‘sunset over the river nile‘ by Matt Northam (me )

A couple of months ago, I went to Egypt and had fun. It was nice. I also took a couple of thousand pictures, most of which aren’t anything special. They’re holiday photos - you know what they’re like. However, I did take a few that I thought came out rather well, and you can see them in a ‘egypt’ set on flickr. I also submitted one of them to the Guardian Unlimted (The Guardian Online) travel section (Been There) and now, many moons later, I’ve been awarded the ‘February 2008 Photo Of The Month‘. Awesome!

I’m still fairly surprised and genuinely stoked to have won because it puts me in fairly illustrious company. It’s an honour and all that.. I’ve been smiling all week.

My winning photo is recreated above in all it’s glory but you can also see a larger version on flickr, or the individual photo page on ‘been there’, or the rest of the months entries.. Whatever takes your fancy.

Ranjit Dhaliwal, the Guardian’s assistant picture editor, says:

“This is a wonderfully evocative travel image, it oozes atmosphere. The use of an architectural feature to frame the subject shows that the photographer has a good eye for composition.”

I says:

Oooooh yeah!

Apparently I win a canvas print of the photo so we’ll see how that goes..

Some great photos which have rightfully been awarded various honours at the 62nd College Photographer of The Year. A lot of testament to being in the right place at the right time (or even the wrong place at the right time), armed with a camera. It reminds me that I really should carry my camera around with me more.. But then, I don’t wander around war zones, and I don’t think a photo series of me walking to and from my office is quite as engaging.

The main photo above is Silent Protestors by Brandon Kruse - Link

A silent protestor shows how he feels towards the head of a local wing of the National Socialist Movement, a group referred to as the modern Nazi party. Over 1,000 Columbians showed up for the party’s march through town that would leave 8 protestors arrested by the end of the day.

Evidence by Dominic Nahr - Link

A bloody hand print on the wall in a stairwell is left in Mohamed Ghorayeb’s house, a colonel in the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces. He and six other Fatah members died in their house after clashes erupted between Hamas and Fatah around and in the colonel’s house, also destroying his home and seven cars on the January 4, 2007, in Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip.

Terrifying.

From a collection of photos here. I have no idea what they’re about (anybody care to translate?) but some of them are fun.

Briefly, I went up to that there London this weekend to see ‘nineteeneightyfouria’, Shepard Fairey’s wee show at Stolenspace. Twas good. And well worth the 3 hour diverted train journey and trogging around in the cold and wet to go see. Been an admirer for ages now and while I saw a couple of pieces of his in L.A. over summer, it was cool to see the work up close..

The website says:

The exhibition entitled ‘Nineteeneightyfouria’, a reference to the surveillance culture of Orwell’s 1984. (Shepard believes London’s CCTV coverage to be ‘Insane’) is comprised of a range of artworks, from large scale multi media installations to smaller album screen prints Shepard’s artwork both scrutinises and distorts the narrative of the modern American Dream. Commenting on underpinnings of what Shepard terms the ‘capitalist machine’, it aims to critique those who support blind nationalism and war. Fairey addresses monolithic institutional authority, the role of counter culture, and independent individuals who question the cultural paradigm.

I says:

Good stuff.

More ‘nineteeneightyfouria’ pictures at flickr.

I actually saw these photos a while ago but lost the link and became upset. So imagine my joy about 5 minutes ago when I stumbled on this site again!

Some really nice images here; lots dealing with crabbing in the Bering Sea. Reminds me of ‘Deadliest Catch’ which I never got round to properly watching but wished I had. (Edit: and I just found out that he was in season 2 of Deadliest Catch, which explains a bit).

It looks terrifying. I’m not a good swimmer, I don’t really like the cold and I’m not a fan of giant man-eating crabs. (I’m not 100% that this variety of crab is of the man-eating kind but I’m not willing to put them to the test. I’m sure they are). So kudos to people like Corey who are willing to go out and take photos so that we can look at them from the comfort of home. Yay.

Go and look: http://coreyfishes.com/portfolios/p02_beringsea02/p13.html

There’s this new series starting this week on BBC Four which could very well turn out to be the only thing I’ve ever watched on BBC Four, called ‘The Genius of Photography‘. It looks quite promising. We shall see.

The point of this post however, is to point out that on the programme’s minisite, they have an image which is uncannily alike a photo I took this summer and recently added to my flickr page. Witness!!

Naturally, I’m taking this as a sign that I’m a genius in the realm of photography (and not just that lot’s of people have taken photos like that). I’m gifted! You can go and have a look at the rest of my photography at flickr (I just added another 40 or so photos from California which I’ve just got ’round to sorting through). Treat it accordingly and bow down..

Some rather nice photos from the Burning Man festival which I still really want to go to at some point in the far off future.

http://www.jonathan-clark.com/photos/burningman/

I finally got around to putting a few photos onto flickr of my fun trip to California. 101 photos to be precise (so far). Feel free to go and look at them in this set here. (Or even, look at the map that has been generated thanks to me spending far too long working out their location).

Or if you’re lazy, I’ve included a few of my favourites below..

Anyway, like I said, go and look at the rest.

I read this article - Peru pushes to make Inca city one of world wonders - and immediately thought ‘that instantly gets my vote’. I think Machu Picchu is amazing. It’s astounding. Fully intend to visit sometime in the next 5 years. But anyway.. I went to the official “New 7 Wonders” website and I’m now not sure which one I’d vote for. There’s too much wonder in the world! So, I thought I’d put forward my list of 7 (whittled down from the ‘official’ shortlist of 21).

Before I do though, in case you’re wondering (get it?) here’s the old 7 Wonders of The World: Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Artemis, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Mausoleum of Maussollos, Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. (Click on the image to see them). They’re all rather good, but it’s either the Pyramid or the Temple of Artemis that does it for me. Or maybe the Lighthouse. Actually, fuck it, it has to be the Pyramid. It’s the only one I’ve seen and can vouch for it’s wonder. And it is wonderful.

Moving onwards.. here’s my ‘7 New Wonders of the World’ (in no particular order)

1. Great Pyramid of Giza

photo by sabbagh

It’s my favourite wonder of any epoch. Just the fact that it’s still standing, 4,500 years after it was built is worth a mention, but it’s everything about it that means it should be on any list of this type without a second thought. How was it built? Why with such attention to detail? What actually is it? I have no idea. But I do know it’s awesome in every sense of the word.

2. The Colosseum

photo by tony_burbage

Or, the Flavian Amphitheatre if you want to get picky. 50,000 Romans used to cram in to watch undeniably horrific things on a regular basis but did any of them ever sit back and appreciate the structure they were sitting in(?) Numbered seating, tickets, multiple entry points, a mass of underground tunnels, retractable awnings.. The blueprint for all stadiums since, not to mention an amazingly massive yet ornate building. What have the Romans ever done for us?

3. The Acropolis

photo by RobW_

I’m not sure if this counts as cheating, because nature did most of the work but I suppose the addition of the various structures separates this place from Uluru and the like. The Parthenon is obviously the crowning glory but the whole site is really worth exploring. Probably best to wait til the scaffolding has come down.. but then, that could be decades away. So ignore that.

4. Machu Picchu

photo by Matthew Clark Photography

The Lost City of the Incas which apparently wasn’t even really a city.. more of a house in the hills type of thing for nobility. It’s another one of those things that you just think “how?!”. I think that’s probably the main factor for a wonder in my eyes.. and this definitely has it. If you consider the possibility that the Incas didn’t use wheels, it just adds to the confusion. So I try not to think about that. What I do think about is how I can convince my girlfriend to think that trekking through the jungle and sleeping in tents would be a good holiday. One day.

5. Easter Island Statues (Moai)

photo by Kenny Maths

These monolithic heads (and shoulders) were possibly the first ‘wonder’ type of thing that I ever read about. I seem to remember having a book about them when I was a very wee nipper. Since then, I’d like to say I’ve grown up slightly, but my fascination for these carvings hasn’t really diminished. Some of them are immense (the largest being 10m high, weighing 75 tonnes) and there’s just so many of them (hundreds!) it’s baffling.

6. Angkor Wat

photo by Kenny Maths

I think that the whole city of Angkor looks amazing but it’s the centerpiece temple that gets all the attention. Aesthetically jaw-dropping, this temple is a glorious example of expert masonry. The whole thing is intricate and just great. Strangely, every time I see a picture of it, I cant help but think that it looks like it’d really hurt if you fell out of the sky and landed on it. Picture that for a second.

7. Stonehenge

photo by webmink

The final one was quite difficult for me to choose. While I definitely knew it wouldn’t be the Statue of Liberty, or the Eiffel Tower (how are they even on the list?!?!) I was torn between a few .. But I eventually settled for this. Slightly out of blind patriotism and slightly because it’s only up the road from me, but mostly because it’s actually quite cool. Briefly, I just want to say that I don’t think that they should let nutters run all over it wailing and rubbing stones or whatever they do. We went there and had a nice cream tea on the grass a few summers ago and while it was a really nice day, it would’ve been better if the cross-legged, arms-outstretched, too-old-to-be-doing-that numpties weren’t there. Oh well. The site has such a long documented history, charting the development of the stone circles, and yet we still don’t actually know what they’re there for. Estimates reckon that construction (to get to the state that we recognise it at) would’ve taken hundreds of years which is just insane. Why so much effort? Boggling.

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And there you have it. My 7 choices for the ‘New Wonders’. I still don’t know which one I’ll actually vote for but there’s a few months before the deadline (7.7.07 - very clever). Go and vote for your pick.. then tell your grandchildren that you helped come up with the list. It’ll be well impressive.

http://www.new7wonders.com