Usted nunca Mira de la misma manera, de Nuevo | I didn’t expect a Spanish inquisition

I’m considering two versions of You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again along with my usual English version how about a Spanish version

Estoy considerando dos versiones de Nunca Vea de la misma manera, de nuevo junto con mi habitual Inglés versión acerca de cómo una versión en español

and indeed why stop there how about French

J'envisage de deux versions de You Will Never regarder de la même façon avec mon habitude en anglais sur la façon dont une version espagnole

or even Mandarin

我考慮了兩個版本的你永遠看他們以同樣的方式再連同我通常英文版本如何西班牙文本

I know your impressed but I haven’t been on a crash course of languages far from it because that would be a waste of time, like most English people I find it impossible to grasp any foreign language. It amazes me how someone like the England football manager Fabio Capello within weeks of taking on the job dispenses with the need for a translator and is fluent when talking to reporters.

A few months ago I came across a blog noquedanblogs.com that regularly posts different and interesting photographs

And also video

http://noquedanblogs.com/video/no-hibi-carneiro/

if this link doesn’t work try YouTube

I had a good look on the site but couldn’t figure out what it was about or what country it originated from, I continued following the blog because it is visual and then I came across Google Translate not only was I able to read the blog but I was able to send them a message just to say I appreciate their work.

And then I got thinking surely people will appreciate I have taken the trouble to speak to them in their mother tongue and this has really worked well with my Flickr site when I comment on some ones photos I first find out were they are and then use translate to input two versions. The vibes (hate that would but it works) I get have been really good and it seems give me an edge. noquedanblogs.com have also started to include an English version with each photograph.

However, it looks like Google are being too clever (for me) and spoiling my USP because I read they are developing software that will look at text on a webpage and then translate it for you depending on your location. Although what happens when say a Greek person living in the UK wants to read a Greek site, but wants it in their mother tongue?

On a final note and returning to Fabio Capello I notice most if not all of the footballers from around the world take on and learn English however, as I also follow US Major League Baseball I notice this is the exception with the imports from the Spanish speaking countries in that game. Perhaps they trust their translators more and haven’t heard about the Italian Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri who sacked his translator when he was told that his translations bore no relation the managers original message, he was making up his own version.

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Flickr – Or I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine

I enjoy photography and I love Flickr.com, I can spend hours looking at photographs on the site comparing different styles, subjects and the variations that each photographer will use. Here are some pictures from my Flickr site.

The Day Job: - This set is associated with the body of work found in my art practice; here I can test the response to a new image by noting how many clicks a photograph achieves before I spend more effort marketing it.

Cricket (click image for a larger version)

My hobby: That’s Playing Cricket, Watching Cricket and now photographing Cricket.

Other sets include

Birmingham

Live Gigs

Dogs-Pets

Holidays

Two photograph series that have grown into larger projects:

The Last Snow to Fall in Yardley Wood

With the threat of Global Warming I have this mission to photograph the last snow to fall where I live in Yardley Wood, Birmingham.

The 365 Project:-  Take a photo everyday and post it to Flickr on that day, every day in 2009. This has been a great exercise in making me look for a photograph everywhere I go during the day, I find myself walking along the road and looking up alleyways or above street level for that piece of interesting and unique architecture or a reference to a bygone age. I’m forced to always carry a camera and now never say “I wish I had a camera” (with me).

Having posted to Flickr I want as many people as possible to look and comment on the work, and if I see anything of interest I will do the same. In this quest for more viewers each picture is added to a relevant Flickr Group, as soon as you do this you will see the number of hits on a picture increase and nice comments start to be added to the picture, great. Or is it? Most groups have rules. Basically if you past a picture to the group you have to comment on other pictures in the group. I realised as I was commenting I’m only fulfilling my contractual obligation, would I really want to comment if I didn’t have to. I would rather have that choice. So I stopped throwing my comments around now giving only to a deserving image.

The Group Administrators and Group Moderators are threatening to throw me out of their groups if I don’t abide by there rules. Am I really bothered? No I will just link to groups who don’t have this rule and rely on traffic from relevant Tags on my photos and the network of friends and contacts that I have built up enjoying their company over the last year. If I had some spare time I might start my own group The “Just Post It - Comment On Another If You Think It Deserves It” Group.

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Flickr Tags: valentine,365,cricket,perth,Australia,Birmingham,Dogs,Pets,Hamsters,live music,Prague,snow

Experiments with Old Car Parts in the Garden

I’m in the middle of a major change to my website, and when I’m doing anything like that I like to concentrate on one thing at a time, but its not that easy, life and the family get in the way, then there’s the work involved promoting the exhibition and my commitment to the 365 project on my Flickr site. That is every day in 2009 I have to take a photograph and upload it to Flickr. I find I’m not out and about as much as normal and so the photo opportunities are restricted.

In my garden I have several panels I have collected from the burnt out cars I photographed last year, I generally carry on photographing them for months after the car was torched, sometimes I will experiment with treatments to metal surfaces using anything from varying strengths of acid to a selection of liquids from light oil, water, and small solutions of acrylic paint (just enough to leave a stain on the surface).

For my Flickr 365 photo today (Number 43-365 no less) I took some photographs of a pile of bonnets with little success because I haven’t worked on them recently (it’s a bit cold outside) but this was a nice result.

I think I will post some more of my work on the blog similar to this image that is nice to look at without being great and also others that are great but could not be added to my portfolio because they don’t fit with my artist statement.

My photography aims to capture the disturbance to surfaces created by acts of joy riding and arson by zooming into scorched, disfigured vehicle parts that are occupied in the lifecycle of corrosion, the natural process that tries to reclaim human made objects to an elemental state more in line with the energy of the molecules the objects are made of.

Torching accelerates this journey of returning to the earth and I look to capture, investigate and at times distort results of the advancement of its lifecycle. Using results of the explosion; scorched metal, molten glass, fabrics, and plastics, the rust and the gallons of water from the firemen’s hose I strive to turn a negative blot on the landscape using technology, photography and oil paint to transform the textual image into a positive beautiful landscape.

Weather Disrupts the Whole of the UK and My Exhibition

Technorati Tags: snow,art exhibition,fine Art,art,weather

With global warming and climate change we don’t get real seasons now certainly not as pronounced as when I was young, I remember doing my paper round with the snow so deep that it even fell into the top of my wellies. I have a project on my Flickr site “The Last Snow Ever To fall in Yardley Wood” (Yardley Wood is a 2 square mile area of Birmingham were I live). So every time it snows enough to cover a layer on the ground I take a photograph so that if it is the last snow ever I have recorded it.

We recently had a lot more snow than normal in fact the worst for 18 years and while the whole country was disrupted (including as you can see the weekly rubbish collection didn’t happen) I rather smugly said that the snow doesn’t really affect me as I can work from home, but then I realised nobody is able to get to my exhibition.

Exhibition Title: You Will Never Look at Them in the Same Way Again

Venue: Solihull Gallery

Address: Solihull Arts Complex, Library Square, Touchwood, Homer Road, Solihull, West Midlands

Dates: 19th January - 7th March

Theres an Artist Talk event on Thursday 26^th February at 6pm

Unexpected Ghosts In The Photograph

I’m currently involved in the 365 project on my Flickr website, I’m committed to taking a photograph of anything and posting it on Flickr everyday of 2009. The main reason for this pressure is to make sure I’m constantly taking photographs keeping up to speed with using my SLR and at the same time I might find another subject to base my art practise on after all I can’t work with burnt out cars forever can I?

This morning I found myself walking my dog Sally around Cannon Hill Park I took a few photographs and then driving home I took some more, at that stage all of them could be a promising contender for Flickr Photo No 38/365 but when I got home and loaded them on the PC none of them looked that good, a tree in the wrong place or the light had suddenly changed as I took the shot. No real problem at this stage because I still had 13 hours of 7^th February left and I had planned a very full day so I was confident.

I started playing around with the images in Photoshop, this picture I cropped tight into the bandstand (so this copy is about a third size of the original) but I still wasn’t happy with the tone definition, they would be poor because I was about 300 yards away from the bandstand, but while I was trying to enhance the values I noticed a white shadow in the corner and the figure on the bench.

So off I went down to Canon Hill Park to photograph the snowman.

click on a photo to see a larger version

With the lunchtime sunshine and a few people in the picture I had a great time. Here’s the shot that’s on my Flickr site for today.

38/365 “Waiting for the Band”

New Year Resolutions on Flickr

A Happy New Year one and all, Christmas was better than I expected and now it’s back to the old routine. It seems that everyone is off until Monday 5th which is when I start to get all the materials together for the installation of the show at the Solihull Arts Complex.

Just started the 365 project on Flickr. The idea is to take a photo a day and post it on my Flickr site. I believe that the idea originated with taking self portraits everyday, but I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone.

Title: Ready for the Recycle Bin

Heres the topical picture for the 1st January as I uploaded it I thought of the implications, what happens if I go on holiday and I'm miles from an internet connection but then I thought with the credit crunch, What Holiday? Anyway lets see if I can keep it going for more than a week.

The BBCs Test Match Special Flickr Site

As a keen cricketer and listener to the Test Match Special radio commentary I also click on the TMS Flickr site.

Aggers and Eric Clapton

Now you would expect that an organisation such as the BBC would employ someone to do this job who can actually take a descent photo and who has at least a beginner’s ability in Photoshop Elements. There is really no excuse for a consistent poor quality image especially as the BCC are linking to this Flickr/blog from the main News-Sport pages.

Comedian Mark Steel joins Jonathan Agnew at Edgbaston

They could (and probably will) in their defence say that the light conditions are not ideal. for example the contrast with shadow light in the studio and the bright summer sunshine outside through the large window create havoc but in this picture taken outside on the cricket ground the same heavy shadow applies.

Mark Pougatch interviews James Anderson in front of the Lords Pavilion

You don’t need expensive equipment in fact I have seen some great images produced from camera phones and cheap disposable cameras. I felt sufficiently annoyed about this site and I have sent an email of complaint. I’ll keep you posted “if” I get a reply.

Gremlins have hit again
Sorry to say that I'm having problems formatting the post in Blogger again. I thought I had found a work around after my previous problems. the links to the pictures just wont do what I want them to do. I dont think that I can add the offending images to You Will Never Look At Them In The Same Way Again because they are not available to download in the Flickr site, I do think that it is rediculous setting restrictions like that in Flickr because if you really wanted a copy of a pic there is a fiddley way by changing screen res and using a bog standard keyboard screen grab.

My New Fine Art Images on Flickr

I have produced many new pictures during the summer months; sadly these are from my stock photos not from any new “burn outs” I am trying to find a window in my busy schedule so that I can completely update my website www.johngarghan.co.uk this has been on going for about a month. So yesterday I decided to put the new work onto my Flickr site.

A Thousand Blossoms

The Flickr site generally displays my range of photographs covering subjects including friends, cricket, my dogs and a few of my Fine Art pictures.

Iridescent Formations