It’s about time I made one of my quirky little videos about one of my favourite local spots, the iconic White Nancy on top of Kerridge Hill overlooking Bollington.
This video constitutes something new for me, it is the first (to go online) which actually features a sort of reflexive monologue, it also has a few unique technical features which attempt to off-set the very lofi characteristics of the video from a Sony W50 P and S camera. I have recorded the monologue sound direct to the computer with a high quality system then spent hours re-syncing it with the video, loads of trimming and ‘nudging’ was required. Unfortunately, a couple of shots were lost (ha – accidentally deleted) so there are a few unintentional jumps in the flow. The idea was just to make homage to White Nancy in my own inimitable poetic style. I do like to create something with technology that is less than perfect and where some degree of technical coaxing and invention is required — and this is very definitely an end product of that kind of activity.
New Gallery format I have also updated / reverted my new gallery page to old-fashioned html page displays for the large versions of the photos rather than having them come up in java lightbox effects. It has taken the best part of two years for me to realise that lightbox was preventing my images from getting into the google image search results. Hopefully this new (old) approach will do wonders, it also enables me to write much more in depth descriptions / narratives on my photos which is always a good thing.
Oliver Wood in Prestbury Living Magazine
Prestbury Living magazine has done a feature on me this month, essentially following on from a number of photo contributions. I provided all of the content and most of it has been printed faithfully which is very good. I believe I may be the first and possibly the last person to have an article published in PL that mentions the concept of existentialism, at least in an artistic context haha. At least it should go some way to convincing folks that the strange guy who takes hundreds of odd photos of the area doesn’t have some kind of dangerous personality disorder — probably haha. The editor asked me to define my artistic motives and you can see my reply on my other blog here:Prestbury Living Feature
I tried to do some more night work over the weekend. This time I decided to go up to the fields on the west side of the village but unfortunately had to abort the project in mid flow because it was just too cold to work and I was unable to feel my fingers after about three minutes. It is impossible to operate a tripod and DSLR with gloves on by the way! Shame, because the objective was to try and get some interesting images with light painting effects under a bright full moon and clear sky — hence no sodium glare.
Generally I’m still struggling along with things, ex employers not paying me and the apparent scarcity of work in my field is proving to be an extremely stressful thing now! Hopefully this year will turn up more good things and progress will be a distinguishing feature of 2010 for me — lets hope so!