D'log

Pier review:In relation to my recent posting about creative downshifters and the chance re-locating artists have to re-imagine & re-enchant their new landscapes, the latest Artists Newsletter magazine has a four-page article about artists who have recently moved out of London to the seaside, with a focus on the towns of Margate/Ramsgate and their North […]

pBase:Generate a page containing a random selection of photos from pBase, a site where people can store public photo archives. Three goes on it led me to this big page of marvelous moggies.

Provincial life:Matthew Parris in The Spectator, on the renaissance of the provincial towns, and the subtle pleasures of rail travel… “There is an England from which London can be subtracted, which still has sense and form, bits of which can visit other bits of which without even thinking of the metropolis.”

Best British art gallery:Blimey. According to the new Good Britain Guide, Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts is their Gallery of the Year. It’s an unassuming, out-of-the way building on the campus of the University of Birmingham.

More on downshifting:Friends & acquaintances keep telling me they’re soon to move out to rural areas, priced out or cashing-out of the cities. One’s off to start a smallholding in Cork, another to a farmhouse perched atop a hill west of Oswestry, another to an animal-sanctuary in Bangor, yet another to Llandudno. All will retain […]

Just wild:It’s always a criticism of using a digital camera while walking or cycling long-distance through a landscape. You’re trecking far away from electric sockets, you crest a ridge and… there’s a great photo. Whip out your digital camera and… the battery’s dead. You’re miles from the nearest electricity socket. A £180 solution is at […]

Gardening:Perfectly timed for the incipient folk-noir revival, Virginia Astley‘s seminal From Gardens Where We Feel Secure was re-released, re-mastered, in November by Rough Trade.

Light wallet:Marantz has debuted its HD “digital light projector” which should be of great interest to some galleries and light-artists. Contrast ratio: 2600:1 (double what could previously be done, and as good as any cathode monitor). Colour fidelity: as good as HDTV. Images size: wall-size +. Drawback: the 1,280 x 720 pixel image sounds a […]

Web 3D, redux:You only have a week before the deadline for Web3DArt 2004. California-based, fab multiwordnogaps title, students can enter, winners will be shown at SIGGRAPH 2004. This isn’t your grandpa’s creaky crash-prone VRML. Honest; just ignore that rendered cube on the front page, and the naff 1996-style ‘3D word logo’ on inner pages. W3D […]

Luv:It’s five weeks to Valentine’s Day, and the crocusses and the dating books are a’ stirring. (Times, free registration required).

Safe:Kept in sub-zero vaults below a mountain, surrounded by armed guards. Sadly, not Ken Livingston & Claire Short. It’s the 11 million photographic prints of the Bill Gates-owned Bettmann Archive. (Times, free registration required).

London Fair:The Spectator on the boom in art fairs in… you guessed it, London. And only London. Interestingly though, there’s a new Photo-London Fair (20th–23th May). That might be worth spending the rail & tube fare to see; if only to see what’s for sale, what sells and for how much.

Macs vs. PC’s:An exhaustive bench test oriented around the needs of digital photographers. Conclusion; “the PC was faster in 58 of 77 benchmarks.”

Perceptive:Back in October I blogged about the way that approaching a town or city by train often doesn’t fit with a first-time visitor’s PR-driven perceptions. Today Birmingham City Council announces… “Railway lines into Birmingham which have become rubbish dumps are to be cleaned up in a bid to improve the city’s gateways.”

Wurdz:Definition of Urban Dictionary; an awesomely comprehensive and fully-searchable dictionary of contemporary English street/geek slang, hip allusions, and media-borne neologisms. Anyone can write a definition; no registration required; and because of this it’s most useful when you read or hear a word/phrase used and want to know what it means.

Everyday marvels:Gene has a wonderful posting on photographing everyday things.

Rhubarb & dates:Rhubarb Rhubarb, Birmingham’s photography based ‘Festival of the Image’, has announced dates for 2004; 22nd – 25th July 2004.