Revenge Of The Beatnik Zombies

They came ashore at St.Andrews beach intent on scaring all the blubbery seal like children, following in the footsteps of Dracula at Whitby, sadly no transformations into dogs pictured. Their wandering, meandering manner blowing the minds of all in the local vicinity. I'm sure a film by this name exists or at least made it to the pre-production stage.

Guitar Hero

Today something happened that has only happened to me once before. I went to see a film and was the only person in the screening. The last time was when I went to see 'Hable con ella' a pretty poor film. Tonight I saw 'Dear Wendy', another poor film. Written by Lars Von Trier the film looked to have some cool/hip moments with it's Zombies soundtrack, good enough for Friday viewing. I felt like apologising to the projectioner for wasting their time but they weren't there. Probably got bored and left. Which reminds me. I never saw any cigarette marks indicative of the need to change the reels throughout the film. Are films these days all on one single spool or has there been a switch over to some form of digital screenings without my knowledge? Being now probably one of the only people to have watched this film in Wolverhampton I feel it my responsiblility to inform the masses of the city about this bad film. A picket perhaps?

Oh yeah, the image. Ok I'm sure your all aware by now that there is a bunch of photoshop hocum going on here. The original photo was of my dear friend Alexandros Illiakis. A picture taken by his father at a Bolek & Lolek gig. For the uninitiated, Bolek & Lolek are Alex and his compatriot John (Ioannis) (I won't even attempt his surname). A simple duo combining the dream combination of guitar and accordion. Their first eponymous release has some real gems. So anyway, I created this image from that. I really like the fact that you can still make out the gaudy shirt but that it is mixed with the always cool image of the guitar tooting hero. Miami Vice meets Bruce Springsteen meets The Seventh Seal. I imagine some pretty wicked noises coming from that amplifier.

Character 1

Here's today's offering. I took this picture during a trip to Mexico. It was at a party for a whole bunch of the people in my Spanish class. We all congregated at the girl who appear's flat in the middle of the city, played some songs on guitar and violin. It was pretty cool. I was filming alot of the procedings with my miniDV camera. One of the things I caught was Lynn trying to explain some memory about ballet lessons or something striking poses as she often did. So on my return I took some stills from the footage I recorded. A pretty boring original image in itself especially as the resolution was so bad. So I started fiddling around with the picture and hey-presto. I always thought that (and do think) that images like this would make a really great looking comic of some kind. Especially lacking any above rubbish drawing skills. I am sure I'll get round to creating something one day. The image conjures what to me seem like obvious thoughts of martial arts and stealthy assasins. Particularly as the girl in question was oriental. Could you tell? Could you even tell what the picture was of? The hand? Arm? I hope it retains the appearance of a person. At least. I suppose in effect I have converted the original into something very similar to that seen in yesterday's post. Features appearing out of blocks of colour (the darkness) condensing down the image and giving the viewer less to observe. Simplifying the image and directing the eye. That's enough of that talk.

This photo was taken at the beginning of the year during another visit to Dundee/St.Andrews. These sort of shots are the reason I still own a real camera. I have so far failed to shoot anything with the gravitas of this shot in a digital format. Shots of this standard do always seem to be flukes, some stroke of luck is always involved. The following shot in the same light conditions could give a whole different look. If memory serves, this shot was taken on the harbour wall at St.Andrews a favourite spot of Joe's so a pretty apt surrounding. I really like the mood on his face. I can't decide whether he has been captured deep in thought, unaware of facial expression or just thouroughly miffed at being photographed again. Maybe both.

St.Andrews Beach

Frisbee in high winds ain't much fun! Especially in to the wind. Joe shows here his classic olympian discus stance.

The Banks Of Loch Ness

Taken during a recent road trip of Scotland. Nearly covering the whole country in one day. This building was in the mouth of one of the rivers leading into the loch.

The Banks Of Loch Ness

Ben Haggar in all his lustre

And so it goes......