One of the plans for this year, a part from staying at home reminiscing of what travel used to like, was to focus on building this site and expanding the features that it provides. First, a little background. This site is 100% custom, it's not an 'off the shelf' template. everything you see here has been built, and designed by me. Over the years, I've tried a many different approaches to keeping track of things that need to be done, or ideas to implement, and bugs that need to be squashed.

Now, there are many project management tools available, that would fit this purpose, from simple task lists, to full blown tools providing reporting, gantt charts, agile stories, and kanban boards. For many projects, these tools can be very helpful, but for just me and this site, every one of them has always been overkill. I've tried to use these tools, but the complexity has just got in the way. I always kept finding myself going back to using a plain text file (well, actually an Apple Notes file for easy syncing between devices).

The problem of using text files

Text files are great for many things. They are simple, they can have their own structure. You can mix bullet points with text. They work everywhere. But, they have their downsides too, it's very hard to provide context within the document. Ideas that might be connected, can be separated into different sections, and loose context of how they relate to the wider subject.

Using mind mapping to keep track of things

I've always been intrigued by the idea of mind mapping. Connecting thoughts with links and hierarchies, and using colours to disguise intent behind each idea. But unfortunately, I've never had a good subject to play with them properly. It's very hard to just pickup and use a new piece technology without a good reason to need to use it.

When I first saw Mindmeister being demoed at a Ruby conference in Vienna, I suddenly had the thought that this could be a really good way to finally have a process to keep track of my plans for maniacalrobot.co.uk.

How I use Mind Meister

All mind maps are built around a simple subject, for me, this is simply "Maniacalrobot", the name of the site. Top level sections of the site are simple black text in white bubbles. "Geistesblitze" (Brainstorms in English) is a special Mindmeister node that stores inputs from the Apple Watch app, for quickly jotting down ideas. Plain black text is just for any level under the top sections.

Red bubbles, are things that need to be done, action items, either new features, or bugs. They're typically short descriptions of the action, enough for me to know what the problem was at the time I created the node.

Yellow bubbles are ideas. Things that might becomes Red action bubbles, they might get deleted, but for now, it's for keeping track of ideas.

Using this simple mind mapping pattern, at a quick glance, I can see the back log of action items and where in the structure of the site they are. I can quickly sketch out new sections, and check for overlap in features, or areas that need work.

So far using this system, I've found myself to be far more productive when building new features and fixing bugs. What makes this system, different to most project management tools, is that the status of each idea of action is irrelevant. There is no task Icebox, no work in progress or done queues. When a red bubble is completed, it simply gets deleted, or turned into a structural node if that makes more sense. This works great for maniacalrobot.co.uk, because it's just me at the end of the day, I don't need to keep the history of every feature or bug. When it's done, it's done, and it can be deleted.

Bright sunny summers days are not typically great for landscape photographers. Harsh shadows, and bright direct light don't typically make for good photographic conditions. Sunrises and sunsets offer the best light, but here in the UK, at midsummer, that means very early starts or late finishes. However, Infrared photography is a great approach to making the most of these challenging bright conditions without sacrificing too much sleep.

In many ways, Infrared photography is a lot like normal photography, the only difference is that you are capturing wave lengths of light that you cannot actually see. You can however, usually anticipate what the final image will look like. Typically, foliage will reflect most infrared light, and will therefore be the brightest subjects. Other materials will reflect Infrared light differently to normal visible light. Clouds are good reflect lots of light, but the blue sky can reflect very little, making it look like there is no atmosphere. Water, depending on reflections, can also look very dark.

Although modern camera sensors can capture Infrared light, most have an Infrared cut filter in from of them to improve image quality. This filter prevents nearly all infrared light from passing through to the sensor. However, a tiny amount of infrared light does get through, but it's not enough to impact your photographs. So, to take an infrared photograph, you just need add an Infrared filter to the front of your lens, such as a Hoya R72, that blocks all normal visible light, and only allows infrared light through, and when combined with the IR cut filter on the sensor, a tiny amount of IR light makes it through. In a practice, this means Infrared Photos are possible by just adding a simple filter to your camera, but the amount of light that eventually makes to the sensor is so small, that you'll need exposure times of over 30 seconds, even on bright sunny days when their is the most amount of infrared light in the atmosphere. So, technically possible, but long exposure times mean motion blur will be issue, and hand held shots are out of the question.

Hopefully, it should be pretty obvious that if we could remove the IR cut filter from in front of the sensor, then, inn combination with with the R72 Infrared filter on the front of the lens, then we can restrict all visible light, and allow all Infrared light through to the sensor. This allows us to take hand held infrared photographs on bright days, and my current setup can handle 1/60 second exposures at F2.0 and ISO 400 on a converted EOS-M camera and EF-M 22mm lens, with a Hoya R72 filter.

If you are comfortable converting your own camera, it is very possible to do yourself, but you should be okay with the risk of permanently damaging your camera in the process. If you are not comfortable doing this, there are companies online that will do this for you. Converting your camera is beyond the scope of this article, but you can search online for instructions for your camera model. Please be aware, that this will convert your camera into a full spectrum sensor, without any additional filters, it will capture photographs with both visible light and Infrared light, in practice this means your photographs will have a pink cast to them. But, this will give you the ability to use different IR filters. To only capture IR light, you'll need a filter that blocks light up to 720nm, but you can also use a full spectrum camera to capture near-infrared light, which is anything over 550nm.

Processing IR photographs will be the topic of another article, as there are many options and styles you can choose. I prefer to correct the white balance, then boost the highlights, and then use my own presets to flip the colours in the red and blue channels. This is the process that gives bright pink and white foliage, and deep blue skys with crisp clouds.

You can see more of my Infrared Photographs in my Portfolio, as well as on my Instagram feed.