Sheffield Timelapse

Seeing as we’re here, I thought I’d share this local timelapse, complete with dramatic music and dramatic local scenery:

This was made up of about 12,000 photos, shot over 7 months – and then some sterling work in the studio, methinks.

I mentioned here that I felt that the city was struggling a bit, but this visit has given me a more positive view of the place again, and for that I’m thankful. The heart of the city and the warmth of the people has become evident once more and there is redevelopment aplenty. The weather though – that still needs some work. It’s not quite right for “summer”.

What with one thing or another, I haven’t managed to get too many photos taken. What I do have will be flung up onto Flickr before the end of the week though. Probably.
Watch this space.

The Hull City “friendly”

We’re not here to watch football, but if there’s football on at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane, we will watch football.
imageThe season starts next week, so this was a preseason friendly against Hull City. For the most part, it was just that: played in a competitive, but good spirit.
There was a bit of a fight after halftime though, which was quite exciting for a friendly.

Following on from their 2-2 draw with a full strength Newcastle United side last weekend, the Blades continued to (metaphorically) punch above their weight with a well-deserved 1-1 draw.

Apparently, we’re surefire favourites to go up this season. Just like the last few seasons, then. We looked good today, it would be nice if we could keep it going for the next 9 months.

Better

I’m not wanting to court any sort of controversy here, but I’m over in the UK at the moment and the quality of TV and the adverts between the programmes are just better than I’ve been used to in SA.

But I’m constantly told that SA has such talent in these fields, so why do I feel this way?

I’m busy spending time with family at the moment, so blogging will be thin, but I’m going to try and look up some of the stuff I see and share it on here at some point. 

Avalanches!

Not the big, rumbling wall of snow coming down the side of a mountain with the sole intention of killing you, but rather the Australian electronic music group who gave us this in 2000:

TIL that the manufacture of this sort of musical composition is called “plunderphonics” – the ‘theft’ of various soundbites and samples and their amalgamation into some sort of musical collage.

Plunderphonics is a term coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative.

Must have missed that one. Sorry, John.

Either way, this is a great example of it, as was this earlier in the week.

Balance

The Isle of Man Tourist board recently commissioned stone balancing artist Adrian Gray to balance some stones on the Isle of Man. Then they commissioned photographer Mikael Buck to photograph the balanced stones on the Isle of Man, all with the aim of promoting the natural beauty of the island:

“The Isle of Man has such a range of stunning beauty spots that we wanted to bring attention to the selection available in a new and quirky way. Each of the locations featured offers something different for visitors to see to give a great first-glance of what the island has to offer.”

said tourism boss Angela Byrne.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I rather like the results (there’s a whole gallery available via this link), which were featured in newspapers all over the world Britain:

stone-balancing-8_3375065kStones at the Sound

stone-balancing-wa_3375055kStones on Bradda Head (also the site of this guy’s tower handstand)

As a art project, it’s quite cool.
As a PR exercise, it’s been excellent, with loads of publicity and media exposure, including, we’re reliably informed, a post on South Africa’s Best Loved Blog™.