New Toy

Got my new computer set up sorted, bought a new 20 inch 

widescreen TFT monitor running as my dual screen, and a

new wireless mouse so I take my design more seriously

without having the hardware restraints like before!

The ash tray's had it

It looks like the cold weather last week got to the ash tray in our back garden, that's the problem when it is made out of glass! Water got in and froze up. So now we're left with a quickly defrosting fag log, a festive Yule log of tar, nicotine and dog ends in a plastic bucket on the grass. We were so close to filling it to the top!

I miss having an always on reliable internet connection

I miss having an always on reliable internet connection, that's something I don't get at this house! Whenever I get the rare infrequent chance to spend some time on the internet here, it's always plagued with loss of connection and poor wifi coverage. Really quite annoying! I just wanted to drop by and post a couple of photographs up to tide you over, there's some illustration coming soon which I really want to put up here so keep your eyes open for that.

A little gem I found when I stopped off for a cigarette on a journey back to my home town. Didn't know it was there, I literally just stumbled across it after I had parked my car up. It's a nature reserve, and this is the view from the bench looking out across the water. I think I'll be stopping here more often!

Isn't this the world's coolest ash tray? Right now it's 3/4 full and is full up to the top with water which has turned a deep brown. I can't wait for the proper cold weather to set in so it freezes and explodes!

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you. I just haven't been able to use the internet for a good month now! Once I'm back online, expect more lovely interesting posts, I've got some work I need to put up on here. But for now, startled plug is startled

I'm like a virgin losing a child

One of them moods, one of them days. I'm fucking bored, I think that's the problem. I would love to go out and about with my camera tonight, while it's still light, and fool around. But fucking no, my new Canon digital all balls decent point and shoot decided to suddenly stop reading any SD card I shove in the thing, so that's a trip down to the shop tomorrow with receipt in hand, I want a replacement, if they don't have any in stock I'm getting the cash back and blowing it on another hunk of plastic. Talking of hunks of plastic, I've accumulated like 7 cameras in the past couple of weeks. I'm proud of the collection, it's a lovely mis-match of pieces of crap from years gone by. Latest addition is the Lomo Fisheye 2 I picked up for £33 from Ebay. Running the first roll of film through it today, some old expired Kodak 400 ISO from 2006 I picked up cheapish also from Ebay. Fisheye. I don't think it's possible to take a crap photo when you have a fisheye lens. Everything looks sick.

Anyway, back to being grumpy

Fuck off

Yes

Mountains of stress, Private View, rolls of film, and plenty of money. Loving it. But not loving the end of the course. Can't wait to meet the new foundation students on wednesday. But first I need to get all my work handed in on monday.. that's the hard part.

I've shot a few rolls on the Holga so far, getting them developed tomorrow and I'm going to shove a few stunners on here as soon as I can. Plenty of shots from the private view which was an amazingly good night. Feeling a little worse for wear today but that can only be expected eh?

What I'm Listening to: Hot Chip - I Feel Better

Come Dine With(out) Me

Just been watching Come Dine With Me, the never ending series on Channel 4 which happens to appear to be on every day of the week, and something interesting occurred for once. The host cut her finger, and had to leave to go to the hospital, leaving her guests at her house, eating her food. They all said they felt weird doing it. Got me thinking, it's kind of a taboo to be in someone else's house while the owner isn't in, unless you know them really well or they're family. It isn't a done thing, the host always plays a part in your visit. And for the host to suddenly not be there any more turns it on it's head. The guests are sat there feeling awkward, and probably a little nervous to go poking around the house looking for the host, or an answer. I'd love it, I'd feel all these emotions, then on top of that love the situation I was in. It would be brilliant one day to do it, film a series of the  guests reactions, and time how long it takes for someone to do something about it and get up from the table.

I AM NOT A TERRORIST

I've had a really busy few days, I've been frantically writing words for my college course, luckily, all the words have been written, everything handed in, and I can firmly say I am exhausted. My late night last night didn't help matters either..BUT, all in the name of art! I got another set of initial photographs for my final major project. And that leads me onto the point of this post, I experienced a tiny little bit of security guard trouble whilst photographing the main place I want to photograph in Witney, the new multi-story car park. It's perfect! In the style of Rut Blees Luxemburg:

Very good album, listen to it

But yeah, I was told to move along and sent off site because I was taking photographs of this car park at about midnight. I wasn't in there after hours, I wasn't climbing up the walls to get better angles, I was simply taking a couple of photos for this project..but no. It got me thinking, 

I am not happy with Britain and it's CCTV cameras, it's a CCTV nation. 

Most frustrating thing? I can't do anything about it! Photographers are frowned upon, it's seen as a probe into someone's private life. Who give's a shit?! If you aren't doing anything wrong you shouldn't feel the need to hide it. I know, I know, my argument is not properly structured right now; I'm still tired, and I haven't figured out the absolute correct words for it, but when I do I'll make sure I'll let you know. It just makes me angry, enough to kick up a fuss. So now I have the dilemma, do I take the immature teenage route and say 'FUCK YOU GOVERNMENT' and go back and take these photos despite them telling me no, or do I take the more mature approach and fight with words which requires more thinking? 

On the topic, look at this site I found: NOT-A-CRIME.COM. That's where the title of this post comes from. 

I'M A PHOTOGRAPHER, NOT A TERRORIST

http://www.not-a-crime.com/

It tackles this debate, and they are trying to set a date for a rally of photographers, holding picket signs saying just this.

aaaah

My dream of owning a nice DSLR is slowly drifting away, and it's all to do with money! I don't get paid for another 3 weeks, and I reckon that one single pay packet will give me more than enough to buy a Canon..I don't know though. Today I've just had to shell out just above £100 to get my car serviced and I'm running low on funds in general. Do I even want a Canon? Nikon? I wouldn't buy anything else, it's just that I've grown up with canons and nikons and I know what's what with them, I trust them. At this rate all I'm going to be able to afford is a lonely disposable

Flickr link

Hey there, just set up my Flickr account, can't work out whether it's going to be useful or not, but I figure I should probably have one since everyone else does. There's only a few photos on it, mainly Urbex, I'm going to be slowly adding to it as I make more trips, literally just shoving the majority of photos on there, then selecting a few from the collection and running with them for my project. It's so easy to get a little trigger happy with the camera on a trip, you come back home with a couple of hundred photos..most of them crap..then you have to sift through the shit and try and find some good ones. You're really in the shit when you realise you don't have any decent ones and you have to go back and start over. llow!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30209579@N03/

ROADTREP

I've just experienced the worse few days of my entire life.

The story goes like this:

Me and a few mates had planned this epic roadtrip to Bournemouth, well St Leonnards near Ringwood which is near Bournemouth. It was going to be amazing, Wednesday till Saturday, loads of drink, celebrating Gary's birthday on the Friday, I'll be driving down as well as Tyrrell, we bought our own tent specially for it. And for me it was the worst couple of days I've lived through..and I nearly didn't make it. Just before the trip I had come down with something, an illness, nothing too severe, I just felt a bit monged out by it, I thought it'll be fine, so i powered through it, and I probably should have just stayed at home. Pretty much 90% of my entire trip was huddled up in my sleeping bag in my car trying to keep warm. EPIC FLU. Running a proper high temperature, i couldn't function, couldn't get up and do anything, didn't enjoy a moment of it. That's a lie, I saw one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen, Bournemouth beach at 5am, except I left my camera behind at the campsite and I didn't get any photos. damn! I nearly died man, i should have gone to the hospital up the road, i was that fucked. we all left a day early, i feel really bad for it, i made gary drive back to witney on his birthday! oh how bad. Better luck next time? If there ever is a next time

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/118/312212281_7ff9137282.jpg

That's a fair idea of what it looks like in the night time. Not taken by me but a budding photographer called Mark Cummins

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artimagesmarkcummins/

Just took a quick look and he does have some brilliant photographs of this and other things, I'll take a deeper look and give you an insight to more of his photos, looks like a winner!

Peace.

Today

Today's been a good day already. It's nearly quarter past five, work starts at half past, doesn't matter if I'm a little bit late, it's not exactly serious - it's a fucking pizza delivery job, costing me a shit load in the long run because of all the thousands of miles its putting on my semi new car. Bullshit. I got up at 12, had the best fry up I've ever cooked, then went to my quiet place in the car, in the car, and drew. It's sunny, I'm fully topped up on nicotine, and tonight I shall be relaxing down the pub with a coke.

Thankyou to the tea people last night, I really need to see if you lot exist on the internet, nice to know we'll be in your newsletter for bringing our own tea bags. Nice people you are, you're doing a wonderful job. Thanks for making me have a late night though.

Seriously

Seriously warming up to this idea of having a blog, I would love to keep this going. It's fine for just general moaning, slagging off and then more moaning, cos face it, whoever I write about they probably won't ever see this. So yeah, Fuck you and Fuck you too

Just thinking, I am not a fan of the whole 'artistic' side of art. When I say 'artistic' I mean pompus. I don't like the pomposity of a successful artist, because it usually comes hand in hand with a fuck load of arrogance. And I fucking hate arrogance in anyone else but me, but don't get me wrong I try to stay down to earth with it all. I don't like people who fuck around, just tell me what you want doing and I'll do it, if you don't like an idea just say it, don't beat around the bush and just offend me, I would prefer that. Don't say 'like' or 'kind of like' or 'I was thinking something like' because it really gets on my tits. If someone isn't straight with me, it pisses me off, which is probably why I've been single for a year now, I've been waiting for someone who is nice, but will tell me when I'm being a cunt. I want someone who has an opinion, I like debates and arguments, and I also like to drop it all then just spend an evening in watching telly. I want someone to make me work for it a little bit, not just stroll in smiling faces everywhere and let it all drag on. You get me? Maybe I've set my standards too high or maybe I've just been really fucking unlucky. Actually wait, now, I've been stupid, that's what it is.

But still, moving the fuck out of witney come July, straight into Swindon. or Swinton as I insist on calling it. Ducklingdon, Farington and Abington.

uuuurrrr

Well today has been absolutely wasted, I'm feeling sooo crap though, and it's all because I decided to have a lie in this morning. I was going to get up early, get a load of work done, then go to work at 5. The day happened like this: Wake up at 1, potter around for 2 hours whilst going for the occasional cigarette, and now im on here with 2 hours till a shift at the lovely dominos pizza. At least it's stopped raining and the suns come out

Time to get this up and running!

Okay, I've put this on hold for a few months now, I've never really used blogspot as a platform for one of my own blogs, I've been using tumblr lately, here's a link: http://twingraphics.tumblr.com

It's pretty good, hardly a real blog though. So I've been thinking, maybe it's time I should get this one started up properly and I might actually make some regular posts! Take a look at what I've been doing as these precious days go by and the Final Major Project is getting ever closer, looming, like a big guy and a large cake

ZINE!! Yeah, I'm making a zine! I'm going to produce about 50 hard copies and then just publish the same version on the internets, on Issuu which is actually a really good online magazine (web-zine, i know my tech talk) website

If you're from around my area, you might just happen to find one laying around. I can't guarentee it'll be very interesting, but it'll be worth a look anyway. You can always use it as a beer mat