multimedia

Croquet!?!

| paulamyes

My partner, Helen, has taken up croquet. It is not a sport I know anything about, I had a few preconceptions about it namely that it was played by the pre-senile and involved eating cucumber sandwiches on the lawn and when that got boring you hit a ball around the garden with a large hammer.Well the other weekend the club Helen belongs to, York Croquet Club, had a tournament which attracted players from other parts of Western Australia and Helen entered. To show solidarity I went to watch one of the morning sessions, the promise of morning tea being the incentive, and like the complete camera bore I am I took my camera. This time instead of shooting stills I shot video. In fact this has become the first solely video project I have done.

Has my view of the sport changed. Well the club’s motto is “Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill!” and watching them play it is very apt. If you do decide to play be warned, those genteel old ladies are merciless, prepare to be humiliated. If you are in the vicinity of York and want to turn up and have a go the club can be found at:

Glebe Street, York. WA 6302  and contacted at croquetyork@gmail.com .

For the technically minded the video was shot on a Canon EOS550d, a Sigma 17-50 f2.8 OS, Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS L, Rode Stereo Mic, and a Zoom H2N audio recorder. The edit was done in Apple’s iMovie.

TransPerth-Transhumance

| paulamyes

For a while I had to commute to Perth from York. I did the first bit, York to Midland by car and then I did Midland to Perth by train. I discovered that I HATE commuting. It is soooo tedious. Then after a couple of weeks I get a new camera and just to test it I took a photo while on the train just to test it out more than anything else. When I eventually looked at it on my monitor an idea began to form in my head for a project. A couple more weeks later I discovered the video function on the camera and then I thought the project should be multi-media one made up of stills, video footage and audio recordings from my train commute. The result is TransPerth-Transhumance.

 


Snoozing on the train by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
The photo that started it all “Catching a few ZZZZs on the early morning train.”.

Transhumance is traditionally the movement of livestock from summer to winter pasture. Today most people are divorced from the need to earn a subsistence income from herding animals. In this post industrial society people now travel from their place of abode to their place of work. Everyday TransPerth, the public transport provider in the Western Australian city of Perth, moves literally thousands of people in a herd like manner from the outer suburbs to the CBD. This modern form of transhumance is not governed by the leisurely pace of pass of the seasons but by the frenetic demands of modern business which measures time in seconds. For those who care about such things the project was shot with an Olympus Pen EP-2, a Zuiko m4/3 17mm f2.8 and Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 lenses and a Panasonic Lumix LX-5, all of which according to the internet experts are incapable of producing good results. Sound was recorded using a Zoom H2n audio recorder. The still images can be seen here

FotoFreo 2012 – the director’s cut

| paulamyes

 

I wasn’t very happy with the first slide show I did of photos from this years FotoFreo. It was unfortunately a rush job and the work wasn’t really up to par and it has been bugging me for a while. Today I sat down and re-edited and I’m much happier with the result.

WA Orchids – the movie

| paulamyes

York in Western Australia is one of the oldest and most picturesque settlements in the state. Aside from its historic buildings which give it much of its charm there is the landscape which comprises of rolling hills, forest and meadows. This landscape is set in a transitional zone between the Darling Range to the west and the Wheatbelt proper to the east which means there is a huge variety of flora and fora. One of the families of plants that can be found taking advantage of the transition are the terrestrial native orchids of which Western Australia has around 400 species which is half of the 800 species found in Australia.

Nemesis Exhibition Opens

| paulamyes

A frantic day today. We traveled down to Fremantle to hang my exhibition and that of my partner. Thankfully both were hung without hitch. Here is a slide show of my exhibition:

Nemesis is an autobiographical narrative about how an accident causes change. It explores the loss of innocence and the struggle to come to terms with life in an altered physical and emotional state and how with perseverance and persistence it is possible to over come those circumstances. The story is told over a series of ten monochrome photos which combine text and imagery. The title for the story and the captions, came from actual conversations with people as I went through this experience. While the telling of this story has been cathartic it has not provided instantaneous emotional relief and self-awareness. In the same way a pebble when dropped into a pond causes ripples that slowly spread and then dissipate, the accident and its consequences have played out over a long period of time. I count myself lucky, many are not so fortunate.

Nemesis is part of the FotoFreo 2012 Open Exhibition Programme. The exhibition is being shown at the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce, 16 Phillimore Street, Fremantle and is open from 16th March to 13th April 2012. I hope as many people can see as possible.

My partner Helen has curated a group exhibition entitled FotoVisPo and this being shown now at The Fremantle Library.

For more details of FotoFreo 2012 visit www.fotofreo.com .

The road to convergence is long and hard

| paulamyes
Phillip Bloom at the Film and Television Institute in Fremantle, Western Australia.

Phillip Bloom showing us his new Canon C300 and giving the audience a major case of camera envy. A seminar hosted by the Film and Television Institute in Fremantle and run in conjunction with Røde Microphones. Olympus Pen EP-2 with 14-42 mm lens. 1/30 sec. at  f5.6, ISO 6400.

Well yesterday was a bit of a monster. To start with the temperatures hit 40˚C, or 104 ˚F for the non metric readers. The second reason was that I attended a seminar by video guru, superstar and all round nice guy Phillip Bloom. The day was pretty full on as the air conditioning was non-existent and the venue was packed full, and the depth and range of the topics covered was considerable. I think that not coming from the film industry and not knowing my codecs from elbow it meant I was going to struggle at the best of times. Combine this with the torpidity inducing climatic conditions and I was in real danger of not comprehending a single word. Thankfully Phillip is a born entertainer, open, friendly and willing to share his expertise so he carried us all with his relentless enthusiasm.

Now a day later sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of my office I’m trying to see where all this fits in with my work. There is no doubt that to do video well not only are you going to have to be prepared to drop shed loads of cash, but that it is probably beyond the scope of a single person. Really there needs to be two people working together on a project at the very least as there is just so much keep on top of. Editing and post production should really be handed over to an experienced editor. For short web-based projects it may be possible work as a single operator, but I think that to do a good job and if the clients budget could stretch to it I’d want to bring in someone else to ensure that everything runs to plan.