The Mid-Life Audit

When people turn 40, typically they reassess their goals in life.
Have I achieved all that I wanted to achieve in life ?
And the more difficult questions:
Am I the person I wanted to be ? Where do I go from here ?

So, as it's my birthday today, I am duty-bound to audit my life. Here goes:

Q: Did I achieve everything I set out to achieve ?

A: (In no particular order):

1) Get a degree
Check. Got two actually. Buy One Get One Free deal from the local supermarket.

2) Get husband
Check. And a mighty fine one too

3) Have two kids
Check. Got three for the price of two deal from the local supermarket.

4) Have beautiful country house with landscaped garden
Check. Although no-one told me how cold they were, or how expensive to renovate and maintain, or how bloody long they take to clean.

5) Run my own successful company.
Check. Although again no-one mentioned just how many hours were involved in the success-making process.

6) Have big social life and loads of friends
Check. But in the past. My 20’s were a wild social whirl of parties, but we’re old and boring now. Since purchase of aforesaid beautiful country house, no-one will talk to us, and even when sometimes they do, we live in an area so remote that no-one can find us anyway.

7) Be a beautiful and fashionable woman
Er……

8) Be true to myself
Er……Mostly. Still working on that one. May take a while though. Ask me when I’m dead.

9) Be happy
Check. Completely. For sure. I am a lucky woman, and couldn’t ask for more, other than…

10) Stay alive
Check. This is my sole goal (until 120, anything less would be failure) and the answer to my question “where do I go from here?” (although visiting Rio, Blackpool and seeing the Shuttle go up, also feature high on the list)

Conclusion: 8 out of 10 ain’t bad at all.

See you for the next mid-life crisis at 80.




The Real Me. As I am. Minimal photoshopping.

Plus note To Rich: Thank you, thank, you thank you for my beautiful shiny new catsuit!

Blogging under duress!

So its been a long but productive week, but one without any blog entries from me and up until today no photography. Thus I have been told by Lin that today I have to write a blog entry, or else.

I could blog about the day job and how I'm about to release beta 1 of a new version of software. Its always a trying time when you release a beta as you hope that nothing will go wrong and no major problems will be found, but you also know that as sure as eggs is eggs, someone will find a big bug. Thats the main reason for not blogging, testing has gone through the roof as we fine tune the installer and make sure we havent missed anything.

It's 3 days till Lin's 40th. We won't get to go out on her birthday so we went out to lunch today. It could have been better, the food was not so good, our youngest was over-tired and weepy. All in all it wasnt the best of lunches. But we did a shoot this morning. Latex, heels, basque and gloves, and it came out well, at least I think so.

Here is one of the shots. I hope you like it.

How to be Mummified

Checklist for becoming a Yummy Mummy a.k.a., Alpha Mother

1. Short cropped blond Barbie hair
My hair is mainly white nowadays, courtesy of age, three kids and a business, but let’s be generous and call it blond. Been to hairdresser a few days ago, and am now suitably choiffured.

2. Casual Uniform for picking up kids:
Pink/green tweed coat, designer trousers or long suede shirt, brown leather loafers or brown three-inch heeled boots (Damn I’m gonna miss my leather jacket and trainers. Sigh), black polo-neck jumper. Prada or Mulberry handbag (Ebay is my friend). Do you know that these handbags each have a serial code in gold on the side of each, registered in the company database? Boggling. WHY???? To be a unique collectors item, I’m told. Thus each yummy mummy has their very own serial number I guess. Stepford Wives indeed!

The exception to this uniform is Fridays and weekends, when designer jeans and Joules sweatshirts are allowed when the YM’s meet during the shoot. Before you get your hopes up, this is shooting BIRDS with a real shotgun, the feathered variety, not models. Ladies who Lunch get together and prepare a traditional roast Sunday Luncheon whilst their man is out bonding with other men and being….er….manly and bagging pheasants.
(I have tried to tell Rich to “Go forth and shoot birds”, but as there aren’t any real women involved this time, his enthusiasm is somewhat lacking)

3. The plucking process
No, this isn’t the plucking of the poor pheasant, although that happens too, no doubt. I am referring of course to the plucking of women. No, no, no photography.
We are ladies who pluck. Our eyebrows, chin, upper lip, waxed legs, armpits, bikini, and hell, we may as well go the whole hog and have our heads waxed too….(you have to admit it would be cool for modelling).

4. Long manicured painted nails/talons
These MUST be painted beige.. Alpha mothers are very big on mud shades and beige. Actually talons might also come in handy for modelling if I rebel and paint them glossy red. Think of all those glossy red nails raking flesh in the throws of rampant ecstasy. Sounds divine. Need red latex to go with it though. (Beige latex sounds horrible)

5. Makeup
More beige, and towelled on please. Beige eyeliner, beige lipstick, nothing interesting. May as well stick my (now bald) head in a bucket of beige paint.
I hate wearing makeup. Men never comprehend the effort that goes into it. You try wearing clay on your face all day every day and see how that makes you feel. Go on…I challenge you!

Mummyfication Process Complete.
End product = perfect alpha mother clone.

It will be interesting to see if the pack accept me, don’t you think ? Welcome me into the flock a the long-lost sheep that I am ? Wll they be able to tell that I’m a fake ??? Or will I get flooded with dinner party invitations ?

BTW, the last dinner party we threw was a toga party two years ago, where Rich got very drunk, spent the night bouncing up and down on an airbed with another drunken YM (purely innocently) and told the other YM’s husband that he was an awful parent and not worthy of drinking his wine. And that, my friends, was the end of our social life



This is Holli B, taken last year. A real mummy now - her baby's gorgeous too!

The 40 Year Make-Over

Newsflash: The next few posts from me won't be remotely about photography or modelling, so if you're only looking for photography related topics, please call back on 1st February. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

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About 20 years ago I promised my despairing mother that I would finally grow up at 40, smarten myself up and dress like a mature grown professional woman rather than a scruffy student.
I am now only one week away from that fateful day, and although my mother is long gone, I feel kind of obliged to reconsider that promise.
Although she was definitely the closet rebel of the family (I inherit my wild streak from her!), I’m pretty sure my mother wouldn’t approve of my nude modelling, and she’d definitely tell me to grow up and start acting like the mature mother-of-three that I actually am.

So although I prefer to dress in jeans, sweatshirt and a leather jacket, this really doesn’t cut it style-wise when I’m 40. I’ve always existed in my own little intellectual bubble and felt that how people look wasn’t very important at all. What is important is the intelligence and personality of the person. I’ve never judged others by appearances, only by their brain. Yes, I am the worst kind of intellectual snob. It's a wonder anyone ever talks to me.

Now I read Vogue and Harpers and Queen as much as the next woman, but I read them like comics, and I’m far too lazy and broke to get off my scrawny butt and take an interest in actually dressing fashionably. That is, until you mention latex, whereupon I suddenly become a raving shopaholic and start slavering at the thought of shiny red rubber outfits. But I can hardly wear that on the school run can I ? (The kids have threatened me with death if I try).

So the problem is that within the next week, I have to acquire some style. Since I mostly mix with yummy mummys, this means some sort of emulation of the alpha-mother uniform. Richard tells me that it’s not just about the way I dress, it’s about acting the way the yummy mummys do as well. This can’t be that hard. Surely if you dress into a particular role and if you study for the part, then some of the role rubs off on you eventually ? In order to become the clone, you must first understand the clone.

If only it wasn’t the complete antithesis of who I am. I feel like I’m selling my soul to the devil. If I become a yummy mummy/alpha mother clone, then where will it end ? If I sacrifice my principles, plaster on the makeup, designer clothes and accessories, and start throwing extravagant dinner parties every couple of weeks (the yummy mummys strongly hinted a few weeks back that this is expected in order to guarantee entry to the social circle), then will this abandonment of values lead to the complete breakdown of all my hitherto held values? (Sorry. I am a yummy mummy. I can’t use words like “hitherto” any more).

Before I know it I’ll have thrown away all my principles, gone to the dark side and be modelling for “40+ Readers Wives magazine” (And don’t think I haven’t considered it either. I have three kids at private school to pay for you know)

By now you’ll probably have become fed up with this and gone to another blog, but assuming you’re still reading this, you’ll be sharing Richard’s view that I have completely lost my marbles.

But assuming that you do share my view that dressing a bit more elegantly might actually be good for me, then let us continue with the social experiment. Let the mummification begin!



Apologies that this image of me isn't nude. But this is a good thing, I promise you. After all, I'm nearly 40.

Exposure

There are a great many nude blogs around nowadays, some of which (the ones I read) are most excellent. One thing I’ve always wondered though is why the photographers and models who run these blogs rarely talk about their personal lives or those close to them.
You catch snippets of information here and there, a casual mention of a girlfriend or a day job, an elusive hint at a past relationship, but rarely anything to reveal just how and why the writer feels and thinks as he does, and what history maketh the man (or woman).

Is it just that they think that the photos speak for themselves ? Or that they think folks only tune in to look at the boobies ? Do they want to shield their nearest and dearest from the photographic world ? Is it because they think that it is unprofessional to mention how they feel? Or just that they think that readers won’t be interested in reading about their daily personal lives ?

Maybe this is just reflects something about me. I don’t think I’m writing well unless I’m writing either about a) money (my day job, which is immensely boring) or b) spilling my emotional guts all over the blogosphere. This is probably not particularly professional, but it is the real me.

Writing (blogging included) is a form of Art. For me writing, modelling, photography and emotions are all bound tightly together. Inseparable.
For what is Art if it’s not about emotion ? How can you do one without including the other ?
Photographers and models would perhaps argue that they don’t need to talk about their emotions and personal lives on their blogs, because their emotions and personality are reflected in their images.

There is no doubt that this is true. But I can’t help that think that a bit more personal background and history in the prose would further enhance understanding and appreciation of the Artist. A few photography blogs are written this way, but the vast majority are not.

It’s not just about the photographs you know. Readers want to know about the lives of real people involved in making such beautiful imagery.

Or maybe I’m just being nosey.

Busy

Its been a busy week in the world of the day job and that usually ends up with me not having anything constructive to say photographically. So my apologies. Maybe when I'm tired I should just post a few lines and a pretty pic, what do you think?

As an apology please except a small book review.

Erotique Digitale – Roderick Macdonald & Minnie Cook
This book is mainly split into 3 sections: Tools, Techniques and Showcase with the showcase taking up nearly 2/3 of the book. The tools section is a 12 page blast through choosing a camera image editing, printers and colour management and given that its so short it should be no surprise that its next to useless. I really cannot see why the author bothered with this, there is just no valuable content.

The techniques section has some interesting information but is still very short at 36 pages and while it starts well it falls into the trap of describing the whacky things you can do with photoshop curves etc and loses its impact. It would have been better if this section had been much larger with more details on creating the effects they show in the last section of the book, most of which are not created with the techniques they describe.

Showcase; here they have a showcase of 24 photographers work and a brief description of how they approached the images. Some are very good.

Overall this book is a bit of a let down. There are some clever images and they can offer inspiration to the reader but the meat and guts of how they achieved their effects are sadly missing from a book that describes itself as “a compendium of digital image-making techniques”. So its got some nice images but doesn't do what it says on the cover.

Here is a rather nice image of Claire Louisa from last year. Due to my day job I won't be shooting any new models until the first week of Feb, I'm looking forward to it.

The Devil Wears Joules

When I was at school the children would form their own cliques, and membership to one of the cliques was a key to having ‘friends’. At my school there were the ‘Smart People’, who always got the best grades and were smarter than everyone else, there were the “Beautiful people”, who were the prettiest and followed fashion, and there were the “Others”. The others didn’t really fit into either group, they were not that smart and not that pretty. The others were not really a group, they were the leftovers from the other groups and they didn’t have any form of cohesive bond between them. You can see these roles stereo typed, plus the Sportsman (jocks for those in the US) and Rebels in John Hughes “The breakfast club”.

After leaving school I had always assumed that these groups broke up as people mingled more into general society and while I have not seen much grouping on the “Smart Set” and the “Pretty Set” I have seen a rise in women that fell into the “others” category that have formed a new clique exclusively for themselves. They are the “Yummy Mummies”.

The Yummy Mummies are women that at school would not have fitted in the pretty set, and they despised the pretty set for their natural looks. They did not fit into the smart set, and they despised the smart set for their intelligence. Now as adults they have a chance to strike back and they have created their own clique.

You may wonder what defines this clique. There will be a queen bee that effectively runs the group and defines the entry criteria. There is a look, bobbed blonde hair (most brunettes end up resorting to bleach after joining), not thin (UK size 12+ is mandatory), country set clothes (Joules sweatshirts are a must, referably pink or green), they must join the dinner party circuit, do voluntary work rather than have a job, appear wealthy but not too wealthy, drive big expensive off-roaders, have at least one child at private school, and they must conform to the defined behavioural norms of the group.

There is one another criteria, you must not have been a member of either the Smart set or the Pretty set at school.

Now the yummy mummy set is growing fast in the UK, given there were always more people in the Others than in Smart or Pretty. They have found that they can wield the mighty weapon of exclusion against anyone who does not conform. This is a relentless weapon and demonstrates all the things that we believed children would leave behind when they grew up. They will look through you, they will not answer you, you are invisible. More worryingly, their final tool of choice is that they are passing this to their children who are now forming new sets where the factor that determines their membership is not based on their personal traits likes or dislikes but is based on whether their mothers are part of the Yummy Mummy club.

Is there hope for mankind in the face of this plague of Stepford wives?

Personally, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

So what has this to do with us? Lin is turning 40 in two weeks time and has, since our children started school, been excluded from more and more activities as more of her friends have joined the club, so she has decided to join the Yummy Mummies. Personally I’m not keen on the idea. Lin has two degrees and will not fit easily into a group that despises smart women with jobs. My preference is for Lin’s L-von-B alter ego to grow as our circle of photographic friends grows. But, I’m just a guy and what do we know about these things?!

The photograph to accompany this image is of Cheeky Lee and Lin wearing a red Zentai suite and looking like some sort of strange space alien (what was I thinking in this set?) Lee and her partner Paul are photographic friends who are coming round for coffee and a chat this afternoon. Lee is most definitely not a Yummy Mummy.

Nude Means Completely Starkers

Like most folks I like to spend the weekend relaxing at home, maybe doing a bit of writing and reading, catching up on the photography blogs. But last weekend, as Rich was so bogged down in work I thought I’d help out by doing what I do best. No, not sex……..organising. I thought I’d spend a few minutes organising the next four shoots.

Big, BIG mistake.

I approached several beautiful models on a UK modelling site whose internet modelling profiles looked great, and with whom Rich and I have wanted to work for ages. However what started as an innocent “we’d love to organise an art-nude shoot with you” evolved into a marathon email bender lasting all weekend.

Normally I am most excellent at organising shoots. I pride myself on being friendly and professional, and I normally have no problem booking shoots with models, all of whom (up until last weekend) have been delighted to work with us. I provide plenty of references and normally have no problems concluding a booking swiftly and efficiently.

The models concerned were eager to work with us and thought Richard’s work was stunning and beautiful. They all wanted to be paid (I had no problem with agreeing their rates and travelling) and they all wanted images for their ports. Again, no problem. I explained that we always let models have some images for their ports even though we only do fully paid shoots, not TFP or part-paid (as fully paid shoots are less hassle….Ha!)

So far so good. However the writing on the tin did not equal what was inside the tin.

Three out of four of the models, although their profiles stated art-nude, it turned out they didn’t really want to shoot art nude, but implied nude or even just topless. And those that said they would do art-nude said that they didn’t want full frontal shots. One said she didn’t even want to face towards the camera! All four eventually decided they were happy to be shot nude “at an angle”.
Despite my promise that we didn’t do open leg shots and that it was all very tastefully done, the models wanted detailed breakdowns of the poses involved, and two wanted reassurances that they could bring chaperones who would be present during the shoot.

I really sympathise with models’ concerns as a whole, but I guess I’ve been spoilt in the past, because the models we have shot with so far have been professional, confident and willing to put their trust in the absolute integrity of the photographer. They have all thought art-nude was exactly that: NUDE i.e. No clothes, nothing. Completely starkers.

Mind you up until now, our models have been sourced from MM on the whole, so maybe that’s the difference ? Not to disparage the UK modelling site in question, but the bad experiences have outweighed the good ones thus far.

Anyway in the end it was all for nothing. Two days solid emailing and no shoots to show for it. And I ended up really, really stressed and shouting at the family.
After all that effort for ‘nowt, methinks I’m going to take the budget allocated for the models and blow the lot on latex. Gotta be more fun!

Here is a fabulous image of a true professional, the lovely and aptly named Cheeky Lee. As she is not completely starkers (but as near as dammit), would this count as “implied nude at an angle” I wonder ?

One in Seven and a Half Million

About three months ago I found out that my brain tumour had come back. The odds of this happening are one in 7,500,000. As my brain surgeon said to me, “Wow, that makes you pretty special you know.”

You will appreciate that this news was a bit of a blow because I’ve had seven years of relative freedom, and it has taken me most of that time to retrain my face to work again from completely paralysed to semi-paralysed. It has also taken me a long time to cope with the change in my face. Like many women, I’m rather vain.
Indeed, until Richard started photographing me and I embarked on the nude modelling experience, I felt pretty ugly. Through art-nude photography, I have learned to feel beautiful again.

This time around, the tumour is inoperable. It is currently growing fairly slowly, and my brain surgeon offered me the choice of radiation treatment now, or waiting a year. I have decided to “suck it and see” for a year, and see how fast the little critter is growing before they zap it with high-density gamma-knife radiation.

The radiation would stop it from growing further, but (here’s the rub), it would result in certain and complete paralysis in the right side of my face. Basically I would become a drooling wreck, unable to eat, swallow and with further side effects too numerous and gory to mention (don’t wanna depress you guys so shortly into the new year).

I’m not scared of the tumour….I came to terms with that years ago, so emotionally I am completely O.K. with the whole brain tumour vs death thing, although I do occasionally succumb to the odd moment of mortal terror. Even we alpha females have our weak and snivelling moments.
The recent emotional distress on my part was because, after radiation, my face would not be photogenic (understatement of the year), and this would be almost certain death to my modelling career.

O.K. you say, surely certain death to your modelling career is better than ….er…...certain death ?

The trouble is that Rich and I have been completely absorbed by the whole art-nude photography lifestyle. We are (touch wood) making new friends, creating cool pictures, and we are happier now that we could ever have dreamed of. I do not want to give that up. I love being a model, even if I am a bit old and semi-paralysed. I love being in front of the camera and creating Art (at least in my eyes it’s Art!)

If I have the radiation and the side of my face collapses, I won’t want to be within 2 miles of a camera, and I sure as hell won’t want Rich spending many hours with gorgeous young naked women whilst I look like a deformed product of a horror movie (you should see the piccies after my last operation).

I would never ask or want Rich to give up the nude photography though (he has offered many times), but I would be nervous about meeting models after my treatment (I can’t stand people feeling sorry for me, plus I would certainly scare them). So potentially I would opt out of the whole photography scene…..not good news for the shared passion for our new hobby, business or our relationship.

So for now I choose to wait before treatment, to give myself a “last blast”. I have possibly about 8 months left in which to cram a life-time’s modelling. I intend to use that opportunity to enjoy myself in front of the camera as much as I can. I do not have the option of “taking it slowly” or sticking to my comfy bear zone. I have to push my boundaries of modelling as hard as I can, right NOW!

What happens to Fluffytek long-term is anyone’s guess. I have been playing with the idea of fetish photography, particularly specialising in weird masks, which might be a potential solution to the facial deformity issue, and I think masks are extremely cool anyway.

But in the meantime, let’s live the next year as if it could be our last, and create some bloody good Art in the process!

Apologies for the grim blog post folks! Time to make you smile with me giving the finger both to cancer and to my personal comfort zone!



Note the shiny new Fetish shoes which Santa brought me! Thanx Santa!

A Slow Sunday

Blogger has been up and down a bit recently with the various blogs I read: sometimes up and sometimes down. Hopefully they have fixed it now and I'll be able to post properly.

I've spent the afternoon trying out various knots on myself so that we can have fun creating some bondage pictures. Most of the knots seem quite straight forward. A good site for the basics on knots for bondage is Tatu's Japanese Rope Art site


In my Christmas stocking this year was the book Skin by Lee Varis.
This is an interesting book devoted to the handling of skin in digital photography. It starts with a basic description of the basics of digital imaging, which for all but the most inexperienced digital photographer is not worth reading. Then follows Colour management and workflow, this section is a very good read and gives detailed instructions on calibrating your camera (something I have yet to do). A small chapter on lighting follows that only really covers the basics and is suitable only for those who have no studio experience. The best parts of the book are the colour of skin, tone and contrast in colour and black and white, and retouching which has a remarkable number of useful techniques that even experienced shooters will benefit from.

Overall this was a very good book, although I prefer my own skin smoothing technique rather than his blur based technique. If you photograph people and are not shy of using photoshop to improve their complexion then this is a must read book.

Here is the beautiful Claire Louisa from our shoot back in August.

Inky Mess pt.2

My previous post detailed my experience with the Media Street cartridges for the R2400 printer and now, as promised, this is a follow up that describes the arrival, fitting and use of the Lyson continuous ink system (CIS).

As promised by the supplier it was dispatched on the 2nd January and arrived here by courier on the 3rd. In the afternoon I decided to install it.

In the kit was the actual CIS system, the instructions and 18 bottles of ink (two sets). The instructions took the form of a few sheets of paper with a step by step guide in colour.

Installation went smoothly. The old cartridges were removed and the top of the carrier was unclipped and stored in case I wish to revert back at some time. The new ink carrier was filled primed and the cartridges inserted.

There was only one issue during this. The ink system I have has 9 inks while the printer has slots for 8 cartridges. The extra cartridge is for switching to matte black for matte papers. Due to there being 9 cartridges, Lyson have included a small holder that bolts on to the cartridge carrier that takes the cartridge not currently in use. This was supplied with a cross head bolt and two nuts. However, the instructions referred to using the supplied screwdriver to tighten the Nylock nut. No Nylock nut was supplied and the screwdriver was a flat headed type. Fortunately I have lots of Nylock washers and cross head screwdrivers. This was the only issue and only added a few minutes to the installation. However, if you didn’t have the right tools to hand it could be a show stopper so hopefully they will get that right when they are fully into their production run.

After turning on the printer it took 3 head cleaning cycles to get a good print. I then did a set of colour profile charts and left them over night to dry. I have just created the profiles and performed the first print.

I am extremely happy with the results. The print quality is excellent, it takes a little longer to dry than the Epson ink but that’s not a problem. The print quality is excellent with the colours being correctly saturated and matching the output on my monitor to within a hairs breadth, much better than the Media Street cartridges. Total time to set up and get good prints was also much less than the Media Street cartridges with very little ink waste.

I have yet to profile matte paper and ink but so far I can completely recommend the Lyson CIS system.

To go with this post I decided to include the most viewed image on the site which is a montage of Kate taken back in May. I dont know if its the most popular because it has six images of Kate, because viewers expect it to be six different models, or no one can believe I used such a lurid backdrop. I'll let you decide. As ever a larger version of this can be viewed in the blog gallery and thus, I expect, this image will get even more views.

Inky Mess

Unlike traditional photographers who use an enlarger to produce their images, digital photographers must use a printer of one type or another, if you don’t print any of your images then there seems little point in taking them with an expensive camera as a monitor does not have the resolution to display the images in their best possible way. There are many printers on the market but they pretty much all have one thing in common and that’s that they use ink cartridges. In order to reduce costs it is possible to replace the cartridges with various after market continuous ink systems.

A continuous ink system (CIS) replaces the normal cartridges with a set of cartridges that pull ink from a reservoir system. The reservoirs are filled from bottles of ink and this can considerably reduce the price of printing. Given that I like to print at A3+, and this will usually last around 10-15 prints before I need new cartridges, a continuous ink system is definitely the way for me to go.

Now this post is not actually about my experiences with a CIS, that will come later, but rather the road to getting there. I decided to go the CIS route about six months ago and, after looking at various manufacturers, chose the Lyson system that was advertised. Lyson have a good reputation regarding their inks and so, given the expense involved in initially setting up the system, they seemed like a good choice.

I found a company that could supply the system and had a special offer and placed my order.

Now apparently Lyson were not happy with their ink formula for the Epson R2400 that I use and so have actually taken an extra six months to make the system available, and I have been told that it will dispatch to me to me on the 2nd January. However, About six weeks ago the company I had placed the order with told me of a competing CIS system that was available, was recommended and was also available in cartridge form so that I could try it. I decided that I would try it.

The cartridges were from Media Street and arrived shortly after I ordered them. I decided to wait until I finished the Epson cartridges before switching to the Media Street ones and so they sat on my desk until just before Christmas. I carefully took the cartridges out and put them in the printer and did a head check. The output was bad so I did the head clean and tried again. Another bad nozzle check. The instructions advise leaving the system for ten minutes if this happens. I did this process 8 times before getting a good nozzle check, by which time I had used half the ink in the system. I was not happy, but figured at least it was set up and I should get some prints. I printed the calibration sheet so I could generate a printer profile and did just that. By then it was late so I went to bed.

The next day was the first real print, but, oh dear, stripy prints. A nozzle check showed that again the ink was not flowing correctly. It took another three nozzle checks and cleans to get it clean again. At this stage I had used 75% of the ink to get two A4 sheets with the calibration prints on them. No real images at all.

I complained to the supplier and they did the right thing and offer me a refund. However, a day later I received the confirmation that the Lyson system would ship on the 2nd Jan and while that was fine, it also included a little statement that in order for the warranty to be valid I would need a clean nozzle check pattern printed with genuine Epson cartridges.

So, in the end my attempt to avoid having to buy more Epson cartridges was a complete waste of time as I had to order new cartridges so that I can get the print that will be needed for the warranty.

As a final note; I received the Epson cartridges and put them in the printer, after one head cleaning round I got a good nozzle check and now they work as reliably as ever. Thus Epson get my cartridge recommendation and Media Street do not.

Accompanying this post is the Roswell Ivory showing us what she can do with a long coat.