mogwai live, if you can take the roundhouse sound Tweet

Later update: the embedded video below, though I couldn't apologise more for the piss poor sound quality at the Roundhouse. Only a week ago I used to think that it was the inability of the phone camera to capture that kind of sound, and especially that kind of volume, but having seen an equally bad capture on a much better camera, tonight I paid attention to what I was actually able to hear myself. In brief, NOISE. So, here's some Mogwai noise.

Watch "mogwai NOW at the Roundhouse" on YouTube

welcome to the future: the friendly fires gig I'm at now Tweet

Update, July 19th 2001: The video is finally embedded below, and I've found a moment to tell you why exactly you were welcome to the future. This video was shot on an Android phone (which explains the horrendous sound quality by the way) and uploaded to YouTube immediately after, using the free wifi of (the iTunes Festival at) the Roundhouse in Camden. From YouTube is was soon after posted to my blog, and not long after... to Twitter, Facebook and my Google Profile. It was all pretty effortless—while doing all this I could easily sing along with the Friendly Fires and shake my tushy, both of which went on vigorously. The entire broadcasting experience has been pretty fantastic, really, if we ignore the bewildering inability of the YouTube mobile site or Android app (native, you'd think!) to embed the video instead of cheating by posting a link (watch "Friendly Fires NOW at Roundhouse London" on YouTube, i.e. the whole initial post).

What could be more futuristic, after this? That the phone + pocket PC devices we use nowadays marry the good pocket cameras (many too tiny for us to hit the right button anymore) we also use, and the emerging unique mobile device has the ability to stream live :) Other thoughts?

great landscape photography. with a twist ;) Tweet

I've been sharing this image left and right as of last night, so feel free to move on if you've seen it already. But if you're wondering why I insist, first, this is a rare reminder that landscape photography is worth pursuing and can be outstanding, and second, I'm all for peeing in the bosom of nature and I applaud doing it from wuthering heights. What a wonderful sense for light, color, layers and whimsy, in a single image!

creativity, copyright, and all loose ends between Tweet

One of my photos is featured in the left bottom corner of the collage below, which is getting pretty popular on Flickr. The most interesting part of the experience, unfolding these past days, was helping Carolyn Saxby learn to credit original authors (not just link back to the original photos, which she did from the start) and, more importantly, present the work under a Creative Commons license similar to mine (as mine requests). I did offer her the option to retire/ replace my photo, more so since she edited the initial collage to add a third row of photos, but of course I'm glad she chose to keep my image in. Here is why Carolyn's short journey, partly reflected in the comments, as well as the journey of her collage, are of more interest to me than the actual work.

Finally having time to check out the other original authors, I learned that seven out of nine have all rights reserved next to their images, just like Carolyn herself normally would. For me (and God only knows, for her!), that makes it very hard to figure out how, if at all, this collage could exist in a copyright space that allows for every author's rights to be well represented and respected. It also points to some weaknesses of Flickr, particularly:

1. the lack of native tools for creating and publishing derivative works,
2. crediting original authors in connection to derivative works and recognising where rights were waived on any type of work,
3. as well as insufficient stress on, and integration with Creative Commons (unchanged for years, I believe).

Of course, just like the wonderful people at Flickr, the wonderful people behind Creative Commons could do a lot more themselves to educate, not to say evangelise—why isn't a CC license HOT, desirable, to begin with? And of course initiatives like Getty Images' clever integration with Flickr make things worse by allowing amateur photographers like me to dream about selling photos, which is rather nocive for the majority of said amateurs.

But all that aside, what do you think? Which of the above could be tweaked quickly and easily so that the entire ecosystem improves? That way, we'd finally get to focus on creativity rather than exploiting its outcomes or, worse, chasing wrongdoers (which is THE fad in online photography at the moment).

While you ponder, and hopefully write up your comment, do enjoy the collage that got this started for me all over again. Especially since, if copyright of photos online would be understood, enforced and supported by all players, the image below would not exist in this exact incarnation.

from the vault: this time last year Tweet

From my Photojojo’s PhotoTimeCapsule July 1, 2010: Just sitting in the new flat, still surrounded by books. But it's quiet and I hear the wind chime on the terrace. The Internet works and there's coffee. The office is nearby and I'll be heading there as soon as I finished writing the note to Daniela and packed some lunch. And a previously unblogged photo from those days :)

the life fantastic Tweet

I was sitting here two nights ago, on my fragrant Central London terrace, noting the contrasts of my life. The single working clock nearby, the oven, was stating 13:09, which could only mean nine minutes past one in the morning. I had just finished emailing three establishments in the Carribbean about a Christmas booking. Of course that is not sensible and certainly not within the means of a self-funded entrepreneur. But if I conducted myself by perceived limitations, I wouldn't be on this amazing terrace right now, and by all means, not an entrepreneur.

The type of contrast that amused me that evening has only become striking in the last months. I have a terrible electric cooker, yet I know the location (and address!) of my future London flat. I live with a nightmare macerator loo, yet I grow over 100 species of plants in my garden, many edible. I eat most of my excellent meals at home, yet I can experience the best restaurants in the city. I can't afford to own, yet I know which holiday home, which New York flat, which Mediterranean island.

And it carries on. And on. I haven't been able to write it all up along the way, yet it's all memorised, documented, chewed upon. The long working days building something unique, the phone calls with my family that didn't happen in over half a year, the strategy debates at 3am, the lack of time to get a haircut, the gifts I bought but don't get to give, the endless home projects that make it all worth, the late jazz nights we steal away, the love, the rows, the benefits, the ups and downs of being 100% on, 100% here. A nearly round snowball, immensely enjoyed.

Sometimes I try to explain it all to normal people, close or not, because they ask. They never get it, they never lived like this and never will. So when it all comes down to the leveling but-are-you-happy, I fucking am. It's all my making, all my hard work, all my good fun.