Category: Art

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UK Photography: Is it a crime?

photography is not a crime

A security officer in Middlesbrough did not seem to realise it is legal to take pictures of people when on public land.

Flickr user i didn’t mean to go to Stoke posted his photo and story about this security guard in the process of detaining him and a friend for taking photos in the outdoor, pedestrianized area of Middlesbrough, UK.

I don’t know how traumatized the guy was after being detained but I hope some good comes out of it as people learn that there is nothing illegal or unethical about street photography.

His friend captured some video coverage of the incident.

Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.

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Grass Fire

A grass fire near Lethbridge’s English Oaks subdivision broke out around 4:45pm yesterday. When firefighters arrived, vinyl siding on the southern-most home was warping under the heat of flames that were about seven metres from the residence. Firefighters ran their hoses through the inside of one of the homes nearby to put down the blaze.

Grass Fire

The southern-most residence was the only home with direct fire damage.

Here is a set of my photos from the scene.

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Elephant Self Portrait

This elephant is simply incredible! I wonder if he came up with the design himself or if he was taught it and that’s all he does. Either way, WOW.


[Elephant Painting – YouTube]

This particular “artist” appears to be an elephant called Hong who lives at the Maetaman Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand. An article about Hong published on The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project (AEACP) website notes:

Two years ago, Hong began painting with her mahout, Noi Rakchang, and has steadily developed her skills. After learning how to paint flowers, she moved on to more advanced paintings. She now has two specialties. One is an elephant holding flowers with her trunk, and the other is the Thai flag. An elephant with so much control and dexterity is capable of amazing work. Just for clarification, with these realistic figural works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting a still life on her own.

We are sure that as Hong continues to investigate her artistic side, her paintings will become even more beautiful.

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SXSW 2008 Podcasts

SXSW LogoOver the last few years I’ve been secretly dying to attend the annual new media festival in Austin, TX known as South by Southwest.

My trip to Punta Cana this year took precedence but alas not all is lost because the fine folks at SXSW are releasing podcasts of all the Interactive panel sessions over the coming months. They’ve already got a few of them up.

Subscribe to the SXSW Interactive podcast feed.

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The Future of Dubai Buildings

Designboom has picked out 50 amazing architectural projects currently being proposed, constructed, or developed in Dubai and its surrounding region in a new article entitled, The future in Dubai, any one of which is truly an amazing endeavor.

There is some amazing stuff there and they didn’t even mention the World Islands, a collection of man made islands made to resemble the world continents or Dubailand, a collection of amusement parks twice the size of the Walt Disney World parks.

Pictured here is a render of the completed Burj Dubai. Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be completed this year. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world’s tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Yaipei 101.

Apparently the Al Burj, when completed will take over the title of world’s tallest building at 1200 meters. That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building.

Some other interesting projects not mentioned in the article:

  • Dubai Sports City. A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand.
  • The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished.
  • The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores.
  • Ski Dubai, which is already open, the largest indoor skiing facility in the world.
  • The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world.
  • The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume.
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Guitar Noise Podcast

Guitar Noise PodcastI just subscribed to the Guitar Noise Podcast. In the first episode, managing editor David Hodge goes through some of the basics of strumming. If you’re just learning the guitar, as I am—my parents gave me a guitar over the holidays, then I recommend you check it out.

I hope that, as they get a little more familiar with the technology, they will take advantage of dividing their podcasts into chapters and then show relevant “artwork” such as a JPG of the strumming pattern or chords that they want you to hit. But as it stands now, it’s still a great example of using podcasts for teaching.

(Yes, I realize in order to use chapters the podcast needs to be in AAC format instead of mp3, but as an iTunes user, it’s a trade-off that works for me. Perhaps they could have two streams, a normal podcast and an enhanced m4a version.)

Feed link.

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Advanced Photography Research at Stanford

Last fall Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk interviewed Marc Levoy, Stanford University Professor of both computer science and electrical engineering.

Levoy shows them leading edge research about automatically stitching images together, digitizing real world three dimensial objects like statues, and among others, camera technology that allows you to refocus the image AFTER you shoot it!

Multi-array image

You can view the interview here.

See also: CNet’s article about the multi-dimensional focusing technology.

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Knitted Animation Music Video

This amazing music video by Director Simon Laganière, for the Quebec duo Tricot Machine, uses artwork of entirely knitted yarn to animate each frame. (A tricot is a plain, warp-knitted cloth of any of various yarns.)

Over 700 unique knitted pieces were created for the video by designer Lysanne Latulippe of the fashion label Majolie.

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Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts for 2008

The Oscar nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were released yesterday. The nominations in the class of Best Animated Short Film are:

  • I Met The Walrus (Josh Raskin) View
  • Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) View
  • Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go To Heaven) (Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse) View
  • My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Alexander Petrov) Part one, part two, part three
  • Peter And The Wolf (Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman) View DIVX version.

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