Music video: "Counting Sheep"

On Sunday afternoon I was filming a quirky music video with Glasgow-based band Randolph's Leap, who have just released their new double A-side single "Counting Sheep / Deep Blue Sea" on Olive Grove Records.

I spent 2 hours filming the band (using both live-action and stopmotion-style photography) while Glasgow University Trampoline Club performed in the background: The result was a vast compilation of amusing footage, ready for editing.

After roughly 10 hours sifting through the footage and editing it all together, the video was complete. Today my finished video for "Counting Sheep" was released on both YouTube and Vimeo; and the news posted around the internet, leading to over 150 views within the first 12 hours of getting promoted.

So without further ado, here it is folks, enjoy!

Around The World In 6 Clicks

A couple of weeks ago I started a new painting project, basically to help get me back into the practice of regular painting.

I'm calling the project "Around The World In 6 Clicks", and through the use of Google Maps I'm going on a virtual painting tour of the world.

Working process:

- From the Google Maps homepage I zoom-out until the whole world is visible;

- I close my eyes before click-and-holding my mouse cursor anywhere over the map and vividly moving the mouse around in order to spin the map to a random location;

- I release the mouse button before again vividly moving the cursor around the screen (so that it finishes over a new random map location);

- Once I've stopped moving the mouse I use the scroll-wheel of my mouse to zoom-in as far as possible and pin-point a painting location;

- Finally I select the orange Google Streetview man and move him over the exact location that I ended-up at in order to get a photo of that location, which I proceed to paint in my sketchbook.

It's been an interesting journey so far, and I've even learnt a few things about some of the locations after doing research on them (out of curiosity)!

You can check out the first 5 paintings on my facebook art page by clicking here. (The series won't be limited to 6 paintings as the title may suggest - 6 is actually the number of clicks it usually takes to arrive at the source photos).

Photography from 2011 WJCC (Perth)

From Saturday 5 - Sunday 13 March, I was volunteering as a steward at the World Junior Curling Championships (WJCC) in Perth's Dewars Centre: And on two of those days I was pretending to be a photographer.

Briar Hürlimann (Switzerland) delivering a stone

20 of the top teams from around the world (10 boys teams and 10 girls teams) were representing their countries and competing for the World Junior trophies. Amongst them was Scotland's Eve Muirhead, who in her final year at Junior level was aiming to win a record-breaking fourth title (having previously won in 2007, 2008, and 2009 - she missed the 2010 tournament while representing Great Britain at the Winter Olympics).

I thoroughly enjoyed the week: Welcoming many friendly faces from around the world to the Dewars Centre; getting to meet the competitors, coaches, and support staff (including notable curlers like Rhona Martin and Ralph Stöckli); and getting to watch top-level international curling from prime viewing locations every day.

Here is a small sample of the photos I took while not working - during Day 5 afternoon (girls) and Day 9 afternoon (girls final, bronze medal game, and the closing ceremony)...

Sara McManus watches as Sofia Mabergs & Anna Huhta (Sweden) sweep

Ekaterina Antonova & Galina Arsen'kina ready for Victoria Moiseeva's stone (Russia)

Norwegian sweepers (in centre) and Swiss sweepers (on right)

Most of the teams lined up during the closing ceremony

I'm surprised how well a lot of my photos came out, and I've become really fascinated with the panned action shots that [usually] make the moving players appear static in near-perfect focus while everything else is a rushing blur.

I first noticed this style of photography in a couple of the photos on the official WJCC website, where my initial assumption was, ironically, that someone had made the curlers stand out from the image by doing a bit of tacky photoshop work! I wasn't impressed with those original images because the overall style looked forced - as if the photo was originally in full focus before someone used photoshop to mask the curler (keeping them in focus) while distorting the remaining background with a motion blur filter.

I only began to appreciate the style once I saw that some of my photos appeared the same, and I realised that it was all done in-camera rather than as a quick photoshop edit.

My photo of Briar Hürlimann (top) is possibly my favourite with this style, although the Swedish photo just below it is also pretty cool (particularly how the sweepers are framed in perfect focus between two blurry photographers).

If you'd like to see more of my photos from the WJCC, please visit the relevant albums on my facebook profile by clicking the links below:

Day 5 - Girls group games

Day 9 - Girls final and bronze medal game

Day 9 - Closing ceremony

Kinross Curling Rink website

During January and February I set up a blog/website for Kinross Curling Rink (where I work part-time as an Ice Technician) to compliment its new(ish) facebook page.

The aim was to give the rink an easily-accessible web presence so that both regulars and newcomers alike can find all of our news and information easily in one place.

After feedback from the rink/hotel management and from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's Development Manager, we launched the site a couple of weeks ago.

You can pay us a virtual visit at:

www.KinrossCurlingRink.blogspot.com

and

www.facebook.com/KinrossCurlingRink