A Selection of Recent Work

Quick update: Not been doing much on the music review front, due to exams (which I got the results for last week, ended my first year of uni with a 1st, somehow!)

Music
I've been on a bit of a Britney/Alexisonfire splurge. Curious mix, but Britney's self-titled album is packed with excellent pop tunes. Alexisonfire are an incredibly skilled band, it's quite enlightening to see how their sound has developed over the years. I've just ordered a copy of vocalist Dallas Green's album, under the name City and Colour. It should be good. I've had the City and Colour track "Confessions" on repeat a lot too, beautiful stuff.

Photos
I have been processing piles of photos in the past week; I've still got a couple of hundred to finish off, but here are a few shots from the last three months or so...

Night Walk with Alex

This is back from the start of summer term; I wanted a light painted shot of the word "PLAY" for Helicon, the uni arts magazine (the theme for the issue was 'play') so Alex and I went on a wander around Bristol. I was pleased with this shot in particular since it's got all three of the lights on, achieved with a long exposure.

Photosoc Tea Social

I was just sitting and musing with a cup of tea when I caught a glimpse of Matt through Alex's glasses. Not very well executed; perhaps I'll follow it up with something properly staged at some point.

Visit to Bath

Visited Bath for half a day. It rained on us. Luckily we were able to seek refuge in a coffee shop, but we had a look around the Abbey and it was phenomenal.

Durdhambury

A lot of my coursemates were at Durdham Hall and they had a festival a couple of weeks ago. This is a shot of Jon from Null Pointer Exception. If I'm honest I think it's just his awesome hairstyle that makes the shot.

Photo Walk featuring Tom Sturdy

Alex and I organised another night walk, which was unfortunately poorly attended. We took Tom (a non-photographer) along with us and played around with lighting arrangements. This particular shot was Alex's idea. Tom held a flash, providing the light on his face. To be fair, a torch would have been more ideal; this way we had to take a whole bunch of shots and hope one of them captured the moment the flash went off. Unfortunately Alex's shot vanished from his CF card and was unrecoverable, but I've still got mine, and here it is.

As always, many, many more photos up here

Exams...

...also known as a time for me to pretend to revise and sit at the PC all day!

Everyone's been talking about Spotify (and if you're thinking "No, I jolly well haven't!" then you a) are just as barmy as me for using the phrase "jolly well" and b) haven't been paying attention to recent announcements about the growth of Spotify's catalogue) and so I figured I may as well try it out.

For the uninitiated, a less busy blogger than I would outline what Spotify is in three chunky paragraphs, but I don't have the time so I'll keep it short: Spotify is a free, legal music streaming service, made available to the public through the use of short adverts every 20 minutes or so.

Now I'm fairly impressed by the range of music on there, and it's a great way to sample an album before buying it. While I may have used last.fm for this purpose in the past, there's no denying that Spotify's catalogue is just a hell of a lot more extensive.

So, on to the music:

Jimmy Eat World - Futures: Listening to "Pain" was a right nostalgia trip back to 2004! I haven't heard this song for five years. The rest of the album is fairly good too.

The Bronx - The Bronx: People who are acquainted with The Bronx will be wondering "WHICH ALBUM?!" - I checked out the third one. The thing I find with The Bronx's music is that it's good, but it all blends together. Maybe I need to listen more carefully but I find it hard to distinguish between tracks.

Refused - This Just Might Be The Truth: A stonking great hardcore album. Excellent.

Esser - Braveface: If you like the singles then this record is a must. I know people go around saying this all the time, but I genuinely believe this is one of the better pop records released this year.

Lady Gaga - The Fame: Sadly the same can't be said for this album. Four or five songs in, my brain gave up and I stopped listening. That said, "Poker Face" is one heck of a great pop song.

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As for the aforementioned exams...
M3: The worst exam I have ever done. Ever.
LTA4: Hamlet question wasn't very nice, John Clare one was excellent.
LTA6: A really nasty desensitised extract from a former nurse, but otherwise not too bad. (Which translates as: could have been a lot, lot worse.)
CPT4 and CPT5: Er. These papers were really short. Gotta be honest - I seriously lacked motivation since I don't need high marks in these two papers. That said, the fact I don't even have to pass English to get into uni was even more demotivating!!


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....finally, go and vote:
http://awards.kerrang.com

My suggestions: Gallows, The Ghost of a Thousand, Gallows, Gallows. Er. Just please don't vote for a band that hasn't done anything this year (ahem, Lostprophets, as much as I love them!)

Currently listening to: Yourcodenameis:milo - They Came From The Sun. Checkitout.