Shyheels

Better luck next season, Freddy... I enjoy wearing my OTK boots and wear them as often as I can - which fortunately here in Britain can be quite a few months of the year. Because of my large shoe size, I had mine custom made and they fit both my feet and my legs beautifully. Cost means I cannot have lots of pairs of boots, but the couple that I have are very nice indeed. When it gets to about 20C (68F) though it is a bit warm tall boots. I would love to find some interesting ankle boots in my size, but so far I have had no luck. The ankle boot season is opening up but it looks like yet another year without a stylish ankle boot...

I find the histogram quite handy, and refer to it often when I am shooting, but otherwise I tend to do much the same as I always have, and simply rely on the technology rather than try to understand it.

Sounds as though a very pleasant future could await the right sort of guy up in your neck of the woods.

Golly! That’s hospitable!

And if you wanted to pour oil on troubled flames you could always tell your wife that the chap you were going to help out was a fellow heel wearer.

Sounds to me like there is some very good material here for New Years resolutions - one that will actually be quite meaningful as opposed to the usual wish lists of losing weight and getting fit. Reshaping your life, however you end up choosing to do it, would be a lofty and worthy goal.

Sounds like it would be a welcome break from your routine, too

Inertia is a powerful force!

Sounds like you need to start making plans. And with your kids grown up and seemingly no one under any illusions, you can do so with a clear conscience and even a sense of optimism.

I can just about spell DIY.... I'd rather call in the nice lass with the otk boots...

Indeed marriage is most certainly a compromise, and involves - or should involve - flexibility in thought and a willingness to look at things from other perspectives. My wife is very conservative, but she is also quite accepting of peccadilloes, tolerant even if she doesn't understand why they like, want, or do certain things. As long as it is nothing harmful or out-and-out unprincipled, she is quite laissez faire. My hankerings to own a pair of otk boots came as something of a surprise when I gave voice to them - indeed something of a surprise to me too, as although I liked the idea of wearing such boots, I had pretty much put the notion of actually doing something about it out of my head - in fact, looking back, I never seriously entertained the idea at all. I didn't obsess, but when the autumn fashions came out I would feel wistfulness and move on. Then one day, and for reasons I can't quite recall now, I decided that I would buy a pair. I mentioned it to my wife - I am not one for keeping secrets - and was pleased (but not terribly surprised) when she just shrugged and said why not? She doesn't understand it, and isn't terribly interested in talking about it, but she is certainly not upset by it. Last night I mentioned my New Years resolution to learn to walk well in stilettos and her response was - you're not walking on my wooden floors in stilettos! Or messing up the carpet. She was at pains to point out that this point of view of hers had nothing to do with my wanting to wear stilettos; that even if her stiletto wearing workmates came visiting they would have to remove them by the door. She is quite happy for me to practice in them on the walkway outside if that's what I want to do. She was not freaked out, just bemused. And practicing on the walkway works well for me. And I understand the bit about the floors and the new carpet she just had laid. Fair - a compromise.

I have to admit I do not get too immersed in the technology side of digital, the ins and outs of sensor technology and the latest patents, or pixel peeping in post; my focus is still on composition and light and I rely on the camera to do my bidding. No doubt I would do well to acquire better background knowledge but whenever I start my eyes glaze over and I find myself thinking how is this really going to matter in the field? And if it does, or will matter, at what level? I do understand the need for sharp high quality lenses, though, and spend good money there.

What an astounding overreaction to a pair of shoes, and what wild assumptions to make on the base of it. I hardly know what to say other than that you have my sympathies. This does not sound like a terribly healthy relationship. My wife doesn’t really understand my liking for otk boots and is not much interested in talking about it, but neither is she the least bit upset by it, let alone threatening to end the marriage. She is quite conservative herself but not censorious, and is broadly tolerant of my fashion quirks. I hope you find some peace. And that she does. She sounds like a very angry person.

Nice imagery and it shows that clearly otk boots can be acceptable wear. Those were nicer, easier going Times than now

Sorry to hear that there is that measure of disapproval at what is a wholly innocuous bit of fun and fashion. My wife doesn't mind my OTK boots - I wear them all the time. Nobody really notices anymore. Mind you, they do not have heels (or rather they have just the standard sort of low heel you see on every shoe or boot) I have mentioned that I want to try a pair of stiletto boots - she thinks its a bit silly, a bit odd, a bit mystifying, but hardly a deal breaker. I guess I am lucky that way. By the same token I am not going to be in her face with it

That would make an interesting look - imagine a DIY show on TV where the comperes went about in jeans, jumper and thigh boots? It would certainly be talked about....

Is that you or Freddy?

Lenses are the one constant for me in the constantly evolving world of digital. Probably because I have spent a lot of money and bought myself a set of Zeiss primes - they are beautifully made of steel and glass, nothing plastic, and their resolution generally outperforms even my pro DSLRs. They are timeless classics - but, obviously, quite expensive. Since they are manual focus, there are no autofocus issues to worry about. I am increasingly much less concerned about advances in digital technology. My Canon 5d3 is more than sufficient - overkill in act - to meet any needs in professional magazine or on-line work, even if one is blowing up fairly large for advertisements, 22MB is plenty. So much of what is being added on now is purely to fuel a costly (but profitable!) mass addiction to constant upgrades and improvements, solutions found for problems that don't exist

Yes, grabbing life - carpe diem! - is the best of all resolutions.

Like Shakespeare's cat in the adage, I've let I dare not wait upon I would. For some time now I have been secretly fancying giving stilettos a go - boots, naturally; buying a pair of elegant knee boots with 4-5" stiletto heels and then learning to walk properly in them. Have to see now if I really dare to do it, hence New Years resolution...!

A few resolutions. Some concerning cycling ambitions - 100, 150, and 200 mile day-rides I hope to do, and others concerning writing and photography goals. Having successfully lost a fair bit weight this year, I’d also like to finish this year at or slightly below the weight I started with. As to footwear my family is quite used to seeing me in my suede OTK boots (which are low-heeled) My more daring side is resolving this year to learn to walk really well in pair of stiletto boots...

So - here we are several days into the New Year already. Anybody have any interesting New Years Resolutions?

Sure, PVC was not the major fashion innovation of the decade - but then one really could not claim that distinction for any one fabric or design. In broader terms PVC was one of several man-made "space age" fabrics that became fashionable in the mid-60s to early 70s, and if you look on the V&A's page on 60s fashions you see it mentioned fairly high up and in association with many leading designers of the day

It is quite true. PVC was considered quite an exciting new material at the time. We forget with the passage of time and the roller coaster ride of fashion. But in the mid 60s PVC was very trendy. It came in many colours and there was much less of a fetish connotation - although it was still seen as sexy. Today us has far more fetish connotations and I think that connotations tend to colour the popular recollections of PVC in fashion. The same as thigh boots when they hit the fashion world, circa 1962, were seen as sexy and slightly theatrical - not hooker wear. Not straight away, anyway. It took Pretty Woman to cement that view in the popular imagination.

That’s true, avoidance is best. I attended a rather privileged liberal arts university in America in the 1970s where hippie culture was rampant and while there was a lot of pot around the campus, there were also plenty of people, myself included, who had nothing to do with drug culture but were certainly into all the other aspects of hippiedom. My girlfriend at the time was quite into pot culture, but she respected my leanings and never pressured me at all. And of course I respected her lifestyle too. Really nice girl - a very bohemian theatre type. Works in a bank now...