishing platform — say that fast three times whilst drunk! — the features to support that platform should be built in. There’s a little too much “draw the rest of the owl”</a> with their current approach to be considered “premium”.</p> </picture> </figure> My gut feeling is that Ghost built a reusable content API and then always opted to lean on that rather than incorporating new features behind the API. Whether this choice was in the pursuit of code reuse, speed of development or concerns over their backend’s performance — I don’t know. Their stack wouldn’t have been my first choice, and I do wonder whether they painted themselves into a corner with it.</p> Conclusion</h2> Despite my gripes I very much like Ghost and the hosted Ghost(Pro) service. It offers exactly what I want from my website right now and I can see it being a good choice for some other sites that I’ll be building for friends and family in the near future.</p> I’m enjoying just publishing articles and photo stories without too much temptation to fiddle with my site.</p> If I were to build my own version of Ghost, I’d have to spend months of development time to reach something remotely like feature parity and would be on the hook for ongoing development, hosting and support. Ghost lets me distance myself from development whilst still putting all my experience to good use.</p> That said, I’m not ruling out building my own from scratch as the pain points I’ve listed probably aren’t going away anytime soon and might get more pronounced the longer I use the software — search in particular. I normally opt for an annual plan on subscription software as I don’t hate my money, but here I’ve opted for the monthly because I simply don’t know how I’ll feel about Ghost in the future.</p> I’ll update this post, or write another once I’ve been using Ghost for a while longer.</p> knowjack media × Land Rover Jamie Dumont — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I scouted a few locations that would show off the Defender — and Cornwall — to it’s best. Coupled with some autumn colours and rough seas I think we captured the rugged nature of both!</p> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </picture> </picture> </div> </figure> </picture> </figure> </div> Devan Scott takes a look at the colour palette of 'SKYFALL' and 'SPECTRE' Jamie Dumont — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 SKYFALL and SPECTRE sure are an interesting contrast in colour direction techniques! pic.twitter.com/AqGGKX81Nz</a></p>— Devan Scott (@SadHillDevan) November 11, 2021</a></blockquote>