It's the start of the working week and time to go back to the big city. Welcome to Urban Monday, the regurgitated-photo feature.
Spied in the photo gallery of Flickr user Stefz, get your eyes around some of these towers. For once I shall not claim they are anything more than that: though I do like them a lot.
Found via: Boing Boing & Flickr
We've taken the encampment by the old bridge! It's time for our army to advance again, we will remember this day as The People's Thursday!
Old veterans and new recruits alike, thanks for joining me today. This is the day where we orientate around all things "people" in photography - and that usually commences with the raiding of another unsuspecting Flickr user.
Found in the Conceptual Images gallery of Jerry Aaron Hazard is the following:
I found out today I've been removed from the Blogging Brits Ring for not showing their links. As I've found some great sites through this ring (especially Ally's) I'm not over the moon about my removal. The strangest thing is, I am showing the code - and I can clearly see it as I should.
Please confirm for me:
Scroll down this page, in the right hand column you should see an area marked "Linked". In the middle of that area you should see:
«#Blogging Brits?»
Tell me if you can see it. Your help in this would really be appreciated.
Fixed: With the help of Tomodochi - it was entirely my mistake.
The first day of a fresh working week is verging on completion, but not of course before we view another city starer for Urban Monday.
This week our medicine is dispensed by Ground Glass, an attractive fusion of city life, served into a comforting landscape rectangle:
I'm sure few people have any confusion on this fact, but just to clarify:
All original works are owned by their creator. I store a reduced size/quality copy of these pieces on my server, so that they do not pay for our bandwidth every time you view these pages. I believe this to be courteous to the photographer. All images are linked to their original source where possible, just click the image to see more of their work.
Those not adverse to a little Monday morning fiction will likely love Stupid Beautiful Lies. The author meticulously crafts tales of mystery that make for excellent reading.
As a note I'll append that it is pleasant to read writing of this style without being suffocated in endless lines of meaningless profanity. We are all adults, and I am completely aware of the language the world uses, but in the written word I grow so very tired with the over usage of expletives. It is easy for prose to become a tireless battle of attrition involving you and the author's endless supply of bile.
For ten years I've ran projects on the web. Sites connected with early online gaming, sites about the music I love, and finally a spate of personal/exploratory sites - the last of which changed into this blog... which you are so kindly reading.
Around once a month I check the status of Sirharris.com, making a note of who is linking to me. My first Sirharris.com site, six years ago, fetched around eighty visitors a day. There was no "traffic exchanging", no elegant blog linking and sharing - it was more or less me, the people who knew me, and anyone who knew them. Today, you are likely once more one of around eighty visitors to this site. On a popular day I will have close to one hundred and fifty, but it averages out around eighty.
Some of you are no doubt finding me from BlogExplosion, a site I have both affection and distrust for. I believe their service is honest, but question the value of the "product". I believe it is our competitive nature that forces us to endlessly measure success in numbers. If it's not "X visitors to this site" it's "X comments/emails on a posting". Endlessly the treadmill turns and we type, we visit and we link. I'd love to believe I was doing more here than just donating segments of time for no purpose - but putting material online never really made a promise beyond that, did it?
Your time is precious, occasionally you share it with me, I'm thankful for that. I dream of a community of like-minded individuals - not alike in geographic location, but instead by a desire for positive, life affirming, art and ideas. Of course, I know a lot of you personally, and I know some will be thinking "oh dear, Adrian is going back to his old ways, endless typing of whimsy and make-believe"... I promise I'm not, merely consider this me taking stock.
Interestingly because of my exposure on a blog sharing system I've gone from 73% of my readers from the United Kingdom back in 1999, down to 10% in the present day. At this point I'd like to say a directed hello to the small handful of daily readers I have from the Cayman Islands, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the US Military - please scribble me a quick message sometime to make your mark.
In closing, I trust your weekend has been productive, restful, spiritual, all of the previous, or whatever else was required.
"I travel around the world and stand by statues, and I've got some of my friends in on the act too..."
A great site I stumbled into featuring a man named John, from Oxford, who captures on camera public statues (and the mimicking of them).
I think you'll find this photo illustrates the concept quite nicely:
Stand By Your Statue
Liberate yourselves once more, it's The People's Thursday - it comes around so quickly doesn't it?
Whilst randomly invading people's lives in my routine Flickr browsing I stumbled upon the creativity of Cenz, that leads to the following:
There are more than ample photographs of myself, as a young boy, standing next to guards at the Tower of London, etc. Similarly there is a certain pride shown in this photograph. Notice the prerequisite regimental posture is adopted.
"Threatened animals often display obvious physical warnings; e.g. porcupines or puffer fish both erect their spines as a physical defence and a visual warning, snakes rattle their tales or expand their body, chamelions change colour... But humans have more subtle and complex social, contextual, gestural, and verbal warning signs."
Philip Worthington fuses urban orientated style with futuristic living to design coats for men and women which actively respond to danger, and the anticipation of it.
"When charged the fur begins to stand on end; a visual indication that the wearer is uncomfortable. If someone invades the wearer's personal space they begin to feel a second warning; as they enter the coat's electrostatic field they feel tingling skin sensations and their hair stands on end. The fur will begin to twitch toward them and emit crackling sounds. If the 'threat' proceeds to touch the fur then 100,000 volts of electro-static charge discharges from the fur, into the offender's body (non-lethal but definitely a bite)."
Make sure to visit the designer's site to view video of the coat in action.
Found via: We Make Money Not Art
"Firmly positioned in the 'A list' of London attractions, the Millennium Bridge is a 330m steel bridge linking the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern Gallery at Bankside."
Today is Urban Monday, and in connection with the photography used on Friday, this is the Millennium Bridge. What's more, it's St. Valentine's day, and this location has personal significance.
The photograph is linked to you from the excellent Urban75's London Landmarks library:
For the closing of this working week I found the following in Gary Alexander's Picture a Week 2002 gallery. Firstly the photograph contains one of my favourite locations, Saint Paul's Cathedral. Since my first visit as a small boy, I have been to that building on more occasions than I can recall. If that wasn't enough the vantage point is from the Millennium bridge, the portal to the fantastic Tate Modern. Lastly the photograph has something decidedly classical in regards to the dramatic posture of subjects and the framing of the city.
Following the previous serving of retro I present The People's Thursday with an unashamedly gorgeous photograph. Linked for you from the master of daily photography, Chromasia, and captioned "Sleeping Under Glass":
Amidst the incomprehensible noise of the day comes this monochrome antidote. Linked from Londinium local Andrew's Photoblog, this photo is named "Fountain in the Tower Bridge Piazza":
The sentimental amongst us may pause to briefly reminisce the glory days of Greyscale Wednesday.
"..Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding a mesmerizing abstraction in the buildings' facades."
This is Urban Monday, and the stunning intensity that is the high rise kingdoms of Hong Kong:
Found via: Burp
It's The People's Thursday! Stand up for your rights once more and view this person-orientated photography before your weekend arrives and rushes you from my sight.
The following photograph, titled "Mom at Hooverdam, 1969", is the shared property of Flickr user Juli. Her gallery is crammed with retro excellence:
"For travellers who are really on a budget and are looking for a way to skim a few bucks off their travel expenses, why not consider sleeping in an airport? Many airports are actually better than local lodging. And to top it off - IT'S FREE!"
I'd suggest you learn the tricks of the trade with The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports.
Found via: Boing Boing
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