Night-time photography is a passion worth sharing. Jim Richardson is the contributing editor for the National Geographic magazine. His photojournalism is recognized for its exploration of environmental issues and advocacy for the night sky. Richardson’s efforts to democratise the art of night photography also stands out. I’ll let Jim do the talking from here on in:
“Arizona Sky Village in Portal, Arizona, is a dark-sky housing development. Every house has a telescope built in, and one of the streets really is named Milky Way, which I wanted to show. A little pop of flash did the trick. I don’t know where else in the world you can get this picture.”
My standard exposure (the one I keep in the back of my head) for the Milky Way is 60 second, f/2.8, and ISO 6400. It makes the southern Milky Way shine like a brilliant cloud. But that’s with a 14mm lens on a full-frame sensor. You can’t go much longer than that before the stars start streaking visibly. And if you shoot with a shorter lens, the acceptable exposure time goes down.”
“For me the revelation came the first time I took a photograph of that galaxy and realized that just because the visible universe is so far away didn’t mean I needed a big telescope to photograph it. No, what I needed was a wide-angle lens because it is so huge—and we live in the middle of it. When I show young people my first published picture of the Milky Way I like to point out that this is their home.”
Worms, bins and compost aren’t the usual topics we cover in a workshop, but hey, don’t say we aren’t full of surprises.
Ansel will be sharing his home grown knowledge and green fingered wizardry in ‘How to create a self contained wormery’ at the Trade School London, which will be hosted at one of our new fav local spots FARM:Shop.
Based around the idea of the social nature of exchange, Trade School is a global initiative that uses barter as a way to engage knowledge share. For example, “I’ll teach you how to mend your bicycle puncture for art supplies and a banana or better yet teach me a skill”.
Starting in April and running on Thursdays and Sundays throughout the month, you can learn anything from yoga for beginners, make usable websites or even check out the ‘divine/ridiculous’ an exploration of the collision point between the sublime and the silly’ workshop.
To sign up for any of the classes please go here and hit join.
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How to create a self-contained wormery composter | 6.30 -8pm Thursday 19th April
Never before have I sat with my mouth wide open in amazement for so long, as I have with the BBC’s recent Frozen Planet series. It left me a gasp at sheer beauty of the land/seascapes, in awe of the The Inuit, the penguins and polar bears, and almost heartbroken at thought of what lies ahead for our precious ice caps.
It also made me think to myself, what wonderful world this is with David Attenborough in it.
If you’re regular – and I hope there’s a few of you – you’ll know that we’ve been working on the Greens Stories project for Affinity Sutton since October last year. We are really, really pleased to say that the final part of the project – the films – are in the can and on YouTube. You can vote for your favourite on the Affinity Sutton website.
Of course we’re totally impartial and without sounding like a swarmy game show host, all the competition winners were top folk and dead lovely to work with.
On July 20th Affinity Sutton will be screening the films and announcing the final winner of the competition. The prize is a weeks holiday at the Eden Project.
They were all an inspiring bunch who are the real faces of everyday activism. People creating changes in their lives and their communities; it’s heart warming stuff y’know.
As ‘humans’ we tend to see ourselves as very different to ‘animals’. While we sit subjectively at the top of the evolutionary scale, and I look into the eyes of these primates I know which I’d prefer staring back at me during rush hour on the underground. I’m thinking there’d be less pushing with a Bonobo.
James’ photographs of Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Bonobos and Orangutans use the aesthetic of the humble passport photograph and infer a strong sense of identity and character. I can’t help but feel that if we only knew what they were thinking, there would certainly be a lot we could learn.
Thomas Shahan provides us with an astonishing close up of the insect world, proving that many aspects of life are stranger that fiction.
A nice chap who I met on my travels recently thought that some of Shahan’s photographs were actually 3D renders, once again proving that many aspects of li…
Pedal power is my preferred mode of transport to get about in London. From fixed gearer’s to the Boris Barclays Brigade, it seems cycling is finally catching on in LDN. However a few other countries are yet to get with the whole ‘two wheel’ thing.
Not many South Africans use bicycles, even though it’s an economical and often a faster way to travel due to the lack of public transportation. Cycle enthusiasts Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler have started the Bicycle Portraits project, photographing the people of SA and their bikes, while gaining an understanding of their relationships with this less favoured means of transport.
The project is culminating in a hard cover book with profits going to raise awareness through bicycle educational workshops in poor South African communities.
Google Earth is more than a tool for checking out your neighbours geraniums. In the hands of Dutch designer Thomas de Bruin it’s a tool for developing a full font set – including capitals, lower case, numbers and punctuation – from locations all over the Netherlands.
Our Junior Art Director Jade reckoned it took him ‘like, for ever’ to find the whole font set. Apparently though it took him ‘about a week’, which makes it even more of an achievement. Type-nerds tip your caps please.
Simply stunning wildlife photography by Scott Linstead.I’ve no idea how many bushes he’d have had to have hidden under or how long he must have spent waste deep in ponds, but it was worth it.
Mount Eyjafjallajökull. No we can’t pronounce it, yes it’s kept Suzy from seeing little Johnny for three whole days.
In truth this eruption has caused no end of disruption to the world of aviation, but if we step back from our travel itineraries for a moment, Mount Eyjafjallajökull becomes a stark reminder of the planets relative infancy as well as its amazing beauty.
Sean Stiegemeier certainly saw it, and he spent four days capturing it. He used a Canon 5d mkII, which I want, and music from Jónsi, which I like.
