Hello and welcome to my site. My name is Alice Watanabe. I live in Oxford with Simon and our two cats. I work as a Digital Project Manager. I have had a blog for a very long time, over the past several years this has been this site. The name Quaint Living came from a friend teasing me I should have a magazine called this due to the things I like and the things I like to do. I play bass in a band, I love to cycle, and I am often travelling and exploring. My family background is Irish, Japanese, and German.
FAQ
How can I contact you?
My email address is: quaintliving AT gmail.com
What cameras do you use?
Most often:
Canon 450D DSLR. The lens I use most often is an EFS 15-85 3.5-5.6 USM
Lomo LC-A
From time to time and in the past:
Olympus EP1
Canon IXUS 800IS Automatic
iPhone 3/4S
Digital Harinezumi
Yashica TL-Electro
What post-processing do you do?
As I take a lot of pictures and like to turn them around quickly my post-processing is quite minimal because there isn’t time. I try to get the picture that comes out of the camera to be as I would like it rather than doing many changes after. I have actions set up in Photoshop CS4 to batch all the chores like resizing and saving and I batch re-name the files with Adobe Bridge CS4. Occasionally I will play around with post processing but mostly I don’t. I am not a purist at all but it suits my current style and way of working to do very little post-processing.
How do you take your DSLR out and about every day? Especially when you cycle?
Yes usually I have either the DSLR or the Lomo LC-A on me.
Why are your cats called Beep and Ira?
We spent so long looking for kittens to adopt and we kept getting asked what we would call them and after some long conversations somehow it was decided that the name ‘Beep’ and the name ‘Ira’ would be good names for cats. So then for a year or so people would ask ‘When are you getting Beep and Ira?’ ‘Have you found Beep and Ira yet?’ so when we finally found two kittens we HAD to call them Beep and Ira. Funny names but I think they suit them now.
Did you grow up in Oxford? How long you have lived here? Did you grow up here or when did you move here?
I moved here I think when I was about 8 years old so have lived here for most of my life. I would consider that I grew up here as I was here for the really formative years that I can remember.
Do you and Simon work at the same place, and how did you meet?
We don’t work together although we work in a similar-ish field. We met through music, gigs, and bands.
Who designed this site?
I did with invaluable help from Simon. I based it on the Thematic Theme Framework.
Thanks for stopping by!
