Nomadic Reveries

i would be more vigilant with this blog

2010-10-10T16:46:00.001+01:00

but it would only be a rough mashup of http://yayeveryday.com and http://thisisnthappiness.com, so you can go there instead :) i meanwhile am occupying myself with not understanding globalization theory. hooray for university.

this picture is by james jean

2010-08-02T22:35:00.001+01:00

i think it's nice.

on being stuck at manchester airport

2010-04-15T21:02:00.000+01:00

"This volcanic ash is like election campaigning. Lots of hot air that prevents anything useful happening."

- Dad. :)

efrim, you liar

2010-04-09T15:01:00.000+01:00

i saw a silver mt. zion a couple of weeks ago, and he swore blind godspeed were not reforming any time soon.
guess who just bought tickets to see them in december.

god's computer

2010-04-06T12:20:00.001+01:00

by Joel Pett

2010-03-02T15:24:00.000Z

this is for people who can't keep up with cabinet reshuffles

2010-02-26T15:04:00.000Z

the ministerial whirl.

"see how the new labour govt. has changed from day to day, month to month, reshuffle to reshuffle by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the java applet".
it's surprisingly addictive.

if anybody's feeling generous

2010-02-26T15:02:00.001Z

i would very much like this t-shirt. look:

isn't it just lovely?

science is awesome

2010-02-26T15:00:00.002Z

my sister's having this procedure. how incredible is that? and this was developed 8 years ago. imagine what we'll be able to do next century. it's like something from a science fiction film.

when swine flew: the baconic plague

2010-01-15T15:27:00.000Z

By Derek Chatwood.

byroglyphics

2010-01-12T13:31:00.001Z

i'm in love with the art of russ mills. you should be too.

laughing is a way to avoid becoming depressed by the inevitable

2010-01-12T13:04:00.000Z

Thank you, Private Eye.

this is why photobooths should never have gone out of fashion

2010-01-10T12:25:00.002Z

By Ginger.

the beauty of the sx-70

2010-01-04T12:33:00.001Z

a original promo video, which explains how both the camera and film work in the polaroid sx-70 camera. from vimeo.

the guardian misses polaroid too

2010-01-04T12:15:00.003Z

...so they got some photographers, gave them polaroid cameras, and told them to take pictures.

the results are great- see the rest of them here.

this is why i want the four-colour ringflash

2009-12-23T19:03:00.003Z

taken by some guy on flickr.

rca student radically improves the uk plug

2009-12-15T10:50:00.000Z

(via Iconeye)

The Royal College of Art's graduate show has opened, and this year, the show-stopper was a plug. Min-Kyu Choi impressed every passer by with his neat, apparently market-ready plug that folds down to the width of an Apple MacBook Air. "The MacBook Air is the world's thinnest laptop ever. However, here in the UK, we still use the world's biggest three-pin plug," says Choi.

Choi's plug is just 10mm wide when it is folded. To unfold it, the two live pins swivel 90 degrees, and the plastic surround folds back around the pins so the face of the plug looks the same as a standard UK plug. The idea produced a spin off, too. Choi created a multi-plug adaptor, a compact standard plug sized unit with space for three folded plugs to slot in, as well as one that charges USB devices.

It's so plausible and so obvious a product that it should produce a few red faces; how many more years were we going to attach our palm sized mobiles and wafer thin laptops to an object that's barely been touched since its first design in 1946? Choi picked an everyday product that most other designers find too mundane to dabble with and drastically improved it - exactly the kind of thinking that we should be celebrating right now.

2009-11-29T16:05:00.003Z

candid in the '60s

2009-11-27T17:51:00.003Z

from this brilliant website.

suppose we woke up to discover america was a lie?

2009-11-26T22:09:00.000Z

by armando iannucci (of course).

Monday. It suddenly dawns on me that though I think Casablanca is one of the best films ever made, I still haven't managed to see it. I've heard a lot about it, though, and today I decide to go and speak to all those eople who recommended it to me.
It turns out none of them has seen it either. I ring Warner Bros, but it goes quiet and tries fobbing me off with a free ticket to see Scooby-Doo. I think something's going on.

Tuesday. A scandal in Hollywood. Warner Bros admits that Casablanca was never made. When pushed, it also reveals that Humphrey Bogart was mostly wistful conjecture. 'We had an actor under contract in the 1940s and 1950s who looked a bit like what we imagined Humphrey Bogart to be,' said a Warner Bros spokesman, 'and we'd always planned to make something like Casablanca, but never got round to it. Then, when people started talking about how good it was, we just played along with it.'
Soon every other major Hollywood studio makes a similar confession: 20th Century Fox admits that The Return of the Jedi was never made, while Francis Ford Coppola confesses to having made The Godfather, Parts Two and Three, but not Part One.
By nightfall, I sit stunned by the realisation that the American film industry does not have as successful a back catalogue as it has always claimed. I go to bed furious, just as Gregory Peck is arrested for claiming to have been in more than thirty-five films, when in fact, for he past fifty years, he's just been a baker.

Wednesday. Wake up to hear America admit it has only one-twentieth of the wealth it claimed to have. The dark news emerges when all the casions in Las Vegas confess they've been operation for the past seven years on an average profit of four hundred dollars.
By noon, most of the board of directors of the Disney Corporation is being taken in for questioning for saying their company is stinking rich when in fact it owes someone ninety pounts. The discrepancy was spotted by a quick-thinking FBI official, who realised that nobody had ever liked Mickey Mouse and therefore Walt Disney's claimed wealth may not have existed.

Thursday. Philip Roth is taken away from his house in handcuffs. He may have written only one novel. It's now dawning on the world that, for about the past hundred years, America has been taking us for a ride.
The Statue of Liberty turns out to be made of cork. Mount Rushmore is a back-lit projection. The Lincoln Memorial is a giant hand puppet. The film Capricorn One was filmed entirely on a studio lot on the Moon.
With every hour, it's becoming clearer that America has been pretending to be more influential that it actually is. Its official clain to be a superpower is slowly being rescinded as people learn that its intelligence network is dumb, its armed forces unsuccessful and the bulk of is population incapable of affording the most basic of medical attention.

Friday. Hysteria in America when 100 million people suddenly become confused; the mental stain of spending a lifetime trying simultaneously to oppose abortion and support the death penalty turns them all to idiots. Millions of God-fearing capitalists confess to thievery and agnosticism.
I wake up to the morning of the first day in the modern era, in which no-one believes in America anymore. And it doesn't feel good, just frighteningly ridiculous.

red scares

2009-11-26T21:55:00.000Z

a dose of iannucci

2009-11-26T21:53:00.000Z

Because he's brilliant, and he made I'm Alan Partridge and The Thick of It, so everyone deserves to love him. I'm reading The Audacity of Hype, and it's making me snigger just a bit.

Especially...

Three fascinating facts about Iraq
1. Iraq was once part of the Ottoman Empire, a land mass which, if turned into flour, would be enough to feed bread to the children of Iraq for a hundred years. But Saddam refuses to do this and instead spends his money on presidential palaces, which, if converted into milk, would be enough to fill all the oil wells of the Middle East for a fortnight. That's why we have to stop him getting to the wells before he does this.
2. Iraq contains twenty-two thousand square miles of irrigated land. That's the equivalent of three hundred million bottles of anthrax laid end to end. So where are they?
3. Iraqis consume 27.3 billion kilowatts of electricity every year, enough to power one Sta Wars style anti-missile system. So where is it, and who's it pointing at?

Twelve ways in which things could possibly get worse for Gordon Brown over the next few weeks
1. A junior official in the Home Office confessed to having mislaid a prison.
2. Scientists have accidentally released a strain of bacterium into the atmosphere that gives everyone in Britain mild diarrhoea for five months.
3. A decimal point has been in the wrong place at the Treasury for the past twenty-three years and we're actually a third-world economy.
4. Harriet Harman unwittingly gave Carlos the Jackal refuge for two months in 1989.
5. Jack Straw is spotted lying drunk and face down in a wedding cake at a reception to which he was not invited.
6. Jack Straw gets into a punch-up with Jemima Khan.
7. Harriet Harman admits to having run over a badger in her car and then driving off.
8. Ed Balls finds out he's an illegal immigrant.
9. Squirrels chew a hole in the Thames Barrier.
10. A plane carrying hundreds of tons of Andrews Liver Salts accidentally crashes into Lake Windemere, resulting in the permanent shutting down of Cumbria.
11. David Miliband once had a pet hamster called Little Allah.
12. It is announced the 2012 Olympics going to London was actually a clerical error and they're going to Paris after all.

Drew Beam

2009-11-16T17:07:00.002Z

is prison work criminal?

2009-11-03T21:52:00.006Z

To ask, "what is the purpose of prison work?" is to ask a profound question about the purpose of the 21 century prison. The answers are neither simple, consistent, nor necessarily reflected in the daily reality of life on the prison landings.

This confusion is rooted in the broad range of demands, sometimes conflicting, that are made of imprisonment. Is prison merely a tool to inflict punishment? Is rehabilitation an aspiration? What of reducing the incidence of re-offending? Imprisonment is expected to at least attempt to deliver some measure of all of these things, and this fragmentation of purpose has undermined the formulation of any consistent and long term view of a central part of prison life - work.

Read more at Ben's blog, the only blog by a serving British prisoner. It makes for a very interesting read.

yeeeeah

2009-10-28T11:59:00.000Z

this is why ian hislop is wonderful

2009-10-17T15:42:00.001+01:00

are hirst's new paintings any good?

2009-10-14T14:35:00.003+01:00

(via the independant)

'Are Hirst's paintings any good? No, they're not worth looking at'

If it were not for his prodigious fame, would Damien Hirst's canvases be exhibited at London's hallowed Wallace Collection? Of course not, says Tom Lubbock. The man simply can't paint.

A few quick questions. 1. Are these new paintings, painted by Damien Hirst himself, any good? No, not at all, they are not worth looking at. 2. So why are you writing about them at such length? Because he is very famous. 3. And why has the Wallace Collection decided to exhibit them? Because he is very famous. 4. And why did Damien Hirst even paint them in the first place? Because he is very famous.

bag lady

2009-10-12T23:02:00.003+01:00

i went to see rich hall, and was confronted by otis lee krenshaw's musical genius instead.

cinammon chasers

2009-10-07T11:06:00.001+01:00

i'm going here

2009-10-05T18:08:00.002+01:00

few months yet left working for plane fairs, etc, then i'm off. can't wait.

mosquitos

2009-09-27T22:17:00.001+01:00

(via Abstract City Blog)

prepare your coffin

2009-09-22T09:27:00.004+01:00

my boyfriend described this as one of the most pretentious videos he'd ever seen, and said it spoilt a not-very-pretentious song. whatever. i like this video, and so should you.

2009-08-05T23:58:00.001+01:00

375

2009-06-23T19:51:00.002+01:00

by Erdal Kinaci.

Creed

2009-06-22T20:24:00.002+01:00

by Steve Turner.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated.
You can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.

We believe that after death comes The Nothing
because when you ask the dead what happens
they say Nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between
warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behaviour that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth
that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds.

It sounds a lot like all her other stuff

2009-06-17T16:25:00.002+01:00

but man, I love this album. In fact, there have been loads of fantastic albums so far this year. Here's a list of some of them (alphabetically!), with youtube samples provided. :)

1. Alela Diane - To Be Still (riyl: Marissa Nadler, Joanna Newsom)

2. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - The Century of Self (riyl: Aereogramme, Sparta)

3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (riyl: Grizzly Bear, Deerhunter)

4. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light (riyl: CocoRosie, Bat For Lashes)

5. Black Dice - Repo (riyl: Lightning Bolt, Animal Collective)

6. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware (riyl: anything by Will Oldham, Smog)

7. Clutch - Strange Cousins from the West (riyl: Orange Goblin, Five Horse Johnson)
(This video isn't from this album, it's from the one before)

8. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (riyl: Animal Collective)

9. Helios - Unreleased Vol 1 (riyl: Goldmund, Four Tet)

10. ISIS - Wavering Radiant (riyl: Neurosis, Pelican)
Below video is not a song from this album

11. Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul (riyl: Earth, SunnO))))

12. Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous (riyl: Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian)

13. Manatees - Icarus, the Sunclimber (riyl: Isis, Bossk)

14. Marissa Nadler - Little Hells (riyl: Vashti Bunyan, Josephine Foster)

15. mewithoutYou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (riyl: don't know, this band are in a league completely their own)

16. Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind (riyl: Caspian, Mogwai)

17. Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin (riyl: Kate Bush)

18. Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship (riyl: Fridge)
Plus, this video is awesome.

Yeah, obviously lots more albums have been released this year, but these have stood out so far. Also, lots more shall be released this year! :) I'll make a proper top 10 at the end.

Erik Johansson

2009-06-16T12:08:00.003+01:00

The top 10 ugly plants

2009-06-16T11:57:00.004+01:00

RHS experts have scoured the planet to produce a list of the world's top 10 ugliest plants. Below are the winners, although I'd dispute the ugliness of some. What amuses me more is that this is obviously a fantastic use of "expert" time.

"Tree tumbo" (Welwitschia mirabilis)

"Thorn of the Cross" (Colletia paradoxa)

"Stinky Squid" (Pseudocolus fusiformis)

"Vegetable Sheep" (Raoulia eximia)

"Sea Onion" (Bowiea volubilis)

"Elephant's Trunk" (Pachypodium namaquanum)

"Monkey Cups" (Nepenthes)

"Corpse Flower" (Amorphophallus titanium)

"Birthworts" (Aristolochia gigantea)

"Bastard Cobas" (Cyphostemma juttae)

Catch 22

2009-06-16T01:21:00.002+01:00

You're not allowed to know what you're not allowed to photograph.

The British Journal of Photography is trying to use the UK Freedom of Information Act to find out which places in Britain have such precious photons that people who collect them without authorization can have their civil rights violated, but so far they've been unsuccessful.

"The Home Office has rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the BJP regarding the disclosure of the list of all areas where police officers are authorised to stop-and-search photographers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000...

While it is common knowledge that the entire City of London [ed: the City of London is a one-square-mile financial district], at the behest of the Metropolitan Police, is covered by the legislation, it remains unclear which other areas in England and Wales have requested the stop-and-search powers...

The request asked for a 'full list of all areas - in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - subject to Section 44 Terrorism Act 2000 authorisations, which the Home Office has a statutory duty to be aware of.'

The request was rejected in late May on grounds of national security. 'In relation to authorisations for England and Wales, I can confirm that the Home Office holds the information that you requested. I am, however, not obliged to disclose it to you,' writes J Fanshaw of the Direct Communications Unit at the Home Office. 'After careful consideration we have decided that this information is exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 24(1) and Section 31(1)(a-c) of the Freedom of Information Act...'

As part of its ongoing campaign for photographers' rights, BJP has appealed the decision, requesting an internal review of the request's handling. It has also filed 46 additional Freedom of Information Act requests to all Chief Constables in England and Wales, asking them to disclose whether they have asked for stop-and-search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000."

Made me smile.

New blog

2009-06-12T10:59:00.002+01:00

For photographs that don't go on my a-photo-a-day, or anywhere else really. Keeping a photoblog is easier than uploading to deviantART etc, where people who you've never met before add photographs to their 'favourites' without even taking the time to make a comment. Yeah.

So, here's a new blog. Enjoy!

Praiseworthy performance

2009-06-11T21:42:00.002+01:00

Nick Clegg faces the Toynbee test. And does very well, in my opinion.

Chips, kebabs and a fisheye lens

2009-06-11T13:27:00.003+01:00

Simon de Glanville likes London pigeons

The hope we've gained from the BNP, and more

2009-06-08T17:49:00.006+01:00

"Instead of the aghast, uncritical scaremongering, we now have a chance to expose the far-right party in a different way... All this doesn't mean we should welcome the BNP with open arms. Only that some of the over-the-top scaremongering plays into the BNP's hands." Sunny Hundal, via the Guardian's 'Comment is Free'. Read more.

"Democracy won't be renewed in the pages of the Guardian or through Facebook groups. These might help, but they won't influence those who don't read the Guardian, don't use Facebook and don't think - to use the BNP's catchphrase - politics has any space for 'people like you'." - Julian Dobson, via Living With Rats.

"Five words can kill you in political debate, but the BNP are really good at creating them.
British Jobs for British Workers.
Taxes for Pensioners, not Immigrants.
Return to a better Britain.
The thing with five word answers is, they very rarely tell the whole story. Taxes for Pensioners, not Immigrants. Who pays the taxes though? Don't Immigrants have to pay the taxes asw ell? Seeing as they live here, they have to pay their taxes and participate in our economy and society. A Return to a better Britain that never actually existed.
The thing with five word answers is that we don't live in a five word country. You can't name the many denominations and faiths that make up this country in five words. You can't name the different counties in five words. You can't name the differnet ethnic groups that make up this country with five words.
No, we live in a country far to great, far too grand for five words." - Lindon Best, via Facebook

"Amid the gloom, it’s worth also pointing out that the Green Party retained its two MEPs, and commanded 1.3 million votes (8.65% of the vote, an increase of 2.4% on 2004), compared with 943,000 votes for the BNP (6.26% of the vote, up 1.35% on 2004). As a colleague said to me this morning, voting Green is about taking responsibility rather than blaming others." - Jon Brissenden, via tumblr

Tim Dowling explains PR

2009-06-04T10:25:00.001+01:00

"In the first round, the seat goes to whichever party got the most votes (ie not Labour)."

The Most Expensive Object

2009-06-03T16:58:00.010+01:00

Photographer "Julia" (no other name given) travelled around Russia, photographing people next to the most expensive object they owned.

"Photos of people with their most expensive object that they have in their home. I wasn't too insistent in questioning them whether these were the most expensive domestic objects - I simply photographed what people identified by themselves. I think they weren't really hiding anything."

1. Konstantin Bayev, Samarskaya Oblast. Aquarium, 7000 rubles (£138)

2. Galina and Genady Nikodorov. Bicycle, 2500 rubles (£50)

3. Arsen Vdovin, Pskovskaya Oblast. Mobile phone, 6000 rubles (£118)

4. Kumisay Uteulina with daughter Alina, Samarskaya Oblast. Refrigerator, 17000 rubles (£335), on credit

5. Natalia Stepanova with son Anton, Pskovskaya oblast. Power saw, 3000 rubles (£59)

6. Yevgeniy Seryakov, Samarskaya oblast. Television set, 4000 rubles (£79)

7. Tatyana and Mihail Yargin, Samarskaya Oblast. Two washing machines and two refrigerators - dowry for their daughters, for when they get married. 50000 rubles (£986)

Maybe I should cancel my holiday

2009-06-03T14:57:00.001+01:00

North Yorkshire have begun testing their nuclear weapons...

Shame on you, planet

2009-06-01T23:34:00.009+01:00

All photos from this site.

2009-06-01T23:28:00.003+01:00

by is a belle

If anything was possible, then nothing would be interesting.

2009-04-08T10:41:00.004+01:00

-H G Wells.

'Rejected' by Martin Stranka shows that even if anything is possible, until you know how it's possible it still retains interest. The above photograph was created without any manipulation.

Dig deep for the miners

2009-03-31T11:06:00.002+01:00

Dig deep for the miners

7/8 of the Truth, and Nothing but the Truth.

2009-03-08T16:56:00.003Z

If you are sitting comfortably
I suspect I am not giving you
the truth.
I am leaving you two poems
short of disagreement
so that you can remark upon
the likeness of our minds.
I am being kind.
I am giving you the truth
in linctus form - strawberry flavour.
I am being unkind.
I am ignoring the correct dosage.

I want to be liked.
That's my trouble
I want to be agreed with.
I know you like strawberry,
I quite like it myself.
It's nothing but the truth
but it's not the whole truth.

No one admires the whole truth,
No one ever applauds.
It takes things too far.
It's nice but where would
you put it?
People who neglect the strawberry
flavouring, do not get asked back.
They get put in their place,
with nails if necessary.

-Steve Turner.

For mum

2009-03-05T09:52:00.000Z

A guerrilla knitter has descended on downtown Bay City, MI, covering up pillars and bench armrests with colorful crocheted cozies.

From The Bay City Times:

At A Piece of Ewe, a yarn shop at 602 Saginaw St., workers say they don’t know the identity of the “knitting fairy,” as she -or he - is referred to by downtown employees. The yarn may or may not have been purchased there, they say.
Patti Sharrard, gallery curator of Studio 23, 901 N. Water St., said some people suggest if may be a homeless person trying to make the outdoors more homey. […]
Fabric Fair, 206 Fifth St., employee Nancy Walton, an employee at Fabric Fair, 206 Fifth St., said she is surprised no one is owning up to the colorful work.
“I think someone was just trying to make downtown look more comfortable and welcoming,” Walton said. “I think they’re really cute.”

[source: The Daily What]

2009-03-04T16:52:00.001Z

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

No pot of gold

2009-03-04T13:10:00.002Z

The end of the rainbow, photographed by Jason Erdkamp on Highway 241 in Orange County, California.

Andy Bloxham

2009-03-03T20:50:00.002Z

more here.

What's going on?

2009-02-24T20:31:00.005Z

This looks painful, I'd like a 'what happened next' shot now please.

By Kerry Skarbakka. She was inspired by philosopher Martin Heideggar, who described human existene as a process of perpetual falling, where it is the responsibility of each individual to catch themselves from their own uncertainty.

Some confusion

2009-02-24T20:20:00.004Z

by Pravdoliub Ivanov.

The credit crisis for beginners.

2009-02-24T20:13:00.003Z

A couple of great animations from Jonathan Jarvis.

2009-02-24T20:03:00.007Z

by dustball.

Making films with light

2008-11-20T20:52:00.003Z

is harder than it looks.

I've a long way to go before I reach this:

Swiftly go the days.

2008-10-17T17:43:00.004+01:00

Broomhill

Smoking backwards.

2008-10-16T00:14:00.001+01:00

Fight Club does it better.

2008-10-08T11:44:00.001+01:00

All this talk of banks 'collapsing' got me thinking about what a fantastic spectacle the global credit crunch would be if, when banks went bust, their buildings did indeed 'collapse'. It would make for a much more interesting spectacle than page after page in the newspapers about amounts of money that don't seem to truly exist. £50 billion? Try imagining that. It's just a number.

If I was running the credit crunch (haha.) I would make sure that all bank buildings throughout the country were wired to a central demolition system, and as soon as one went bust, all its branches were razed to the ground. In a controlled and safe way, of course. You can't deny it would make walking around town a pretty exciting experience.

Something like this:

Tyler Durden had the right idea.

Margaret Atwood

2008-09-30T17:35:00.000+01:00

"Photographs are stopped time. All that they can portray is appearances. You see the moment, you see the instant when that photograph was taken. . . . Photographs are frozen light. There is always either much less in them than meets the eye or much more. . . . They’re mysterious. They purport to be very flat and visible, and they have no depth on the page; they’re just a flat surface. But if you look into them rather than at them you can go underneath the surface of the photograph."

The epic story of Jeremy, the star who fell to earth.

2008-09-04T22:08:00.007+01:00

Or, why English homework can actually be fun if you don't take it too seriously.

Brief: at the beginning of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Mamillius (what a name) says, "A sad tale's best for winter". Write the outline of a story you think would fit this description, but don't research what happens in The Winter's Tale at all!

So here is my result, an epic tale of love and loss, starring a small star named Jeremy. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin...

once upon a time there was a star called jeremy. jeremy was a happy little star, for most his life, shining brightly in the sky above a tiny village in yorkshire. however, jeremy was also a lonely little star, being a couple of hundred light-years away from his nearest neighbours, and at times this made him very upset. but, one frosty winter night, all this was to change...

one night, as he was shining away, jeremy happened to glance down at the earth, where an amazing sight met his eyes. something about the little village he had been twinkling above his entire life had changed. jeremy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a beautiful gold star atop a sparkling tree. all day and all night he couldn't stop thinking about the star. jeremy had fallen in love.

after a few days, jeremy just couldn't bear it any more, and he decided to take action. straining with all his might, he finally managed to pull himself free from the sky and began tumbling down towards earth, towards the golden star on the christmas tree.

however, as soon as jeremy landed, he knew something was wrong. earth wasn't like he expected it to be. it was cold. there was crunchy white stuff everywhere that hurt when he landed on it and kept falling on top of him. and worst of all, although he sat beneath the tree and called up to the beautiful gold star for hours on end... she didn't reply.

all night jeremy lay there, declaring his love for the beautiful golden star atop the tree, but to no avail. when morning broke, it became clear why the star would not return his affection... to jeremy's horror, the object of his adoration was not a beautiful golden star at all! it was merely a plastic christmas decoration. his journey to earth had been in vain, and slowly it dawned on jeremy that he had no way of returning to the sky. he would have to stay on earth forever, lying on the ground and being slowly buried by the falling snow.

THE END.

One of the crowd.

2008-08-31T15:53:00.002+01:00

Referring to this post, where I seemed to firmly decide that the multitude of '365' or 'a photo a day' blogs out there are, for the most part, completely pointless and of interest only to the photographer themself, I have unashamedly joined the ranks of such people. Tomorrow is September 1st, and what better time to start something new than at the start of what is both a new month and a new school year (nearly)?

The main reason for this is that it will force me to take my camera everywhere, and this year being my last with the people I've pretty much grown up with over the course of my secondary education, I want it well-documented and remembered.

So starting tomorrow you'll have two wonderfully exciting blogs to read! Here's the other.

Alternatively, if you prefer much more interesting, high-quality and basically fantastic photography, a photo a day is a much better way to spend three seconds of your time looking at photographs.

The Tinsley Towers, or photographic failures - what was your lowest point as a photographer?

2008-08-31T15:11:00.002+01:00

I think mine came on Sunday, 24th August 2008 at 3am.

Having acquired a press pass to this event and taken my place on the special viewing platform, I had an amazing view of the Tinsley Towers as they waited to be demolished. Being of the grand height of 5’1, it was a treat to not have to crane around people’s heads to see. Photographers, reporters and videographers all waited eagerly for the moment.

However, things began to go wrong for me pretty quickly.

Firstly, broken tripods are never a good thing to start off with, and to frame my shot I had to bend down awkwardly and try the best I could to move the camera to a decent position, whilst also trying to hold an umbrella over said camera.

Yep, umbrella. It rained. And guess who hadn’t taken a lens hood.

Ooh, another thing! I believed there would be a big countdown to the blast. That’s what I’d been told. However, there was no such thing – a klaxon sounded for a few seconds and then, BOOM, the towers fell. This klaxon had lured me into a false sense of security, and I thought there were at least a few seconds more for me to set up. But no, and another problem with the position of the tipod was that manually focussing on the towers took a precious couple of seconds longer than usual. So, not only were my shots marred by a water droplet on the lens, they were also out-of-focus. And due to the broken tripod, slightly blurred as well! Hooray. I came away with no useable photographs of the blast, and crowd documentary is pretty much the closest I came to recording this event.

Despite this, it was an event I wouldn’t have missed for the world, and I was incredibly lucky to have such an amazing view, unhindered by other people’s heads, tripods, etc. (Although I managed to walk into the BBC’s shot a few minutes before the blast, haha). And I have learnt the following things:

1. Lens hoods are invaluable. I didn’t use one, and I got a raindrop on my lens, which ruined the only good shot I got of the towers mid-crumble.

2. Don’t rely on what you’ve been told. Ten minutes before the event you’re hoping to capture, set up your camera with all the right settings so even if it does take you by surprise, you only have to click the shutter rather than fiddle about with focussing and waste valuable seconds.

3. Make sure you have a sturdy tripod. I borrowed my dad’s for ease of transportation (my own is a bit of a beast to carry around), but this was at a massive cost, obviously. Invest in a metal tripod, one that’s well-supported and (most importantly imho) has a fully rotateable head. I also find a spirit level useful.

4. Take a shutter release!

5. Some things will never happen again, but even if you don’t come away with any useable pictures – at least you were there. :) And sometimes that can be worth more than a thousand beautiful photographs.

Anyway, the point of this is mainly to make me feel better, and I suppose dredge up that old maxim: ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’. Ignoring the fact that this blatantly isn’t true, what similar experiences have you guys had where you’ve come away without any images and with no opportunity of capturing the moment again? It’s a horrible feeling but a learning curve, at least it was for me, and I’m interested to hear similar stories.

So do share! And in the meanwhile you can have this photo of the aftermath:

Smarties

2008-08-28T15:59:00.001+01:00

Tiny people

2008-08-22T11:55:00.006+01:00

The point of such things as this post and any previous or subsequent trips to rooftop car parks and the like is to gain some sort of perspective on humanity. Looking at people from such a height, especially in as busy a place as Broomhill (where the photograph in the above post was taken) reminds you of the insignificance of most worries in life, and is a good head-clearing exercise no matter what you're going through at the time.

However, the other day I came across Little People, somewhat a reversal of the above. After I'd got over the startling similarity to the main storyline in last year's season of CSI:Las Vegas, and convinced myself that these little model people weren't made with the intention of murder or anything along those lines, I was awestruck at the detail and creativity of 'Slinkachu', the creator of the scenes.

Whereas sitting on rooftops is all very well for realising just how many people and lives there are out there in the world, the 'Little People' street art project draws your attention back to the tiny detail of human life.

For example-

And to give it a sense of perspective, here is the same scene from a different angle.

See what I mean?

I would very much recommend checking out the Little People blog (link above), and to be honest this post is more of an excuse to plug them than to make any kind of conjectures on life.

My personal favourite:

[I didn't make any of these photographs \ models, obviously - they were made by the talented street artist here.]

365 x 18

2008-08-13T10:27:00.003+01:00

My mum alerted me to an article in the paper this morning about the late Jamie Livingstone, who, in 1979, decided to take one Polaroid photograph of his life every day. From March 1979 to October 1997 he achieved this aim, before his death on October 25th from a brain tumour on his 41st birthday. Every day of his life recorded in that always-recognisable Polaroid format.

I've always been interested in these projects - many people have blogs or flickr feeds where they take one photo a day, every day, often targetting for 365 days and often falling mysteriously silent after a couple of months. For a while now I've been meaning to start one, however I am faced with one problem: why? Of course, it is a good discipline for any photographer to be taking photographs every day, however I do that most days anyway. And some days, running into the 100s of photos, it seems a bit of a futile exercise to post just one. Almost like proving that I take photographs - who needs to do that?

The Polaroid idea here is a fantastic one - through finding one distinctive medium to link all the photographs together, the project becomes something detached from all the 'other' photographs of everyday life. Something connected and seperate, a project in its own right. I've considered this medium before as well, however I cannot quite justify spending what would work out at around 50p a day to take these photographs. Polaroid film, due to the manufactuers' declaration that they would stop producing it in February, is only likely to rise in price, and I don't really feel like making that sort of a monetary commitment to what would essentially be only a personal project.

And so the project is in the pipelines until I come up with some sort of connection to use. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Jamie Livingstone's life in Polaroids can be found at http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/ and is addictive viewing.

'On Photography' by Susan Sontag

2008-07-26T18:49:00.004+01:00

Whilst in Scotland I happened upon the book On Photography by Susan Sontag in the cottage we rented. Unfortunately I only managed to read around a third of it before having to return to Sheffield (this is excusable; Sontag writes so concisely that every sentence could easily be extended into an essay, and as such the book is slow going). However, from the first page I could tell this was a book I would have to read again and again, and think about, and learn from. Sontag, although not a photographer herself, was in a relationship for many years with celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz, and as such has a unique persepective on the art. This comes across clearly in her writing.

To collect photographs is to collect the world.

I agree with this. Collecting photographs means making a visual record of your life - you can't photograph a place if you aren't there (correct me if I'm wrong). For example, this photo - taken out of a train window somewhere between York and Doncaster.

I may well never see these cooling towers again, and certainly never in the same light and from the same perspective at the same time of day. Therefore I have 'collected' (to use Sontag's word) a piece of the world, a moment in time that will never reoccur. This gives the photograph, once looked at in such a way, quite a momentous air, even if (as in this case) it is hardly a remarkable image. It may not be a work of art, but it is a record of something - a moment - now passed by forever. Which leads to the next quote.

To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting yourself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge - and, therefore, like power.

So is the purpose of photography merely to gain some element of control over a world which, in the end, we have very little influence or power over? A way perhaps of capturing an experience, idea or view that would take too long to think through and define through another medium? Here the advantage of the photograph over the painting comes into sharp definition. Most photographs are created in the course of what would seem like an otherwise insignificant, tiny amount of time. Indeed, in photograph 1\30 second is seen as a period of time so long that it is difficult, especially in low-light conditions, to create a sharp and accurate image. Such a period of time would in most other terms be inconsequential to the extent that, when looking at photography, multiplying every shutter speed by thirty would probably be comparable in everyday life, and if we're still thinking about paintings, multiply that shutter speed by thousands and thousands and you still wouldn't get close. Harnessing a moment so short it is otherwise overlooks and unnoticed is one of the ways in which, as Sontag suggested, we seek to control the world.

..despite the presumption of veracity that gives all photographs authority, interest, seductiveness, the work that photographers do is no generic exception to the usually shady commerce between art and truth. Even when photographers are most concerned with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and consience. In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subject. Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.

All I will say on this one is that the above statement is completely and utterly true and one of the main problems with documentary photography and photojournalism. In the end, no matter how hard he or she tries, the photographer is not merely a bystander to record events - the very act of framing and chosing exposure means a particular slant or opinion of a photo is more likely to be formed in the viewers' mind than another. It is the same with written journalism, of course - and the problem with anything that tries to take an objective and unbiased viewpoint on something.

Her Name Is Calla @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

2008-07-17T02:11:00.006+01:00

Had everything gone according to plan, the above title would instead read Kyte @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds and Her Name Is Calla would be reduced to a mere paragraph on the support bands. Mind you, had everything gone to plan, there would also be a paragraph on the band Glissando, and I would be around £7 better off. I suppose you can never truly plan for these things.

The Brudenell Social Club is a lovely venue in a quiet area of Leeds on the other side of the university from the station (aha, I now know three places in Leeds! My knowledge grows). The atmosphere was lovely, and I was impressed by their choice of background music such as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Joanna Newsom - two fantastic artists - which immediately put me in a good mood. Its problem lies in its location; a good 15-minute bus ride and 5-10 minute walk altogether from the station, this meant leaving at 10.40pm to be on time for the last train back home to Sheffield. Needless to say, I was not pleased upon arriving and discovering the stage times: Kyte, the (original) sole reason I was in Leeds this evening, were due on at 10.15pm. This gave me 25 minutes maximum seeing them; as it happened, I saw only 5 minutes of their set, due to them taking forever to take drum kits apart and put them back together again.

My complaint on behalf of the two of us from Sheffield is this: Glissando, the first support act, had pulled out due to illness. As they were due on at 8.15pm, this meant we had a good 45 minutes' waiting time before Fran Rodgers, the second support, took the stage. If they had moved Fran's set back by even 15 minutes, it would have cut the milling around beforehand as well as getting Kyte on earlier, and giving me a chance to see this beautiful band to their full potential.

However, it was not to be, and out of four acts I had been looking forward to, I came away having witnessed only two (Kyte do not count as I only saw 5 minutes and the sound was very badly done): Fran Rodgers, and Her Name Is Calla.

I thought Fran Rodgers did very well; she was obviously nervous and, compared especially to Her Name Is Calla, slightly out-of-place, however she held her own. Her MySpace page lists Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart and Nick Drake among her influences, and with a list like that, my expectations were high. She did not disappoint; her use of looping both vocal tracks and what I think was a zither added interest to her performance, and her voice was strong and beautiful, perfectly suited to her style, throughout. New song I See Horses Flee was especially good; I felt the same whilst hearing her play it as I sometimes do whilst listening to Drake, and from me (a self-confessed Drake obsessive who is nevertheless working on her addiction and slowly replacing him with, ahem, Will Oldham) this is praise indeed. My only criticism would be that at times her habit of switching to contrasting parts of her music, such as from strong and loud to soft and reflective within the same song, was somewhat jilted, and she could have benefitted from maybe lengthening a few songs to make this transition more smooth. However, overall I very much enjoyed her perfomance and I believe her music is definetely something to watch out for in the years to come: her fragile and beautiful songs, The Lighthouse an especially good example of this, are something any fan of the above male singer-songwriters, and I would add the female Marissa Nadler to that, will love.

Her Name Is Calla were, to put it simply, fantastic. They threw themselves into their perfomance with seemingly boundless energy, and managed to hold this through to the very end without faltering, even with a broken guitar string and cramped (for a 6-piece band) stage. I had only heard their album The Heritage a few times before the gig, however they played 4 of the 6 tracks from it, for which I was very pleased. Their sound was strong throughout, and the singer/guitarist/sometime pianist, Tom Morris, held the stage with the presence of a seasoned showman; he was completely at ease in his position and brought the band together skillfully. With such diverse instruments as drums, cello and trombone, this was clearly not an easy task, however I have nothing but praise for Her Name Is Calla's performance. Wren, Nylon, and Rebirth were all perfomed with gusto and the pained, almost pleading vocal style of the latest Silver Mt. Zion offering crossed with iLiKETRAiNS (see below). Meanwhile, members switche between tones and instruments seemlessly, especially in the case of drum/synth player Adam Weikert.

Closer New England was something else entirely. Joking that they had renamed this song iLiKETRAiNS due to its, ahem, surprising similarities with the vocal style and funeral-like beat of the aforementioned band, they threw themselves into the challenge of matching the other's power and intensity. I have to say, they managed it threefold. Building up over its epic 9 minutes, and including hasty introductions of not one, but two more drummers (bassist and trumpeter both turned drummer towards the end), the energy expended on stage in the last three or four minutes of New England was a sight indeed, and Morris ended it magnificently with a feedback marathon and extended full-band improvisation, climaxing in perfectly in-time drumbeats from the three percussionists. It was a sight worth seeing, and an intense live perfomance I shall certainly not forget in a hurry.

As well as Morris' vocals being spot-on, I have to put in a word for those of trumpeter Sophie Barnes, trombonist Thomas Corah and bassist Michael Love as well. The harmonies they provided were spot-on throughout, and the perfect addition to the music.

If I had to pick one hole in Her Name Is Calla's performance, something which is surprisingly hard to do, I would have to say that David Dhonau, the cellist, was not given nearly enough stage space or even lighting to be much of an influence on their overall performance. This is indeed a shame, as his playing adds a lot to Her Name Is Calla's sound. However, they were cramped on stage already and, as a cellist myself, I know how much room you need - there was simply not enough stage space for them all to have a spot in the limelight.

It was a shame I had to leave so soon after Kyte set up, and the one thing that will remain with me from what I saw is their beautiful fairy lights draped around the drumkit. However, I will hopefully manage to catch a proper set next time they play, and shall being pestering them for a gig in Sheffield sometime soon.

All that remains for me to say is, do have a listen to both Kyte's self-titled mini-album and Her Name Is Calla's The Heritage, as they are both wonderful bands who deserve your time and your ears.

And it is now 2 in the morning, and I shall say goodnight!
[photos are mine. copyright me, and, i suppose, the respecitive bands. get your own!]

Where people look like ants.

2008-07-15T23:56:00.000+01:00

Seperation from humanity can be cathartic at times, and people-watching is always good. The sense of disorientation I experienced after taking the above photograph and rejoining the rest of Broomhill's population on the ground was a new experience for me; the sudden juxtaposition and contrast of scale was quite intriguing. Seeing the world from a new perspecitive, with the freedom to look down unnoticed (seriously, how many people look at the roofs of shops?) can diminish your worries along with the scale of life. Whilst those on the ground below are still rushing about their daily business, still confined by society and the daily monotony of routine, a few minutes spent with a couple of good friends in a situation unlinked to any of the worries of everyday life is golden. In the last few weeks of school, this became an almost-daily habit for us; to escape from school for an hour or so over lunch, to a place from which Sheffield sprawled magnificently out into the distance and people diminished to ant-like creatures scurrying about on the ground. The concious act of seperation in itself is something freeing; the ability to observe life passing by without you even more so.

Speaking of which, we are all really so very tiny, as somebody from a forum I frequent pointed out. I found this link both calming and scary. Scary in that, not being the most scientifically-minded of people, I have never before taken the time out to consider the scale of the universe in such a calculated way before. The realisation that we are so, so much smaller than even those tiny people seen from the roof of Somerfields in Broomhill however reassured me that nothing in life is truly worth worrying about - who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?^{[Luke 12:25]} - and in the end, if you can't take the time out of your day to laugh at the ridiculousness of how important humanity believes itself to be despite its comparative scale in the universe, what can you do?

Seeing the ordinary as the extraordinary.

2008-07-14T22:47:00.004+01:00

Or, photography should be more like parkour.

A while ago, whilst mindlessly trawling the internet one rainy afternoon, I stumbled upon this video:

Parkour is a sport that has always fascinated me as something I would never be able to do. It is also something I have learnt a fair amount about since one of my friends (who currently partakes in 9 different types of martial art, and counting) took it up as a hobby a couple of years ago. It was not until seeing this video that I understood the reason for his constant raving about it.

Parkour, when done properly, is not merely teenagers running around town jumping off walls. Of course, there is an element of this, but parkour is inherently an entirely new way of seeing the world; a way of interpreting the diverse and contrasting features of the urban landscape and utilising them in ways of which their creators would never have dreamed.

Steps are not just steps. Walls are not just walls. A railing is not just a railing. Ce n'est pas une pipe - thank you Mr. Magritte.

It is my belief that, in this the 21st century, with digital SLRs almost as prolific as cameraphones, photography has lost something of this mysterious and creative nature. Nowadays, with entry-level SLRs selling for under £300, it is possible for anybody on a decent wage and / or with the useful capability of being able to save money, to purchase one. And this is by no means a bad thing: photography is no longer the exclusive hobby of the elite and wealthy, as it once was. On the contrary, it is now open to all, and those whose creativity was before limited by lack of finace find the gap closing ever further. It is, in short, a great development and one for which I am most definitely thankful.

However, herein lies our problem. With cameras now omnipresent wherever we go, seeing the world through a lens has become for many part of their everyday routine. A camera is now a second pair of eyes rather than a tool to extend the capabilities of our first pair: we look, we record what we see with a simple press of the shutter, we move on. As such, the careful planning, creative way of seeing the world and attention to technical detail that was so important in the days of film and 5x4 photography has been abandoned in favour of fully automatic shooting. Nowadays, cameras boast such gimmicks as touchscreen LCDs, in-camera monochrome modes, and 'smile recognition' features. Needless to say, many of these are unnecessary in the extreme.

As my friend Al, on exploring my digital SLR a few weeks ago, commented: "Oh, well that's cheating - you can just put it on auto and take a photo that looks professional straight away". Sadly, he was correct. The loss of technical knowledge, of the difference between f/3.5 and f/16, of the advantages of wide-angle as opposed to telephoto, of the meaning of ISO, is also the loss of a unique and truly beautiful art form. Photography can only be added to by the gain of technical knowledge.

Of course, photography - and technical photography at that - is by no means in decline, and this is naturally a good thing. However, it is my belief that we have come to rely too heavily on in-camera computers and digital manipulation, and too little on visualising a scene in a truly creative way. A good example of this occured in March of this year, when I took a trip to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The experience and psychological effects aside (they may be the subject of a later blog - who knows?), my History teacher seemed hugely surprised that I, carrying a mid-range, 7.1mp point-and-shoot Canon IXUS 70, was able to take more aesthetically pleasing and topically pointed photographs than he, brandishing a domineering Canon EOS 40d, was able to. Now, this is not an exercise in megalomania but merely an illustration of the importance of seeing the world through creative eyes, and taking nothing for granted. Ordinary is not ordinary, it is new and exciting and artistic if only you look at it in the right way. Creativity cannot be created by technology, only the human mind - however, there is a prevailing danger among many people to believe that it can.

To return to the original illustration. The participants in Sheffield Parkour do not just see a city whilst walking around this town. Instead, they see an endless playground, something to be explored and conquered in an infinite combination of possibilites. Photography, in its purest and most creative form, should be no less than this. The goal of each individual who dares call themself a photographer should be to interpret the world in their own unique way, and through capturing this on film or on the screen, show to others a perspective on life they would not otherwise ever have thought of.

Photography should captivate and engage, it should inform and inspire, it should push the boundaries and experiment endlessly. But above all, it should be art. And art is not automatic.

To conclude, here are some examples of what I mean, as a reward for those of you who managed to read this far.

Seamus Travers

A photographer I stumbled across via deviantART, he has a brilliant gift of capturing the comedy in everyday life. The image above this text is entitled He Needs To Shave, and it is this lighthearted take on an ordinary situation, and the ability to spot such a moment, that I love about Travers' photography.

You can see his gallery here.

Erdal Kinaci

Erdal Kinaci is one of my heroes in the photography world. His use of wide-angle lenses means his work always has both a distinctive style and that beautiful touch of the surreal and distorted that it takes a true talent to reveal.

His gallery is here.

Michal Giedrojc

No explanation needed: this image defines the concept of seeing art in the mundane.

His gallery is here.

I would strongly recommend a visit to each of these people's galleries. Of course, the three images are copyrighted under their respective artist, and any illicit reproduction or failure to acknowledge them will result in you being hunted down and may incite legal action.

Thank you, and goodnight.

I believe an introduction is in order.

2008-07-14T19:32:00.006+01:00

This is me:

I'm Miriam. Welcome to my blog thing.