Unreliable information since 1972
And, slightly later than planned (been busy) the second and much less abstract photo inspired by the accounts of contact experiences from people on drugs.
Yes, it’s probably quite clear what this really sitt, but still, just unfocus your brain alightly, and watch the entities as they push through the membrane of our universe.
Or something.
I could really have done without the last week.
I have been fighting a cold all week. (And when I say fighting, what I mean is “stubbornly refusing to admit that I have a”.) What I have wanted to do all week is take a day or two off, and spend it in bed, resting in an attempt to shift it, moving only to get more tea.
What I have done is work late two nights this week, in a futile attempt to get five days work done in three, then spend two days doing heavy lifting followed by going gigging. (Thea Gilmore and The Pipettes, respectively. Reviews to follow. No, not going was not an option. Don’t be stupid.)
And tomorrow, I need to get up sharply in order to get to the post office and pick up whatever it is that they failed to deliver in the week. Bah.
Has anyone got a spare set of lungs? And possibly some sinuses that aren’t full of eldritch horror? And perhaps an immune system that can fight off colds, since this is the third one I’ve had to refuse to admit to having in only slightly more than three months?
Yes, I do want your sympathy. No, I don’t have any pride. You need to be able to inhale properly in order to have pride. The inamorata is away sunning herself in a Cretian villa (at least, I hope that’s what she’s doing) and I have no one around to give me sympathy, so hand it over.
Yeah, OK, I’m going to bed.
(stu_n, burge, mr_tom, I’m particularly looking at you…)
anw has pointed me in the direction of this: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/10/12/179
Heston Blumenthal’s scientific advisor is putting on a show at the Dana Centre in which he unravels the physics of cooking. With a special buffet. And a drink. 12th October, 13 quid a head. Sounds like fun to me.
0207 942 4040 is the number to call to book…
I would give an awful lot for a chance to go back and re-shoot this. I just need to get the light off that “S”, and the reflected chair out of the top left. That’s all. Two tiny changes, and I’d be a happy, happy man. And maybe change the exposure slightly, so the rip of the left glass isn’t quite so lost in the head. And perhaps try and get the table not to reflect the ceiling dots quite so much. And maybe tweak the composition so it’s a better portrait shape, rather than the tall and narrow thing it is…
And, and, and…
Yeah. Sorry. That’s what happens when the idea strikes, but you don’t want to make an arse of yourself farting around for twenty minutes in a public bar, taking photos that will only amuse yourself.
I post this as a reminder to myself: take your bloody time.
Via porphyre: On the left of this page, the covers of Newsweek around the world.
Out of curiosity, do any of my American pals read Newsweek?
I’ve spent a large part of the evening messing about with more of the photos from Dublin[1]. Mostly, I’ve spent the time kicking myself as I’ve come away from almost all of them thinking “If only I hadn’t cocked this detail or that detail up that’d be a really good shot”. One of them, I blew almost completely but I liked the whole idea far too much to abandon it. Had I the time and resources, I’d go back and re-shoot it, but I don’t so I shall put it on-line botched as it it, thus destroying what tiny shreds of photographic credibility I have.
Anyway, the point of this isn’t that I’m bad, it’s a) that I had a really relaxing and pleasant evening, and b) I’m struck (and pleasantly surprised) by how much more I’m shooting to capture an idea. Sometimes the idea is an abstract notion, sometimes it’s just a pretty image, but my shots are getting much more constructed. (And correspondingly more heavily post processed.) It feels like I’m actually starting to evolve something of a style[2]. Slowly, very bloody slowly, but I can see it moving on. At the moment, I’m at the stage of regurgitating my influences, trying for effect X or Y that I’ve seen other photographers produce, and sometimes I get there, and sometimes I don’t, but I feel like I’m starting to make progress again. Like I felt about writing nine or ten years back – I knew I hadn’t got to my own style yet, but I had some sense of where it would wind up. It’s the first time I’ve really felt like that about photography. Which isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed it up to now, or anything, because god knows, there’s nothing like it, just that one of my problems was that I felt like I had no style or voice of my own. I still don’t think I have, but at least now, I feel like I know what direction I’m heading in – like I’ll get there at some point.
Which is nice.
[1] Yes, I know I’ve been back a week. I’m not fast, OK?
[2] “Oooh look, blue neon lights!” does not count as a style.
I’ve spent a large part of the evening messing about with more of the photos from Dublin[1]. Mostly, I’ve spent the time kicking myself as I’ve come away from almost all of them thinking “If only I hadn’t cocked this detail or that detail up that’d be a really good shot”. One of them, I blew almost completely but I liked the whole idea far too much to abandon it. Had I the time and resources, I’d go back and re-shoot it, but I don’t so I shall put it on-line botched as it it, thus destroying what tiny shreds of photographic credibility I have.
Anyway, the point of this isn’t that I’m bad, it’s a) that I had a really relaxing and pleasant evening, and b) I’m struck (and pleasantly surprised) by how much more I’m shooting to capture an idea. Sometimes the idea is an abstract notion, sometimes it’s just a pretty image, but my shots are getting much more constructed. (And correspondingly more heavily post processed.) It feels like I’m actually starting to evolve something of a style[2]. Slowly, very bloody slowly, but I can see it moving on. At the moment, I’m at the stage of regurgitating my influences, trying for effect X or Y that I’ve seen other photographers produce, and sometimes I get there, and sometimes I don’t, but I feel like I’m starting to make progress again. Like I felt about writing nine or ten years back – I knew I hadn’t got to my own style yet, but I had some sense of where it would wind up. It’s the first time I’ve really felt like that about photography. Which isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed it up to now, or anything, because god knows, there’s nothing like it, just that one of my problems was that I felt like I had no style or voice of my own. I still don’t think I have, but at least now, I feel like I know what direction I’m heading in – like I’ll get there at some point.
Which is nice.
[1] Yes, I know I’ve been back a week. I’m not fast, OK?
[2] “Oooh look, blue neon lights!” does not count as a style.
Saw “An Inconvenient Truth” at the weekend.
Everyone’s been saying “wow, this is a really important film”. It is. Go and see it. If you’re halfway aware of environmental issues, you’ll probably know just how fucked we are anyway, but still, go see it – it’s got some interesting trivia (but by no means trivial) items that are very sobering examples, and might be of use to you in trying to articulate how fucked we are. And issues aside it’s really quite interesting to see what kind of man Al Gore is, and to think about what we might have had, if Bush hadn’t stolen the white house.
If you’re not aware of environmental issues, then you absolutely have to see this movie. If you’re uncertain about anything to do with climate change, global warming, and what needs to be done or what can be done, then go. Now.
Yeah, I know: everyone you know who has seen the movie has said something like this. Fucking Kool-aid drinkers, the lot of us. Swayed by propaganda. Gore’s just pushing his angle, same as the other side of the debate does theirs.
If you are thinking thoughts like that, then I’d ask you to please leave the planet now via your preferred exit. The rest of us would like to survive the next fifty years or so, and you’re in the way.
Go and see the film.
