Hi

Sorry I haven't updated the blog in a while. I am looking forward to blogging a lot this week though because I'm on holiday! It's a shame that the weather isn't great though. I'm in Dornie! Where is Dornie you may be asking. Dornie is a very small village near Kyle of Lochalsh in the north of Scotland. It is also a quick walk away from the famous Eilean Donan Castle. In my next post I will include pictures. I am also going over to the Isle of Skye on Tuesday for Archery and Tomohawk throwing so I can't wait!

Bye,
Finlay

30 years of BAD Photograpy

This is a video which I found on twitter when I was looking about today. It's not about bad photographs, it's about a photographer for National Geographic with the enitials BAD. I really enjoyed watching it and I think it's definitely worth a watch.

30 Years of BAD Pictures from Bruce Dale on Vimeo.

Amnesty International

2011 was a year without precedent for the people of the Middle East and North Africa.

This animation gives a quick introduction to a year of change and rebellion.


Check it out!

amnesty.org.uk/protest

San Francisco

This morning I walked through San Francisco. I wandered past china town to a café called ‘Café Trieste’ where I had breakfast. I ate a croissant and a can of ‘Orangina’. I was on my way to Coit Tower when I came across a perfect photo opportunity. I had a view of the Trans-America Pyramid, an old American lamppost and a perfectly green beech tree all in front of me. I stopped to take the picture and then carried on up the steep San Francisco Street. It was still only 9:00 a.m. and the Coit Tower opened at 10:00 so I had some time to kill which I spent taking pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Review one of my own photographs

This photo was taken from the top of the Rockefeller Center in New York on my 2011 holiday to the US. I like this photograph because of the tall skyscrapers wherever you look.  New York was an interesting place to be because I had never been to an area so vast yet so busy at the same time. The view of the Empire State Building gives an interesting perspective if you have never been before. In the back of the photo you may have realized that it is very hazy. This is because I took the photo during the New York heat wave where temperatures reached 104°Fahrenheit. The Rockefeller Center gave you a much better viewpoint than the Empire State Building because the fences were lower, it wasn’t as busy, and it was in-between Central Park and the Empire State Building. At the back of the photo in amongst the haze is Wall Street, the financial district. It is roughly five miles away from where the photo was taken.

Julia Horton

Julia Horton is a freelance journalist who does mostly articles about travel and human rights. She wrote an interesting article in the Scotsman about taking the trans-Mongolian railway. I really enjoyed reading it and I was inspired to start planning a round the world trip, involving the rail line. I send Julia Horton an e-mail about how she had inspired me a while ago and this afternoon I got a reply. In the reply she told me how she was glad that she had inspired me to do the Mongolian trip and that she would look out for my future travel articles. I was so chuffed that she replied and I thought that I would share it with all who might be interested. Thanks for reading, bye.
Here's her article in the Scotsman.

Arrested Development

Recently my family got Netflix, a newly released competitor to LoveFilm. Whilst it was raining yesterday we decided to have a movie day. We switched on the Wii and downloaded the Netflix application. We watched 3 films, Religulous, Annie Hall and Kurt Cobain About a Son. All of them were brilliant and I'd never seen any of them before. This morning I started to watch a couple of old Arrested Development episodes, I was amazed to see Michael Cera at such a young age. Thanks for reading, Bye!