Musings and wanderings in the Daemon Wastes...

Author: Maleghast (Page 36 of 38)

Press Coverage Part One (I hope)…

Yesterday there was an article in the Reading Chronicle about my exhibition. Thanks are due to for transcribing it from the paper; here is the text:

Photographer records the year with portfolio of 366 pictures

A photographer with plenty of focus is staging a unique exhibition of the 366 people who occupied a year of his life.

Oliver Godby, of Kennet Walk, is presenting 366 portraits- one taken every day for a year, of friends, family, and chance encounters with strangers.

The project, which is free to view, will be displayed at Blake’s Lock Museum, on the River Kennet from September 13-18.

The 33-year-old said: “My aim was to take an interesting photo of someone I knew or met before midnight every day for a whole year to create a portfolio which would be as much about my life as those I photographed.

“The original challenge was to find 365 ways of taking someone’s portrait that would give some insight into their character and be an interesting photograph.”

The artist and freelance computer programmer started the project on May 10, 2007 on his 32nd birthday and then realised that 2008 is a leap year and he needed an extra picture on February 29.

The pictures feature subjects ranging from babies to pensioners, photographed in Britain and abroad.

Oliver’s love of photography stems from an old school friend, and from his father Clifford Godby, who is still a keen photographer today.

He said “I am interested is all areas of photography, but my primary focus has always been taking pictures of people. I enjoy event photography of all kinds, weddings, parties, gigs as well as fashion and fine art.

“My hope is to advance my art by taking photographs as often as I can, and one day to make my living doing what I love.”

He hopes to present his exhibition in other places in the UK, and to produce a book, based on the stories of his subjects.

Oliver added: “I am hoping that this exhibition will stimulate people to think about the people they meet every day, and to consider taking special portraits of their friends and family”

—

Last night and tonight, thanks to the help of some friends who have been more than generous with their time and support, I have hung the show, and now I can say that tomorrow evening I will be opening my first exhibition, and I am so proud, thankful, excited, scared and wired.

A whole year of my life is hanging on those walls… Seems like only yesterday that Heppie and I were joking together about how mad one would have to be to attempt to take a portrait of a different person every day for a year.

I look forward to seeing those of you who can make it, we will think of and toast those of you that can’t, and I will let you all know how it all goes.

Night night all 🙂

Poster…

Hello again all, more exhibiton news…

Last night jfs created an absolutely killer poster for my show – I cannot tell you how blown away I am by this, it’s just so cool 🙂

Anyway, if anyone reading this is in a position to put it up at work, or you just want a sneak preview of the poster, then please feel free to download and print this:

Poster – Click Here to Download 

Thanks for your help if you print it and put it up – just so you know it’s colour, A3…

TTFN

.

EOF

A little help from my friends…

Hello all…

I don’t know if anyone on my friends list is a journalist, or knows one, and even then the story is really only local interest in the first instance, but with my upcoming exhibition I am feeling the need to drum up some PR…

I have already sent a press release to all 3 local radio stations and both local newspapers in Reading, plus to Amateur Photographer, but I would like to cast the net wider if I can

As such, could you just have a quick think as to whether or not you know someone in the media that you could schill this to, or even someone who might know someone – you know?

The ACTUAL Press Release is here:

https://www.techno-mage.co.uk/wp_docs/PressRelease_365Portraits_OliverGodby.pdf

The information about the show and the project can be found at this link:

https://www.techno-mage.co.uk/blog/365-portraits/

The Photos themselves are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliver_godby/sets/72157600200897004/

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give…

..::EDIT::.. Can anyone on here help me with creating a poster for the show..? I am crap at these things and could really do with input from someone who is good at this kind of thing…

Help me lazy-web, you are my only hope…

So I’ve been thinking about my career, and my future; dangerous waters for sure… The thing is that I love programming, but more and more I am finding myself to be restricted by the kind of work I can get, in short I tend to find that there is too much ‘fix it, fix it now!’ and not enough thoughtful, well designed and planned and innovative development going on to really hold my interest and allow me to get the creative / intellectual buzz out of my work. Frankly, in the long term, if I am going to stay in programming, I think that I am going to have to evolve my skillset away from purely web-based technologies, if only to give me the opportunity to pick the most interesting work I can get instead of the most interesting web-based work I can get.

I am really enjoying the freedom and flexibility of contracting – don’t believe the hype about the money; it was great in the 90’s, but unless you are prepared to fly a lot closer to the grey areas of the tax rules than I am comfortable with it is not all that much better than appropriately compensated permanent work these days. Still the freedom and flexibility is well worth the extra hassle and uncertainty, so I’d like to carry on being a freelancer / contractor whatever I end up doing.

It has also occured to me that I like and am interested in server / systems admin, particularly on the UNIX / Linux side of things, and that I already have __some__ skills in that area.

So here’s the rub… I have some periods on my CV that I can legitimately claim as times in which my job has genuinely required me to act for a portion of my working time as a UNIX sysadmin. I have some skills in that area and would certainly not be over-selling myself to describe myself as a “power user” in UNIX-like environments, i.e. I LIKE the command line, I use grep, sed, vi, perl, regular expressions and many other tools that characterise the sysadmin, box-pilot, code-monkey trope. I also love servers – I know this is a little weird, but if I had the money I would have a small rack of server appliances in my home, just to play with; I love the kit, I love what they can do for me if used correctly and the soft hum of server fans and the blinking of (preferably blue) LEDs is very attractive to me. I am a geek; there I said it, I feel better. Bearing all of this in mind, I think that I might like to move into doing contract-based sysadmin work, specifically providing short-term relief for key server support staff on long-term sick, or maternity leave or who simply leave a company ‘in the lurch’ by changin jobs unexpectedly and leaving a resource gap. The problem is that I am not sure of three factors:

1. How to shore-up (or is that sure-up?) my skills… Should I look into certification? Should I look for lower paying ‘doing my time’ work? Are there steps that I absolutely should take?

2. Where to look for short-term / freelance / contract sysadmin work.

3. Is all of the work in this field going to come with an on-call burden, or is there the potential to escape that?

Your thoughts, friends, would as ever be very helpful to me…

TTFN

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EOT

Official Announcement – 365 Portraits, LIVE!

OK, there has not been a lot of communication from me on this subject for a while and I realise that we are now getting into the realms of short-notice, but I can now announce with final and complete certainty (well almost, more on that later) that the exhibition of my project “365 Portraits” will run from 12/09/2008 to 18/09/2008 in The Turbine House Exhibition Gallery at The Blake’s Lock Museum in Reading.

If you can see this, then you are warmly invited to attend the ‘Private View’ on Friday 12th of September, starting at 1900h.

There have been some roadblocks along the way, including the prohibitive cost of having the collection printed, but this is by no means designed to be a sob-story, and the important fact is that the mountain has been almost completely conquered and the show will go on.

There are two remaining details to deal with between now and the 10th (when I get the keys):

1. I am still in need of a volunteer or two who are prepared to be anything from bored out of their minds to engaged in deep discussions with interested members of the public, for either / both of Tuesday and Thursday the 16th and 18th. Basically to get the space, it must be ‘open’ from at least 1030h to 1830h during the entirety of the exhibition and I have to go to work… I will be keeping the exhibition open under my own steam on the evenings, and the weekend, but I need some people who need to ring-fence some quality reading time, but who are comfortable dealing with the public if necessary. Any offers greatly received, please email me at – maleghast at gmail dot com.

2. I need to provide my own Pulic Liability Insurance for the duration of the exhibition or Reading Borough Council will not let me have the space. It may be that I just have a butchers on the internet and buy what I can get / afford and be done with it, but if anyone out there has experience with arranging / sourcing / buying short-term event insurance of this type, or even of any type and particularly if they can recommend a good, cheap broker, then I would be in your debt.

I hope that some / many / all of the people who can see this, plus their significant others (if for some reason I can’t reach them) will come and see the show – a lot of the people who will see this blog-post are in the show. I hope some of you will be able to make it on the Friday evening, where there will indeed be ‘pie and punch’, or perhaps something a little more sophisticated. Anyone who can hook me up with cheap wine that is actually drinkable, and / or good nibbles may well get a copy of their picture presented to them (though not the show copy, as I hope to re-exhibit later this year / early next).

Those of you who can see this who blog in other scenes / environments / areas or just have different audiences to me who are prepared to do their bit passing on the details, you are forever in my debt and you are also shiny, special people. So that you can spread the word, here are some details:

Blakes Lock Museum

Dates: 12/09 -> 18/09 2008 | 1030h to 2130h

The Project on Flickr

There will also be a ‘Page’ on my WordPress Blog with these details, but it’s not ready yet – I will send another Ping around when that’s live.

Thanks in advance to any and all that talk / blog about this for me 🙂

Finally… I am going to say this up-front so that it’s not a shock to anyone, and also to make it as clear as I can to the people most important to me that I have no expectations on this front;

This endeavour is costing me (conservatively) about £1k. Now, that is my choice and I’m not asking anyone to either praise my commitment, or mock my lunacy, I wanted to do this, this is the best way to make sure that it’s my show, my vision, my achievement. Nonetheless there will be a donations box at the show, and rather like the money you may (or may not) spend on a piece of good shareware software, or the tip you leave after a good meal, if you enjoy the show, then please think about leaving a donation. I do not expect to even get close to recouping costs, but if I do, the balance of any further donations will go to charity, I have honestly not decided which one yet. Please feel free to give me some ideas…

There will also be the chance to buy either an ‘official’ / licenced digital copy of the picture or pictures that you like, or to order paper or canvas prints. Again, I do not expect this of people, but I want it to be possible, and I want to be transparent about the fact that there will be a mark-up on printing, so if you want to get the best deal, then I would think about the digital route and doing your own printing – there is simply no way for me to get it any cheaper than you can. For Reading locals I will be recommending a local tradesman, who appears as one of the portraits in the show. He is an excellent printer and framer and his prices are very good considering the qualilty of what he turns out. There will be more details on his services in the show literature (must get to Kinko’s this weekend)…

Okay, that’s it for now – I look forward to seeing as many of you as I am lucky enough to get on the 12th; thanks fo reading…

New Fun Things…

So, I have managed to get on the Beta for Ping.fm a really cool tool that does some clever things that I wanted to do last year and never found the time to actually write the code – oops…

Basically it allows you to post to multiple blog / social network locations from one source; in this case I am using MSN.

I am going to use it for a while and let you all know what I think, but I can see this being a really important tool in the weeks and months to come, and I can definitely see some business applications of it as a tool as well – not just a convenience for internet whores like myself…

So, this message should appear on my Blog, and my LJ

Further Ping.fm testing – last one, I promise…

“And a big blood hound in the back of a jacked up Ford.”

Last night I lost another virginity.  Last night I saw Clutch live for the first time and there is likely to be no better live musical event for me this year.

They were truly amazing. Tight, but not clinically rehearsed; loud, but in a good way; rock, yes pure, unadulterated, blues-inspired, stoner-flavoured, sex music from the very soul of the American Dream.  If you have a chance to see them in Birmingham (you’ll already have tickets as it’s sold out), London (be quick!) or the Hard Rock Hell festival in North Wales in early December, or for our friends in the US, all over the country between September and December, then I urge you to see them.  Guaranteed to satisfy, they are one of the great hard rock bands of the nineties and noughties, and right now they appear to be on their very best form.

—

Find out more here (official site) and here (wikipedia)

Travels with my camera… Part IV

So Wednesday came and I decided to ‘finish off’ Fishermans’ Wharf and then ride the historic Cable Car (you have to do it just once). Fishermans’ Wharf is a __real__ tourist trap, but there is a reason, it is really very cool. There are a ton of restaurants there and you can get up close and personal with a Dungeness Crab or two if the mood takes you; they cook ’em up in batches right out on the street like this:

San Francisco - Day #2 - Fishermans' Wharf, Powell & Mason cable Car and The Local Neighbourhood

Anyway, I was there mostly to eat Clam Chowder, from a bowl made of a large sourdough roll – a true San Francisco cliché, but you have to do these things at least once! I wandered around for a while tkaing pictures and trying with no real frame of reference or prior intelligence to choose a good place to try out the aforementioned chowder. In the end I chose Tarantino’s – come on, with a name like that I just HAD to. I ordered the Clam Chowder lunch special and a pint of Anchor Steam and settled back to watch the comings and goings of the smaller pleasure craft and fishing boats that were using the wharf below the restaurant. The food was magnificent, I can’t tell you how good it was, and at $8 I’m sure I paid more than I might have done if I shopped around, but as far as I was concerned it was worth every nickel. If you don’t believe me, check it out:

San Francisco - Day #2 - Fishermans' Wharf, Powell & Mason cable Car and The Local Neighbourhood

Once I’d eaten I wandered around the tourist stores, picked up the cheesiest keychain I could find, as per Kendal’s request, and then headed up to the Cable Car turnaround to join the Powell & Mason Cable Car to get back up to Downtown. When I arrived at the turnaround there was some kind of problem and there was a guy literally underneath it fixing something. Eventually they go things moving again, and I got to see the turnaround crew get the cable car ready for the return trip:

San Francisco - Day #2 - Fishermans' Wharf, Powell & Mason cable Car and The Local Neighbourhood

The ride back up to Downtown was well worth the $5, but I have to be honest I would not recommend the Cable Cars as one’s main mode of public transport if you visit SF – they are just so much more expensive than MUNI and / or BART, and they are always in high demand because of the tourist trade.

Here are a couple more pictures from my Cable Car Ride:

San Francisco - Day #2 - Fishermans' Wharf, Powell & Mason cable Car and The Local Neighbourhood

San Francisco - Day #2 - Fishermans' Wharf, Powell & Mason cable Car and The Local Neighbourhood

Once I had arrived back in Downtown I was pretty tired, still having not properly recovered from the journey in from Canada, so I headed down into the BART station at Powell and made my way back to Kendal and Steve’s place in The Mission.

Travels with my camera… Part III

So, there I was, sitting in Carlos’s on Mission and 24th… While I was waiting fro Kendal I had a Corona and was made to feel very welcome by the people in there – they even offered to let me change the music having worked out that I was more likely to be a Rock fan the guy who was watching the door let me know that the jukebox was an internet one and there would be Metal on it 🙂

So anyway, Kendal showed up, we did the hellos thing and then we celebrated with a really good shot of tequilla, and just had a chat about Canada, her day and that kind of thing. It was cool to discover that we get on in real life too, and it is a fun thing to meet the people that you only previously knew from the internet. We headed on back to her and Steve’s appartment, and after eating my first real American Burrito (a Super Shrimp Burrito no less) we all crashed.

Tuesday morning I was still all screwed up with my body clock, which actually worked out well because it meant that I was able to go out for a walk with Kendal and Rudy, and so it came to pass that I was brought to Phils Coffee on 24th. Now this is serious people, you need to know that though I would strongly recommend that anyone who is planning to visit SF should make the time to go to Phil’s there is a hidden danger. If you drink the coffee from there you will be ruined for coffee from elsewhere, and I do mean everywhere! Tip: If you think it is worth the risk, have the Turkish (with cream and sugar, even if you don’t normally), or the Arabian black.

So, once Kendal and Steve were away to work I headed out into San Francisco to begin exploring. I took the BART to Powell and then on my first day in the City I managed to go straight through one of the areas that Kendal had advised me to avoid – I walked down 5th all the way to the CalTrain. Now I’ve heard that it would have been worse if I had walked down 6th instead, but even so I have to admit that while I was walking it I did not feel threatened, but when I thought back later to some of the things I saw and so forth I did realise that it might have been a good thing that I didn’t have the camera out at that point. So at the CalTrain I crossed to 4th and from there I walked all the way down to South Beach. I stopped for lunch opposite Pier40 at an Italian owned café, which was really cool – I finally experienced an American sandwich, which is truly an expience – I mean as I expected it was more than enough food to last me until supper time. From there I walked down South Beach, under the Bay Bridge and all the way along past the Port Authority to Pier39. The Bay-front in San Francisco is really pretty and interesting, all the piers on one side and parks on the other, and this is a city wil really cool and intersting civic sculpture, like this amazing sculpture of a bow and arrow:

San Francisco - Day #1 - South Beach and Pier39

When I arrived at Pier39 I was bushwhacked, so instead of heading straight on in I sat under a huge tree in this gorgeous little park and just stared and stared at another sculpture called “Sky Gate” (I have a picture, but I have not processed it yet), and enjoyed watching the world go by. Pier39 and Fishermans’ Wharf is basically San Francisco’s biggest tourist trap, so there was every kind of person from every culture milling around, pointing at things, and so forth, but there were also local people walking their dogs and business folk taking their lunchbreaks – it all made for a cool slice of life view.

I wandered onto Pier39 mostly with the intention of going to see the Sea Lions. The Californian Sea Lion is an amazing creature, and Pier39 has a protected, safe ‘drag out’ for them, so you can spend a long time watching them laze about in the sun, going for swims and having little fights with one another. I was really pleased that I had carried my longest lens and my doubler, because without it I would never have managed to take a single picture of them that I was pleased with, let alone this one:

San Francisco - Day #1 - South Beach and Pier39

(I have others, but I think that this is the best)

By this time I was starting to get really tired, so I recouperated in Bugga Gump by having an Anchor Steam (local beer that you can buy at home, but only bottled), and that was a good way to relax 🙂

So, after all of that, rather than burn out on day one, I headed back to the Mission and Kendal and Steve’s place to partake of ‘The Holy Day’, otherwise known as ‘Taco Tuesday’. We had a cool evening, hanging out, eating fantastic Carne Assada tacos, as made by Steve and enjoying some Scotch, which is more than slightly appropriate with Kendal’s Vox persona being ‘Miss Scotch’.

With both of them working and me still beign on East Coast time we called it a night pretty early, but what a great first day; I certainly had no complaints whatsoever.

More later….

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