Showing posts with label surrealism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surrealism. Show all posts
Friday, 17 August 2012
My Song of the Week
Loving this song at the moment! Can't stop listening to it! Love the video too! It's so quirky and imaginative and unusual with its beautiful animation and other-worldly feel.
Monday, 6 August 2012
More Shows
I'm back! What did I miss?
Here's a review of the shows I've seen lately: Up first, Chicago. This is one I'd never seen on stage before and only really knew it from the film version. I must say I really enjoyed it! It had Ali Bastian playing Roxie, and I thought she did a really good job. Her singing and dancing were impressive, though for me the real star of the show was Bernie Nolan playing Mama Morton. What a voice! Though I suppose that comes at no surprise. I wished Mama Morton had more songs! Velma, Billy and Roxie were all thoroughly unlikeable and Amos was very sad indeed. The costumes were small and sexy and the staging was really interesting. The band was onstage, which doesn't often work, but in this case I thought it really did. They were placed right in the middle of the stage but they didn't seem to get in the way at all. The cast just moved round them and even used them occasionally as extras, which I thought was a cool touch. They also had ladders at the sides of the stage so some of the singing was done in midair. The rest of the set was very minimal though. Simple and sharp. The Cell Block Tango was, of course powerful and really sexy. All in all, a really good night out!
Next Oliver! This was another one I only knew from the film version, which I saw about fifteen years ago. I really don't remember it being so dark! When I thought about Oliver! loveable cockney urchins and cheerful songs like Be Back Soon and Consider Yourself came to mind. My memory seems to have glossed over the alcohol abuse, prostitution and domestic violence. Nancy's murder really was a particularly nasty scene. Despite the darkness it was a really good show. Very funny, with excellent singing and dancing. What really stood out for me were the kids. They were amazing! Not one single step was out of time, and some of the acrobatics were truly impressive. They were tight. Brian Conley was also excellent as Fagan. Very slimy and very funny. The scenary and lighting were also pretty spectacular with huge, detailed two storey sets creating lots of very clever optical illusions and lots of scene changes. I particularly liked Fagan and the boys' den. Very well done and exactly like I imagined it should look. Bill Sykes was also suitably nasty and scary. So not my favourite show, but this was a really good production of it.
And lastly Starlight Express. I'm a big Lloyd Webber fan, but I didn't really know what to expect from this one. Going in I knew precisely four things about it:
1. It's about trains
2. The cast is on rollerskates
3. There isn't really a plot, a bit like Cats
4. The song "Starlight Express"
And numbers 1 and 3 turned about to be wrong anyway. It's not about trains, it's about toy trains, and a little boy playing with them in his bedroom late one night. Yeah. Surely this is the final proof we needed that you really can write a show about anything. And there is a plot. It's all about a race the toy trains are having. Yep, just one race. And they managed to make an entire musical about it. The songs were great, with some really catchy tunes, though perhaps there weren't as many good ones as in some other Andrew Lloyd Webbers. And the cast being on rollerskates there wasn't a lot of dancing in the conventional sense. There were, however, plenty of impressive roller acrobatics and lots of nice skating formations. And because the cast needed a lot of space the sets were pretty simple. Just a few arches for the train sheds and a few other bits and pieces. The best bits for me were the costumes and lighting. The costumes were huge, shiny, over the top and very very eccentric. The cast looked like something out of an acid trip, with big hair, bright colours, loads of glitter and even flashing lights on them. The lighting team went all out too. The lighting in itself would have been worth seeing as a show, even without all the rest of it going on. They really showcased what lighting is capable of doing. At a couple of points they lit the audience up with hundreds of tiny lights floating all around us. It was like being surrounded by hundreds of shooting stars! Oddly, there were very few female characters in it. Just four ladies, playing coaches (Dina, the dining car, Buffy, the buffet car, Duvet, the sleeper, and Pearl, the first class carriage) but despite this the girls, in their tiny costumes and retro hairstyles, really made their voices heard. Good job, ladies!
I have to say though, I wish I'd seen this in London. When the actual race parts were on they played a 3D movie, which worked very well, but apparently in London they have special tracks so that the cast can actually do the race and they come right out into the audience. Seeing that would have been pretty sweet. All in all, though, really good show. A bit different and fantastic to look at, with some great tunes.
Here's a review of the shows I've seen lately: Up first, Chicago. This is one I'd never seen on stage before and only really knew it from the film version. I must say I really enjoyed it! It had Ali Bastian playing Roxie, and I thought she did a really good job. Her singing and dancing were impressive, though for me the real star of the show was Bernie Nolan playing Mama Morton. What a voice! Though I suppose that comes at no surprise. I wished Mama Morton had more songs! Velma, Billy and Roxie were all thoroughly unlikeable and Amos was very sad indeed. The costumes were small and sexy and the staging was really interesting. The band was onstage, which doesn't often work, but in this case I thought it really did. They were placed right in the middle of the stage but they didn't seem to get in the way at all. The cast just moved round them and even used them occasionally as extras, which I thought was a cool touch. They also had ladders at the sides of the stage so some of the singing was done in midair. The rest of the set was very minimal though. Simple and sharp. The Cell Block Tango was, of course powerful and really sexy. All in all, a really good night out!
Next Oliver! This was another one I only knew from the film version, which I saw about fifteen years ago. I really don't remember it being so dark! When I thought about Oliver! loveable cockney urchins and cheerful songs like Be Back Soon and Consider Yourself came to mind. My memory seems to have glossed over the alcohol abuse, prostitution and domestic violence. Nancy's murder really was a particularly nasty scene. Despite the darkness it was a really good show. Very funny, with excellent singing and dancing. What really stood out for me were the kids. They were amazing! Not one single step was out of time, and some of the acrobatics were truly impressive. They were tight. Brian Conley was also excellent as Fagan. Very slimy and very funny. The scenary and lighting were also pretty spectacular with huge, detailed two storey sets creating lots of very clever optical illusions and lots of scene changes. I particularly liked Fagan and the boys' den. Very well done and exactly like I imagined it should look. Bill Sykes was also suitably nasty and scary. So not my favourite show, but this was a really good production of it.
And lastly Starlight Express. I'm a big Lloyd Webber fan, but I didn't really know what to expect from this one. Going in I knew precisely four things about it:
1. It's about trains
2. The cast is on rollerskates
3. There isn't really a plot, a bit like Cats
4. The song "Starlight Express"
And numbers 1 and 3 turned about to be wrong anyway. It's not about trains, it's about toy trains, and a little boy playing with them in his bedroom late one night. Yeah. Surely this is the final proof we needed that you really can write a show about anything. And there is a plot. It's all about a race the toy trains are having. Yep, just one race. And they managed to make an entire musical about it. The songs were great, with some really catchy tunes, though perhaps there weren't as many good ones as in some other Andrew Lloyd Webbers. And the cast being on rollerskates there wasn't a lot of dancing in the conventional sense. There were, however, plenty of impressive roller acrobatics and lots of nice skating formations. And because the cast needed a lot of space the sets were pretty simple. Just a few arches for the train sheds and a few other bits and pieces. The best bits for me were the costumes and lighting. The costumes were huge, shiny, over the top and very very eccentric. The cast looked like something out of an acid trip, with big hair, bright colours, loads of glitter and even flashing lights on them. The lighting team went all out too. The lighting in itself would have been worth seeing as a show, even without all the rest of it going on. They really showcased what lighting is capable of doing. At a couple of points they lit the audience up with hundreds of tiny lights floating all around us. It was like being surrounded by hundreds of shooting stars! Oddly, there were very few female characters in it. Just four ladies, playing coaches (Dina, the dining car, Buffy, the buffet car, Duvet, the sleeper, and Pearl, the first class carriage) but despite this the girls, in their tiny costumes and retro hairstyles, really made their voices heard. Good job, ladies!
I have to say though, I wish I'd seen this in London. When the actual race parts were on they played a 3D movie, which worked very well, but apparently in London they have special tracks so that the cast can actually do the race and they come right out into the audience. Seeing that would have been pretty sweet. All in all, though, really good show. A bit different and fantastic to look at, with some great tunes.
Thursday, 28 June 2012
St. Giles
I love St Giles cathedral. I don't know who St. Giles was, but I love it all the same, with its angel statue near the door and blue ceiling and decor that reminds you of being underwater. To me it's both ancient and modern at the same time. Both religious and light hearted. You do have to buy a photography license in there, but it's only a couple of quid, so I think it's well worth it. I went for HDR photos again, and it seemed to work really well. That was my first time doing them indoors. The biggest challenge for this shoot was trying to get shots without people in them! It wasn't high tourist season, but there were still plenty of visitors about. I suppose that's what comes of living in Edinburgh.
Some of my favorites from this shoot:
Not a great photo but I do really like the statue
So there you have it. St. Giles in HDR.
Some of my favorites from this shoot:
So there you have it. St. Giles in HDR.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Jupiter Artland
All summer I waited for nice weather on one of my days off to go and see this place, and finally, in September, I got my wish. I went off to Jupiter Artland (http://www.jupiterartland.org/) with my camera, naturally! It's a plot of land with a collection of odd outdoor sculptures. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. The biggest and most famous one, Life Mounds, made me feel like I was in Super Mario Land.
This photoshoot was also my first attempt at HDR (high dynamic range) photography. The way it works is that you take 3 shots of the same thing, but bracket the exposures so that you get one "normal" shot, one overexposed one and one underexposed one. You then combine the three shots using clever software (Photomatix, in my case). This lets you capture as much detail as possible. Quite often with landscape photos you will expose the land perfectly, but find that you've lost all the drama in the sky. The underexposed photo will capture the detail in the sky and let you put it back into your photo. You can also make photos look very weird and cool! Like so:
Normal photo
Overexposed
Underexposed
HDR!
I was really surprised at how easy the software is to use, and how easy it is to get the photo looking good without too much time spent mucking about with it. I also discovered that the technique is not nearly as forgiving as I would have liked. If your "normal" photo isn't correctly exposed there's not really any way to rescue that in the HDR. Bother. I also discovered that there are many many different ways to edit an HDR photo and completely change its look. You can create something very surreal and very obviously HDR, or you can use the technique very subtly so that you can hardly tell the photo is an HDR at all.
I really enjoyed this shoot, and learning this new technique was really good fun. Jupiter Artland was well worth the money (though sneaking in without paying would be the easiest thing in the world) and a really interesting place to photograph. HDR is also definitely something I'll be trying again and hopefully I'll get better at it. :) Here are a few of favorite HDR pics from the day:
Very HDR
Much more subtle HDR
And a couple of non HDR photos from the day:
I was really surprised at how easy the software is to use, and how easy it is to get the photo looking good without too much time spent mucking about with it. I also discovered that the technique is not nearly as forgiving as I would have liked. If your "normal" photo isn't correctly exposed there's not really any way to rescue that in the HDR. Bother. I also discovered that there are many many different ways to edit an HDR photo and completely change its look. You can create something very surreal and very obviously HDR, or you can use the technique very subtly so that you can hardly tell the photo is an HDR at all.
I really enjoyed this shoot, and learning this new technique was really good fun. Jupiter Artland was well worth the money (though sneaking in without paying would be the easiest thing in the world) and a really interesting place to photograph. HDR is also definitely something I'll be trying again and hopefully I'll get better at it. :) Here are a few of favorite HDR pics from the day:
And a couple of non HDR photos from the day:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)