11.27.07
Posted in Photography at 12:56 am by thomas
It’s been some time that I’ve posted one of my black and white photos – time is truly flying!
Here’s a photo that I took a while ago, but I didn’t feel like posting during the summer. Back in February we were on a short road trip up to South Lake Tahoe and stopped at a random spot just where Route 88 meets Luther Pass Road which leads to Tahoe.
It was very cold, with fine ice crystals gently drifting out of a completely overcast sky, but there was not much snow on the ground. Both Kazumi and me took some pretty good pictures in about ten minutes next to this little creek in the middle of nowhere, just showing that inspiration can strike anywhere, anytime.
I took this picture with my Kodak Duo Six-20 on Ilford Delta Professional 100. Click for a larger version.
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11.24.07
Posted in Books, Culture, Media at 12:35 am by thomas
I’ve just finished Michael Palin’s Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years and the book was a revelation in many ways.
First of all, it is quite interesting to read so much about the back story of the Monty Pythons and how the magic worked. Palin describes in quite some detail the creative sessions, the business meetings and the work together on the TV shows, live performances and movies. The reader can see through Michael Palin’s eyes how some of the funniest moments ever to be put on celluloid were conceived and how much hard work it often took to create something that looks quite effortlessly on the screen.
Then there is the person of Michael Palin. I thoroughly enjoy all of his work, and I’ve been a huge fan of the travel shows and books he has created over the last twenty years. His travel books are full of humanity and he is always very observant about his surroundings, and as it turns out, he honed these skills in several decades of quite excellent diary writing.
The diaries are a fun read, and in their format of a few paragraphs to maybe one or two pages per entry they are quite addictive and hard to put down (”Just one more…”). The seventies were clearly an amazing time for the Pythons, and the book does a great job of showing the changed circumstances of the Pythons, from being a unknown local comedy troupe to becoming a global phenomenon when Life of Brian was released.
The book is full of interesting character studies of all the people Palin interacts with and there are many interesting and surprising appearances by a wide cast of celebrities of the times.
One thing that struck me is how the continuous routine of a daily journal had helped Palin to become the clear and warm writer he is today – you can literally see the change in his writing style across the book.
The diaries left me with a warm, nostalgic glow for the seventies and the urge to see all the Python shows and movies again, and also with a certain tug to maybe sit down and try my hands on a daily diary. The effort may look wasted in the short term, but years later this may turn out to be, if nothing else, a much appreciated reminder of one’s life and times.
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11.21.07
Posted in Photography at 10:20 pm by thomas
After a long hiatus thanks to all the work on MapSkip, I’ve finally revived some of my old cameras and have them now again with me on my daily walks to work and back home.
During the summer we moved offices in San Francisco, and my walk to work has more than doubled. I don’t mind at all, and in fact I love my new daily commute. The new office is near Pier 39 and so I have to walk all across Nob Hill, Russian Hill and parts of Telegraph Hill on the way to work. It’s a fantastic cross-section of classic San Francisco neighborhoods, with amazing views of the Bay, the local parrots criss-crossing the skies above me and lots of interesting things to see and photograph everywhere.
Here’s the first result – a shot I took a few days ago on the way home when the fog hung heavy over Chinatown and all the shops where already closed. Chinatown generally shuts down early in the evening, and around 8pm in winter when it is already dark it is easy to be all alone out in the alleys and backstreets.
I was a bit rusty with my Kodak Retinette 1A, and so the shot is a bit blurry, but I love it anyway because it shows off the amazing golden colors the lens on the Retinette produces. I didn’t touch the saturation in Photoshop for this photo at all – the scan is as colorful as the original print!
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11.14.07
Posted in Photography at 11:37 pm by thomas
Walking The Dead is the title of a great Found Film photo blog by Emir Shabashvili. He develops film that he finds in old cameras or that he buys in bulk and he then creates great galleries of these lost photos, together with pictures of the cameras that housed them for the last few decades.
He has some very interesting photos on this page, and the quality of the scans is very good since he can control the development process of the ancient film material himself. Many of the notes about the films and cameras shows his deep understanding of these cameras. All in all a great site for vintage photo enthusiasts.
Emir also has a new community site for found film fans on LiveJournal.
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11.03.07
Posted in Good Stuff, Media at 10:21 pm by thomas
This book was love on first sight: Transit Maps of the World
I got my copy yesterday, and for under $20 there is absolutely nothing wrong with this book.
Actually, it is perfect. No, really. It is literally a collection of all the transit maps in the world, many with very thoughtful and insightful commentary, historical perspective of the local rail systems, and – of course – glorious full-page copies of the actual maps.
Now you could think that I just went crazy, but this books fulfills many of my inner geek needs. It’s about trains, about history, about maps and about cities all over the world. Oh – and it is a display of some of the most hardcore information design you will find anywhere. If you are even remotely interested in Information Design, you have to buy this book.
And if this sounds like it’s not for you, maybe it’s a little stocking stuffer for your geeky significant other… 
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Posted in Good Stuff, Navel Gazing at 10:08 pm by thomas
Well, the silence on this site can only be explained with me working on MapSkip when I’ve got any free time… But it’s been worth it, with the site really doing well now. We have a couple hundred users and about 150 stories right now, and there are new ones coming in every day.
Today we launched a big addition to the site – users can now receive email reminders if their favorite authors post new stories and also if new story comments are being posted.
So… if you haven’t created your very own MapSkip account, now would be a good time – before your username is gone forever.
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