Annual Blog Post

Well, it's been a year and 15 days (probably 16 by the time I finish writing) since my last blog post. It's not like anybody ever reads it anyway I don't think - most of the feedback seems to be from spambots posting nice comments about where I can source some cut-price viagra.

So, to catch up, this time last year I would've been in the early stages of second year. Second year was a bit crap for various reasons, and I finished up feeling a bit dissatisfied with where I'd ended up, artistically at least. By the end of it, I was really glad to be getting out of GSA for a while, since I'd be going on exchange to the University of New Mexico in the US. I did my usual summer stint at the bike shop, and by mid-August, I found myself in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque is quite a lot warmer than Scotland, though you probably didn't need me to tell you that, right? I got some mental sunburn, especially cycling around trying to find flats spread all across a very expansive city. Eventually, after dodging a few real dumps, I found myself (concidentally) in exactly the same flat that Theresa and Chris from Glasgow had stayed in the year before. The nearest Ikea is all the way up in Denver, so Walmart had to provide the furniture.

The only thing that was kinda worrying me was my class schedule. I'd been advised to take 200-level courses, roughly equivalent to second year at uni. The problem was that there were only two 200-level photography courses, and I hadn't been able to get on early and register for them due to a computer system error, so they were full by the time I got there. Luckily, I managed to beg a spare place on one of them, so I ended up with a timetable consisting of Digital Imaging Techniques, Intro to Printmaking, Modern Art History and History of Photography.

While there are many things I find confusing, bewildering or just plain annoying about the way the American educational system works, perhaps the biggest and most noticeable difference has been that of the workload compared to that of GSA. I find myself with a very frustrating mix - there's a lot more work to do, in terms of volume, but very little of it is particularly challenging.

Admittedly, my printmaking class is pretty challenging, but I put this down to the fact that I've never really had to create decent artworks without the aid of a camera before, and having to rely purely on my clumsy hands leaves me somewhat limited.

My big worry is that I'm going to be somewhat left behind as a photographer when I return to Glasgow. I've been hearing all about the really interesting stuff that people back home have been up to, and all I've been doing is photoshopping daft pictures of penguins looking at abandoned shopping trolleys (I scored a perfect 100% for that assignment by the way).

What I have been doing is trying to keep my own little personal side project on the go, shooting a LOT of Polaroid snapshots as I go along. I guess there's no deeper meaning to these, but they are really good fun (when my camera isn't deciding to spontaneously destroy itself) and definitely go a long way towards trying to keep me at least reasonably sane.

Here Come The Waterworks

I'm just back from possibly the biggest failure of a holiday ever! My friend Sara and I decided it'd be good fun to get away from things for a couple of days and head to the Isle of Arran, just off the west coast of Scotland. Arran's great, because it's so easy to reach from Glasgow by public transport - a train from Glasgow Central station to Ardrossan Harbour (about 40mins), then jump straight on the MV Caledonian Isles, the CalMac Ferry between Ardrossan and Brodick, the main town on the island.

Being poor and all, we decided it'd be a good plan to go camping. I had a tent and knew of a great wee camp spot at a place called Glen Rosa, about a mile's walk to the north of Brodick. I'd been to Glen Rosa the two summers previous to this trip, and it had proven to be a perfect base for getting around the island, in a quiet-yet-convenient-enough setting.

After arriving, we got our tent pitched up in a fairly nice spot by the Rosa Burn, the river running adjacent to the campsite. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great, so we decided just to sit in the tent and wait until the weather passed over. Unfortunately though, the weather didn't pass over for a while, and in fact, the heavy rain had caused the river to swell up. Luckily, another group of campers had been paying close attention to the river levels and had alerted us just in time to pack up all of our things and shift the tent to higher ground before the deluge came forth and swept us down to the Firth of Clyde!

We managed to get our gear to safety, and I managed to grab a few snaps of the last remaining tents getting dragged through the rising floods. Unfortunately however, in the rush to get everything moved, most of what we were carrying ended up getting pretty well soaked. While I had made what I thought to be a safe shout relying on one pair of waterproof hiking boots to last me the trip, I hadn't bargained on having to wade through a couple of feet of flood water, so I'd have had to traipse around in soggy boots for the remainder of the time.

We stayed the night at the campsite, but decided on hearing rain on the tent the next morning, that we'd just abandon the trip and head home early. Some bacon rolls at the Bilslands cafe soon lifted our spirits though, and we even got a top notch celebrity-spot in the form of former Deacon Blue drummer turned TV presenter Dougie Vipond. Obviously, Bilslands Cafe is the place to be seen for top celebrities when holidaying in Brodick. Of course, true to form, the minute we got on the boat, the skies miraculously cleared, making the rest of my journey home all nice and sunny. Damn.

Riding The Rails

Just got linked to a great set of images from Photographer Ben Speck on Getty Images, looking at the hobo subculture in the USA, specifically those hitching rides on freight trains. Quite an interesting read, as well as a fantastic selection of photographs.

The whole idea of hopping on and off trains has always interested me to a large degree, ever since first reading Kerouac's On The Road. Seeing the movie Into The Wild just helped hammer this fascination home, although definitely didn't show it as the easy-going free ride that it would be all to easy to think of it as.

Of course, my own rail experiences in the US were limited to regular Amtrak passenger routes, but even these were a good deal more romantic than the usual Scotrail experience!

From The Deep South

Been too long since my last blog update, huh? Again, I'm just gonna fire down one big mega-update and hopefully catch up on everything!

In Christchurch, I got a bit bored mostly. However, I managed to make myself happy with trips to the awesome camera shop, Photo & Video, who gave me a stupidly good trade-in price for my 24-120mm VR zoom lens. Since I've not really been using the lens much (slow max. apertures and soft soft images), I decided to bin it, initially favouring one of the now-obsolete (WHY NIKON, WHY?) 24-85mm AF-S zooms. In the end though, I opted for the brand-new Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AF-S. It's been lovely, and the best thing is, you actually no longer really need light to take pictures!

One of the other good things about Christchurch was getting to meet up with Adam, a flickr contact of mine and fellow lover of Nikons and OMs! He was good enough to take me on a trip up the Clarence river, where I managed to catch my first ever fish, a nice big Trout. I ripped the arse out of my shorts and tore my lucky boxers after a failed attempt to negotiate a steep scree slope, but catching the fish made it more than worthwhile.

From Christchurch, I headed back over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast. The weather was beautiful the whole way over, right until about Arthur's Pass itself, at which point, the big clouds rolled in and opened up over everything. Otira Gorge was cool, but I suspect it would've been a lot cooler if I could've actually seen anything through the clouds and heavy heavy rain. Unfortunately the weather didn't really pick up much at all the whole time I was down on the West Coast.

I stayed a night in Hokitika, then headed on to Franz Josef, hoping to take a helicopter trip up to the glacier there. Unfortunately though, the weather was super-suckin' so they weren't flying. And of course, just my luck, the weather cleared up beautifully just on the day I'd decided I wasn't waiting any longer and had decided to hit the road.

I headed on through the Haast Pass, dodging the suicidal tourist snap photographers at the Gates of Haast rapids, and on to Wanaka. Deciding to dodge the armies of Leki-pole-armed Germans in the town of Wanaka, I opted instead to follow a back road around the lake to a nice wee unofficial campsite - sshh, don't tell the DoC!

From Wanaka, I followed the Clutha down through Central Otago, dodging a mini-tornado at Alexandra which flattened some poor person's jeep. Thankfully, the wagon and I made it through unscathed, settling for the night in Ranfurly. I had considered staying the night in St. Bathans, an interesting wee ghost town, and wished I had after finding what might well have been New Zealand's shittiest backpackers hostel in Ranfurly.

Despite Ranfurly not being up to much, my next day was far more successful. I made it down to the east coast at Palmerston, and headed out on a mission to spot some penguins. Although my initial penguin spot was terribly exciting to me, I was advised of a better location a couple of km up the coast at a place called Moeraki. I was able to get within a few feet of the penguins there, and I snapped away like a man possessed.

To be continued...

Antichristchurch

Well, after leaving Wellington, things have been a bit up and down, and are now firmly on a downer in Christchurch. I've been stuck here for about two weeks now, after really only intending to be here for a couple of days. It's flat, and the population seems to be mostly neo-nazi dickheads and foreign pensioners. Anyways, enough of that... time for a quick update on progress so far.

Started in Picton, headed into the Marlborough Sounds. Spent my first night in a place called Hopewell in possibly the best backpacker hostel ever. I rented a kayak for $10 and paddled around, and it was very much fun. I even took the F65 out with me and took some photos while I was out there. Next night involved some shady mountainous dirt roads on the way over to a place called Titirangi. The weather was crap when I arrived, and my passport fell out of the van on the way over (long and silly story), but the next morning, all was clear and sunny and I even managed a swim in the sea, something I really don't do often.

Next was Elaine Bay, a bit further over to the western side of the sounds. Cool spot with a wee pier and stingrays floating about in the water, and I got chatting to Simon, a Canadian fellow van traveller. All was great, except my legs got absolutely annihilated by sandflies. Carried on to the relative civilisation of Nelson, met up with Simon for a beer and only partially successful attempts to chat up some girls from the Kiwi Experience bus.

Headed up to Motueka, did Karaoke for only the third time in my life, waltzed with an old Maori alcoholic woman, and hung out in a very Phoenix-nights hotel/local pub. Headed on up through Takaka and its hippies on my way to Cape Farewell. Headed back down into Nelson, then back over to the West Coast. Was blown away by the delights of Westport, failed to find penguins on a beach in the middle of nowhere, and eventually ended up staying in Greymouth.

Drove over the Lewis Pass, which would've been pretty amazing if I could've seen any of it (the clouds were low, and it was raining). And then Christchurch. As I said earlier, flat, bland, and full of weirdoes.

Next move is a fishing trip up into the hills, back to Christchurch once more to sleep it off, then I'm gonna head over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast again, and hope the weather's not too crappy when I get there!

The Battle of Seattle

After Vancouver, I made my way down to Seattle - home of Jumbo Jets, Frasier, and a bunch of famous dead people. My plan had been to take the Amtrak train, but on arriving at the railway station and realising I'd massively misread the timetable, I opted for the Greyhound Bus instead. It turned out that there was only one train per day from Vancouver, and that the service noted on the timetable was in fact the Greyhound bus that I got on anyway. After navigating my way to what looked like the main downtown area, I quickly hunted down the ferry terminal from where I would get the ferry over to where I was booked in for the night - the HI Hostel on Vashon Island. Little did I know at the time just how out-of-the-way Vashon Island really was, or the fact that there were only three ferry services per day, and those only being around 8am, 5pm and 6pm.

So I decided to abandon Vashon Island and seek alternative accomodation. I arrived shortly after midday, and the next boat to Vashon wasn't until 5pm, so I started asking around to seek alternative accommodation. It turned out that there's only actually one hostel anywhere near the middle of Seattle, and of course, it was totally booked out. I was directed around a couple of hotels, and eventually found myself in the Panama Hotel, a grand old building in the International District. The hotel was nice and cheap, but as such, needed a good lick of paint, and had a slightly spooky air to it. Turned out it had a pretty interesting history, and it was definitely a lot more interesting than your average Travel Inn! I also made a friend in Jade, an American woman who was incredibly upset to see the Seattle Seahawks get beaten by the San Francisco 49'ers in the first NFL game of the season.

Seattle was a bit of a weird city. I didn't quite manage to figure out what its "vibe" was. It was definitely pretty to look at in a lot of places, but much like Vancouver, there were a lot of homeless people around, and a lot of strange bylaws in place to try and disrupt the homeless community. For example, it was illegal to sit or lie down on any public pavement in the downtown area. I watched one very bizarre scene as one guy sat on a wall outside a shop to wait for his friends to come out, causing no obstruction or harm to anyone, but within a few seconds, one of the city's "downtown ambassadors" (that's the "community police support officers" to any British readers) threaten the guy with arrest and having him registered as an official vagrant. Definitely one hell of an over-reaction if you ask me.

Anyway, as for activities in Seattle, I took an underground tour, went up the Space Needle, and did a lot of running back and forward to various camera shops! The underground tour was a bit of a disappointment, despite a personal recommendation from the cool Russian guy who worked in the pizza shop. The deepest it went was about ten feet below ground level, and was basically to illustrate the fact that Seattle was built in a stupid location. The Space Needle was pretty cool - I loved watching the sun setting behind the Olympic Mountains and watching all the planes fly in and out over the city. I even managed to pick up a mega-naff souvenir t-shirt out of the bargain bin for a couple of dollars. But, the big problem when I got up the space needle, was that I discovered my wide-angle lens had decided to stop auto-focusing on anything at any distance.

Seattle was weird for camera shops. Most in the city were useless (think Jessops but worse), and the one that was any good was a hell of a walk. Glazers (the good one) had a really nice range of stuff, but it was pretty expensive. I first needed to run up there looking for sensor cleaner (I had mega dirt on the D700), then went up on a mission to replace my shoddy Sigma 18-35. I was very very close to buying a second hand Nikon 20-35mm f/2.8, but decided against it at the last minute, and ended up not replacing the lens until I got to Portland.

So anyway, to sum up, I was mostly unimpressed by Seattle, although I think in different circumstances it could've been a really enjoyable visit.

Late Update

First off, let me apologise for not keeping this blog too up-to-date. It's a kinda funny thing - for once in my life, I actually have something worthwhile to write a blog about, but of course, I'd much rather be out and about doing stuff than sitting in and writing a blog! To be honest, the only reason I'm writing this is that I'm stuck on a train between Seattle and Portland at the moment.

So the trip since my last update:

I made it to New York and had a great time there. I stayed in the New York Loft Hostel over on Varet Street in Brookyln, near the "hipster" Williamsburg neighbourhood. On my first night arriving, I met up with the ace Simona and went for a wander around the city, mostly not knowing where the hell I was going. I got me a mobile phone for very little money, and I began on one of this trip's other big outcomes - the eating of lots of giant hamburgers. The weather was amazing, but the heat pretty stifling in the city. A nice wee trip down to the beach at Coney Island was pretty pleasant, it's a very strange place. Lots of seeing the sights in Manhattan, one of the highlights being the International Centre For Photography, where I saw an exhibition of some pretty amazing Japanese photographers. On my last night, I managed to get in touch with Carol Finnie, my Dad's cousin, and we went to her local for a few beers. Of course, a few beers turned into a lot of beers, and I ended up leaving the pub at 3:30am. Which, y'know, would be fine, except that my flight was at 7:30am. I hopped in a cab over to the hostel, although having to give the cab driver directions with my knowledge of NY was definitely not reassuring. Quickly packed my rucksack and managed to jump in a cab out to JFK airport with an English guy who was flying out too. Unfortunately however, the cabbie was even less good with his directions, actually taking us to LaGuardia airport first, and when we finally got to JFK, getting lost on the road between terminals. I made it in just on time for check in, still pretty drunk and very very tired, so of course security went to town giving me the full "step aside please sir" treatment and a pretty thorough interview on the origins of the packet of sweeties I had in my pocket.

The flight sucked. I maintain that using the reclining seats on economy class flights should be made a hanging offence.

Landed in Vancouver - weather was just as grey as I'd kinda expected. My first hostel turned out to be more of a hotel. The individual bedrooms were good for sprawling out and catching up on sleep, but the location was in one of the roughest areas of town, with junkies, meth-heads and alkies all over the place. That was just during the day, you should've seen it at night! Thankfully after two nights there, I was able to move up to the Hostelling International hostel on Granville Street. I met a lot of great people there - Beppe, Marie-Eve, Jane, Sean, Vasiliki, Sadie and Alicia were all a bunch of sound people, with the ladies in particular loving my kilt the one night I wore it to go out. The HI on Granville Street has been the best place so far, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're in the city.

Next was a real fun part. From Vancouver, I jumped on an old rickety DeHavilland Beaver floatplane out to Salt Spring Island, about 25 minutes flight from the centre of Vancouver. Salt Spring reminded me a lot of Arran, only with good weather and no midges. I couldn't find accomodation, so I grabbed me a cheap tent before I left Vancouver and camped at the Ganges Campground, just outside of Ganges, the main town on the island. The tent was pretty cramped, but the ground was good, and I had the entire campsite pretty much to myself. Thankfully, the weather was excellent the whole time, otherwise the outdoor showers wouldn't have been much fun. There wasn't a great deal to do on Salt Spring, but that suited me just perfectly - needed a bit of relaxing-in-the-middle-of-nowhere time after New York and Vancouver. Made the mistake of tryin to cycle the southern half of the island on a clapped-out Specialized Expedition hire bike, but thankfully the bus was able to take me home from the bottom of the island. Had to wait two hours for the next bus, but got chatting to a really sound English chick called Kate, and spent those two hours having a few nice cold beers looking over the harbour. Coming home relaxed, if a little sunburnt, meant another floatplane ride. We had to pick up passengers from another island on the way back - we were experiencing some turbulence, so on the way from Maple Bay back to Vancouver, the pilot decided to stay low, actually flying UNDER some electricity cables between two of the islands. Pretty scary stuff, but really good fun.

I got back to Vancouver again, only this time staying in the Cambie Hostel on Seymour Street. Bedroom was pretty good, just sharing with one pretty cool French guy called Cedric, but the hostel wasn't all that great. The people weren't all that cool, although I did enjoy a few beers with two (unconnected) Aussies called Kate and Chak. I did however, discover an excellent gameshow called Hole In The Wall. Caught a bizarre sporting event in the form of the Red Bull Soapbox Race, saw a Grouse at the top of Grouse Mountain, and found a really good pub that played Slayer - those things made the second vancouver visit pretty nice for me.

Right, anyways, the train is approaching Portland now, so I'd better stick the laptop away. I'll hopefully get back on shortly to tell of my experiences in Seattle!

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...