MySpace is reinventing itself (again) and I’ve been waiting by my email inbox all weekend for an invite. I’m just not sure if that invitation is coming from Tom, or from Justin.
Since having been purchased in 2011, and having received significant investment from Justin Timberlake, a redesign of the ailing site has been in the works, centering around its 42-million-track music collection. And now you can sign up to be an early adopter of this new MySpace.
Want a glimpse of what it’s going to look like? Check out this video:
It seems that the “Home of Good Hope”, a local soup kitchen that feeds approximately 350 desperately poor children in a local township shantytown, has gotten a Dutch “gemeente” (roughly equivalent to a county) as an official sponsor. TAZM Pictures recently made a promotional video for the Home of Good Hope, and it receives regular support from the International Womens’ Association of Namibia. But the Dutch organization “Stichting Home of Good Hope”, which provides financial support, has had its project chosen as the official “Millennium Project” by the gemeente “Gilze en Rijen.” We are proud of our support to the project and are excited about its future.
See the video below in which the Mayor (“burgemeester”) of Gilze en Rijen explains pretty much what I’ve told you (in Dutch) and check out the cool effects they use – definitely an attention-getter!
And if you want to learn more about the Home of Good Hope, this is the video we made about it. Soon to be released in Dutch, we think!
Awhile back, I posted about photographing ghost towns – specifically Kolmanskop, Namibia. When we looked at photographing the town, we thought about whether it might look better in black and white – but that morning, the warm light made everything so orange, with the sand filling most of the buildings, we thought color made things look much better than in black and white.
Here’s a great video about another ghost town – a series of timelapses including night photography (which isn’t allowed in Kolmanskop, sadly) – where having the film in black and white makes all the difference. The choice of music makes it that much better. Enjoy:
Here’s a video you’ve probably seen before. It’s one of the world’s rarest insects, hatching from an impossibly small egg. The eggs are offspring of a breeding pair found under a bush growing on a rock that juts up out of the ocean in the middle of nowhere. They were thought to be extinct for 80 years. Nicknamed “tree lobster.” Curiosity piqued? Watch the video. Then read all about this amazing insect and why they made the video.
From a videographer’s perspective, I like how they kept the screen filled at all times – they didn’t know which way the bug was going to come out of the egg but they nudged the camera as needed without the viewer really noticing. And the music choice is perfect. Anyway, that’s probably not what you were thinking – probably you were interested in the rest of the story. Read about these giant, very much endangered stick bugs here.
The sheer power and grace of elephants is difficult to convey. When they come in from the bush to drink water, and roll around in the mud, they absolutely dominate the scene, and other animals wait patiently until they’ve had their fill.
It’s easy to just sit and watch these creatures interact with each other and their environment. Watching one chase off a jackal and flap its enormous ears; another patiently nursing a calf; and their odd habit of “scratching” one leg against the back of the other, one gets lost in time. I tried to pack the most interesting scenes in 2 1/2 minutes.
In my opinion, there are few natural things as amazing to see as the nest of a weaver. In Namibia, there are the giant communal weaver nests, and there are the individual pair nests (built by two different species. The individual nests are built by bright yellow birds with a black eye patch). Both of them are amazing, because the birds somehow start with a single blade of grass, and then manage to weave together hundreds of pieces into a small structure that will eventually hold their young.
We were excited because yesterday we saw a weaver had begun to build a nest in our back yard. This morning, however, there was no sign of it until I searched under the tree, and I found the half finished structure below. It’s worth taking a look at it to see how the stalks and blades of grass were actually woven together and around each other by a bird that was mostly hanging upside down from the partly finished nest. Where did it perch before the nest could support its weight? We’ll never know…
We pulled into the parking area for one of the watering holes at Etosha, and noticed immediately that there were several large groups of elephants enjoying the place. One group was in the mud bathing, another was off to our right, and a third group was right on the gravel road, blocking our entry (and others’ exit). We turned off the car, all windows down, and started taking pictures. Suddenly, the group on the road started heading in our direction, and we realized they were coming right toward us. About 5 seconds went by where we had time to consider all we’d been told about how to behave around elephants – but then we realized if we backed up now – or even turned on the car to close the windows – it might be seen as a provocation. So we held our breath and waited for them to pass by. Heart rates jumped a little when one of the last elephants, the tiniest of the group, started to express a little too much interest in our open car window, and we thought Mom might get upset. But fortunately it thought better of it and continued on its way.
Recently my daughter and I took a trip to the small, somewhat odd Namibian coastal town of Lüderitz. I say it’s odd because we arrived on a Saturday afternoon, after driving a long, winding road which seemed unable to keep the sand dunes at bay – at several points the dunes were slowly making their way across the paved two-lane road. But when we got there it appeared the town was completely deserted. It’s the windiest place I’ve ever been in my life, a desert coastal town on a bare rocky outcropping. All the stores were closed for the weekend. So we made our way to the beach and took a long drive around the completely deserted peninsula to the southeast – a 65 km dirt road with occasional side forays to view one or another interesting rock formation or cave – with most of the signs in German. The light had a yellow tinge to it and everything seemed kind of surreal – giant waves crashing on the rocks, a small island with penguins, another small island – really, just a rock – with seals. My daughter was looking at shells that had washed up and was startled by a jackal standing only a few feet away, on a rock roughly at eye level. It appeared never to have seen people, sniffing her footprints and jumping back every time she made eye contact.
Anyway, it’s odd experiences like this that are especially difficult to capture the right mood with the right soundtrack. I made two versions of a video trying to capture the scenery and the mood – the first one uses a piano soundtrack licensed from FriendlyMusic.com, and the second is a guitar piece my daughter found on YouTube when she objected to the piano music. I’m not sure either piece gets it right, but they’re both different, with pretty much the same visuals.
On 10/10/10 and 11/11/11, filmmakers all around the world collaborated to create a film that captured life on earth on those specific days. The trilogy is going to be completed on 12/12/12 and the best news is that you can take part!
First, take a look at the trailer, then I’ll explain what needs to happen next:
How does it work? First of all, if you want to take part, you need to apply by telling the organization a little bit about yourself. Once you’re approved, you figure out where you’re going to be, what you’re going to do on 12/12/12 in order to share a story from your part of the world. Then when the day comes you film your piece. Then you can either upload raw footage, or an edited video to the One Day on Earth website. But be sure and keep all of your raw footage in a safe place! Because when the project’s organizers call for your footage to include in the full-length film, that’s what you will need to send them.
And here’s the cool part. Once you’re a member/filmmaker, you also gain access to all of the footage that has been uploaded by other filmmakers – meaning you can put together your very own full-length film for 12/12/12! They will also set you up with your own page, and there are places on the site where you can collaborate with other people in your area, or who have similar interests.
The film for 11/11/11 is not out yet, but you can also support the project by helping to air the film in your community – and also, the 12/12/12 film once it comes out.mber
And finally, to help increase the number of voices that are heard in the project, the organization plans to ship cameras to the developing world. You can buy “One Day on Earth” DVDs and make donations, and every US$50 will fund an additional camera! Find out more at http://www.onedayonearth.org/store.
Help spread the word on this exciting project – and see you on 12/12/12!
For more information, check out http://www.onedayonearth.org.
I posted some time back about driving through Ovamboland – which is in north-central Namibia, and about the bars, or “shebeens” you see along all the major roads, and the creative names people paint on them. Here are some more examples:
This one is for the well-read who would recognize that Nimrod is the biblical king who started the tower of Babel (I had to google it)
This one is really popular every 4 years or so.
At what point does it become the “old location” bar?
“Honey – I’m going out for taco shells, be back in an hour!”
free wireless internet!
Have a drink while you get your hair done.
There’s a story making the rounds about a guy who has invented a bicycle nearly entirely made of cardboard. In short, they told him it couldn’t be done, and he went and proved them wrong – the best kind of story. Apparently they think it can be marketed for 20 bucks, which will make a huge difference in developing countries. Here in Namibia, for instance, you can see people along the fringes of town and in rural areas spend enormous parts of their day doing the most basic things – like getting water. How long does it take to walk 10 kilometers and back? I bet it’s longer than it takes me to walk to the tap in the kitchen. The time lost carrying out tasks that most of us quickly accomplish using a car (or walking to the tap, or plugging a phone charger in the wall) is a big factor in maintaining and increasing the rich-poor divide.
Take a look at the video (which is also pretty good) and see how he came up with his invention:
Just outside the small, quaint port town of Luderitz, Namibia is a popular tourist destination known as Kolmanskop. This former diamond mining town, where once diamonds could be collected from the surface sand as they lay glinting in the moonlight, has been abandoned and is now gradually being taken over by the sand, which gets whipped around by some of the strongest wind I’ve ever experienced. From 1908 to 1954, the town was home to over 1,000 miners and workers living in the huge “Sperrgebiet” or “Restricted Area” set aside for diamond mining. Even today, permits are required to enter the area. You can join the tour every day at 0930, or Sundays at 10 – or you can purchase a photographer’s permit in order to enter the area right at sunrise.
If you travel there on a weekend, remember that everything pretty much closes in town after lunch on Saturday, and stays closed through Sunday. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to get a permit, but it turns out that you can show up at the gate entrance at 7 a.m. and purchase a photographer’s permit directly from the guide who runs the tours.
It really does pay to come early – although the permit is not cheap – about 20 bucks a person – as the lighting is spectacular in the morning and the effect fades after about 60-90 minutes. From the attached slide show, which is roughly chronological, you can see how the light gradually becomes less “orange” – which really enhances the photos I think. Coming in the evening is also an option, but because the town is built on a southward-sloping hill, I imagine the sunset effect is not nearly the same as the town is probably fully in the shade, with the sun obscured by the hill.
See more photos I’ve taken of Kolmanskop at this Flickr album. This is my favorite photo. I’m not sure why.
I’ve posted before about how you can take panoramic photos these days without one of those fancy panoramic cameras. Given the resolution of cameras these days, you can just take a slice from an ordinary photo of the horizon or something equally appropriate for panoramic photos, make sure it’s lined up straight, and crop. One principle some people forget is to use the rule of thirds – it’s tempting to align the horizon halfway up the photo. But your photo will turn out better if you either make the sky 1/3 or 2/3 of the total. Similarly, if there is an irregular feature such as a tree, or a hill, or an animal, you’ll want to alight this with the edge of the left third or the right third.
Should the sky be 1/3 or 2/3? It depends what part of your shot is more compelling – in the case of a cloudless sky, maybe it’s better to show more of the ground, whereas in the case of a sunset might be more interesting to show more sky. Here are some examples. Imagine the panoramic shot stretched out, rather than limited by the width of this blog template…
So I just received a brand new Toshiba Qosmio X875 series video editing DREAM laptop, with 16 GB of RAM, 1.75 TB of hard drive space (on two drives) and a 3D capable, 17.3 inch screen. The thing weighs a ton, but for just under 2 grand, you’re not going to be throwing this in your backpack so you can skype from the beach! It’s generally going to sit in the same place. I’ve been waiting to order the PERFECT laptop for video editing since my last laptop got stolen over the Christmas holidays and it’s FINALLY here and it is really cool.
Except this one nagging thing: the touchpad has this thing where it “falls asleep” if you don’t use it for about 10 seconds, and you have to move your finger around for about a second and a half before the cursor starts responding again. Once it’s moving, it works perfectly. I’ve been speaking to tech support in the States – they are kind enough to offer to call me back if we’re disconnected until I tell them I live in AFRICA and I really want to fix this if possible because I don’t want to mail this thing back…I could probably live with this but it would always nag.
And no one online seems to have ever had this problem. Have you? Help1
At Goas watering hole, around the center of the driveable part of Etosha National Park, we stumbled upon a pride of lions – it must have been seven. But the really strange thing was the impalas and the way they behaved in the presence of the lions. Rather than just leave and go to a completely different watering hole, they would just stand stock-still, maybe 75 meters away, and make these odd chuffing sounds. Along with the sounds of the impalas, there is also the constant chatter of birds, which adds a sort of eeriness to the scene I think. I was able to capture much of it using a Rode Video Mic.
What I also really like about this video is how the young lions greet their mother when she returns (at about 2:30 onward). It’s hard to imagine them as the dangerous carnivores that they are when they behave this way.
In most parts of the world, seeing a lion is a very much controlled experience – typically in a zoo. In Etosha National Park in Namibia, you have to keep your camera handy because there’s no telling when you’ll see a large animal – or even if you’ll see one at all. In spite of this, it’s not uncommon to see tourists leaning way out of their car windows, or even sitting on top of their cars – “surely they wouldn’t let us visit the park if it were really dangerous.” Hint: that’s why they tell you to stay in your cars.
When you do spot a lion, it is sometimes shocking how they can be very close and you don’t even realize. This was our experience when we thought we spotted one in the distance, but by the time we got there, she was nowhere to be seen. Making a 3 point turn to head back, we were startled to see her just a few feet in front of the car:
We’ll be sure and keep our arms inside the window at all times…
A handful of short wildlife videos from a recent trip.
In the first, we discover how the “puff adder” got its name. Then, see a group of banded mongooses – mongeese? – doing silly things. Finally, a crocodile enjoys a snack, like clockwork, at 2 pm on Saturday. The videos are all taken at Kempinski Mokuti resort just outside the gate of Namibia’s Etosha Park.
The “golden hour” directly before sunset offers really interesting options for photography. If you’re on a game drive in Namibia at the right time in the right place, you can get some truly stunning photos. Unfortunately, however, you’re at the mercy of the driver many times, and if you’re facing directly into the sun it can be frustrating. If you understand how your camera reacts in those conditions and experiment, however, you can get some interesting effects. In our case we came across a group of zebras. I was trying to maximize the “halo effect” of the animals, avoid too many shadows/profiles, and pick up the dust they were kicking up. Here is the outcome.
Sometimes you can get a cool photo when your camera fails. Standing under a streetlight in Katutura, a small child was begging to have his photo taken, yet for unknown reasons the flash wouldn’t fire. The result is below. I wish I could claim it was on purpose!
The “4 O’s” region in northern Namibia is home to about half of Namibia’s population. One of the first thing an outsider notices driving through the area is the descriptive and colorful paint jobs on the houses that line the main roads throughout the area. Many of them are bars. Below is a collection of bars, or “shebeens” I snapped from a moving car on the road between Ondangwa and Oshakati.
Because when you go there, you feel all sunshine-y inside?
The one below is obviously a bit more upscale…
The super sox bar offers a multitude of services. “Honey, I’m going out to pick up some meat…back in an hour!”
(below) Copyright infringement?
The Hotline Bar appears to be a franchise – presumably there are at least two more.
A subtle reminder about drinking and driving?
Stay away from the apples in this place…
Hey, wait – wasn’t there another Top Twenty Bar?
I didn’t stop to ask if there were rooms available…
Awhile back we visited Victoria Falls, on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. They’re not the biggest falls in the world, but at a mile wide and 110 meters deep, they are up there. I thought the footage went wonderfully with Philip Glass’s “Anthem” from Powaqqatsi. Thankfully, YouTube allowed it, albeit with ads.
I remember one day walking into my back yard at dusk and seeing an odd flash of blue in a tree – out of the corner of my eye. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was a group of 6 swallow-tailed bee-eaters huddled together for the night. I had seen photos of them and wondered how the photographers had managed to capture such a scene without scaring away the birds, and here was my chance.
So I grabbed some shots with a still camera. The next night, I went out again and they were in the very same spot! This got me thinking it might be fun to preposition a video camera on tripod and catch them settling in for the night. For the next few days, they came in regularly at 5:07 pm and I grabbed as much video as I could. Unfortunately, it was harder than I expected. For one, getting a good focus on birds in a tree (rather than the branches around them) – especially when the birds aren’t in place yet – is quite a challenge. Second – unless you’re using a ten-foot tripod, you’re filming into the sky, meaning backlighting becomes an issue. No amount of camera adjustment could fix that. Any closer and you risk the birds not coming in that night. Finally – and this was in some ways the most frustrating – the birds come in on the same branch every night, but there’s a 50-50 chance which way they’ll face. Secretly I think the birds knew I was filming, and they deliberately face away from the camera.
Anyway, here is the result. I think the footage is particularly cool because I caught some footage of the birds eating bees, which is interesting in and of itself. Using their long beaks, they catch bees in flight (never when stationary!) and then bash them repeatedly against a branch to remove the stinger and squeeze out the venom. You’ll see this early on. I also included a couple of stills so you can see what the birds actually look like in full color (without backlighting!)
So you’re sick of Facebook gradually nudging you towards completely doing away with all pretense of a private life? YouTube/Google have made the latest move in the online privacy wars. You remember when you started signing in to YouTube with your gmail username and password? And then the whole Google+ / circles thing happened.
Now Google wants you to delete your YouTube username in favor of your real name. Although they make it like they are offering you something cool and you are adopting it voluntarily because it’s such an awesome thing, it’s pretty clear this is all about finding a way to market it in such a way that you’ll do what they want. This is what you’re told when you ask for more information:
It’s now possible for you to use your full name from your Google+ profile, so that you have the same name on YouTube as on all other Google products and services.
This option may be of interest to you if:
You want to keep one consistent identity across YouTube, Google, and the web. Your Google+ name and photo will appear on your existing YouTube channel.
Your old YouTube username no longer represents you or your interests; you’ve outgrown it and want a new username.
You’d like to use your full name on YouTube. Using your full name on YouTube will help your friends find you and your videos, and make it easier to share.
You want to access new features that integrate Google products and services with YouTube. This includes improved sharing, live broadcasts through Hangouts On Air, and more to come.
You’ll see this option when you upload or comment on YouTube, or you can find out how to start the process yourself here. For partners, brands, and organizations, you won’t see this just yet. In the coming months we’ll be working on new options to give you even more control over your presence on YouTube.
I worry a little about what these “new options” are going to be that they’re working on. I get the sense that this is going to be like the Facebook Timeline – inevitable – and all those creepy ads that appear as a result of the content in your emails on Gmail will soon get their eerily accurate counterpart in YouTube.
On the plus side, all the anonymity that came with YouTube usernames is soon likely to be a thing of the past. YouTube does remind you that you will have the option of reviewing everything you have posted over the years and deciding whether or not to continue associating it with your new public identity. But I hope that at least a few people will click “accept” before they realize that the hateful little troll comments they have posted over the years will now be publicly associated with their real identities.
You can get from Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, to the coastal city of Swakopmund, in around 4 hours via a paved road with one lane in each direction. Or you can head directly west from Windhoek, and you’ll quickly hit a gravel road (with a somewhat ironic “100 kph” speed limit sign) that provides a much more scenic route. Provided you’re not in a hurry, the experience is much more rewarding visually. Just make sure you don’t break down – odds are you won’t see anyone else for hours, and you won’t have cell phone coverage. Bring plenty of water and sunscreen…
Sometimes I wish I had one of those fancy panoramic photos where you can capture the full breadth of something – usually the horizon – don’t you? Well, it turns out that with today’s high-resolution digital cameras, you can easily turn an ordinary photo into a panoramic. With a little planning beforehand.
See something that would make a great panoramic photo? Snap an ordinary photo, being sure to line the horizon up straight, and try to keep as much of the content along the same horizontal line. This is important later so you don’t have to crop important content out. You can straighten the photo later using a photo editing program if you mess this up:
Now carefully crop on both sides of the horizon, including the content you want to keep. You may need to do a bit of lightening / color / contrast correction, because things can get hazy far away. In this case, here was my result:
It’s not as spectacular when it’s restricted to the width of this webpage – but if you view it at full size and/or print and cut it on wide paper, the result can be stunning.
Here is a similar set, but I had to grab a bit wider piece to avoid cutting off any of the antelope in the foreground:
And finally, here’s what happens when you manage to align everything along the horizon:
