bikes and things

I like Quora and have lost many hours going through the answers people post on there to seemingly random subjects. A lot of it is people too lazy to Google something but there’s some incredible answers from people’s experiences or memory. The digest they send out seems to always have a great juicy post I want to read whether on tech, arts, aviation or some other random subject it’s always pretty good. This one really caught my eye today though entitled “Why are we different when we are alone and when we have people around us?“. I love the answer.

In 1974 I wrote down what my college professor (Mr. Alexander) told me in class:

“I am not what you think I am. I am not what I think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”

and goes on to say

Many of us unconsciously try to fit in to the social group we are with in the moment. We do not stop being ourselves, but we assume the best attributes for that situation with that group.

Fairly obvious stuff when you think about it but nice to see such a concise way of putting it.

This story has popped up quite a bit recently but one of the best links I’ve found about it is this piece by Jack Thurston who gives an interesting background to Steve Abraham’s attempt to ride more than 75,065 miles in a year. Why? Well in 1939 Tommy Godwin set the long distance record at that figure and no one has broken it since. Having achieved this he then joined the RAF and went to war.

Steve is something of a legend in Britain’s small and low-key long distance cycling community. Raised in a cycling family, by the age of 13 he was already doing 100 miles rides and got into the audax scene in the early 1990s. In 2007 Steve set a new Audax UK points record, riding 23,834 miles in a year, mostly on weekends and during holidays as he was working full time. One of the many remarkable rides that year was the “Great Triangle”: from Milton Keynes south to Dover in Kent, then west to Land’s End in Cornwall, then up to the northern tip of Scotland and back to Milton Keynes. A total of 2,100 miles that took Steve just nine and half days. Oh, and he rode it all fixed wheel.

To achieve this he needs to average 205 miles a day for an entire year! It’s quite a commitment and there’s something about it I really admire, mainly due to it being slightly bonkers. He’s started already and can be followed on Strava and also has a site where updates are being posted by a series of helpers. There’s also a live satellite tracker.

..Steve is encouraging people to come out and ride with him, to provide moral support and a little shelter from the wind. Tommy Godwin’s record ride was paced for several months by a team of elite riders from Raleigh, so any help Steve gets out on the road will be perfectly within the rules. Godwin’s ride became a national event, something that was shared with cyclists up and down the country. Steve wants to do the same on his ride.

I’d love to join one of them at some point to offer support and help ease the strain on the front for a few miles for him. I also love this picture of his flat in Milton Keynes. Go Steve!

No not a set of New Years resolutions but a list of things to achieve perhaps. Goals, targets, aims, dreams etc. Nothing to get disappointed with but a set of pointers and tips. I guess the whole resolutions things is a bit of a cliche (which is why this isn’t a list of them obviously) but it is a nice time to reassess and think about what you want to achieve in the coming year. I’ll keep them all in a Simplenote and add to them as I can.

So here’s mine, lets see how we get on:

– Cycle more (aim of riding 8000k in total).

– Complete my project at work & get some good photos.

– Take pictures for pleasure not just work.

– Use some of the dusty cameras on the shelf.

– Avoid negativity and those who surround themselves in it.

– See more films with Emma.

– Go on a holiday and do absolutely nothing.

– Start running (already in progress).

– Work harder but more efficiently.

– Get up early and make the most of the day (see above)

– Do a photo project of some form.

– Read more books.

– Go riding every Sunday even if no-one is around to go with.

– Drink less (dry Jan is helping).

– Spend less on cappuccinos and sandwiches.

– Ride Lands End to John O’Groats in ten days.

– Ride Dunwich Dynamo.

– Collaborate on more projects with Jim.

– Write more posts here (longer opinions ones).

– Explore London more.

So yeah they’re all pretty obvious but a few targets to aim for. Cycling and photography still seems pretty strong. Lets see how we get on but 2014 is shaping up well and lots to be positive about.

I found Ben’s work after following him on Twitter for the last few years. I really enjoy his work, which at first glance appears to be medium format due to the tonal qualities and square format along with architectural ‘verticals, vertical’ style which is very much reminiscent of the work of Sander Meisner. As with Meisner a lot of his photos appear in my favourites page on Flickr. Intriguingly though he is using a compact digital camera and making corrections after in Photoshop. This by no means diminishes the quality of his images though.

Ben could be accused of being obsessed with dark, gloomy or dull spaces. For me the images are more about finding beauty in the every day or the mundane that surrounds us. The consistency of his work is incredible, something I’ve completely failed at with my Flickr. I’ve added a few of my recent favourite images below but you should definitely spend some time going through his photo stream.

Another “I found this on Twitter” post but that’s where all the cool kids are these days I guess.

So I stumbled across this collection of images which is probably one of the best Tumblr pages I’ve seen so far (most are a bit crap in my opinion). The theme really works and doesn’t get in the way which helps massively. It’s full of amazing images from the usual suspects of design based websites (Dezeen, ArchDaily, DesignBoom etc) but it’s nicely curated (except they included boxpark) and shows an enormous amount of content in a simple effective way. Lots of ideas and nice to scan through for a few mins or even longer. I had toyed with using this same theme to collect any images I found but I’m not sure I could match this.

Go and have a good poke around – SheLostCtrl.

Ok, maybe I will then! architecturepastebook.tumblr.com

Last Sat Emma and I ventured out into town to catch the last day of the Edgar Martins exhibition at The Wapping Project – Bankside. So glad we made the effort to go as the work is simply extraordinary. Emma also wrote a few words which I won’t repeat here but suffice to say she’s far better at the words than I am.

The work is rather neatly summarised by Robin Wilson over at the Architects Journal.

..perspective views onto monumental turbine halls, ‘portraits’ of specialist station equipment, control panel displays and empty waiting rooms with potted plants, alien, isolated, yet flourishing in these sterile environments.

It was great to talk to the gallery owner and understand some of the technical details behind them. All shot on 10×8 view camera with up to and hour long exposure also with selective flash added to fill in dark spots or balance overall lighting. The effect is one of an almost painterly like hyperreal quality where shadows don’t always exist. There also seems to be an amazing sense of perfection in the spaces that he’s working in which is constantly engaging when stood in front of the enormous prints. Some of the images feel timeless, or 70’s or even slightly futuristic. It’s hard to really get a handle of their context. Fascinating but ultimately too expensive to afford a print. I came away with a £30 book of his which is just as enjoyable.

As the recent owner of a Brompton bicycle – purchased on the cycle to work scheme for meetings and general pootling around town – I find this really impressive. Beautifully shot and edited too. Leaves a really nice feeling after watching. Makes me want to do Lands End to John O’groats. Looks like a fantastic experience.

60° North – A British Adventure from Joe Sheffer on Vimeo.

This is a short film about our pack raft and folding bicycle adventure from Sumburgh Head to Muckle Flugga in the Shetland Islands.

By Joe Sheffer www.joesheffer.net
and Alastair Humphreys www.alastairhumphreys.com

Music by Cinematic Orchestra.

All shot with 2 Canon 5Dmk2’s and as many lens/tripods/sliders as we could cram onto the back of a Brompton.

Number three in the series of inspiration posts – I’d forgotten I was doing this series to be honest. I’ve seen lots and lots of amazing photos recently but this set of work really jumped out at me. I caught sight of his work via a blog post over on Flickr of course. In a similar way to previous posts his work seems to be very much about seeing some form of beauty in the mudane or areas where you might not expect to find anything worthy of photographing. In particular his industrial work. Here’s a few of my favourite shots.

R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant

Good Friday

Honest Ed’s

All images © Michael Chrisman

My second in a new series of posts along the lines of things, people or others that inspire me. This time it focuses on a photographer I found on Flickr a while ago called Sander Meisner. I can’t remember how I found his work but I’m constantly fascinated by it. He has a very distinctive style and seems to find strange beauty in the most banal of places, something that has inspired me recently. It’s very strong in terms of form and graphics which I love. Many are night and all are in the same square format – I think he’s shooting medium format.

Anyway, a few shots to enjoy. I almost feel like adding his whole Flickr stream as a favourite.

Whilst browsing Flickr late last night, being nosey, going from contact to contact, looking at who was friends with who and exploring favourites, I found a set of photos by Alex Bamford. He has a set of night photos taken just under moonlight which are pretty impressive. It Takes a big level of commitment to go out late at night and get these. Most are 30mins plus exposure times which again is pretty impressive. A few of my favourites below. Some also have a series of glow sticks going through the images which are good fun too.