Apologies for not posting so frequently for the past couple of weeks - work/life has been very hectic (even more so than usual) and doesn’t look like it will let up for a few weeks yet. That said, I will endeavour to get a few posts out starting with this experiment I made recently…
A couple of weeks back I moved rooms in the house where I live to the top floor “penthouse” which one of my previous housemates had just vacated. Aside from having its own ensuite bathroom (a major plus!) and a balcony it also has great back and front views. Whist enjoying watching the world go by I decided to try creating a time lapse video with the inbuilt camera on my MacBook Pro. Above is my first attempt which I captured using an open source program called Gawker which took a picture every 20 seconds and then mixed together in iMovie ‘08. The music is “Red-Eye” by The Album Leaf and the view is looking towards Canary Wharf which you can just see peeking out from behind some of the houses in the foreground.
Although the picture is fairly compressed it’s nice to see what you can do with the tiny camera in a MBP and I hope to be doing some more experiments in the near future.
The higher floors offer amazing panoramic views of east London with the river Thames snaking its way around the Isle of Dogs. On a clear day you can see for many miles and it’s striking just how flat London without a hill in sight! It’s a shame there is no public viewing gallery but presumably fears of terrorism have curtailed any possibility of that.
There’s a lot of construction taking place around this area at the moment, mostly luxury apartments (like Pan Peninsular) but also various infrastructure projects to prepare for the Olympics in 2012. Part of this includes the lengthening of Docklands Light Railway trains which is causing mass disruption for anyone trying to get to and from central London at the moment (i.e. everyone)!
I’m a little late in posting this but on Tuesday I was lucky enough to be in central London at the same time as the RAF (Royal Air Force) was celebrating it’s 90th anniversary which included a cool flypast of the Red Arrows and Typhoon fighter jets. I watched from London Bridge which gave a great vantage point as the planes appeared seemingly out of nowhere over Canary Wharf leaving coloured smoke trails in their wake.
It was all over in a matter of seconds but I still managed to snap a couple of OK pics with my iphone - more from the BBC. Not a bad way to spend a weekday lunchtime
Watching zombies terrorize your local neighborhood is all to common these today but it’s not every day you get to see your home and work place destroyed by US-led NATO forces, unless you live in Iraq perhaps. In an even scarcer coincidence that’s exactly what I got to observe tonight (with a touch of glee I might add) in the newly released film “28 Weeks Later“, the prequel to the 2002 cult hit “28 Days Later“. Those living on the Isle of Dogs may want to take shelter till this one’s blown over!
A shot from the film - scarily similar to one of mine!
I used to have a poster of the first film on my wall at university so it’s rather cool to see this one come full circle five years later Amazingly for a sequel it’s also actually a pretty good film in it’s own right. Whilst none of the origional cast are included (their fate is unclear, depending on which theatrical/dvd version you saw) the premise of the new story is pretty good - Twenty-eight weeks after the infection originally broke out, an operation begins to re-populate the country, which has been declared free of infection. Of course it’s not really gone and after one person gets infected things rapidly go down hill… all set to the backdrop of an eerily deserted London.
This is not to be missed, especially if you live in London, but probably not for those with a weak stomach! The NY Times has a good review here.
Hoping to take advantage of the last few dying days of summer this weekend I had a bit of a horticultural outing to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, south-west London. As you might have guessed Kew Gardens consists of extensive gardens and botanical glasshouses with all manner or exotic plants from around the world as well as a leading centre of research. I took along my D70s in the hope of getting some nice shots but having neglected to charge the battery I promptly ran out of juice after about 30mins (just after I took the above shot). Aside from this it was a pleasant day out and a nice break from the crazy pace of life in the city!
As you may know I live on the Isle of Dogs in south-east London, having the odd position of being an island-within-an-island (sort of) and at one point declared and “independent republic” by disgruntled locals. Last night one of my housemates declared that the area seemed to be becoming “like the Bronx of London” after some sort of mini-riot broke out the night previously. Probably not the sort of reputation you necessarily want your home to have but I guess it adds some local flavour to what is otherwise a fairly featureless hinterland (discounting Canary Wharf). My point…? It’s just a cool phrase!
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