your friend has left you
memories are all you have
to remember them
Apologies…
Sorry to anyone who tried to view this site (or email me) between July 1st and 3rd – I had missed the email telling me my hosting account had expired. It’s fixed now (well, I can post this at least).
Sorry for the inconvenience! Please resend any emails – they will have bounced.
Goodbye Kodachrome. So badly reported!
Monday saw a press release from Kodak announcing that the iconic Kodachrome film is to be discontinued.
Ok, it’s a sad announcement (some people swear by its colour reproduction and its archival qualities), but I take umbrage at the way in which it has been reported!
If you watch the TV reports or read the news articles, the death of Kodachrome has almost universally been attributed to ‘the increase of digital photography’. This is not so.
There are still film products available – heck, even Kodak are introducing new stocks – and film photography seems to be making something of a resurgence in recent times. The reason that Kodachrome is being discontinued must surely be because of its archaic processing requirements.
Since the introduction of Kodachrome, other colour processes have come along (and in some cases disappeared again), which offer simpler processing – E6 processing (the standard slide-film process) can even be done at home. With only one plant in the world still processing Kodachrome (Dwaynes in the US), it was surely only a matter of time before this announcement took place.
So:
- Digital did not kill Kodachrome;
- Other film is still available – colour and B&W;
- Film cameras are still being made;
This is not the end of film photography…
Holy crap. I swear the clocks just struck thirteen…
I refer you, dear reader, to these abominations. I am, quite simply, speechless with rage and anger. This is several steps up from their previous scare campaign.
This is ridiculous. I feel like the entire UK is being run by the f***ing Stasi. When’s the wall being built?
Are they trying to provoke a civil war?
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”
Opening line of 1984, by George Orwell.
It’s gig time again…
Craig and I were chatting on new year’s eve, bemoaning the fact that we haven’t felt particularly musically-creative of late. So we decided that we’d do something together. I felt that a more loose, improvised thing would be good to do (in the past, my live performances have always had a certain improvised nature to them – tracks are broken down into their component parts, fed into some sort of sequencer and then ‘mashed up’ live).
So anyway, after two rehearsals (which ended up being pretty different in their musical output), we have our first gig.
March 14th, 9pm -> 10pm Thomas’s Bar (near York Library). We have a slot at BoomChik, a regular night put on by some friends of ours.
Excellent. Let’s see what happens ‘eh?
Cartel-forced censorship won’t be accepted here…
Just in case my ISP decides to bow to IFPI pressure and censor the internet, rest assured that they will find me an ex-customer PDQ. I would urge each and everyone to do the same…
See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/03/telenor_wont_block_pirate_bay/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/23/irma_demands_irish_isps_block_access_to_piracy_sites/
Things that are Uplifting
We went down to Bristol recently for my brother-in-law’s wedding (my wife’s brother for those who are trying to work it out), and we had a great time – seeing lots of people who we hadn’t seen for a while. Our children were the only ones there for the whole day (there were a few present at the ceremony, but not for the meal/party), and it was also nice to have people tell us how well-behaved they were (phew!).
Between the lunchtime reception and the evening party, we went for a walk around the refurbished dock area, and happened upon a nice big open space with large stone steps around it which was being used by a whole crowd of lads on BMXs, mountain bikes and skateboards. We stood watching for a while and then got to chatting with Jack – one of the mountain-bikers (actually ‘bike trials’ we found out). Having thought that these were local kids, we were somewhat surprised to find that some had come down from Reading and Swindon.
Anyway, I had my Yashica-Mat (1950’s TLR camera) with me and took a shot – my father-in-law had his G9 with him and took a few as well I think. Watch this space, and I’m sure I’ll upload something soon… 🙂
These Ephemeral Times
We live in an increasingly transitory society; in our race to be current we are in danger of becoming lost to future historians. Our pictures nowadays are taken on digital cameras, (which are often replaced every two or three years), creating ‘images’ which end up being stored on a computer’s disk somewhere, which in turn fills up and is subsequently replaced…
What would happen to your pictures if you were no longer around? Would your children have the patience to trawl through hard-disks full of images, or would your computer be recycled/resold and your archives lost?
Even our lives nowadays leave no traces – there is no longevity any more.
You couldn’t make this up…
From BBC News:
- “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st Century,” Mr Bush said.
I’m sure there’s a word for that… begins with ‘H’. It’s on the tip of my tongue…
… Don’t tell me…
…
BBC’s ‘Lab Rats’ series…
It would appear, after doing a bit of a web-search, that BBC2’s Lab Rats sitcom is not being very well received – apparently it isn’t funny. Well, in an attempt to even the balance a little, I’ll just go on record to say that I find it extremely funny (i.e. laugh-so-much-that-tears-run-down-my-face funny). The last one (the subterranean lab) was rather a slow builder I must admit, but the punchline was superb 🙂