This blog is made from recycled binaries

I am a person who is interested in all things "green". I think it stems more from my coming from Africa and the wildlife conservation efforts I supported there, than from my time in the UK where I have been turned into a major sceptic.

In Zimbabwe, being Green was simple and it was ingrained. First off, its a poor country and what we throw away in Europe, is not necessarily rubbish there. I have personally seen a rather restrained argument between children out in Zimbabwe's Sticks as to who would get the plastic milk bottle left behind by the bunch of rich white mountain bikers (a long story for another day). You see, when people are properly poor, a plastic bottle is not rubbish. I wish I could say the same about plastic bags - although I have seen garments crocheted from them.

In Zimbabwe we had our Cokes in bottles - and could reclaim about a third of the drink's cost by returning the empty bottle. Each bottle was used on average, five times. The same for wine bottles - queues at the supermarket as empty bottles were converted back into cash. I still believe Zimbabwe led the way on being careful with its resources. Sanctions can be a good thing. We made a plan.

Now let me put the spotlight on the UK (well, the "first world"). Here, anxious people have seen the very real need for proper conservation measures to be put in place. I agree. We need to tidy up our act and stop generating so much pollution in all its guises. And we need to consume less.

Most importantly we need to become even more sensitised to "green" issues. They DO need to dominate our lives. We DO need to make sure our planet survives and we DO, God willing, have the power in our hands to make this happen. But we have to learn to see the sustainable forest for the trees. We must learn to separate real Green policies from the dross that clever money-grubbing people - politicians - try to impose on us.

I have a real suspicion about carbon trading. Now, I will confess I don't understand the whole ins-and-outs of carbon trading/offsetting and I'm not really driven to understand it. Its too complicated and I'm too thick. My suspicion arises from the word, "trading". To me, "trading" is another word for shifting. It isn't, as far as I can tell, reducing carbon output, indeed, I'm sure that a clever Chinese person (for they make the most carbon dioxide/pollution) will figure out a way of generating huge profits from creating even more carbon dioxide and "trading" it.

I think the west could learn an awful lot from good old Zimbabwe. We'd all recycle dilligently if we could get money back on our rubbish. If each can of beans cost 10p more in the supermarket and we could get that 10p back...all cans would be recycled. Ditto for bags. Ditto bottles.

If cars under say, 1600cc were sold fuel at 10% less than other cars, people would buy less polluting cars. (Okay a lot of this is happening, but the reward measures are rather more subtle).

So I have exposed my ignorance about clever green measures, but now I want to have a proper rant. Because what I really hate is the Green Bandwagon and how just about every Tom, Dick and Harry is clambering aboard.

Saying your company is "Green" is not good enough. It does not make you Green. Nor does the "Are you sure you need to print this email". It helps, but come on! The boss still pitches up in his V8 Range Rover. They still book flights to Paris when the Eurostar would do. And they still leave every light in the building blazing all bloody night, every monitor on screensave and the air conditioning plant running.

But what turns me into a rancid, dripping, oozing well of scorn and contempt is my own industry. It will, without a second thought and without even the vaguest connection the the real issues at hand, attempt to inject greeness into just about everything. Advertising has a duty to communicate and support matters green. It does not have a right however, to inject faux green into everything. Especially when it doesn't even work as an ad.

I am talking about an ad that I hear on Heart 106.2 (woo-hoo I live wild! - their 4 song playlist is deserving of its own, special rant) almost every morning. Some earnest person (I cannot even remember the gender, let alone the product or brand they are advertising) rattles on for a bit and then tells us right at the end, "This ad is made from recycled sound clips". DIE!

Tell me how on earth recycled soundclips are going to save even one picojoulle of energy. I have little doubt that several agency bods - lets see, copywriter, radio commercials producer, account director, account executive and client - all scurried across London in taxis, tubes, buses etc to the studio where it was recorded, spent hours of electricity digging up samples, editing and fiddling and yet STILL used a specially recorded voiceover to tell us that the commercial was made from recycled soundclips!

Breathe, Paul, breathe!

I am totally confident that the agency that created that ad will have entered it in just about every awards show. I am almost sure that they probably held a wrap party for the client and a dozen or so hangers-on when the ad was completed, congratulating each other in a circle-jerk of green euphoria. "Aren't we so cutting edge, Tarquin!" Idiots. I am also certain that they charged an enormous amount of money so that the Account Director can afford to put petrol in his Range Rover and pay the agency's leccy bill.

We have made a mess of our planet and yes, its up to us, the individuals that make the mess to clean it up. What we need are real measures, not the flaky, difficult-to-grasp 'scams' err schemes. Lets start by recycling some of the bandwagonning filth that people the advertising industry. Wannna buy some bonemeal?

And now for something nice: Help fund a scholarship

Leading photographer and film maker Vincent Laforet is asking fellow photogs/bloggers to help him fund a photography student scholarship by placing this CLEVER Photoshelter Falsh gallery on your page:

Check here for details.

A Good Workman Blames His Tools

Today (now yesterday) has been a long day. Up at 05.30 to prepare for a trip to Warwick to do a shoot of trainees being trained by trainers. Got there no problem but was already tired - the M40 was fast-running but very busy, so big eyes!

I shot pictures. Indeed, I shot about 200 frames from which probably only 4 or 5 will ever be used. I had to shoot the trainees being trained by the trainers whilst the trainers were actually training the trainees which presents its own unique problems. Two of the trainees who were being trained...etc didn't want their pictures to be taken - fair enough, but please ladies, bugger off to the side so you don't appear in every bloody shot.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

So yes, it was difficult - Me trying to be unobtrusive. Me trying to shoot shots in the same style as I've always shot for this particular client - i.e. crawling around, getting cramp, pushing my wide angle lens up against people's hands etc. Me trying to be unobtrusive as I bang off shot after shot with my flashgun flashing, my tripod clattering and huffing and puffing like the fat middle-aged man that I am, crouched in peculiar pants-splitting positions. Net result? I failed to be unobtrusive and probably ruined the morning session of the course. Sorry.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

But I got my shots. Well, sort of. I had my usual white balance issues as I shot under a mixture of daylight, florescent and fecking low voltage bastard eco lights that turn everything greeny-yellow. Nothing that Adobe Lightroom cannot put right though. (I LOVE lightroom). I have also learned the hard way to radically underexpose on my very elderly Canon 10 D so that I will get at least some detail in the highlights. Which is great, except that I then have to put up with noisy shadow tones (yes, even at ISO 200 its noisy). Add to that my very old, slow, noisy lenses (no image stabilisation here!) and you'll understand why I have to do a fair amount of rescue work in Lightroom and photoshop.

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

Its beginning to really grind me down. Make no mistake, my ancient Canon 10D is still a very, very good camera. But its very hard to be happy with something when you know its way, way behind what is available.

I have long grown jaded with the whole "Great Megapixel Race". Yes, more pixels are theoretically better, but 6 million good pixels will trounce 10 million bad pixels. Many of the world's most respected camera reviewers will pick out Nikon's 12Mpx D700 as having the best in class image quality - yet its up against Canon's superb 21Mpx 1D MkIII. But yes, I want some more megapixels because I need them. Need as opposed to want. I want to be able to crop images and still have some resolution left. But: There's no point in putting old lenses in front of a clever, big, sexy 21 Mpx sensor. They cannot resolve detail as minutely as the sensors can these days. So I need to get new glass too. Lots of it. The expensive kind!

My work is now suffering. Work, mind you, not the results. I am still very pleased with what I can get out of my workflow. But It takes so long.

Back to today: Where was I? Oh yes. I was shooting the trainees being trained by the trainers. Well, I finished that and packed up my gear, set the GPS for "Home" and began the most convoluted journey in the history of modern motoring. Now, I'm not stupid. I know that Warwick is near the M40. How do I know this? Simple: I got there via the M40. But Mr TomTom Had other ideas - I only wanted the GPS to help me navigate the Warwick one-way system, but I got sent off to Mogadishu. I'm sure I saw the turn-off for Vladivostock just after I'd traversed much of Siberia. I tell you, I saw a bunch of pole and dagga mud huts as I bypassed Johannesburg. I know what an Afrian elephant looks like and I swear I saw one! A whole herd, actually. Breathe, Paul, Breathe! Pure, undiluted idiocy from the makers of my satnav.

I eventually got home.

And then, much to my horror I discovered that the CF card with all of today's work on it had decided to have a post-halloween tantrum. Miss Lightroom (who I love and trust) told me there was nothing to import. And I believed her. I am quite sure that my beloved mummy reads this blog, so I will not write the words that I uttered. Suffice to say, they were "workshop" words.

After a little bit of a calming down session I fired up Photorecovery and to my enormous relief, all files were recovered in absolutely perfect condition. But it took a long time...

Copyright 2008 Paul Davey Creative

So where does that leave us? In the space of just 2 weeks I have had two moans about my gear. Here is the previous one. So why don't I stop whingeing and get some new gear? Cost. Yes, I have underinvested in equipment and now I'm really feeling the bite. But on the upside, I can get significantly more bang for my buck when I do re-equip. There is no way I can afford a new rig but that hasn't been too much of an obstacle in the past. I will make a way of affording it. Oh, and a new Mac.

One more thing for the Design Police: USB wireless dongles. Why, oh why are they not on a short length of cable So that they flop and don't SNAP OFF WHEN SOMEONE IS USING THEIR LAPTOP AS A LAPTOP???????