Friday 18 September 2009

More Birdies! Eagle handling day.

For my Fiances birthday last year I got her an Eagle Experience Day based out in Eynesford in Kent. I'll openly admit that there were some selfish reasons for coming up with the idea as it was a day for two but I like to think it wasn't anything like buying my better half that tool kit she's always wanted...


I was more than happy to sit back and take photos and that is exactly what I did, again with moderate success. The day was 6 hours of one on one with some of the most stunning animals that we've had the privilage to meet.


Along the way we learned a few things too, some a little disturbing and some really interesting. One thing we learned fairly rapidly was that chicks come out of their egg still containing their yolk which subsequently goes everywhere the moment the largest bird that I have ever seen tears it to shreds whilst sitting on your gloved hand. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM!!! Did I mention that she's a vegetarian?


There were two stand out birds on the day and the first was Chilli the Bald Eagle. Interesting fact about Bald Eagles, they aren't called bald because of the white head but because of their overall colouration. A white and black horse is known as a piebald horse and when the settlers came to name the Bald Eagle it was for the same reason - they are a piebald eagle. Anyway - on to the photos!






The second was Nobel the Tawny Eagle. He was a really interesting chap that seems quite lazy even to the point where he would rather walk everywhere rather than fly. The even odder thing was that when he walked there was no waddle that you associate with pidgeons and other birds. He looked for all the world like a person, albeit a bit feathery.

So - presenting Noble the Tawn Eagle:




On the photography front...

I've been keeping busy on the photography side of things as well. I've managed to get through a couple more photography projects for the Overclockers UK monthly photo competition with moderate success.

The July theme was '5 Seconds' with the idea that all the photos should be taken using a long exposure technique of 5 seconds length or more. After toying with a whole set of cliched ideas using light trails, light painting, stars in the night sky and car trails I had an epiphany. Ok that's a little white lie, I nicked the idea off Top Gear, the motoring show on the BBC, where they were showing what I think was a new Lambo or Maserati or similar. They had a neat effect using neon tubes where they were waved along the length of the car but you could only see the light trails as they were being made. Being rather taken by the idea, I thought I'd have a go.

So I jumped on Ebay and found myself a portable neon lamp for around £20 which I thought looked around perfect for the job:


The next trick was to head up onto the roof of my apartment block and start experimenting. My initial idea was to run along the length of the roof and make some random light trails but this soon proved itself to be impractical for a couple of reasons. The first of which was a lack of context, i.e. the ribbons of light were neither coming nor going anywhere. The next issue was that as I walked/ran with the light my movement would translate into the ribbons, so for every step I made the ribbon would bob up and down. Now lacking a steady cam rig there wasn't really any solution to that so I changed the scene a bit and also the distance that I had to cover in the time span allotted.

Shifting the camera around to face the roof entrance to the building I cottoned onto what was to be the final composition and also the answer to my 'where are the ribbons going' problem. My other issue was resolved by forcing myself to be as smooth as possible. After around about 5-10 attempts I was losing the light and decided to call it a night, not before turning around and discovering that I had been entertaining some of the occupants of the hotel next door... oh well these are the sacrifices we make for our art!

So end result? It is a combination of 5 exposures all shot at around 25 seconds a shot and composited in Photoshop.




It's all been quiet here for a bit...

Motivation has been lacking of late for updating this blog and it's a shame because there has been a great deal going on. Having a little bit of time on my hands I thought I'd see if I could make some movement toward catching up a little.

I left off on a couple of music related things and since then I've come across a producer/artist that has really caught my attention. His name is
Ulrich Schnauss and is an electronic musician from Germany. Having a little bit of a background in dance music and electronica I do tend to keep an eye out for these things although of late my inclinations have been more for heavy rock and metal. Still when something comes along of this quality I generally sit up and take notice.

Similarities could be drawn to the likes of
Tangerine Dream, Orbital or perhaps the more mellow efforts of Chicane. In my own description I would say that it's a lush downbeat sound with lots of subtle audio layering, extremely easy to listen to and I would recommend his work. Enjoy...

Ulrich Schnauss - Clear Day



Ulrich Schnauss - Shine