June 2008 Archives
This is so inspirational.
Note the Tascam DAT recorder (and AKG 1000s) - the forerunner of the HD-P2. It's about a hundred pics in (LOL)...
- Industrial landscapes
- Field recording
- Bass
- Photography
Note the Tascam DAT recorder (and AKG 1000s) - the forerunner of the HD-P2. It's about a hundred pics in (LOL)...
And this is what that generates.
OK, I'm sitting here in my house, listening to my iPod via the stereo. It's on shuffle - I like that as it is like listening to the radio - I have no idea what's coming next.
But right know, as I sit here, I have just witnessed a (British Rail) diesel 'Deltic' [Type 55 I think] locomotive traverse my living space. In terms of field-recording........ I rest my case. Oh and BTW, I have the stereo on loud. The train was HERE.
--
How did it happen? Downloading samples, some of them get into iTunes... and there you go. Fantastic.
I recommend it BTW (a diesel loco in the kitchen).
What track followed I hear you ask? 'Treefingers' by Radiohead. If I was a Deltic train driver, this would be my soundtrack.
But right know, as I sit here, I have just witnessed a (British Rail) diesel 'Deltic' [Type 55 I think] locomotive traverse my living space. In terms of field-recording........ I rest my case. Oh and BTW, I have the stereo on loud. The train was HERE.
--
How did it happen? Downloading samples, some of them get into iTunes... and there you go. Fantastic.
I recommend it BTW (a diesel loco in the kitchen).
What track followed I hear you ask? 'Treefingers' by Radiohead. If I was a Deltic train driver, this would be my soundtrack.
Normally (ever) I don't crop images. Everyone [link here to 'No crop Nik' [here somewhere] but I can't find/search for the link] knows that. I have a pure philosophy that an image is an image. And that I as a photographer do the framing at the point of image capture. It is a philosophy rather than a life choice. I do what I can in the pursuit...
Occasionally I have to abandon it. My excuse today is that I don't have a macro lens. I've never had one. Always wanted one. My friend Mike is quite keen on macro and has weird 'tables' and all sorts... Doodads.
OK, so without a macro I have to zoom. And that freaks out all sorts of stuff. Not least of which is resolution. These pics cannot be zoomed any more - they are maxed out! And I'm surprised quite how poor they are really.
Composition though was a massive factor. Spending 15 quid on sweets was only the start of it... I then had to be an art director. Hmm I'm not one of those. But, cool, Sue is :) Most of these are as a result of Sue's art direction. I just pressed the button (apart from the ones that Bryony [12) art directed (and I still just pressed the button)).
[BTW, iPod shuffle has just delivered Fireball by Deep Purple... oh, and now Peaches En Regalia by Frank Zappa (live). How lovely]
Loads more 'traditional' sweets to photograph. Soon.
An apology that stems from events sort of beyond my control, but that reinforces the adage that 'if you want something doing (badly) then do it yourself' [read that as you wish].
When I was in Moscow, I sent many postcards.
I entrusted buying stamps, sticking them, and posting to my CouchSurfing host. He obviously had a problem with this, and the over-the-odds number of Roubles I slipped him to do this and dumped the lot in the bin.
Maybe though I'm doing him an injustice and he plans on posting them at some surreal juncture in the future. You have been warned.
Anyway, if you live in Chepstow, Holmfirth, Penn, Higham, St Annes, Old Langho, Colchester that there is a postcard for you in a Moscow landfill. A claim to fame I suspect.
Now images on the site when viewed in Firefox will look as expected (as I intended) and as they have been looking in Safari.
Firefox 3 is now colour managed but it is set 'off' by default.
In practice this will mean that if you enable it, all my images will look different / better. Not sure if IE is / was colour managed.
Rob (the Bass Man) called yesterday to say that he had stopped on the way through the fens to cross a dyke to put his ear up against a pylon. To listen. He said that is was like listening to miles and miles of metal. Can you imagine what that sounds like?
He said that he was going to look into getting a contact mic to record the sound.
Having just done a quick Google, the first hit was making one from a piezo electric transducer. The acronym for such a transducer is PZT. The same acronym PZT is used for Lead Zirconate Titanate, the piezoelectric ceramic material used in making piezo inkjet print heads, something I learned about just this week.
Also interestingly, I had a cigarette lighter years ago that was famously (urban mythically?) made of gun metal (whatever that is). That lighter was piezo activated and I was led to believe that the spark was produced by "he compression of titanic acid". It was likely to have been something to do with PZT.
I have always been into field recording. My 21st birthday present (1982 ish) was a Marantz three-head portable cassette recorder that I lugged around and recorded with. I remember taking it into The Scala in London to record Videodrome (when The Scala was a cinema club and before recording films was prisonable). Some of the tapes I recently photographed where recorded on the Marantz.
A memorable recording was on a Euston to Manchester train with a friend in the early 80s. Even at that time we regarded train travel as a pain the arse. I have a copy The Catcher in the Rye that I was reading at the time in which my friend wrote "Next year we'll fly". This was as much about public transport as it was about affluence. At that age and at that time, we imagined that in only a years time we would we older and wiser and richer. And flying would be affordable and realistic. It wasn't.
Anyway, that was when I did field recordings. And recordings from the telly. And radio. And also had a valve reel to reel recorder from which I spliced and built cut-ups. I even, incredibly, had a cassette (boy was it narrow) splicing kiet and did indeed splice cassette tape. The reel to reel cut ups were very easy and successful (very time consuming though). I still have many of these field tapes including cassette loops (TDK used to do loops of 30s, 60s and 90s lengths).
Field recording was in my blood.
Right now, I want that back. My music making needs external input. And the world and its sounds are it.
Technology has moved on. Cassette, Minidisc and DAT has (pretty much) come and go. Compact Flash (CF) is now where we are. Prices have stayed the same / risen. Quality, being digital has risen (obviously). But with it, complexity has been introduced: Bit rates, sample rates, WAV, AIFF, BWF...
16-bit, 24-bit (20-bit?)...
44.1KHz? 44.4, 96, 192... kHz etc?
1-bit?
WAV, BWF, AIFF?
What is all this stuff? How does it affect sound quality? Why does it matter?
[An interpretation in next post]
All this is slightly ironic really - these are (sort of) the audio equivalent elements of the image (recording) world. The image world being the one that I work in.
Anyway, I feel the need to buy a doodad. A digital sound recording device. Having talked to Rob the Bass Man, it is likely to be the Tascam HD-P2. And maybe a pair of AKG C1000 mics.
You could start at Papa Noels in Ipswich. It is despite appearances, one of the best in Ipswich. I went there with Myro. For tea. I had 'rock eel' - that is dog fish. Not many chippies do dog fish - but it is fine and simple and eco-good.
If you Google chip shops in Ipswich, Papa Noel's comes up. I hope that if you Google it in the future, this will appear!
A reliable source, my friend Haiko in Germany, tells me:
"00" is sometimes used as another expression for "WC" in Germany. It is common as spoken word but not so as written word (where Toiletten" or "WC" is common)."
Haiko is here. I'm buying one of his industrial archeology prints to hang in my house.
PDC has a different view... (but I can't see his comment explaining...)
When I walk I tend to look up, especially when walking round cities. Most of the beauty is up. Above the normal line of sight. If in doubt, look up. If nothing else, you will get a different perspective to everyone else. And if that fails, look down. If nothing else...
I look at details, not landscapes. I don't see the bigger picture, I see the smaller one. Photograph the obvious; what;'s right in front of you because tomorrow it'll be gone for ever. And no one will have recorded it.
I'm not saying that these pictures reflect that philosophy, but hey...
Strawberry tart. A confection I shared [three forks, one confection] with two of my new colleagues, Mike and Nicola.
As an NSTAC aside, Nicola lived / worked / grew-up for 20 ish years in the pub half-way down my street, The Empress [note that the picture was only taken a few days ago {NSTAC?}]. A veritably big and impressive NSTAC.
Note: this photograph wasn't taken in the 1950s, despite appearances.
Signs are good and signs are useful. They need to be plentiful and they need to be comprehensible. If in doubt, they need to be embellished comprehensibly.
I wonder what the 'OO' is meant to represent? It isn't a typo - it was repeated on another sign embellishment local to this one.
Next week, I'll be working at Xaar (pronounced 'Zar' [not eXaR' as voiced by 'a chap' the other day]). In a nutshell... industrial inkjet print heads... "any substrate, any fluid...".
My enforced garden, street-walking, traveling, decorating, interviewing etc leave had to come to an end.
Yes, I am soon to be back in employment! I have accepted an offer and will start soon.
I'll let you know who it is as soon as I've signed a contract. But it is in Cambridge and it is in the print industry.
Thanks to everyone who offered support, help, contacts, leads... in my search.
