Thoughts, Musings, News About The Site And My Photography
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please email me on artcore-cafe (at) outlook.com and I will try to answer.Happy New Year To All Members, Ex-Members, Future Members And Models1st January 2016 17:08 Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last year :) Next year will be even better! Have I got some material for you! I will be in the USA from Wednesday for 5 days attending to family business. I won't be taking the laptop, so I will upload next week's updates before I go. I'll try to keep an eye on things and contact the support guys if necessary. I'll deal with any issues when I get back. |
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There Will Be A Bit More Downtime20th December 07:33 Advanced warning - there will be a couple of hours downtime on Monday while we do another hardware upgrade. We're adding a second disk for backups. |
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It's All Over Now17th December 2015 19:40 Come yesterday morning I was rather frazzled. The fire, the website was down overnight and I spent about 3 hours butting heads with the DNS registry getting working again, and then Victoria Sweet cancelled as she was sick... Then Lauren came in and lit up the room! What an amazing model. We got on really well, and plan for her to come over next year. I then went on for a finale at a spa with Elen Moore and Lucie B, which went really well too. Then I got back to Gatwick to find the trains totally ruined due to power supply problems. So bad they had the police about... Finally got home around 2am and had to go to work at 8! I'm well knackered now, but I have a mountain of material and some great new contacts so it was well worth it! |
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Fire!15th December 2015 23:12 A funny old day. In the middle of the last shoot one of the flash lights caught fire! Now, I've paid a 500 euro deposit, but my view is that, if they catch fire it must be because the sensor which should shut them down if they get too hot has failed, which is hardly my fault. We'll see... Anyway, at least I can go to my grave knowing that I have shot the great Nella. She is well in her 30's now, and for those who appreciate such things (and of course I do), she is more beautiful than ever. |
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Well you all know Elen13th December 2015 23:51 Those legs go on forever :) As did our shoot, and I'm seeing her again Wednesday. Time for bed now! |
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That Was A Good Start13th December 2015 19:17 I've just completed my first shoot in Prague, a young lady called Klara V, who appeared to be about 8 feet tall! She was a little timid, and I think she thought I was a bit of an oik, but we got some really nice sets to work with... Elen Moore next in about 10 minutes! |
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Travel Advisory10th December 2015 21:05 OK, I'm off to Slovenia tomorrow at 3:30am, back home for 12 hours Saturday, and off to Prague for the long awaited shoots Sunday morning. Because of the amount of photographic equipment I'm lugging around, and the strict limit on Easyjet hand luggage, I'm only taking a very small laptop. I'll put up Sunday's update on Saturday. If possible, depending on internet the connection, I will blog about the Prague shoots. If I don't have internet, please bear with me if anything goes wrong, I'll be back late Wednesday :) |
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Upcoming Downtime ... And Stuff4th December 19:38 Advanced warning - there will be a couple of hours downtime on Monday while we upgrade the hardware so that proper backups can be run. And, finally, everything is set up for my trip to Prague next Sunday. 11 models, including Lauren Crist, Nella, Carla Cox, Victoria Sweet and Elen Moore. I'm shooting up to 11 hours a day for 4 days! Yes, and it's a holiday :) |
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Thank God That's Over28th November 2015 15:07 All fixed and complete. I hope that never happens again! I've just published 3 bonus sets to make up for it. And here's a picture of Rana (full name La Rana Arogante) who I shot today. A stunning model... |
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An Italian Weekend26th November 2015 17:54 All the recovery is going well. The background stuff will be done by Saturday morning, and in the afternoon I will put up some bonus sets :) As for the Italian weekend (That's a friend in Rome last year by the way), I am shooting two Italian models. On Saturday I have a girl called Rana coming, then on Sunday Luna is coming back. Finally on Monday I have a day working in Switzerland - even I have to work sometimes! |
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Things Got Better In A Hurry25th November 2015 06:39 Everything I left running overnight worked :)) The site is now complete and working correctly. There is still some background stuff to do, and we are going to improve the backup processes but, as of now, Artcore's Cafe is in good health! |
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What A Nightmare24th November 2015 18:58 The hard drive went on the server Saturday. We got a new one installed on Monday, but the software that builds the site is getting very confused as what is now on the server doesn't match what the software uploaded! We'll get there... I have extended all members by a week, and I hope that by this weekend everything will be back to normal. I'll extend you further if necessary, and will add some bonus sets when the dust has cleared. Right now, the site is about 95% back (a few missing sets, and some sets have the wrong date on them). I need to fix other stuff which is hosted on the server, and will mop up the bits and pieces tomorrow. Huge apologies for the inconvenience. If I wasn't a computer pro in real life, this would have been the death of the site! |
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All Coming Together9th November 2015 21:36 It's been complicated, but the trip to Prague in December is coming together. I'm so far seeing Lauren Crist (this is picture of her I took at a show earlier this year), Nella M, Kiki Klement, Elen Moore, Klara V, Zaneta R, Lucie C and Victoria A, with 3 more slots to fill :) I'll be shooting around 12 hours a day while I'm there! |
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Happy Birthday24th October 2015 10:50 OK. First of all, sorry about the downtime. The reliability of the server has been completely unacceptable over the last month, and I have had a word with the server providers about it. They had to rebuild the box after the power supply blew, and somehow now, when it reboots, it doesn't come back with the IP address set, so no-one (including me) can access it until one of the people on site fixes it. Anway, back to the point of this post. We are approaching the site's first birthday! To celebrate, on the 1st November, I'll be putting up 5 bonus sets. There have been a few members since I got the membership working in January, and quite a few more have passed through. You are all welcome :) Let's hope the site grows over the next few years. I enjoy doing it, and I hope you enjoy visiting. |
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A Great Shoot With Luna14th October 2015 18:44 Yes, it was a terrific shoot with Luna on Monday. I was somewhat knackered having only got back from Lima the night before, but it was Luna's last day so we had to do it! We plan on shooting again soon, hopefully g/g :) And ... not confirmed yet, but I hope to finally get to shoot Carla Cox in mid November, with Victoria Sweet or Karlie Simon - possibly all three! |
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Been A Rough Old Day3rd October 2015 12:49 As always, I go away and something goes wrong! Sorry about the downtime - the power supply broke on the server. At the same time, here in Lima, the laptop I use for photoshopping broke... Yes, it's all backed up, but that's not a lot of use when the backup is in London where I won't be for two weeks! Now all we need is for England to get gubbed by Australia in the rugby. Edit (5th October 2015 09:52)>>> When I wrote this, I was expecting the site to be back in a couple of hours. Instead it took two days, and England got righteously humped by Australia. The website is now fixed, english rugby ... not so much. |
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Schedule Changes21st September 2015 13:58 OK... coming to the end of the first year :) I've decided to make some changes to the way updates are scheduled. As the site has grown, it is taking longer and longer for the software to rebuild the site for each update. It isn't a difficult process, I just seem to be waiting for a long time! So, I've decided to only update 2 days a week, but put up more than 1 set each time. From the beginning of October, I'll be updating Thursdays and Sundays, putting up 2 sets on Sunday and 1 (occasionally 2) on Thursday. The result will be less time messing about with updates for me, and more new sets for you :) I have also modifed the front page to give you a link to a list of upcoming shoots and updates which I hope you will find useful or interesting.This, by the way, is Natalia Forrest. Isn't she lovely? She will be on here soon. |
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