rock balancing

i like Dave Gorman for a number of reasons, initialy for his debut TV series, and then his book inspired by that TV series, and more recently for his skills and passion as an amatuer photographer


i've been meaning to post some examples of his work for ages, but trying to choose the right examples to use was a challenge in itself, as he seems to have a number of recurrent themes that run through his works

much like my own photography (tho admittedly my rank of amatuer of some way below Dave's) he appears to look for the smaller details that may be overlooked, has a habit of documenting graffiti and has his own passion for serialising the obscure, such as balancing rocks and this world's unseen faces, in the same way i am tracking down stray sofas.

i thought i'd leave the rest for you to discover, but would showcase a couple of Dave Gorman's three part polaroid portraits, which convey the kind of warmth that only a polaroid can and also distorts perspective to unique effect (which had inspired me to attempt something similar)

no-one and everyone

so i may be coming to terms with the inevitability that sooner or later i shall be a part of the stupidly massive and stupidly stupid facebook network, but even tho it may be perfectly suited to my dis-jointed and distracted way of thinking i have no intention of signing up to twitter (now lets see how long until i retract these sentiments too)

from an outsiders point of view, this video is completely spot on and only enforces every argument i have against 'tweeting'





but if you've already fallen foul of twitter, then maybe take a look at my little brother's tweets and consider following him if you realy have got nothing better to do with your life, tho i am thinking that he is only using it as another promotional tool to ply his artistic wares and that all the tweeting about tea drinking is ironic (hopefully)

and i know dyslexia is a sensitive subject and shouldn't be mocked, but i'm sure even my brother would find it slightly amusing when in an attempt to plug his t-shirts on spreadshirt he instead tweeted that he was 'creating products for his spreadshite shop'

the battlelines have been drawn

i made a stand a long time ago, while everyone else was defecting to facebook i chose to stick with myspace, and tho i still stand by my reasoning that myspace is better for music and bands it seems to be a slightly empty argument when myspace has practically become a barren wasteland and i'd have more chance of staying in touch with the people i know if i actually wrote letters to them

and although i am now actually slightly swayed by the idea i still have my reservations about it, for a start, no matter how much of myself i choose to put on display, i am still an intensely private person (the reason why my blogs don't reveal every detail of my life)

i have no interest in people that i barely spoke to at school being constantly updated of when i 've done something as insignificant as breaking a high-score in a brain numbing game or as significant as entering/exiting a relationship

i have no intention of updating my status constantly

will facebook last? how do i know i won't have to jumpship as soon as i'm signed up, because there is another faddish more popular site that everyone i know has moved onto (and the longer i leave it, the more i run the risk)

and i quite like being hidden behind the Hunchbakk persona, there is no great secret of who i realy am among friends, i just like remaining masked, almost as if it allows me to be who i choose to be and sometimes be who i am not

and lets face it, facebook is a bit ugly



but y'know what, maybe i'm being a bit like those protesters that turn up with placards to voice their negative opinions against a film they haven't even seen, i can't really judge it til i've given it a go, so maybe

this is a low?

can i possibly be the only person that isn't showering the Blur reunion shows with heaps of praise?!

please don't get me wrong, it wasn't like i didn't enjoy being there, but it just didn't quite ring true with me.

the build-up and the day itself were great, back when the tickets went onsale in december when the news of their reunion broke, i knew i had to be there and reports of their immeasurable power all the way from smaller intimate shows, right the way through to their Glastonbury headline slot had fuelled me up for the kinda show that is gonna live in your heart forever...

and spending a sunny summer day in a London park drinking cider, eating ice cream, applying sunblock and enjoying Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Golden Silvers, Crystal Castles and Foals seemed like it was heading to its perfect conclusion by the time Blur hit the stage at quarter past eight on a fine thursday evening




perhaps i was expecting too much, actualy, i'm quite certain i was expecting too much.

and although i was thrilled by the brit-pop era singalongs and enjoyed the song 2 jumpalong, i questioned if i was the Blur fan i thought i was or if i had got a bit caught up in the nostalgia (that damn, nostalgia) and the NME crafted hysteria.



so, crushed beneath the weight of expectation, Blur knocked out the cheeky chappy mockney singalongs, played album tracks i wasn't familiar with, released a second greatest hits (sorry, beginners guide), missed out Charmless Man and Stereotypes and played a couple of songs currently greasing the wheels of commerce and soundtracking adverts, including my personal favourite, and set closer, The Universal (or, that song from the gas advert)



besides, i was always more of an Oasis fan

Do I Know You??

or more importantly, do you know them?




these two pictures are taken from a memory card found at Glastonbury festival last week, i was gonna be a good citizen and hand it in but i thought that if the person who lost it hadn't realised or didn't think to reclaim it it could be stuck in a deep dank lost property bin for eternity.

i thought that it would be more interesting to load them up to the internet, to my blog and to orphan photos where the photos can remain forever and stand more chance of being reunited with their owner.

i expected plenty of crazy Glastonbury pics to be on there, fond memories that would be sorely missed, instead there were only two pics of a couple of geezers (no offence).

but either way, if you recognise them, or you are one of them, get in touch with a comment or message me through myspace and i shall return the memory card


the only other image that looked like it had been saved to the card was of two kids, again, if you recognise em, get in touch

Rest In Peace

this is a slightly late and slightly wayward tribute to Michael Jackson

Its not like i've been deeply affected, but i am saddened by his death

i found out he had died while at Glastonbury, which was a strange experience, a mixture of word of mouth and over-subscribed mobile networks had a bizarre filtering effect on the news and what many took as festival rumour was soon distorted, embellished and ridiculed... but when the persistent rumour refused to go away and texts from the outside world said the same, you had to accept that news of Michael Jackson's death could be true

i'm an eighties baby and have strong memories of Michael Jackson and his music, like watching the video for Black and White for the first time, trying to moonwalk like everybody else, impersonating Jacko's trademark moves and yelps and being round my cousin's listening to HiStory over and over again, and these are just the first thoughts that come to mind

and i think Michael Jackson is set to become the Elvis of our generation, his contribution to the world of entertainment and his musical legacy will long live on and eclipse the darker times of his life and lower points of his career

out of respect i've tried to curb my morbid curiosity and avoid the media circus that still surrounds Wacko Jacko in death

and of course, we all know that death is the best career move

R.I.P

Glastonbury

ok, so i've been back home since Monday afternoon, but i've been trying my best to avoid returning back to normal life, which has meant very little time spent on the internet (phew), and as a byproduct, absolutely no blog posts

so i'm throwing myself back into it with a breif recap of Glasto '09 but i won't bore you with a lengthy review or any of that nonsense (other people get paid to do that, and it seems too much like hard work for me right now), instead i'll treat you to afew of my favourite images i captured this year