Four (or five) Things
Good day. I haven’t been blogging as much lately, because I think I’ve forgotten what blogging is? Or rather, what it is to me.
All those little, spur of the moment, “OMG you HAVE to see this” type nuggets tend to get vomited up onto my Twitter or Facebook feeds. Longer-form stories about my life are dull and uninteresting to anyone but myself (although I haven’t ruled these out, I just haven’t been bothered to write anything like it recently). And photographs I’ve taken tend to go online via Flickr, but I’ve been doing that less and less lately too.
With that said, here are four things I’ve been loving recently. There’s a load more, too, but these are four of the best.
Thing one: Nicholas Whiting’s photography
I stumbled on this chap’s work through his submissions to Manchester Daily Photo, I think, and I idly followed the link to his blog [http://nicholas-whiting.blogspot.com/]. My eyes were greeted by a cracking assortment of images, many of them taken on film, of all sorts of subjects.
Turns out Nick, a student at University of Manchester, also submits his work to the Mancunian (formerly Student Direct) amongst others, but I think his stuff should be seen much more widely. I have featured a handful of his photographs on Manchester Daily Photo, and a few more are coming up in the pipeline. Keep your eyes peeled.
Thing two: Peter Broderick’s new album
Look, ok, it’s titled http://www.itstartshear.com (a URL as well as a title), and the first single from the album (featured in the excellent video blow) helpfully implants said URL into your head via the magic of melody.
But controversial/gimmicky title aside, it’s worth stating here for clarity: this is a new solo vocal album from Peter Broderick: it’s going to be a joy. Click play in the video box below and have a listen to the first single (It Starts Hear), set to a series of images and movies collected by Broderick over recent years.
Peter Broderick – It Starts Hear from Bella Union on Vimeo.
The title, incidentally, refers to an actual website, which will launch next month, around the time the album is released. Its purpose, according to Broderick, is to “be a place where all listeners, no matter what format they obtain the music in, can easily access all the lyrics and notes and visuals which are meant go along with the songs.”
His point, obviously, is that whether you download the song illegally, buy the LP, or hear it taped off the radio (right?), every listener should have access to the same extra fluff – the metadata, the artwork – in the same way (albeit digitally). I like this a lot – Broderick feels the same way as I do about this subject, and he even goes so far as to say that illegal downloading of his music “doesn’t bother” him. But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.
The point is, as I say, there’s a new, proper, Peter Broderick album on the horizon (release date: February 20th, via Bella Union), and it will be accompanied by some extra (audio-?) visual fluff to enjoy and add to it. Bring. It. On.
Thing three: Responsive Web Design
On the subject of presentation via the Web, I have lately been spending a disproportionate amount of my time reading about Responsive Web Design, ostensibly for my Applied Web Design and Management unit at university, but also just because I find it fascinating. I know.
The above book, Ethan Marcotte‘s game-changing Responsive Web Design (published last year by A Book Apart – details here) is a pleasantly brief, but no less informative introduction to the whole concept. It covers all the basics, providing understandable examples, and serving as a spring-board for web designers of any level (i.e. from myself upwards) into this new web design concept.
I’ll probably write more about responsive web design, and why it thrills me so much, at another time. Meanwhile I am having a bash at coding a new responsive version of Manchester Daily Photo – a feat which is at first pointless (Tumblr’s mobile website layout is very nice, if a little generic) but then also long overdue. Watch this space.
Thing four: Henry Cooke’s photography
Henry Cooke is a young photographer from Wellington, NZ, and I can’t actually remember how I stumbled upon his Flickr account. Sorry about that. But I know that when I did, I spent about an hour paging through his photographs, rapt. It was the mixture of intimate portraits and shots of the city of Wellington and surrounding scenery that did it, along with the mixture of sharp, digital shots and nicely fuzzy film snaps.
Turns out our Henry’s a bit of a polymath on the web, with a tech column at Stuff, and various other online profiles with which to stalk the hell out of him. He’s a smart chap with a good eye, not just for photography but also for typography and design.
Bonus Thing: Lisa Abrams’ photography
For years I’ve been a huge fan of poring over film photographs taken by interesting people with an eye for style and use of light, shadows and colour. When those photographs are taken on interesting hardware, such as old Russian cameras, it makes the deal even sweeter. So can you believe my luck when my wonderful partner Lisa ticked all those boxes?
She’s so far taken about fifteen films with her rather excellent Zenit EM camera, and a lot of them have made their way to Flickr for all to see. Call me biased, but some of the resulting photographs are superb, and they just keep getting better and better.
Head over to her Flickr account to have a look at what she’s been up to.
That’s all for now. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go and shelve some books for ale money. Oh, and learn to use my new camera properly. Oh, and re-code a website from scratch. Oh, and finish my degree. Oh, and…












