Whilst tweeting

Whilst on twitter today lpv magazine tweeted 'I'd be impressed if a photographer rigged up their own car with the same equipment Google uses for Street View & drove across the country' - to which someone has done, on an amazing scale. Alastair Thain is the man that is in question. The very man who used such high quality equipment that NASA uses the same technology. One particular project comes to mind when his name is mentioned. In 2007, Tate Britian held an exhibition called How We Are: Photographing Britain, to which Alastair Thain and many other photographers exhibited work. Thain displayed huge portraits of Royal Marines who had just been training, showing the exhaustion and the strain that it took on these individuals. The raw emotions screamed through the quality and scale of the work, every tense muscle, sweat drop and gland are available to see making these images very powerful and compelling. 

However if we go back to the point I was originally making, it was made available to me that Alastair Thain has done a 'Google street view' piece of work, with this incredible bit of equipment. Not exactly subtle. I quote.. “The idea behind it is that I can drive along the streets at night with a large-format camera and capture life, because people don’t notice you if you’re in a car. It’s a completely arbitrary process, but the advantage of digital is that you can take 10,000 shots and get maybe 50 revealing images.” OK I understand the digital part. But really? No one notices you if you're in a car? I think people would notice the large amount of equipment and the 'epic flash' that goes off in their faces! At least being in a car means you can drive away from those people who believe it is against their right to be photographed without permission, even in a public space. 


This is something else I don't understand. If you aren't doing anything incriminating and a photograph of you is taken in a public space why be angry about it? You're captured on CCTV 100s of times a day, what is the difference? OK that might sound a bit naive, but it is effectively the same concept. Obviously there are boundaries.

I diverted again, but I think this post was a good chance for a bit of a ramble. 


Anyway if you wish to read further this was the article I nabbed the photograph and quote from. 

Oh Christmas Tree

Posting a little late...

Our Christmas tree malted a lot this year.
The hoover came out regularly.
Our carpet was about an inch deep in pines once we took the decorations off and the tree down.