Category: images

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Madness redux

I went to the Madvertisement photoshoot. “It’s been manic here” said the man overseeing operations, without showing the faintest trace of being aware of what he’d just said.

I went in my best mutton dressed up as lamb juicy street duds but with a smart outfit as requested in the e-mail. The lamb’s fleece did not impress the arty people – most other people had turned up with max street cred it seemed.

“The set’s really retro 50s, flying ducks on the wall” I was told. “Well”, I ventured, “I have got a vintage 50s outfit with me since you asked for both casual and smart”. This turned out to be just what the shrink ordered so I retired to the nearby toilet and emerged as mutton dressed as mutton.

Those shoes, though, they’re worth a picture of their own one day. Bought in 1988 from Emma Hope‘s first London store they are black suede, called “jabot” and have a wavy crest running up the front worthy of the greatest crested newt in existence.

The photographer’s assistant used my camera to take a picture of the photographer taking the picture. Using a mac, of course.

it's been manic 1

I assume, judging by the image on the screen, that the official angle is more flattering than the unofficial. But why, I wonder, have a modern digital radio on the sideboard.

And in other madness news, the mental health charity, Mind, is inviting all mental health service users and survivors to send in their art for an installation to celebrate 60 years of the charity. M.A.D. art – Making A Difference. I’m going to print up some photographs.

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An ostrich, called Canute, head in the sand of the Severn Bore, incoming tide, shooting itself in the foot

Phew. That’s better. I am eating a cheese sandwich as I type (Tesco’s value red Leicester on Kingsmill 50/50 sliced bread). And here’s a picture of my cat.

don't mess with me

Isn’t he lovely? It’s not a recent picture but that could be because I’m using him as a narrative device. Or maybe not. Maybe my camera’s broken or he’s become unadorable or I’m just too lazy to take and upload another one. You decide.

Now then. Having established myself as deeply facile and boring I can go on to say that my snappy, attention-grabbing headline has got absolutely nothing to do with the event I went to this morning. Absolutely nothing to do with the “traditional media” in general, and of course, absolutely nothing to do with the BBC in particular. Oh no.

Uh, but hang on a bit. I’m a blogger aren’t I? So that means I might be um, less than accurate. Unlike, of course, the “traditional media”. Oh, the terrible uncertainty in the minds of my readers.

It was interesting, the discussion this morning. The most interesting thing, to me, was said by Stewart Purvis, professor of journalism, fabulously experienced award-studded former ITN head honcho etc. “I’m just waiting”, he said (and of course I’m paraphrasing here because I wasn’t taking notes or recording the session), “I’m just waiting for a really big blog hoax”.

A ripple ran around the room. Not the Severn Bore, but a perceptible ripple. Sort of schadenfreude-in-advance with an added dose of “please don’t let it be me”. The implication, it seemed to me, in both speaker and audience reaction, was that this would be proof of the inherent danger of “blogs” and that once this had happened journalists could stop being quite so concerned about them.

That’s one interpretation that might result from a “traditional media” organisation falling for a blog-based hoax. There is, of course, another. And it is that if a media organisation ends up falling for such a hoax it will demonstrate that said media organisation had not checked its facts properly. Verified its sources. Done what journalists and editors in the room this morning congratulated themselves upon, and quite rightly so (in many cases). Exercised all those skills that journalists insist, quite rightly in many cases, distinguish them from bloggers.

It really, really isn’t rocket science. You cannot eat your cake and have it at the same time. You cannot laud your own professionalism on the one hand and blame a source for being inaccurate if you transmit that inaccurate information on the other. Blogs are not journalism. Just as press releases are not journalism. Just as party political statements are not journalism. Just as stories seen in other, rival, “traditional media” do not or, rather more accurately, should not, be lifted and reproduced without being checked.

Does this attitude toward information generated by individuals and published on the internet have something to do with a perceived (or actual) erosion of power? That the future cuts both ways has already been demonstrated by the Reuters picture incident. Did the smoke of the doctored picture from Beirut which was “outed” by bloggers hang heavy but unacknowledged in the air?

It isn’t (she types, slowly and heavily, because this is sooo old and it’s soooo tedious to have to repeat it all the time) “them and us”. It really isn’t. Get your head out of the sand, get on your surfboard and ride the frikkin wave. Change is difficult, change (nowadays) is extremely fast. Entrenched, adversarial, inflexible, defensive attitudes are not going to get you anywhere.

And now, back to the cat. In a glorious example of web2.0 loveliness I have to relate that I was contacted to take part in today’s exciting event by flickr mail. By AnnabelB who, I notice, already has a picture of the event on her photostream.

She, it transpires, has been reading this blog (no doubt concerned that she’d contacted some cat-loving madwoman) and had been following the saga of the cards closely. So when we met and I offered her one she immediately demanded the one with the most embarrassing photo title. Which I think has to be “don’t mess with me”. Which is (you will have realised by now, I hope) a picture of….. my cat!

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Tate Flickr exhibition

Interesting idea:

About How We Are Now

For the first time, Tate is inviting members of the public to contribute to the content of an exhibition.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
How We Are: Photographing Britain (Tate Britain, 22 May — 2 September 2007) takes a unique look at the journey of British photography, from the pioneers of the early medium to today’s photographers who use new technology to make and display their imagery. To demonstrate the evolving nature of photography in the twenty-first century, Flickr photographs will be featured in the exhibition.

SUBMITTING YOUR PHOTOGRAPH
To submit a photograph to the exhibition, simply join this group and contribute your photograph anytime until 25 July 2007.

See the link above for more information.

I hope this is just the beginning of many collaborative cultural projects using social software to integrate (potentially) global virtual contributions into a physical exhibition space.

I like the way too there is the less-moderated element of the flickr group and then the smaller curated sample from that volunteered pool.

Now, what to submit?

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I do like this

And I wonder how long it will be around…

I was once told that it wasn’t Disney which pulled all the company’s footage which found its way onto YouTube but YouTube itself. Companies like Disney would, apparently, like to have the viral marketing leverage that the site provides but YouTube retains copyright of all work posted to the site.

Some organisations make deals with YouTube under which they consent to allow some of their material to appear. So far Disney has not.

[Update: see Correction in the comments]

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Card game in the park

I came across these four men while walking Maizy. They were happy to let me take pictures, but couldn’t explain the game very clearly since there wasn’t, they said, an English equivalent. It was played in pairs, two against two, and the number ten was important.

There was a whole line of men sitting in the benches on either side of that doing service as a card table. They lolled, legs outstretched, bodies inclined at an acute angle so as to get maximum benefit from the still-palpable heat of the dipped sun. There was much laughter and banter as the players groaned in despair or slapped the bench in triumph.

Fifty feet or so away across the tarmac, their backs to the sun, sat a smaller group of women in saris. Quiet, upright, their faces in shadow, occasionally inclining together as they spoke.

“Who won?” I asked as I passed the players again on my way home. “Oh, nobody. Nobody wins, it’s not that sort of game.”

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Inappropriate mooing

So the cards arrived.

moo cards

They’re gorgeous. There’s something so satisfying in seeing the pictures on paper, or card in this case, being able to run a finger over the surface and look at the nuances rather than viewing then on the light-box of a computer screen. I love the associations – that’s A’s garden, there’s R’s hand, I took that one with N, G took that picture too, secondborn gave me that daisy, W liked that one, that’s the pavement outside H’s flat, O gave me those tulips etc etc. I definitely don’t want to give any of them away. However there’s another disincentive to handing them out willy-nilly.

I thought it would be a great idea to have the picture’s title appear on the reverse of the card. Unfortunately this has led to some rather surreal juxtapositions, for instance:

R- R-
skill, skill, skill
email@generic.org
07987000000
and so are you

This is a particularly obscure one since the picture in question is of pomegranates. It ended up with that title because it was the fourth in a valentine’s day series which started with the rather more obvious “roses are red”.

Other gnomic last lines include tree brain, trapped, rock man, blousy, wooden eye, rock slime, little curly tail and nun boot, but my favourites are pansy with small flies, are you blind too? and, perhaps most unfortunate of all to be handed out to potential employers, don’t mess with me.

One lives, and one learns.