Huggy Bear steals the (soft) limelight

I've been puzzling for a while over my loathing of using the flash on my camera. I always regret shots where I "had to use the flash" like it's some kind of admission of failure. And yet when I see really well lit studio shots I'm full of admiration for the skill involved.

Another blipper's commentary ages ago made me realise that I'm actually just frightened of it - because I haven't a clue how to do it. So, another mountain to climb and off we go towards the foothills!

I posted on the forum earlier today about this, and have had loads of very useful advice on gizmos, good articles/sites to read and so on. The advice I've picked up today is to muck about with what I already have and see what it can do. So, I built a sort-of-not-really softbox (see here if you want the full Heath Robinson effect) and had a go.

This is all to explain why all you're getting is a perfectly average photo of my daughter's teddy. I'm just in the foothills though, but aiming high...

In other news, all car hire firms should be lined up against the wall and shot. In other, other news (not entirely unrelated) we may not be going to France this Easter.

In other other (etc) news it was parent consultations tonight, but I'll have to go back as there was some kind of mix up - they told me my kids were both really charming and well behaved "a delight to have in the school". Clearly I've been told about someone else's kids. Somewhere tonight a lovely couple with charming well-behaved children are sobbing into their cocoa about where it all went wrong.