Archive for December, 2007

Wire Work

I have seen the roof of this house everyday, from the train on the way to work. I've been meaning to take some pictures of it for a while now, so I walked over there on Saturday with my camera to see wha the rest of the building was like. I was pretty surprised to find out that it has a restaurant or reception room or something on the ground floors and yet still houses the required slightly-mad-old-lady in the top floor. She came out and growled at me when I was packing up after taking the pictures, and made a pretty incongruous site standing outside this modern house in her crazy-old-lady shawl and hat. The photo turned out ok. I couldn't move any further to the left and still get the whole house in as there was a massive removals operation going on in the house opposite. I have also taken the artistic liberty of removing a few of the mass of overhead cables that ruin most Japanese streets. Apparently they can't bury them due to earthquakes and typhoons, although I'm pretty sure that cables are buried in California and Iran etc...and, as I am now finding out, it's not as if the local council are afraid of digging up the street (officially from 9pm-6am outside my apartment every night from now until March). Click the picture to see the before and after versions.

Lost In Translation?

These photos are part of photographer David Hume Kennerly's book on the presidency of Gerald R. Ford. They are part of one of December's featured articles at Digital Journalist. The photo set is really interesting - I knew little of Ford's presidency except that he took over at the last minute from the disgraced Nixon and was not re-elected. Considering he (famously), never sought the presidency, he presided over a pretty interesting era. The photos also show the youthful first steps of some of the current era's Republican dinosaurs, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. The four photos below, taken in Kyoto in November, 1974, are my favourite from the set. Click the photo to see the others.

Renewal

When the hosting bill came through for this site in October, I decided it was finally time to redesign the whole thing. I've now been doing it for about a month. It wasn't as bad as the first time (true with so many things in life), but the footer (bit at the bottom), was still a pain. It's not completely finished yet, but hopefully should be working now and will be better looking when it's all done. I also hope to post more than 10 times in a year.Anyway, in the spirit of renewal, here is a little animation I made last week...you should be able to watch it by clicking the image...