Triptych

Well it has been a while, but I've just started a triptych based on the television series Entourage. It's for my friend's apartment and since they like the program so much I wanted to do something that would represent that. For those that haven't seen the program it's basically a male's version of Sex and the City; fast cars, beautiful women, drugs, parties, fame and fortune. I've chosen the Rolls Royce Phantom, Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, and the H2 Hummer as the theme. I'm influenced by street art and graffiti, so I've decided to use acrylic spray and black ink as my medium. Here is a photo of the first canvas in progress.

Roast Beef with Slow-Cooked Tomatoes and Garlic

apt for both hemispheres.

Tron music by Daft Punk

I've been a fan of Daft Punk ever since I heard their 12" The New Wave EP from 1994. So when I heard that they were doing the sound track for the new movie Tron Legacy, it just fueled my excitement. Check out the samples here.

An old man and his love for planes

A couple of days ago, I bumped into my neighbour. At the time I was tired and wasn't really in the mood to converse, but he insisted. In the end, I'm glad I did. It's rare moments of human interaction like this that I appreciate.
My skinny frame neighbour was a plane engineer during the war, which meant he spoke comprehensible English. His name is Goma, age 83. Goma didn't speak much about the war and was more interested in teaching me about his toy planes. The planes are his passion and during our hour talk he would go in and out of his house bringing out photos, plane parts and eventually his winning planes. The planes which had recently won competitions were surprisingly crudely made. As he began to explain to me the process and creation of each I began to understand the complexity and engineering knowledge that was put into their construction. The beauty of the planes are not in the aesthetics but rather in the technical knowledge on which they have been built on. He is after all an engineer. The planes flew really well and he even let me do a mini photo shoot.

pork ... yumm

just developed

Here are a few shots from a 120mm roll I took last autumn using my friends Mamiya C330 and shooting on Fuji Pro 400. While editing the photos, I noticed that the colours are clearer in the highlights while the colour saturation in the shadows seems to render the subjects in a three-dimensional way. This was my first time shooting with the camera so most of the focusing was way off and many had to be discarded.

The Pacific

Remember A Band of Brothers that aired on television about a decade ago? Well if you like that series, check out The Pacific. Produced by the same people, The Pacific is a 10-part mini-series that tells the stories of three Marines during America's battle with the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. The cinematography is awesome and the fights scenes are just realistically bloody.

cheating

In the newspaper today there was an interesting article about England's loss to Germany in the soccer world cup. The tournament this year has seen many controversial moments by both players and referees. I want to talk specifically about the players. I don't think that there is another sport in the world where cheating to gain the upper hand is such a common occurrence. The incident I'm referring to involved the captain of the English team, where his shot had freakishly made it over the goal line and then back into play. The 'save' was assisted by the German goalkeeper, who somehow manage to deceive the referee and continued on play. The goal was not awarded. After the match he admitted that it was indeed a goal.

This poses the question, what ever happened to honesty and sportsmanship? why are players always faking and acting in soccer? does normal ethics not apply on the soccer field? what happens with the players ethics when they are off-field? It seems that in a game of soccer, winning at all cost has superseded ethics and sportsmanship. Imagine what would have happened if the goalkeeper had done the right thing and admitted that it was a goal. Wouldn't that have been a more honorable thing to do. I mean the fact that replays prove that it was a goal should undermine his reputation as a sportsman. However, this is not the case in soccer. In fact, quite the opposite. I guess in the end it's all about entertaining the masses and as long as people enjoy controversy then soccer players will continue to cheat.