Music memories

What are the chances - two of the sites that I monitor both featuring music location posts.
There is Twisted Sifter's 'Famous album covers superimposed onto their actual locations' This is Bob Egan again, see my earlier post 'The photography of music' that one was in New York, this one is a 'Now & then' of album covers in London, England.
Firstly there was the iconic one that everyone wants to emulate - The Beatles on Abbey Road. The cover photo of the Abbey Road album was taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI studio on Abbey Road. And here, superimposed, is the album over the modern street, from Google Street views.

Personally I'd love the excuse to actually shoot on location rather than use Google from home. As I said it is iconic and there are a multitude of takes on the original, including a number with Lego.

 Then David Bowie as Ziggy from 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' recorded in 1972, the photograph was taken outside of 23 Heddon Street, a small, block-long, dead end street in central London, just west of Carnaby Street. Apparently photographer, Brian Ward, had his studio on Heddon Street and shot stills of Bowie using black & white film. The resulting pictures were later colourised to give Bowie an alien appearance.

There's Liam & Noel Gallagher on the Oasis What's the Story, Morning Glory? album. The cover photo was taken on Berwick Street, a street featuring several popular record shops in the Soho section of London in 1995.

The Clash's self-titled The Clash, the album cover photo location is an outdoor stairway near the band's rehearsal studio in Camden ("Stables") Market in Camden Town in northern London, shot in 1977.

And, in addition to the Bob Egan post is this one from Gondwana (who don't immediately shout 'music'), but here is their link to an Interactive map which pinpoints every New York City reference in song. There are virtually a countless number of songs that refer to New York - from its neighbourhoods to familiar & famous streets - and now you can see them all on a map, and link to the song on YouTube, from Greshwin to The Killers. Apparently Paul Simon's 'Me & Julio down by the schoolyard' refers to a location between 48th & 49th Avenue. There are about 200 songs referenced.

Mobile Things & photos - 2

The second Thing explores Using mobile devices to take photos. Obviously the camera on your device for capturing still photos and video, and also some of the photo apps for sharing photos and messages like 'Instagram' and 'Snapchat'.

I downloaded the Instagram app just on a year ago, and use it to send photos to distant friends, played with the editing and the filtering.
I hadn't checked out Snapchat which seems to again have the immediacy of chatting, very "now".
Have the Flickr app, just haven't used it to actually take a photo, I'm more inclined to use it to check on my Groups, and Recent Activity.

From the Pinterest Board, checked out the link to '9 interesting ways to use Instagram for your library' which has ideas on promoting what you're doing, advertising events, as using a photo is worth 1,000 words.

Homework - take a photo of a library sign with an app then play with the filters & effects. The Flickr upload initially failed, so here's the Instagram shot.

First Mobile Thing

Ok, I've completed the 'Web 2.0' 23 Things back in 2007, then followed that up with 'Web 2.1' Things 24 to 70 in 2009, now comes the 23 Mobile Things a program to learn  about the potential of mobile things - technologies that are changing the way people, society and libraries access and deliver information and communicate with each other.
The first "thing" is Twitter. I was introduced to Twitter as part of Thing 35-Microblogging. Since then I've spasmodically checked my feed, and currently my count of tweets stands at 91, most of them are now the Twitterfeed RSS feeds from this blog.
To explore this Mobile Thing you need to sign up to Twitter, install the app and tweet about you favourite library or museum.

 Library was too easy so I've chosen museum, and one of my favourites, just 'cos it was such a surprise. The Jeparit Museum (the Wimmera-Mallee Pioneer Museum) was so much more than I anticipated, it has a varied collection of buildings, lots of machinery, and collections of the stock and trade (bottles, antique & historic home-wares, farm tools, etc). What is different is the set out - a collection of medical equipment in the old Chemist shop building, Sporting & club memorabilia in the Hall building, the school and homestead both set up as if still in operation.

The sheer volume of items that have been donated is staggering. The showcase piece is the Albacutya Homestead which was dismantled and re-erected at the site, but seeing the fully finished Detpa school virtually as the students would have left it in 1953 was amazing.

Back to Twitter, and its role in libraries? Yes it has immediacy for short messages - 
The Mobile Library has broken down and won't be visiting today,  
or advertising storytime/holiday activities, for people who are checking their accounts regularly. But personally I prefer the look & feel of Facebook to fulfill that role.

Doomsday decomposition

I’ve borrowed eBooks, I’ve downloaded freebie eBooks, now the time had come to actually purchase an eBook.

But, which one, there are more than a couple out there competing for my attention, what criteria should my potential initial purchase possess?

In the end, the book I chose was one I’ve had for years, and now is the time to cut it loose and replace it with the new upgraded model.

My  copy with its broken spine & the contents stapled together

According to the iTunes Store, it’s title is “Mutant 59”, but my old paperback copy is “Mutant 59: the plastic eater” by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, the guys who invented the Cybermen for “Doctor Who” (the still epic "Tomb of the Cybermen" series). Gerry was one of the script writers for many of the Doctor Who episodes (the old and best series).

“Mutant 59” is a chilling story of what can happen when scientific research, done in the name of progress, backfires to spread terror throughout the world.

It was the premise that awed me, and has stayed with me, like other similar apocalyptic/disaster speculative sci-fi novels – “The Andromeda strain” and Patrick Tilley’s “Fadeout”. A premise that may be more realistic now, than back in 1971 when it was written, what with our increased pollution, reliance on electronics, and utter dependence on the humble plastic.
It begins innocently enough, motivated by ecological issues to produce eco-friendly products, a manufactured microbe that consumes plastic, is accidentally released, and as the strain evolves it begins to wreak havoc through the London Underground as electrical wires stripped of their plastic coating are no longer insulated ... at first it is bizarre incidents and unconnected accidents that develop into a major crisis. A jet explodes and falls out of the sky, a nuclear submarine vanishes, and infrastructure starts to collapse.

Our hero has to analyse and contain the infection before the expanding devastation causes a world-wide catastrophe. 
It is a frightening (and realistic) scenario when things we take for granted are suddenly out of our control and begin to disintegrate before our eyes.

So, I’m off to purchase the eBook edition before some parasitic plastic muncher can destroy my iPad.

More than just a click

I'm obviously not getting the best out of my attempts at photography.
Here are just a few examples of photographers (or visual engineers as one refers to themselves) exploring the limits and extending those boundaries with artistic interpretation and technological innovation.

 

Firstly two images by Canadian Benjamin Von Wong, One on the left in a literary mode and below his underwater wreck shoot in Bali.
See more at his website http://www.vonwong.com/ There's also a viral YouTube video of the shoot

 
Martin De Pasquale is a photographer and digital artist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, best known online for his incredible photo manipulations and surreal digital artworks.
With a great deal of planning and using programs like Photoshop, Poser and 3DS Max, he creates amazing images that distort the lines between reality and fantasy.
 Yes, another one in the literary theme.

 More of Martin's work via Twisted Sifter

Erik Johansson states that he is a photographer and retouch artist from Sweden, who uses his "photography as a way of collecting material to realise the ideas in my mind" see http://erikjohanssonphoto.com/

'Go your own road'

'Drifting away'

And finally to say good-night, this is from French photographer Laurent Laveder.

'Moon games'

Ghosts of Irish times

Time for another installment from WebUrbanist, this one is Ghost Estates of Ireland: Symbols of an EconomicCollapse

While they look like miniatures, it's a real estate

Built with visions of suburban prosperity in more optimistic times, the empty shells of former dream homes dot the countryside among piles of construction rubble and fallen-down fences. Economic highs and lows have led to abandonments of entire villages all over the world, from China to the Mediterranean, but Ireland is among the nations that was particularly hard-hit.

The ghost estates in Ireland, is well over 10,000 mostly-empty neighbourhoods in a relatively small nation (and just a small percentage of Ireland’s 350,000-some-odd abandoned houses.)

Most of the ghost estates are found in the rural areas of the northern and western parts of the country. These empty shells are eyesores for the locals in these small towns. The crisis is affecting the country – unemployment, debts, budget cuts, capital investments – but it is also shaping its landscape.

Yes, the words 'little boxes on the hillside..all the same' comes to mind

Why did I immediately think of the Clearances of the 19^th century, when many families suffering poverty and the potato famine were evicted from their homes by bailiffs, and watched their buildings being demolished so they couldn’t move back in.

I found it all very evocative, while I love abandonments more than most, at a time of housing shortages and homelessness, can't we place someone in these buildings/towns/cities around the world?

Some light reading

It's ages since I posted an 'Unshelved' strip, so here is one for Dewey fans of all ages!

Epic calamity

For once I like this American cover-art best!

Brandon Sanderson presents "Steelheart", the first book in the "Reckoners series", an action-packed thrill ride.
   How far would you go for revenge if someone killed your father?
   If someone destroyed your city?
   If everything you ever loved was taken from you?
   David Charleston will go to any lengths to stop Steelheart. But to exact revenge in Steelheart’s world, David will need the Reckoners—a shadowy group of rebels bent on maintaining justice.
   And it turns out that the Reckoners might just need David too.

A different spin on the superhero story - in this post-apocalyptic world the appearance of a new star called Calamity started the rise of Epics from the human population. But the Epics are not the good guys. The Epic villians have gained super powers and a desire to rule over a cowed populace that largely accepts the fact that Epics control their lives and the strongest among them are in a constant battle for dominance. Only one shadowy group of ordinary humans called the Reckoners dare fight to eliminate them. David persuades as a cell of Reckoners to allow him join their ranks after proving he has extensive knowledge on the Epics, knowledge which could lead to their overthrow.

As a child David sees his father injure Steelheart, the most powerful of the Epics. David has made it his mission to learn all he can about all Epics. Everyone thinks they are invincible, but he knows otherwise. He knows that each one has a weakness, and he's seen Steelheart's.  Steelheart can bleed. David intends to get his revenge.

In a city which has been transferred into steel and the populace suffer a perpetual darkness, the Reckoners lurk in the undercity tunnels endeavouring to defeat the Epics one by one.

I liked the premise of the of the story, yes it is super-hero action, but we all need some escapism, so I’ll read the second in the series “Firefight” when it is published next January.

 

Just hanging out

Checking out the Twisted Sifter links, and I came across this entry in their Picture of the Day

Yes, I'd love Andrew's job, I can already tick off a number of his fun moments.
And though I didn't crawl out onto the tip of Hanging Rock, I did have my heart in my mouth, when I was there photographing that amazing location, and managed to video a guy base-jumping from the rock - now that was 'a moment'!

My image of Hanging Rock