Went to the beach, played frisbee, lost frisbee in a very mysterious way, found some shorts…

Wow. I’ve finally found a use for flickr… :-p

Life cycles has got to be the most anticipated MTB film ever. So far its taken over two years in production, this then could also be one of the best MTB films in recent years. Ever since “The Collective” hit in 2004, there has started to be a shift in the way MTB films are made. Concentrating more on the cinematography and editing of the riding as opposed to the ‘MTV Style’ mad clips over a metal soundtrack, this genre has seen a shift into more  ’Sports Documentary’, especially with the last Collective film, Seasons. From the passing of The Collective came Anthill Films, with their “Follow Me“, and soon “Life Cycles” will be released. What makes Life Cycles so special? Well firstly the two co-creators are MTB photographer Dereck Frankowski, and outdoor film maker and rider Ryan Gibb have set out with a vision to make a different kind of MTB film to all the others, and to produce something much more visually stunning in an effort to make the sport much more appealing to a wider, non-biking audience. This coulped with some of the best riders today, filmed on RED cameras, with a much more photographic feel and style, all makes for a pretty special film. From some of the behind the scenes photos, it looks like It will be worth the wait.

lifecyclesfilm.com

Wow. A bit slack on the updates. Anyway, I went up to London to see the graduate shows of my fellow university colleagues. It was the private view of the Debut show at Proud Central, Charing Cross, but we managed to visit the  other show, Iris, at the Maverik Showroom, Shoreditch. Both shows were very well presented and displayed a range of works from documentary through portraiture to fashion. Click on the links above for more information, and if anyone is passing, then do drop in.

While up in London we also visited a few exibitions, the first of which was ‘The Family and the Land’, a showcase of Sally Manns’ photographs at the Photographers Gallery. Mann, whose ten year project, Immediate Family, photographing her three children growing up in the countryside and surroundings of Virginia, gained her recognition as a photographer or note, producing some amazing, intimate photography of her children. These photos are as close to being perfect as its possible to get, but for me this was also her best work. Her later series of pictures, Deep South, Photographing landscapes that were significant during the American Civil War, just didn’t look as polished and completed. I can understand the process of large format wet-plate photography and the inconstancies that each photo will have, but to me they just looked like some blurry not very well shot landscapes. Her most recent project, What Remains, deals with the taboo of death, with Mann photographing bodies in various stages of decomposition at a research facility in Tennessee. These photos I found intriguing, and morbidly interesting, and would have liked to have seen more. Lastly as a conclusion to What Remains, Faces, was to bring the project to a close, with 30 photos of her children as adults, with very large closeup prints of their faces made to celebrate life. Again I found these photos were eclipsed by the near technical perfection of Immediate Family, but I think thats just cos I like literal photos…

The other exhibition we popped into was the Wolfgang Tillmans Exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, This I found “interesting”, and did give me a good example of  ’Art Photography’, not that it was bad, but to me I didn’t really know what to make of it. Some of the photos I found interesting, but only when I thought of them as pictures,  not photographs. I think this is were I start to struggle in my appreciation for the less literal, more conceptual side of photography. If I was some super art critic I think I would have liked this, but I just found it odd.

Luckily the Serpentine Gallery has a cool pavilion/cafe/tent thing for 2010, designed by Jean Nouvel. Its red. Very red. in an homage to Londons busses and phone boxes, it kinda messes with your eyes when you first step inside. Inside are bean-bags, sunken seating pits, hammocks, and table-tennis tables. Its a very cool space, and very red. Personally as a part-time architecture buff, I liked it better than the exibition we went to see, and I’m looking forward to the creation for 2011.

Red & Green, The Serpentine gallery pavillion.

The Old Gaffers festival is a local festival for old Gaff-Rigged sailing boats. Its been running for as long as I can remember, and as well as the boats, there is also a french market, loads of art and craft stalls, classic cars, bouncy castles, etc. All in all a rather good weekend, thats before you even get to the beer tent with over 40 real ales, and Rob Da Bank and the Cuban Brothers playing. Top notch.

This actually happened the beginning of the month, but I’ve only just got around to processing the photos…

More info and all the tourist blurb can be found at the official site, yarmoutholdgaffersfestival

With the growth of shooting HD video on DSLRs, there are now a whole world of very slick videos being made all over the place ranging in subject and quality from cats to cars. The current camera of choice is the Canon 5d mkII, who’s rise as an affordable and serious alternative to film HD with started with Vincent Laforets ‘Reverie’ back in 2008, and who’s mainstream credits also include the ‘House‘ Season Finale.

With the now apparent ease of filming in HD, its always refreshing to watch something that makes you think more about whats being shot, rather than what its being shot on. With this in mind, I found a video shot by two freedivers, Guillaume Néry and Julie Gautier called ‘Free Fall’. The fact its shot on 5dmkII really is irrelevant, as the cinematography, location, content editing, and music all come together and make for a rather spectacular video. Citing itself as fiction and artistic concept, its proof that its much more important to have an idea and vision than to have equipment. I like to look at it as an example of a crossover between photography and video, producing something with the artistic vision of a photograph, but with a moving subject. Other examples of this crossover that spring to mind is the Oracle scene in 300.  I’m not really that up on free diving, so for more info click on the links above for all the how its done blurb (some in French).