Christmas Pillow Fight

Flashmobbing? I thought it had quietly slipped back into obscurity. But, in 2006, it seems the popculture phenomenon has continued in cities around the world - in the form of mass pillow fights. On December the 23rd, Manchester was the latest to join in. Hundreds of students from across the city gathered outside the Town Hall to fight each other to a feathery death. Videos have sprung up on YouTube and posts appeared on various local blogs (Mancubist and IckleWeb). I don't know how much the Police knew about it, but only one arrest was made. Check out the mayhem below:



There's loads more videos on YouTube: Pillow fighting in Vancouver, New York, Montreal, London, San Francisco and Buenos Aires.

Merry Christmas Everyone

I intended to make some proper posts before Christmas, but i've been too busy getting ready to go away that it hasn't happened! However, i would like to say Merry Christmas to anyone and everyone that reads this - thanks for visiting!

Below is a stunning image of the Christmas Tree Cluster (a star-forming region in the constellation of Monoceros). Hope you all have a great time, and i'll be back soon.

Size is everything... (in digital photos)

Size seems to be becoming everything in digital imagery. The best of my cameras is a humble 4 megapixels - completely dwarfed by the recently published 2.5 Gigapixel image, supposedly the world's first. The view from a Dutch sykscraper is a combination of 600 images which produced a 7.5Gb file. Experience it!

It's not just a Dutch thing though. Another combined image, 350 photos this time is 3.8 Gigapixels and shows an amazing view of downtown Boston. Try zooming in to appreciate the quality... and hope it doesn't crash your browser! Click for the bigger picture.



Via Slashgear and Neatorama

The Original Diet coke/Mentos Experiment

How could i have missed it? The original experiment by the Eepybird guys is equally as genius as the follow-up! Don't be fooled by imitations, Eepybird versions are the best of this type of video:

Star Wars Lego!

My eyes have been opened recently to the glory of Star Wars Lego. Perfectly combines two cool geeky obsessions into one. There are some amazing sets out there. I saw the first browsing on ebay - a 1000 piece Millennium Falcon, with a removable lid revealing the bridge and its crew of lego Chewbacca, C-3PO, Han Solo and Princess Leia figures. It also has an escape pod and a swing-out gunner seat. Awesome stuff:





There's a lot of it on ebay, but the makers themselves have a big range too. The Lego website sells The Imperial Star Destroyer, Death Star, Scout Walkers, Tie Fighters, A- B- X- and Y-wings from the classic films as well as a host of sets from Episodes I-III. It's mostly stupidly expensive... but would make an ideal christmas present! My favourite is the Y-Wing below, a steal at £110:

Prague from every angle

Prague 360 is an excellent site packed with images of Prague, from every conceivable vantage point in the city. When i say images, they are in fact QTVR images (panoramic photos you move around and zoom in and out, depending on what you want to see). You can sort the images by category: Landmarks, Life, Cafés and Bars, Clubs, Restaurants, Shops and even WiFi spots. Essential for anybody planning to go there, or just anyone who wants to see this beautiful city up close.

The site runs using Google maps, so be sure to drag the map around to see different parts of the city, and choose the overlay of your choice (map, satellite or both).

Japanese dereliction

It's one of my more unusual interests, but i have a fascination with derelict and abandoned buildings - places where rust spreads as rapidly as the invading plants; where nature reclaims what man has deserted. They have a strange beauty.

The best examples are industrial landscapes - the warehouses, factories, docks, railways of the early 20th century. There are some great photo sets on the internet, from the US, UK and a collection i found recently of Japanese Factories, Warehouses and abandoned Theme Parks:

The page is all in Japanese, so i'm not sure where or what a lot of the places are, but the photos are so atmospheric. Make sure to click forward to the next page in each set (the right-most button at the bottom of the page).

I have a similar set of photos on my Flickr pages - a few months back i went exploring some of the derelict warehouses in Liverpool. The area i live in (Merseyside) has so many great places to photograph, but most are being redeveloped. I think it's important to try and capture the buildings before they change, whilst the traces of their past are still obvious.

What the World Eats

Peter Menzel is a Californian photojournalist who has published numerous articles on various subjects in his 30 year career, including Science, the Environment and Travel. One of his series which combines all these subjects is a comparison of food consumption in different countries across the world. It's a fascinating insight into how diets vary in different continents, from the fast-food and branded goods of US households to the fresh produce of Asian countries. The starkest contrast however is with refugees in Sudan, shown in the picture below. What little food is displayed has to last the family a week...



The images have been published in several European and American magazines and cuttings can be viewed on Peter's website. The book "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats" has also been published with these photos.

Google Maps invade Germany

Something weird is happening on the streets of Berlin. Red bubbles are appearing at points of interest and local services in the city, each with a single mysterious letter in the middle... what can it mean?

As much as i'd like it to be the internet breaking out of its binary prison and running amock on the streets, it is in fact the work of Aram Bartholl who was inspired by the little google map markers and decided to make one for real in the Berlin suburbs. Entitled Project Map, you can see pictures (and a video) of the construction process and the bubble in situ on his site. I love the blurring of boundaries between online and real life - a great idea made better because the completed article looks weirdly superimposed as if it is generated by a website:

There are a load of other great projects he's done along the theme of blurring boundaries, including a reinactment of the racing game Need for Speed by putting up red neon arrows on a city street and confusing pedestrians by installing pixellated boxes from the PC game Counter-strike on pavements:

His website (datenform.de) is in German. You can translate it using Babelfish, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Heli-Africa - perfect aerial photos

The Heli-Africa project was an expedition undertaken by two Germans who dreamed of flying from Hamburg to Cape Town at low level, capturing the beauty of both continents and sharing their photographs with the rest of world. Having completed their journey, there is a wealth of stunning imagery in their photo galleries. Whether it be the perfect geomery of a German car park, the Fractal patterns left by water in Ethiopia or Elephants in the Okavango Delta - the amazing capacity of aerial photography to show us sights we will never experience ourselves is perfectly demonstrated in their work:

Stunning Paris Panorama

From the lens of photographer Arnaud Frich comes a stunning series of photographs of Paris. The most impressive of his sets are night-time panorama, taking in 180 or a full 360º of city centre skyline. When i loaded the first image i came across (represented below), it seemed a pretty normal scene but as i panned right a church came into view. By the huge rose window i realised it was a close-up of Notre Dame. Carry on and the Eiffel Tower appears, with its shining beacon, then the spire of the Sainte Chappelle, the roofs of the Louvre and on a distant hill the gleaming white Sacré Coeur:



Others in the series take in similar views, including La Defense, Arc du Triomphe and Eiffel Tower, North Paris from the left bank and Avenue des Champs Elysées. If there was ever doubt as to the beauty of Paris, these photos will dispell it - essential viewing.

Deck the halls... with copper and silicon?

Christmas is coming, the goose (or Quorn™) is getting fat... but, nothing says Happy Christmas like old IDE, USB and power cables all weaved together and lit up! That's exactly what one enterprising person has produced. He's called it the Geek Wreath and posted pics on his Flickr pages:



It was picked up by Make and BoingBoing. Personally, i'm not convinced, but it looks pretty cool and is a great use of redundant equipment. I actually have a bag full of all sorts of cables and connectors, and no money to afford decent decorations this year so, he could be on to something...