Rendering, a sense of achievement

I have been editing some video footage I took whilst in Wales, on the beach. A few years ago now, I started to make video collages. When I looked at my previous videos, I couldn’t believe it had been so long! One of the ideas I had was to break down a walk to the sea edge. I have been visualising what this would look like, and thinking about the various ways I could document it for a while now.

desk

Today, I finally sat down at my tidy (ish) desk and began to remember how to use Adobe Premiere. It has been a real treat to play with it and see what comes out. The video I have made is the very start of thinking about how I will document the next beach I visit and other walks/adventures. There are a number of things I would change, like using a tripod for the video of the sea, to get the horizon straight.

Below is a screen print of the video in progress. There is the sky at the top, which is a video taken with the camera pointing upwards whilst walking on the beach. The middle section is a static shot of the sea moving in and out, and the sound used is what is captured whilst filming this. The finally, you have a slideshow of photos taken on the beach floor, whilst walking towards the sea.

Sky Sea Sand print screen

I am really interested in documenting these experiences and exploring different ways I see what’s around me. My next mission is to get an app on my photo that has a pause button, so I can make videos, like I used to, with short clips of parts of a walk/journey.

Word

I have spent a lot of time over the last few years battling with word. I have come to love it’s quirks and misbehavior. I have also discovered a lot of functions along the way that don’t get a lot of use. I decided that whilst at work, in my lunch breaks, I would use these functions to make drawings. I have predominately been using the shape tools at the moment, but there are other areas of word that I look forward to playing around with. Here are a couple of print screens of sections I have done so far:

Screen print 1

Screen print 2

Screen print 3

 

Autumnal sun

I have got quite a few train journeys lined up over the next month. I thought the sun looked beautiful through the train windows this evening.

The aftermath

I have been trying to make my own confetti with the flowers I have bought or received this year. I displayed the remnants on a piece of paper and then put it outside, and it’s started to rot. I think they’re really beautiful.

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Petal by petal

I was bought some beautiful flowers by my friends Flo and Luke. The roses were starting to wilt, so I decided to make video by peeling the flower each petal in turn. Such incredible colours were revealed. There were petals that I would never have seen if  I hadn’t peeled it.

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Today in January

Diary photo in a row

Since I can remember I have tried to write a diary, in some form or another. This year I thought I would share some of the descriptions I have given to a day in January. January is the most well documented month, I sometimes don’t even reach February.

I choose the first sentence that started with ‘Today…’ and here they are:

1997 – Today we went sleighing we met my form teacher there.
1999 – Today was a bit on the argumentative side but still enjoyable.
2000 – Today was nothing special, celloing all day an average Wednesday really.
2001 – Today was better than a crap day but not nearly as good as a good day.
2002 – Today wasn’t the best day it could have been but it was good.
2003 – Today was a really class day, I smiled all day.
2007 – Today I woke up as happy as Larry – unaware of last nights mishaps.
2009 – Today it was really good to start using the brain again.
2010 – Today I was full of beans at the prospect of having some well deserved time off work.
2012 – Today was hard to describe.

I am going to attempt, at the very least during January to keep a daily something.

 

A treat for the birds

At work this week, a conversation about bird feeding came about. Emma told me about an ace way to make a bird treat out of the following:

– a pine cone
– string
– peanut butter
– seeds

You will need a spoon and some scissors too.

My Grandad, who we called DeeDee, was a bird feeding champion. My Dad, Stevie has inherited the bird feeding gene and the birds in Birmingham are fat and happy. I love to feed them when I visit, so thought trying out this bird treat was a great idea!

1. Tie string around the pine cone.

Pine cone and string

2. Using a spoon, lather the pine cone in peanut butter (our birds were spoilt with sunpat crunchy peanut butter).

Peanut butter on pine cone
3. Bathe the pine cone in seeds until covered. (again, spoilt with Waitrose seeds)

Stevie and Seeds

Pine cone in seeds
4. Get two of your favourite people (Al and Stevie), who are taller than you, to hang it in the garden from a tree.Al and Stevie

And there you have it, a delicious treat for the birds!

Treat for the birds
Massive thanks to Emma for cheering me up at work with this idea!

The sun came out

I haven’t been feeling 100% this weekend but I took the cats in the garden to get the sun on their fur and whilst doing that I noticed my shadow against the house. I thought it would be fun to take a few photos of me and Al’s shadows moving.

Later we decided to get some more fresh air and embrace the good weather, so visited Sherwood forest. I decided to photograph our shadows walking along on the floor.

 

 

New slideshows

These are quite experimental but I like the way they have turned out. I wanted to combine the photos I have taken of worn out walls and pealing paint, and make a split screen slideshow. I decided to put a black screen in between each photo to replicate the way original slideshows worked.

The time I give each section differs and is something I am looking forward to playing around with. I think they are too fast and intend on making some that are slowed down.

Slideshow research

Whilst reading about the history of the projector, I found this video of the Kodak Film Slide Projector:

I like the black screen you get with old fashioned slideshows, a quick break until the next image. If I could get away with it, I would invite people round for slideshows and cups of tea all the time.