paddimir

I was in Cyprus doing some wedding photos when I got my first DD and the biggest influx of messages in my many years on here.  Thank you to everyone for their kind words, I am trying to work through all the comments and people who have added me.

Cyprus itself wasn't ideal for doing photos, or at least not the part i was in.  I was dreaming of taking photos like justeline but the coastline wasn't as interesting.  there was also a disappointing lack of greek spoken, as everyone was assumed to speak english.  I missed being misunderstood!  I've uploaded one photo from Cyprus and I might do a couple more but there won't be a lot.



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Something terrible has happened.  It happened on facebook.

In case any of this is sensitive, I've changed some of the names in this story.

I have a friend, we'll call her Sissie Winterton-Smyth. If you're going to create false names, you might as well go all out. She has two brothers, that I know of, whom we'll call Archibald and Sebastian. I have met both of them on a few occasions, but never together, and I confess to getting them confused.

A few weeks ago, I went to take photos of Julia Sutherland doing stand-up comedy. A Winterton-Smyth was also performing and came over to say hello. I correctly guessed it was Sebastian and was very proud of myself. I took photos of him as well, because I'm a good person. remember that as you go on reading this - I'm a good person. at the end sebastian asked me to add him on facebook so I could tag him and send him the pictures, and so I did.

so, the other night i was reading something on my facebook news feed. This is what I remembered reading:

"Archibald Winterton-Smyth has just posed naked in front 3 strangers for [some apparently small amount of foreign currency]". A few of my friends had commented on it, including my friend Melinda (there's no point in hiding her identity; subterfuge is not her strong point) who had offered him more money. This reminded me of a time that my ex-girlfriend sent me a picture of a naked man she had had to draw in art class and I photoshopped my face on to it and sent it back. I could re-use the same joke here! but i was tired and decided to do it the next day.

when I woke up i tried to find the original conversation. However, Archibald wasn't on friends list - only Sebastian was. So it must have been Sebastian - I had gotten them confused as usual. I took one of the pictures I had taken of him and made it look a bit hand-drawn and then pasted it on the naked body. When I tried to find the original thread though, I couldn't. He must have deleted it.

frustrated that my genius had been stymied in this way, i decided to send the picture to melinda.

she said it was a stroke of genius and I should post it on his wall anyway. My resolve strengthened, and bearing in mind that he is a stand-up comedian and probably inured to these things, I posted it on Sebastian's wall, saying i had found it in a charity shop. he replied saying he hoped i hadn't paid too much.

A day or so later, i get a message from Melinda....


IT WAS THE WRONG BROTHER! I must have only seen Archibald's status update because so many of my friends had commented on it.

I can only wonder what Sebastian made of it when I, out of the blue, posted a charcoal drawing of him naked on his page. I mean, if I had posted a picture of myself naked, he may have written it off as clumsy flirtation. but a picture of him - that's bordering on the odd. (In retrospect it could have been worse - i could easily have posted a picture of his brother naked on his wall with no explanation).

to those i have confused or alarmed - I apologise.



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I was walking back from church, where I had been taking some photos of the building for use on their website, also being produced by paddimir industries.

I was walking past the piazza (I should add that this is an optimistically named shopping centre, not an open space), when I spotted my new neighbours approaching.  although my balcony overlooks their bathroom, I only really recognised them because of their overactive pitbull terrier.  I was pondering whether we were on "saying hello" terms.  I had said hello to the guy earlier that day, and he reluctantly responded, but that was within the confines of my estate.  out in the wide world things were even more uncertain.

it seems we were not on saying hello terms, and just as I passed them, bemoaning the fragmentation of society, I heard an ungodly sound from above my left ear.  I turned around to see two white masses about 3 ft away from my head and travelling at some speed.  they had big black feet attached, and that was all i could gather as I ducked to avoid death.

one screaming swan whisked over me so closely i could feel the wings beating.  another veered off to the left.  the one that went straight ahead splashed down on the concrete just in front of the building.  I stood amazed.  it looked a bit shocked itself, and a little drunk.  it began ambling around unsteadily.

so too was the very drunk man, with a very grazed nose, who approached me.
"at's a shame that, int it?"
"aye, I don't what's up with them"
"they thoat this wis watter"
I thought about it for a second, and there was wisdom in his words.  the piazza was built over the river (for some reason) so if you were a swan on holiday flying along the river, you would be a little surprised to suddenly be staring at a big shopping centre and dashing software engineer.

"did ye get a photie uv it?"
I had forgotten about my camera.  I had my wide angled lens and a filter on, but I started taking photos anyway.
"at wid been an amazing photie eh?"
"yeah, but it would have killed me!"
there can be no worse way to go out than to be engulfed in high-speed swan vagina for the sake of a photo

he turned his slurry attention to the swan, who was walking up the stairs towards us.
"err's yer mate oer therr!".  it was true; the other swan was sitting in the middle of the high street stopping traffic, and looking a little traumatised.  a group of ... well the kind of people who hang around paisley cross on a saturday night, were gathering around filming it on their mobiles and trying to feed it chips.

eventually the two swans met up at the bus stop on the side of the road nearest the river, so I left them hoping they would be okay, and not get on the number 20.



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the hotel that I stay in in Barra are interested in selling my Barra calendars in their shops.  However, getting them printed by dA and shipped across the atlantic is a) expensive and b) daft.  does anyone have any experience of doing this kind of thing with UK suppliers?  anyone they could recommend?  even if not for calendars, for prints?

I might well be taking redundancy soon and trying to actually make some money from my photos.



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apologies that i haven't been around much.  I was mysteriously unable to access dA for a couple of weeks.  I think my ISP must have messed something up.  but i'm back now.

I bought a new bike, but couldn't take it on my trip to barra because there wasn't enough space on the train.  nonetheless, for those of you who prefer your photos by the hundreds, here's the slideshow www.flickr.com/photos/paddimir…

I will upload some on here when i have worked out which ones are good



Create your own visitor map!