The last couple of days have been spent attempting the watch all the DVD's that I got whilst also getting to grips with my new Fujifilm Instax Wide. Pictures taken with it to follow soon! (Once the scanner decides to work)
'Tis the season
On Thursday I finished uni for Christmas. The last thing we did before finishing up for the end of term was a short tour around some possible photo locations in Manchester. We went to the underpass just behind the main university buildings and The Church of The Holy Name of Jesus on Oxford road.
It was absolutely freezing outside but it was a nice send off to the term none the less. The image that I feel compelled to explain is the picture of the ladybird and the purse. While roaming around the underpass, a couple of us came across a purse. I picked it up to find what looked to be about 4 ladybirds inside it (they looked kinda dead except for one of them) I put the purse back on the ground and took a few pictures of the ladybird then moved on to other things. When I returned to the purse a couple of minutes later there was LOADS of them. All of the ones that I thought were dead were walking around and there was about 4 times as many as I first remember seeing. Weird. Not to mention the fact that somebody had put ladybirds in a purse and left them in an isolated area under a Manchester motorway junction is completely bizarre within itself!
Since finishing uni I've continued my seemingly endless marathon of Christmas specials/films. Last night I watched one of my long time favorites -
(Robbie the Reindeer - Hooves of Fire - 1999)
I remember watching this the first time it aired main moons ago (was shocked to discover that it in fact aired in 1999). The voice casting is incredible within itself (anything with Jane Horrocks, Harry Enfield and Steve Coogan is a winner by my standards).
A conflict of scheduling
This week I have found myself constantly wanting to post here but not really having anything substantial enough to post. I thought rather than adding a few short posts, I'd rather keep note of things I'd like to talk about and then write one larger post.
I've made a huge number of additions to my Flickr account -
(Click through to go direct to my Flickr account, I can't put all the images I've added on here cause it'd take me around a decade)
In the build up to Christmas, my free time has been largely been dominated by watching my favorite Christmas specials & films. Due to uni work/working and other commitment I haven't managed to watch that many yet, but with my finishing uni tomorrow, this will soon be rectified. ANYWAY, so far I've watched -
"Scrooged" - 1988.
One of my all time favourite Christmas films and honestly, one of my favourite films in general. The films successfully breathes new lift into a story that has been told an immeasurable number of times by an immeasurable number of people. I would argue that it is the greatest version of A Christmas Carol to ever be told. Seriously.
"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000)
Despite the mixed reviews this film received, it has been established as something of a Christmas favourite in the 13 years since it's release. I feel the reviews are unjustified, and those that claim that it goes against the original Seuss text by being "too dark" or "adult" clearly have not read a lot of Dr. Seuss. Jim Carrey gives one of my favourite performances from him. I just love any film where Jim Carrey is green.
"Home Alone" (1990) & "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992)
"Home Alone" and it's (unjustly) lesser appreciated first sequel are Christmas essentials to me. It's not Christmas until Macaulay Culkin has been abandoned by his entire family whilst hitting Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas with paint cans. While i'm on the subject though, I really just wanna know what in the name of all that is pure and good where people thinking when Home Alone 3, 4 & 5 were made?! Every Christmas I see these films thrown in somewhere in the festive line up and I ask myself "why?".
"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (1989)
The first full length episode of The Simpsons and one of my favorites. I admire this not only as a Christmas special but also a pilot episode. Though it could be debated that the Simpsons shorts on the Tracey Ullman that had aired from '87 - '89 could somewhat be seen as the establishment of the characters. This episode is the first real time we get a look at their lives in any real detail, and I think it is done brilliantly.
NYC (October 2011)
In light of finding a new found love for my Flickr account, I decided it was finally time to let some of the ridiculous amount of images I have stored away see the light of day. Its given me a chance to really look at some of the pictures I've taken and filter through them.
So in reference to the title - in October 2011 me & 7 members of my family went to New York for 5 days. We left on the 20th and came back on the morning of the 26th. I find myself forever flicking through the (sadly scarce) images that I took whilst I was there cause since the morning of the 26th of October 2011, I've been pining to go back. I find myself constantly being reminded of my want (need) to go back every single time I watch something with NY in it, or see a picture of NY or whenever anybody mentions NY. You get the picture. I cannot get through a film with New York as it's location without looking up plane tickets and hotel vacancies and trying to rationalize the whole thing in my head. It also probably doesn't help that my room is littered with artifacts of my time there. Theater tickets, subway tickets, boat tickets, plane tickets, maps with various places highlighted, flyers and posters occupy various spaces of my room.
So without further rambling from me, here's a little selection of photo's I took with my old camera (Fujifilm S1000fd) before I started having some problems with it including the focus going kinda weird and the battery door clasps breaking. Sad sad. ANYWAY -
So in reference to the title - in October 2011 me & 7 members of my family went to New York for 5 days. We left on the 20th and came back on the morning of the 26th. I find myself forever flicking through the (sadly scarce) images that I took whilst I was there cause since the morning of the 26th of October 2011, I've been pining to go back. I find myself constantly being reminded of my want (need) to go back every single time I watch something with NY in it, or see a picture of NY or whenever anybody mentions NY. You get the picture. I cannot get through a film with New York as it's location without looking up plane tickets and hotel vacancies and trying to rationalize the whole thing in my head. It also probably doesn't help that my room is littered with artifacts of my time there. Theater tickets, subway tickets, boat tickets, plane tickets, maps with various places highlighted, flyers and posters occupy various spaces of my room.
So without further rambling from me, here's a little selection of photo's I took with my old camera (Fujifilm S1000fd) before I started having some problems with it including the focus going kinda weird and the battery door clasps breaking. Sad sad. ANYWAY -
Silent night, deadly night
A quick compilation of Christmas based horror that I found whilst browsing YouTube this morning! Is it really Christmas without a 1980's low budget Santa-based slasher in the mix? I don't think it is.
Theres something so irresistibly ridiculous about Christmas horror movies that I cannot put my finger on. But I know whatever that something is, I enjoy it profusely.
 |
| Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) |
Part of me wants to say that it's because the films some kind of response to the bright cheeriness of Christmas. "Black Christmas" throws a sinister shadow over the otherwise luminous surface of the festive period. Films like "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and "Jack Frost" (I mean the horror film, not the Michael Keaton film that is also called Jack Frost and that is also about a living snowman, just to be clear) take iconic images that have become tied with the Christmas season and flipped them back on themselves.
Why I love Claire Fisher
After finishing Six Feet Under last weekend, I've been feeling a Claire Fisher shaped hole in my life. I love all of the SFU characters. I love the entire Fisher family. I love Ruth. I love Nate. I love David. But Claire is my favourite. I think a lot of it has to do with the way in which I feel related to her character. In many ways, she's the voice of the series, she's the instigator of so much of what happens. The way in which Claire is shown as a creative person (particularly in the earlier seasons) is something that particularly interests me. The image of her with her camera constantly in hand made me think a lot about my own photography and how capturing the everyday "mundane" can be incredibly meaningful. Her struggles with inspiration and creative drive in the later episodes of the series and her uncertainty about her direction in life are HUGELY relatable.
And the way in which Lauren Ambrose portrays her is PERFECTION. Claire matures and changes so much throughout the shows five seasons but Ambrose never has a weak spot through out. She stays true to the ideals of the high school teenager we are introduced in the very first episode, while also not stunting the growth of the character. She becomes an adult, but not an idealised version of what an adult should be. I found myself asking myself throughout the entire series "WHY IS THERE NOT MORE LAUREN AMBROSE ON TV?!?!" and after finishing the show, I immediately went on Amazon and bought "Psycho Beach Party". "Psycho Beach Party" also features a just-starting-out Amy Adams and a mid-Buffy Nicholas Brendon. If you love campy comedy horror, then I'd thoroughly recommend it.
I feel like the writers use Claire as something of a prophetic narrator for the series. The way she says things is almost as if she is being used to talk directly to you, she can blatantly say outright what the particular episode is trying to put across without it seeming forced or contrived.
The fun in funeral
For the same overall unit that the suitcase project was a part of, over Christmas 2012 we were also set the task of capturing some landscapes, free of humans. New camera in hand, I chose the church graveyard down the road from me (the church building is also a school, so it was all largely unused for a portion of the Christmas holidays).
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