Took today off, mainly to take Karen to an exam, but also because I damn deserve it damn you. Had three hours to kill while examinations took place so went into Reading and experimented with the concept of NOT BUYING STUFF because I have a fucking mortgage now. Lovingly stroked some nice design books an CDs then spent a couple of hours taking photos. I like the idea of restricted creativity, usually I’d visit somewhere I actively want to go where I expect to find some decent shots. I forced myself to try and find something interesting to shoot in Reading town centre (been there? dull as fuck). Quite happy with the result.

Full set is here.

A monotonous task captured for posterity?

Soooo…. an explanation: I had to package up 200 History of Guns CDs and send them out to reviewers. An exceptionally dull task, actually an exceptionally frustrating task as I kept running out of stuff (ink/envelopes/etc). For the most part this task takes the form of making great piles of stuff, doing something to each item in that pile then moving them onto the next pile (add address sticker -> move to next pile -> add airmail sticker -> move to next pile, etc etc). In the interests of making a boring job ever so slightly less boring, I stuck my camera on a tripod and took shots at random intervals. I then fed the pictures into Edit Studio, the result looked quite pleasant so I did a set of 3 credit sequences (Intro, middle, end) using the same technique, stitched it all together in Edit Studio and uploaded it to the web.

This was completely unplanned, no retakes, no colour correction, no lighting, just hacked up as I went along.

I used a Nikon D40X for all the shots. It worked well for the credits but not massively well for the actual time lapse as if you don’t use the remote mode for a couple of minutes it switches back to normal mode and you need to then use the shutter release on the body, which of course causes a little camera shake/position change. I assume I can adjust this but didn’t plan in advance.

The credits were done using printed A4 sheets taped to a cardboard box on the patio with me scribbling over the text with a marker in chunks, I gave myself unpleasantly sore elbows from lying on the concrete (lack of planning). I like the credits, I’d assumed the sunny day would have given more light than it did (lack of planning) but it’s all legible.

All editing was done in Edit Studio which I still adore, I still have not found the cash/motivation to pay Adobe for a video editing suite, although I have done a few bits of paid video editing lately, Edit Studio has managed nicely thankyouverymuch.

As this is the internet and anyone can comment (and probably will), I feel I must add that this was NOT a professional piece at all, it was a bit of fun to take the edge off a thankless task. There are many parts of it (all of it?) that could be done better/in a different manner but this was more about the process than the result.

It was never intended as an advert for History Of Guns or for public consumption but I’m fairly happy with the result (as far as unplanned noodling goes). I added the HOG bits as they seemed appropriate (and otherwise I’d have little to say on the credits). I’m a little disappointed I didn’t include the entire HOG press push, I’d already posted about 100 copies and had packaged about 60 copies before I started taking shots.

More soon, I appear to have a backlog of recent creative STUFF I’ve failed to upload. I keep feeling the desire to write articles about random subjects but trying to reign it in and focus on notes on my own creative works. May actually update the WP template at some point as well.

A while back Scott discovered a weird, slightly creepy and incredibly intriguing sculpture by a run down barn in the middle of a field somewhere between Henley and Reading. He took me along to see it a couple of times and we tookl a few photos. We did a bit of research (well googling) into it but couldn’t find any information on it or where it came from. I considered knocking on the door of the nearby farmhouse but chickened out. It didn’t help that the location reminded me of far too many horror films, a half collapsed barn and a yard full of rusted cars.

Scott, being more organised than myself, uploaded his photos to Google Earth and recently someone commented on one of them with an explanation of the sculpture:

“The Nuba Embrace” Several people have asked about the sculpture that has appeared by Copyhold Barn; it is called “The Nuba Embrace” and is by John Buckley. John created the sculpture on his return from a visit to the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan in 2000- 2001 where he was a guest of the Nuba Rehabilitation, Relief and Development Organisation (N.R.R.D.O.) during the time of the genocide. He witnessed first hand a mass attempt to wipe out a cultural identity through ethnic cleansing, slavery and fierce attacks on the traditional homelands. More recently there has been a fragile cease fire in the Nuba Mountains (the same agreement that is currently barely holding in Darfur) and when John returned to the region in January this year he says that, despite the suffering, he experienced a sense of resistance living in everyone he met. John finds it difficult to talk about his work (like most artists) but hopes that the sculpture asks the question “What is the future for the Nuba people?” and reminds us that in this ever-shrinking world we are never far away from what is happening in places such as the Nuba Mountains.

So, that’s good to know. We’re not sure if this is the final piece or if it’s a test piece for a final piece resting elsewhere. It seems to get cleaned up and repainted on occasion (although this may be our imaginations/the changing light), it’s not signposted in any way and unless you are looking for it you are unlikely to stumble across it.

Scott’s LJ Post

Photo on Scott’s website

My pics of it on Flickr (as ever, lacking any sort of editing due to lack of hours)

After far more faffing about that should be necessary my new camera (Nikon D40x) is finally with me and usable, we’re off to Worthing this afternoon so will attempt to get practice in.

Some photos of Earth Loop Recall playing at The Fly on Monday. Gig was excellent, I managed to miss all the support acts although given how cramped the gig room was I wouldn’t have enjoyed ELR so mucg by the time they came on if I’d been in there from the start. Photos all taken on my Sony DSC F717, I’ve not edited them at all as time is short and I’m relatively happy with them as they are, I was there to watch the band not really take photos so these were just randomly snapped at points during the gig.

Due to the lighting I didn’t manage to get any of Jo, Jason or Dan.

Ben:

I tried some long exposures…

Tim:

Ben being a bit scary:

Ben accidentally slashed his hand on his guitar during the set, you can see a smear of blood on his cheek:

Earth Loop Recall @ The Fly - The complete set.