intercuts

It hadn’t always been the plan to go out and shoot a horse. Not the gun kind of shooting you understand, with a camera. I’d taken a detour from Brittas after the Wednesday night and headed circuitously to Carlow, down through parts of Wexford, through places where drenched crops stand in the field waiting for the merest glimmer of sun to dry out and be harvested. My heart goes out to farmers who have been hammered by the increasing rain. Apparently we should all be rearing kangaroos, because they don’t have the same emission problems as sheep and cattle, which belch and fart their way into CO² nirvana. Something to do with the construction of their upper stomachs.

My job was to find a perch above Carlow, a vantage point to make a timelapse film of that town for an upcoming project at work. So, mapless and clueless I headed for Carlow and saw a hill in the distance. And I navigated my way there via a flooded Barrow and through a series of lanes and boreens to the spot you’re seeing below.

The way I do timelapse is to use the dSLR with a tripod Shona gave me last year, frame up a shot and then exercise a lot of patience, click off an exposure (everything switched to manual) once every while and whistle. Or think, or whatever you do when you’ve a lot of time on your hands. Except I’m not very good at keeping time in my head, and since this exercise was only a test and I wasn’t taking it as seriously as I should, the interval between my clicks wasn’t even, with the effect that the clouds stumble across the sky like so many drunken ghosts instead of a nice orderly procession. Ah well.

So after an hour in the sun, I decided to pack up, head for the car and find some lunch. On the way though I heard a whinny and lo there was a horse standing by a gate, looking melancholy. Naturally I went over and looked at it up close. What you don’t realise (if you’re like me and unhorsed) is that horses heads are huge, I mean massive. Which immediately got me thinking about The Godfather and that scene. Anyway, out came the camera again, stuck on the stubby 50 and squeezed me off some shots. One of which you see above. This brought me by a commodius vicus to Cormac McCarthy and one of his trilogy: All the Pretty Horses. A book I read but didn’t enjoy too much because of its Spanish content and my lack of understanding of it. In contrast The Road brought a lump to my throat and No Country … left me breathless. I could go on but probably shouldn’t.

Below: some timelapse from the plains.

Marcus McInnes of pix.ie and Lisa Fitzsimons from Guinness organised a photowalk around the Guinness Storehouse early this morning before it was open to the public. This is an amazing place, the most visited attraction in the country with over a million visitors per year. Great opportunity to take a few snaps, you can read all about it here.

In search of other Chaloners.

http://gregorioperez.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/chaloners/

I’ve been trying to brush up on my pixel editing (read: photoshop or gimp) recently and nothing better for it than trying to create something that will turn stomachs and terrify the kids. These manipulations are reasonably fun to do and are teaching me techniques I’d never actually tried before with still images. I still have a bit to go to get the blending right though.

Despite all its unloveliness, my left leg has seen me through good times and bad, in sickness and health and I’m still steadfastly connected to it. I have plans for it, but more of that later …

As you can see, I have a few issues with varicose veins, which run (excuse the pun) down my late father’s side of the family. While they’re not generally inconvenient or dangerous, they’re not the prettiest. One day maybe I’ll do something about them if I continue to want to be a leg model.

I still have a right leg, but due to the contortions I had to perform to create these images, its pixels had to be surgically removed for artistic purposes.

Here’s a Rolleicord image that I’ve hand tinted - I’ve taken a bit of liberty with the colours of the poles, but I like it all the same. It started off life as a BW 120 neg which was scanned and then taken into Photoshop. I roughly matted out the shapes of some of the poles and selectively coloured them.

GraCanDo is a concatenation* of Gra[nd] Can[al] Do[ck] like TriBeca in New York, and I’m claiming it!

*concatenation is the wrong word but you know what I mean ...

Actually it’s a syllabic abbreviation. But there again, maybe it’s a neologism in which case I might have some issues next time I see my psychiatrist …

I’ve been rabbiting on about how good Photo Booth is elsewhere on this blog so I should also mention that I’ve spent a little time messing round with GarageBand with my kids. The younger the child, the louder the noise, generally speaking. Hugo (3) is fond of the drum instruments. Shona had given me a midi keyboard a few years, and since both my older kids can actually play it, I’ve got them started on composing stuff. Kate is currently investigating 12 bar boogie woogie which is massively contrapuntal to her more classically-based viola studies. This is a good thing.

I learnt the piano a very long time ago and wasn’t very good at it, but with GarageBand’s editing tools, I managed to “record” my own tune and right the wrong ‘uns. There’s a limitation imposed though, you can’t print the sheet music from GarageBand (in an attempt to get you to buy the much more sophisticated and expensive Logic Express software from which you can), so what you’re seeing above is just a screen grab. Which is fine for a few bars, but anything longer is a pain.

Anyhow, here is a tune by Hugh: “Valse Sinistre”.

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Ubiquitous broccoli has the habit of ending up in the bottom of our fridge, neglected, unwanted, unloved and uneaten. Here’s a way to freshen it up (with thanks to Domini Kemp).

Ingredients:
2 heads broccoli broken up into florets
100 ml olive oil (maybe too generous)
2 cloves of garlic sliced thinly lengthways
1 hot red chilli de-seeded & sliced
the juice of a lemon
salt’n'peppa

Method:
In a large pot of rapidly boiling water, cook the broccoli florets for about ONE minute only and then plunge them into cold water to cool them very rapidly. Make sure they’re completely cold, then drain and pat dry. Put ‘em in the fridge for a bit.

Meanwhile, get your skillet and heat to smoking. In a separate small pot, use half the olive oil to cook the chilli and sliced garlic, and then set aside. When you’re satisfied the broccoli is chilled, combine it in a bowl with the rest of the olive oil and season well.

Then chargrill the broccoli until blackened sporadically, combine with the garlic and chilli oil and add the lemon juice. Serve with pasta (or noodles or whatever).

This rice dish has a sort of Indian theme, using turmeric, curry leaves and cumin for flavour and colour. Instead of beans, you could substitute peas or soya beans. Great with baked or grilled chicken, maybe some meaty white fish. And green tabasco. Enjoy …

Serves six.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 red onion
1 white onion
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp turmeric
12 frozen curry leaves
2 cups basmati rice
4 cups boiling chicken stock
17 string beans

Method:
The turmeric stains pretty much everything it comes into contact with, so be warned.

Peel and chop the onions and garlic, fry in a heavy pot in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the cumin seed, rice and turmeric and coat everything. Then add the 4 cups of hot stock, add the rest of the ingredients and bring back to a simmer. Cover with a lid and cook very gently for about 20 minutes until all the stock is absorbed.

I suppose if you wanted to make a meal of it, you could add in some finely cut carrots at the onion stage or maybe some courgette. And a few cardamom pods or cloves.

Photo Booth has transcended its child friendly remit and has now extended its appeal to the older generation (me). Hugo and myself having a little face-pulling furlough in Mallorca a couple of weeks ago.