Saturday, 13 February 2016

The ultimate photographic adventure

For my photographer friends (and my skeptical friends, because I'm aware there is some overlap, and I think this has some relevance to skepticism) I'm linking to a video that I think you'll find interesting and inspirational.


First, some background. Some years ago when I decided it was about time I took my interest in photography more seriously, I began consuming a load of free internet photography content. (My thinking on this was simple: get the free stuff before deciding what you're prepared to pay for.) One particular producer of this free content was Adorama TV. Adorama is a photography store in New York, and they put out a massive amount of short photography content in video form, available mostly via their YouTube channel, entirely free, and in HD. It's professionally produced and surprisingly not entirely US-centric. Of the dozens of presenters on Adorama TV my favourites are Mark Wallace and Gavin Hoey. Mark Wallace is an American (and the subject of this blogpost), while Gavin Hoey is a Brit whose videos appear to be all based in the UK. Indeed his most recent video was, as far as I can tell, shot in Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight, next to the ferry terminal where I've spent many an hour over the years waiting for the car ferry to take me back to the mainland.

A few months after I started watching Adorama TV Mark Wallace announced that he and his friend (and model) Lex were going to sell everything they owned so they could travel the world. Now, two years later, Mark Wallace is back to tell the story of their travels (although throughout them he has still produced regular videos for Adorama). The video embedded below is a talk he gave recently at the Adorama store.

His story, however, is more than "this is where we went, and this is what we saw" — it's a story of a life-decision that affected his outlook on everything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICDJwpeu4AU

Saturday, 6 February 2016

Spooky (and slightly camp) stories from a bygone age

Hey, I'm famous again!

Not exactly, but my narration of Rick Kennett's short story "The Silent Garden" is now available for your listening shiver at Tales to Terrify. This horror fiction podcast magazine in the style of Pseudopod is part of the StarshipSofa stable, and is well worth your time if you're into short horror fiction.

I've narrated a couple of William Hope Hodgson's "Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder" stories for PodCastle, so when Tales to Terrify had a Carnacki story written by Rick Kennett they asked me if I'd like to narrate that too.

Find "The Silent Garden" here:
http://talestoterrify.com/tales-to-terrify-211-kennet-kane/

My other two Carnacki narrations can be found here:
http://podcastle.org/2010/10/05/podcastle-125-the-whistling-room/
http://podcastle.org/2011/10/18/podcastle-179-the-gateway-of-the-monster-featuring-carnacki/