Fandan

You may have noticed it's been quite a while since I last posted a blog entry. This is very bad of me, and a bad habit I seem to get into from time to time - just plain forgetting to keep things up to date.

Since my last post in November, I've undertaken a pretty big step with my photography. I'm now studying towards a BA in Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art, and it's great. I'm now about three quarters of the way through the first year of the course, and actually amazed how time has flown by, seems like no time at all since I first appeared there.

Before I arrived at the Art School, I wasn't really sure what the hell to expect. I'd not managed to go on any of the open days because I'd been in New Zealand, and my only experience of the school had been a few visits to the degree shows. My last experience of any formal art education had been in my standard grade art class at high school, back in 2001 or thereabouts, and even at that I wasn't very great.

Anyway, in spite of the nerves beforehand, I've been managing to cope pretty well so far I reckon. The stuff along the lines of theory and history were what I was most worried about, but thankfully the essays have been pretty short for that, and I don't mind presentations too much.

The general working environment has been quite interesting to get used to as well. Having come from a very task-based environment as an engineer, it's been a bit weird getting used to the more free-flowing way of working in a studio with a pretty open timetable. I have to say, I definitely enjoy the freedom, but it does sometimes make it pretty tricky trying to force yourself to get work done when things are quiet.

The people are good, and a lot easier to get on with than I had expected. Admittedly, there are very few (if any) people who share my taste for a spot of Slayer, but it's nice to be surrounded by lots of people with lots of interesting ideas and different viewpoints. I don't see myself putting on the skinny jeans and buying dubstep records just yet, but being one of those art school fandans isn't quite so bad after all...

Holy Mountain

Last night, I had the pleasure of shooting a band called Holy Mountain, playing live at the Captain's Rest, Glasgow. For me, Holy Mountain are one of those bands that make Glasgow music ace. It's kinda cool but kinda depressing knowing that there are some excellent bands in Glasgow that totally rule, but are never ever going to be on Top of the Pops. Holy Mountain, Black Sun and Take A Worm For A Walk Week are all prime examples of top notch bands living out on the fringes.

So anyway, the Captain's Rest is a bit of a mixed-bag venue for me. I kinda like the space and all, but the lighting's pretty terrible, and it can get very very hot downstairs. Lighting was bad enough for the first two bands who played on stage, but Holy Mountain did their usual thing of playing out on the floor, so there was pretty much no light whatsoever - meaning there was no choice but to go to the wide-angle lens and flashgun and try a little bit of slow-sync.

Full Gallery is available on my website.

In Heathrow

The journey's started off pretty nicely so far. Just sitting in Heathrow killing some time at the moment, which is nice. Main things on my mind at the moment are wondering what I'm going to have for lunch, and how much my inner five year old is enjoying watching all the big aeroplanes flying up into the sky!

Flight down was pretty uneventful, which was exactly what I was hoping for. Apart from a mildly annoying kid in the seat next to me, all was nice and calm. I was quite amazed in Glasgow airport this morning though. I got in at about 7:20, got through check in, and went upstairs to the wetherspoons for a fried breakfast. At 7:30, I was amazed just how many people had started their drink intake for the day. I mean, a pint of Stella before most of the world is even awake... what's that about? Don't fancy being sat next to him on a long-haul!

But anyway, nobody's stolen my camera yet, I even managed to get the standard out-the-window shots from the plane of some nice fluffy clouds and the wings. Just hoping now that I'll see my rucksack when I get to the other end...

Jobless Über Alles!

As you may or may not be aware, I used to work for BT, then decided to take a redundancy package and go away to New Zealand for a while with the proceeds. I thought the limbo period between quitting and actually getting on the plane would be incredibly tedious and boring, but in fact, I can't remember having quite so much fun for a long time!

At first there was a lot of photography getting done, which was very enjoyable. Meeting up with the similarly jobless Sara and spending whole days just snapping away is excellent fun. She got herself a nice new Nikon D80, and she's been getting some pretty ace results with it so far.

Of course, not having to get up for work in the morning has meant that trips to the pub have been coming thick and fast. On one of these nights, we'd been having a few cans of the almighty Super T at John and Dunc's flat, and decided it'd be a really good idea to go camping the next day. The next day, as promised, we managed to haul our sorry behinds down to Ardrossan and jumped on the Calmac boat to Arran for what turned out to be a pretty ace wee holiday. We spent two nights camped at the fantastic Glen Rosa campsite in my trusty Black's tent, complete with high-tech LED lighting system. Activities participated in included regular walks to the Brodick Co-op for bacon rolls, Crazy Golf, and a bus journey round the island, broken up with a few beers in Blackwaterfoot.

The Crazy Golf didn't stop there though, as just a couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to play on what is supposedly Europe's largest crazy golf course, out at Xscape at Braehead. The courses maybe didn't quite have some of the craziest features on offer (whit, nae windmills!?!), but with 36 holes to play, we certainly got a fair bit of playing done. Of course, fresh from my experience on the infinitely more difficult Brodick course, I gave Sara a bit of a thrashing, coming in at one under and three under in the two 18-hole games we played.