...when there isn't enough sunshine for it? This is what it looks like today:
And that's what it has looked like for most of the last 2 weeks too.
I should explain. My new photographic project has the title of "Buildings and Light" and is supposed to have lots of interesting pictures of buildings with different sort of light on them. Bold shapes, strong shadows, showing off different aspects of the buildings. And we've had: no sunshine. So, I've taken some pictures in dull light and some at night, and I'm desperate for some strong sunshine.
I took the one below during a brief moment of sunshine in Aberystwyth last week. It has some of the elements I am after, with strong colours and both light and shadow, but it's not really satisfactory because it's too "flat" and the composition lacks interest. I need to try it from different angles and with a few different exposures. And of course, sunshine is required to bring the colours out!
We get some pretty scary waves here (the above is not an example), but the wave being ridden by the surfer in this clip below is in an entirely different league altogether. The sheer size of this wave just numbs my mind's ability to cope with it.
I don't know how dangerous this is as I'm not a surfer, but it doesn't look like something you'd get into without a lot of nerve and a great deal of experience!
... this is brought to you by special request of Kelly (AmethystLady). Here is my hot off the presses cover version of "Baby One More Time", originally sung by Britney Spears. I pitched it down a bit but it's still a little too high for my voice. You don't want to know how many times I had to do this before I got it this close to right!
Well it's Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow...
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
til you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train.
-- Tom Waits
Blurring the difference between music, poetry and performance art there, I think.
Cheers, Tom (a different one)
P.S. That's the last Tom Waits for the moment - I don't want to get boring!
Mrs Thatch. I'm sure even youngsters will have heard of the first British female Prime Minister, and one of the hardest and most uncompromising ones she was too. She broke the back of the Trade Union movement, presided over turning the country into a "great car economy" and sold off public utilities for cash. But the one thing the evil Thatch refused to even consider was selling off the Post Office. And now that's what Labour are going to do, even though they claim it's only a portion of it.
My distrust for both Tory and Labour is total. Thatcher destroyed Conservatism and Blair destroyed Socialism. Between the two of them they have slaughtered politics in this country and distrust for all the dirty, cheating MPs is massive and widespread. There is no longer any confidence or trust in politicians and they don't even seem to realise it. The worst part is that there seems no way to change it. If the Tories win the next General Election, as seems likely at the moment, nothing will change. The same playground bickering will go on, the same lies will be told, the same stupidity, mismanagement and hypocrisy will reign supreme. Cameron will sweep in on a wave of enthusiasm and 6 months later that will be gone and we'll be back to the same old nonsense again. And then in 10 or 15 years it'll be Labour again.
Labour and Tory now are as indistinguishable as the 2 parties in America are. They both stand for nothing except vote-winning, have no morals, no pride and no responsibility other than winning the next election. They'll tell whatever lies are needed to win.
We desperately need radical political change and it seems unlikely that we will get it. A huge black cloud has been growing over us for some time and soon it's contents will drop on us and we're all going to get very very wet.
I was talking about cover versions earlier, so here is another one from me. This time it's "Tango Til They're Sore" by Tom Waits from his great album Rain Dogs. "Play it like a midget's bar-mitzvah" was one of his musical instructions. I do not even attempt to follow this instruction!
I did this in 2 takes - on the first one I messed up the lyrics to the 3rd verse. This one also has a couple of small mistakes in it, but nothing too serious. If I tried it another 10 or 12 times I could probably eliminate the little errors, but I think it's OK as it is. Some time, I'll do a version with a load of percussion and some other instruments on it but for now the simple acoustic version is what I've done. This song is a staple of his live shows, and he plays in it in a huge variety of styles.
This is mine:
This is Tom Waits' original:
Well ya play that Tarantella
All the hounds they start to roar
The boys all go to hell
And then the Cubans hit the floor
They drive along the pipeline
They tango till they're sore
They take apart their nightmares
And they leave them by the door.
Let me fall out the window
With confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better
On a blanket by the stairs
I'll tell you all my secrets
But I lie about my past
So send me off to bed forever more.
Make sure they play my theme song
I guess Daisies will have to do
Just get me to New Orleans
And paint shadows on the pews
Turn the spit on that pig
Kick the drum and let me down
Put my clarinet beneath your bed
Till I get back in town.
Make sure she's all in calico
And the colour of a doll
Wave the flag on Cadillac day
And a skillet on the wall
Cut me a switch or hold you breath
Till the sun goes down
Write my name on the hood
Send me off to another town.
The most covered song of all time is Happy Birthday, which first appeared in print in 1912 and was written by Patty and Mildred Hill for their schoolchildren. Copyright in this song is owned by the Warner company, and doesn't expire until 2030. Technically, all public performances of Happy Birthday should result in a royalty fee being paid to Warner.
The most recorded song ever is Yesterday by The Beatles with over 3000, although the song with most versions currently "in print" is Eleanor Rigby.
The best cover version is a matter of taste. I agree with many commentators that one of the best is Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower". It has topped several polls. Some people rather like The Beatles' cover of Twist And Shout.
So what's your favourite cover?
I'm going for Elmore James' cover of Robert Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom", but I reserve the right to change my mind at any time:
The pictures above were both taken long after the sun had disappeared using long exposures - about 2 minutes each. They are both slightly blurred because the clouds moved during the exposure.
Do you like either or both of these pictures at all?
Sometimes when it looks like there is a storm coming in, it never happens. Yesterday was a glorious day until about 4PM when a thin black line appeared in the sky and then rapidly grew into the thick one in the above picture...and then disappeared again. I thought we were going to get drenched, but it never happened. And this morning it's back.
Talking of bands, I'm considering going to the Download festival this year, which is 2 weeks before Glastonbury which I am definitely going to. There are lots of good bands on, including The Prodigy, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and this lot - ZZ TOP:
(you've been warned, and note: no photograph accompanies this post!)
A couple of hours ago I let my dogs out into the garden in case they needed to do any...business. I left them for 5 minutes or so and when I popped onto the balcony to check on them, Shep was in the characteristic doggie "doing the business" crouch. So I let them back in again. Just now, I let them out again and after a few minutes went to check on them. Shep was in the same place but this time he was chewing something and yes: it was the result of his previous...business...that he was chewing. So I've left him outside this time, the dirty dirty doggie.
“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour” - William Blake
So, I go to make some coffee and what do I see out of the window but 3 BT Openreach vans parked around my lamppost. Not 1 nor 2, but 3. There is a man up the pole fiddling with my cable. So, I look at my router - no lights. I check the phone - no tone. Hmm, I think - that's a coincidence. So off I trot outside:
"Excuse me, could the fact that my telephone and internet have just stopped working be related to what you are doing"?
Young lad aged about 12 replies "Could be..."
I stand, impassively, hoping for more. The silence lasted about 10 seconds when finally an old man appears from the other side of the van:
"We're replacing broken cables. What number are you"?
I tell him and he promises to come and let us know when they are finished.
So after this tale of youthful unhelpfulness and elderly assistance and respect, one simple question remains: why didn't they tell me my line was being replaced? They were no more than about 20 seconds walk from my front door and there were 3 vans full of them.
BT, eh? Still, they did indeed come and tell me when they were done and our broadband is now faster so I'm not complaining!
"We are pleased to tell you that there is no truth in claims that the Government is planning to introduce a requirement for entertainment venues to fit noise control devices.
Each Local Authority Licensing Authority considers every live music application on its merits, and decisions are made entirely by them. However, the Licensing Act 2003 does not allow mandatory conditions for live music to be imposed across the board. It would not be possible to impose such a condition without a change in the law and such a change is not, and never has been, on the Government’s agenda.
There is also no legal requirement under health and safety legislation for entertainment venues to have noise control devices fitted, nor is there any proposal.
The Government is acutely aware of the contribution that music makes to our culture and we remain committed to a vibrant and flourishing creative sector, of which live music plays an essential part."
I think many people take pleasure in just sitting down and watching the world go by. Some people sit down in a cafe with a coffee and people-watch, some people sit before a nice view and watch the light change and some people even sit in deck chairs on motorway bridges and watch the cars go past. This latter one I really don't understand. Why would you want to drive to a motorway with a flask and sandwiches to watch the cars?
Even animals do it, as you can see from the picture. I have no idea what Dan was staring at, but he did it intently for several minutes until he decided to retire to the sofa with his pipe and slippers.
Here is the nice cheery song "Watching The World Go By" by Dean Martin, accompanied by a contrasting video:
Neil Young has two radically different on-stage personae: acoustic-guitar-playing folk hero, and electric-guitar-playing rock god. He is phenomenally good at both. I’ll deal with his rock music another time.
(Note: the video is unrelated to the music!)
He is a true master of the acoustic guitar. Some of his parts sound reasonably straightforward until you try and copy them, when you soon realise that there is far more going on than meets the eye. He sometimes plays with a plectrum and sometimes with his fingers, but whichever he does a strong sense of rhythm is maintained, as you can hear in the above song Sugar Mountain. He generally plays with an alternating bass, augmenting it with multiple hammer-on’s and pull-off’s and combines this with a mixture of strummed chords and runs. His guitar parts are complicated and he sings at the same time.
He has written literally hundreds of songs in a career lasting since 1965. Sugar Mountain comes from that year and was in my view his first great song. It is simple, deep and touching and, like many of his songs, very personal. It’s about growing up and losing childhood innocence, and it’s believed that Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game was written as a response to it.
He has enthusiastically embraced new musical genres including punk and grunge, and he is the proud owner of Hank Williams’ guitar. He excels at singing, guitar playing, song writing and has even directed several films.
If I, in mythical Robert (or Tommy) Johnson style, sold my soul to the devil to gain guitar expertise, I’d want to be able to play like Neil Young.
--------------
Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the barkers and the coloured balloons,
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
Its so noisy at the fair
But all your friends are there
And the candy floss you had
And your mother and your dad.
There's a girl just down the aisle,
Oh, to turn and see her smile.
You can hear the words she wrote
As you read the hidden note.
Now you're underneath the stairs
And you're giving back some glares
To the people who you met
And its your first cigarette.
Now you say you're leaving home
cause you want to be alone.
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're finding out its real?
Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the barkers and the coloured balloons,
You cant be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
A few weeks ago, I asked my photography instructor what the great American landscape photographer Ansel Adams would have done if he lived in Wales. This was the reply I got: "He'd probably have carried his tripod to the top of the hill, decided the light wasn't good enough and then carried it down again"
That was an answer to a slightly different question than I intended, but all the same it does contain an important fact about photography which is that you are photographing light rather than objects and if the light isn't good enough then you should come back when it is. Planning and watching and waiting for the right moment are crucial to success.
There is another aspect to the above reply. Ansel Adams was very single-minded and a total perfectionist. He went somewhere with a specific idea in his mind of what he wanted to achieve and if it wasn't possible he simply wouldn't take any pictures. However, he had two restrictions that I don't have. Firstly, he used a large format film camera and taking unnecessary shots was a waste of both money and the time needed in the studio to develop and print the picture. Secondly, he had very specific intentions, e.g. I will photograph that mountain with the moon rising over it just as the sun comes up. When I am using my digital camera the first restriction means nothing as I can take hundreds of shots at no cost. The second restriction also doesn't apply as I'm a learner and in every situation in which I find myself it's a challenge to find something to photograph that will produce an interesting result.
This brings me to the title of this post. When it's very grey as it is today, it's a fun challenge and a learning experience to find a worthwhile subject. I can focus on close or small things, try and capture fast-moving things, blur things with a long exposure, or just try to make an interesting composition. To be honest, I haven't achieved this with the above picture. The clouds are fairly nice and the reflection in the wet sand adds interest, but it's fundamentally a dull picture with a lacklustre composition.
Ron Haeberle took the picture of the women and children below in My Lai, just before American soldiers shot and killed them. They were among more than 500 unarmed women, children and old men massacred by American troops on March 16, 1968.
(Photograph by Ron Haeberle. Copyright Getty Images 1969)
“Guys were about to shoot these people. I yelled ‘Hold it!” and I shot my pictures. M16’s opened up and from the corner of my eye I saw bodies falling but I did not turn to look”
Haeberle kept the film undeveloped for about a year, his guilt at being complicit in the deaths growing stronger all the time until he couldn't take it any more, developed the pictures and sent them to a newspaper. The resulting wave of horror was a major factor in America eventually withdrawing from Vietnam. This photograph actually changed history. I think it demonstrates the power of photography rather well.
Here is my newest youtube upload, the classic song Terraplane Blues by Robert Johnson. I'd be most interested in any opinions of it, whether good or bad.
These are definitely seagulls, but I have no idea what sort:
These are definitely Oystercatchers.
A few years ago, there were probably only a handful of birds I could recognise and I often got those wrong: A Sparrow was a Dunnock, A Housemartin was a Swallow etc. I was pretty sure of my Blue Tits though. Now, I am a little better. In another couple of decades I might be up to 20 or so and be able to confidently say things like "Ooh, did you see that redstart?" or "Gosh, you don't see many goldfinches round here". But not yet.
I went to the Ffresh film festival in Aberystwyth yesterday and I’ll be going again later on today. It features talks from people in the industry and various seminars and workshops but the thing I’ve been focussing on is short films. International ones, documentary ones, animated ones, student ones and experimental ones. I saw 18 of them yesterday and I hope to see about the same again today.
It’s quite amazing how much depth, power and emotion can be fitted into a film that’s only 10 minutes or even less long, and this underscores the power of film as a medium to communicate to people on an emotional level. A partially animated documentary about people living in derelict slums in China was both haunting and moving, and a short documentary about homeless people in Australia actually brought a tear to my eye. About half of them I liked and the other half I was fairly indifferent to. That’s pretty good going for me as I am rather picky!
One thing I did notice though was that the student films seem to include guns a lot. Come on guys and gals, there are other ways of causing shock and creating tension!
...I hope it looks as beautiful as it did for me tonight:
(click the pictures to enlarge them)
The pictures were taken at approximately 5 minute intervals from more or less the same spot (I'd moved a little following the wandering of the dogs, but not much). They haven't been touched up in any way, although the bottom two were both slightly cropped.
Ynyslas (uh-nuss-lass) in Welsh translates as "blue island" in English. The above 3 pictures are distant views of it taken at different times of day. The quality is a bit poor on the night-time one as I hand-held it and should have used a tripod.
Here are a couple of pictures that have no sea in them at all. I took them yesterday on a drive inland. They were both taken near the little village of Bontgoch, and they both get larger if you click on them.
Tommy Emmanuel is one of the very best guitarists in the world. Here is a clip of him just enjoying himself playing a fairly jazzed up medley of Beatles songs. His playing gets faster and more intense as this clip proceeds and it's worth watching to the end if you can spare the 6 minutes needed to be amazed at his skill.
I, man, am regal - a German am I
Never odd or even
If I had a hi-fi
Madam, I'm Adam
Too hot to hoot
No lemons, no melon
Too bad I hid a boot
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Warsaw was raw
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Rise to vote, sir
Do geese see god?
"Do nine men interprite?" "Nine men," I nod
Rats live on no evil star
Won't lovers revolt now?
Race fast, safe car
Pa's a sap
Ma is as selfish as I am
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
No devil lived on
Lonely Tylenol
Not a banana baton
No "x" in "Nixon"
O, stone, be not so
O Geronimo, no minor ego
"Naomi," I moan
"A Toyota's a Toyota"
A dog, a panic in a pagoda
Oh no! Don Ho!
Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!
Senile felines
Now I see bees I won
UFO tofu
We panic in a pew
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
God! A red nugget! A fat egg under a dog!
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
No, not that sort of Prom that they have in America but this sort:
We can see the above promenade (which doubles as the sea wall) from our living room, and in summer it is quite busy with people strolling up and down, taking in the views, the sun and the sea air. Now in the depth of winter, it is used mostly by dog-walkers and particularly enthusiastic sightseers. By the time Easter gets here, it will doubtless be reasonably busy again.
Molly our cat and Dan are both sat on Helen's lap quietly. But if you know your animals, it's easy to see that there are problems. Dan is fixedly staring away from Molly and it's clear he isn't happy (he knows he isn't allowed to go for her), and Molly is...for the moment... studiously ignoring his presence. But just a few seconds later, major trouble erupted. Molly attacked Dan, Dan defended himself and there was miaouing and growling. Molly backed down, and jumped down. Dan is a very jealous dog: if another pet gets too much attention, he tries to get in the way and get it for himself, so it's no surprise that he is between Molly and Helen in the picture.
While the rest of the country got snow, we just got a freezing cold East wind for 2 days and then the above. Where is our snow, it's not fair! A few flakes that haven't settled, and that's it. There was me hoping for a snowy landscape to photograph and I don't get it. Wibble.
The best I managed was this picture of distant snow at the extreme limit of my camera's range (click it to bigify):
Cheers, Tom.
Stop Press: I wrote the above last night. We have a little snow this morning so after a pint of tea I shall go see what Mr Camera can capture...
Although it leads the betting at the moment, I'll be quite surprised if Slumdog Millionaire wins the Best Film Oscar. The Academy don’t often pick “foreign” films, and the last proper "foreign" film to win the Best Film Oscar (rather than Best Foreign Film) was The Last Emperor in 1987 (Ignoring LOTR:ROTK which might as well have been American). I'll be surprised if it doesn't carry away at least a couple though, perhaps Cinematography or screenplay. I’m fairly confident it will get at least 1 sound/music award too - it is up for 5 of them!
I’m not going to give much away about the film as it’s so new. Just this: it both looks and sounds fantastic and moves along at a lively pace. Helen and I both enjoyed it a lot. It’s well worth a trip to the cinema if you fancy one.
The title of this post is a complete story in 6 words by Ernest Hemingway. He supposedly wrote it in response to a bet by someone in a bar and he won the bet. 6 words only is an extreme form of so-called flash fiction.
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time -- Alan Moore Longed for him. Got him. Shit. -- Margaret Atwood With bloody hands, I say good-bye -- Frank Miller Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses -- Richard Powers The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly -- Orson Scott Card Bush told the truth. Hell froze -- William Gibson Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back -- David Brin
Three sons, eleven cats, and Yvonne. Slow lane. Fast lane. Hard shoulder. Pass the bottle before clarity returns Four Weddings, Three kids, then cancer. Knight on white charger never showed. Aspirations compromised by procrastination, then children. Can I start wearing purple yet?
The great singer and guitarist John Martyn died a few days ago. I would love to have been able to sing his simply beautiful song "May You Never" in his honour, but it is simply too difficult for me. So here instead is my recording of "Over The Hill":
This is John himself singing "May You Never" from the Old Grey Whistle Test:
After watching the film "In Bruges" the other night, Helen and I were talking about the capacity that films can have to make you root for the baddies and hope that they will win. A character can be a violent multiple murderer yet with the right script, and appropriate acting and direction, we can feel sympathetic towards these scummy protagonists. So how is this feat achieved?
It requires a careful balancing act by the film-makers. We need to be shown the bad things that our protagonists have done, but it must be done in such a way that a sympathetic reading is possible, for example by showing them as remorseful or regretful, or by showing that they lacked choices or were victims of circumstance. They can be softened by showing them as caring about someone or something else, and this is often achieved by having a love interest. But perhaps the most important thing is to show that the real baddies, the antagonists, are even worse; they aren't just killers, they actually enjoy it or do it particularly brutally and remorselessly. There are also the more subtle things such as music, lighting, editing, camera positioning and movement, all of which can act together to change our perceptions.
The more films I watch, the more admiration I get for the skill of film-makers to take us out of our seats into another place, often a strange and alien place, and make it believable. Even tiny little things they do affect us, often without us being aware of it: a glance, a slow pan, an appropriately positioned prop. All of these little things can build into a glorious whole.
