It’s probably something I say every year, but I really can’t remember being this cold. The temperature has really plummeted here in Perth over the last two weeks so much so that for the first time long johns have made an appearance on my winter wardrobe menu.
On the plus side, when it’s cold the air seems to crisp up making for some unique photo opportunities. I took a walk through a nearby park in Subiaco to shoot some of the last remaining remnants of autumn with the Canon 5d MKII.
I must say, even after a year now, the blacks that this camera pushes out still make me go all gooey. I hope they have a similar effect on you. Taken with 50mm f1.8 and 28mm 2.8 Nikkor lenses.
This weekend I finally got disciplined and cleared some time to finish a final draft for a looming submission deadline.
Drafting for me seems to require an intense investment of time. A solid draft of about 2000 words will probably take about 4 to 6 hours – and that’s if I don’t lose patience and start a complete re-write.
I don’t know what that says about me as a writer or whether it’s a very effective writing process. The word ‘pedantic’ comes to mind as as each successive draft unfolds.
Anyway, as many writers can probably relate to, the productive writing time didn’t come from where I expected it to. Luckily for the draft, this weekend coincided with a trip to my hairdresser. The one I go to, aptly named The Mens Room, is one of those old fashioned barbers where you just rock up and sit down to wait your turn.
The proprietor of this fine establishment is also the sole hairdresser, hence waiting for a ‘turn’ at The Mens Room can take anywhere between twenty minutes and two hours. No one seems bothered though. The place seems a convenient and pleasurable escape for most of the patrons, with… Read more
You never know what you’ll spot in a window. Write for 10 minutes on the photo below and post an excerpt in the comments.
There is no greater literary gap at the moment than the aching crevasse separating the potential and reality of video book trailers.
Sadly, in much the same way that the proliferation of ebooks will probably result in a general unbalancing of quality vs quantity, the ease of which people can ‘make movies’ at home is thus helping to deliver some bona fide coma-quality book promotion videos.
So to help deliver some perspective on where things should be going for book trailers, here in no particular order, I present my picks for best book trailers thus far:
Going West by Maurice Gee
Leviathan by Scott Westerfield
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow
Your Fate Hurtles Down at You by Jim Shephard
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
Gone by Mo Hayder – via @williamkostakis
Any other top picks from my readers?
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Sources:
http://flavorwire.com/16986/watch-before-reading-art-house-book-trailers
http://2010mobyawards.wordpress.com/
http://vimeo.com/channels/kinetictypography/
ramify v. to grow and send out branches or branch-like structure.
Her body has kept the hard neatness it had when they were kids working at Kroll’s but underneath her chin there are ugly folds that ramify into her neck.
John Updike, Rabbit At Rest
Today’s 10 minute writing challenge. I feel some Orwellian undertones in this picture. Those machines surely can’t just be for creating newspapers! And who is the caretaker in the middle?
Wedding videos have got to be up there in the shooting difficulty stakes. Weddings are full of ‘moments’ – the entrance, the vows, the kiss, the first dance – of which you only get one chance to capture.
The ‘once in a lifetime’ nature of a wedding swiftly ratchets up the pressure to capture as much as possible, in as many places as possible, all at the same time.
Erin and Gus’ wedding video was the first I’d ever shot, and one I committed to just a few months after getting my Canon 5d mk2. So everything was a steep learning curve.
The end result (below), whilst a little rough around the edges, I think manages to capture quite well the essence of the wedding, and of the bride and groom. Erin and Gus are good friends, and their down to earth personalities and easy going nature would have been out of place in a slick, manufactured production. Their lives are characterised by the people they love, and whom love them back.
For those thinking of undertaking a similar challenge, I have included a few wedding video tips based on the mistakes I made and what I learnt from the… Read more