Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

Imran Ali, friend and former colleague from Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange has started an OpenCoffee Club in Leeds. Great, but what's one of those when it's at home?

"The OpenCoffee Club was started to encourage entrepreneurs, developers and investors to organise real-world informal meetups to chat, network and grow."

Quoting Imran: "OpenCoffee Leeds is an open, informal and regular meetup for technology entrepreneurs, designers, bloggers, developers, geeks, investors - and *anyone* else who's interested."

The key here seems to be, unlike a few other similar ventures, informal.

For a few more details, see Imran's blog, or better still, go visit OpenCoffee Leeds Upcoming group.

And if you're not yet convinced, Grom promises (well, nearly promises) to stand you a latte.

The original plans I had for the Strobist Challenge #7 didn't work out as a macro shot. The backup plan to photograph flowers or insects in the garden didn't work out either (too many other things to do, or too much rain), and the deadline's fast approaching.

So, another late night, and playing around with lighting techniques shown in Still Life and Special Effects Photography (by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz), brings you this photo of a dime. I started with a 10 eurocent piece, but it was too big. I could have changed the extension tubes, but everything was set up nicely, so a smaller subject was much easier! I did want to try with the ha'penny I found down the back of the piano (it's even smaller), but I can't find it at the moment.

I'm not 100% happy with the results, but it was an interesting experiment.

Hmm. Not doing too well on this, and the deadline's drawing near. Unfortunately, the object I was planning on photographing appears too big compared to the background I wanted it set against, so the shot isn't going to work as planned.

Guess I might have to wander round the garden this weekend and try the local wildlife instead.

Meanwhile, don't forget to check the other submissions from fellow Strobists.

Strobist has announced a new lighting "course" - Lighting 102. I say course, but that's not really the right word. It's more of an interactive learning environment. In fact, I'm not even sure that's the best way to describe it, so I'll quote the man himself:

Here's what I hope you will get out of Lighting 102:

• An organic and comprehensive way of understanding and controlling light.


• An enhanced creative process, by comparing your results with those of photographers from all around the world.


• The knowledge that good lighting need not be expensive.

So, it looks like there will be much flashing going on this summer!