Suunto Vertical Blue

Some pictures of this year's Suunto Vertical Blue, where i was the commentator together with the lovely and formidable Francesca Koe. Luckily for me, main photographer Igor Liberti not only very kindly let me share the territory, he also introduced me to this wonderful tune:

George dreams of pools

Gary Floatus on Viewbug

I've entered this picture of Gary the Rockstar doing a floatus on Viewbug



It can win me one of them interesting light field camera thingies, for which they don't have underwater housing yet but could be fun anyway. So if you have a moment, please do click below and 'like' the hell out of the pic:

Depth Photo Contest

The Underwater Realm and my ass

A while back i was asked if i'd be interested to audition for a movie. Not because i'm an actor -that's a skill i admire but don't have- but because i'm a freediver. See, the movie, or series of shorts, actually, were to be set underwater, and they needed people who could look natural underwater, since the stories were about the Atlantean race. Now normally you point a camera at me and i run in the opposite direction or kick you in the crotch, but the premise of this movie was something i was interested in, and i saw some of the fantastic work that the DP, Eve Hazelton, had done, and i figured it could be a fun experience. So i auditioned for the first time in my life.

I was nervous, but then they asked me to basically play at the bottom of the pool, which is what i call thursday evening (and friday evening and wednesday evening when i'm lucky), so i did and had fun and then went home again. Forgot all about it until i got a mail saying i'd been selected to be one of the Atlanteans



There'd be one or two days of filming. First it was gonna be in june, but then they got kicked out of the studio by James Bond (shit for them but quite cool from my perspective) and then by Les Miserables (lot less cool), so then it became july, and then end of august. It went from one or two days to four or five. Filming of the piece i was in would start the day after i got home from working in Egypt, so all i did was get home late that night, re-pack, and leave for the west of England the next day. When i got to set things were already very much running, as they had been shooting the previous piece there as well



We quickly found out that spending 16 hours a day in a chlorinated environment is not fun for the eyes, and we must have gone through about 12 gallons of saline solution per actor. Here's Amanda showing how a solution can be a problem



The crew worked even harder than the cast, so the solution there was to shower them in chocolate



but after five days of very hard work and very little sleep, even with this lovely bunch of people tensions began to rise





so i decided to bring out the magic tension breaker -my ass. First i faced-bummed some of the cast





then the crew





which the crew reciprocated



and then i decided we should top it off with putting stuff up our noses





which perked up everyone



except maybe Bryan, who prefers boobs instead of ass and boogers



In the end, we got the job done beautifully and got lots of publicity in doing it:

Underwater Realm on BBC News from Realm Pictures on Vimeo.

Swimming pool to seabed from ITV Westcountry on Vimeo.

so that Eve could finally go for a nice relaxing swim as well



All in all, it was a beautiful experience, and as soon as my eyes have recovered, i'll stop crying about it. It got my thinking, though



about the relationship between work and play. If they hire (wait, no pay), ehm, recruit a doofus like me for a project like this, they might be onto something: you need some ass to break the tension, some play to keep it working. I can't act for shit, but i trusted the director, and he let me fart about a bit. It was excellent fun, and i found a use for my boney ass.

Kingston Sound Communities

Last month i was involved as a photographer in the Kingston Sound Communities project, a series of introductions to music for various communities within Kingston. The groups were as varied as the borough itself: there were kids, elderly, people with additional needs, women only, mixed groups -a celebration of diversity. The project was set up by Kim Perkins, a fantastic community musician, who led the groups along with Roshi Nasehi, Kirsty Williams and Phil Mullen, in cooperation with Kingston Adult Education.

It was a great joy to do -from being on the floor with the kids to laughing with the people with additional needs to seeing the adult choirs slowly getting comfortable singing together. It culminated in a wonderful concert



and an exhibition, opened by the Deputy Mayor and all (fancy fancy), currently going on at Kingston Market place till april 10th



where Thomas, one of the volunteers, reinforced that old truism that people will always look for themselves first in pictures



For those who can't drop by, but still wanna check it out, some of the work is here

doggie in the window

the puppy in the window is intolerably adorable





but the one below the window begs to be checked out as well



but neither of them is for sale. Woof woof.

the anonymity of Mrs Mr

Kelly and a bit of relaxed reading

Did a shoot with my friend and model Kelly, who's not only very pretty

but also a very athletic and cool poledancer



which can offer some interesting perspectives

Of course i tried hanging in that pole too -it still hurts. Everywhere.

Sunflower

It's a bit of a dreary day here. Nothing to make you wanna cut your ear off or anything, but somehow i wanted to play with sunflowers a little

Got the point

Urge

Training in a pool is all very nice, but what i really want to do is go

Memory lane

This is the lane where i learned how to ride a bike. I was 4 or 5 years old and it seemed miles long.

On the cutting edge of culinary arts

Art meets red cabbage meets knive meets cutting board meets photoshop

Picketing again

The lady Moth protests too much, methinks

Caution vs. Wind, Part II

I threw caution to the wind.
The wind didn't want it, and threw it back.
Of course, i wasn't looking, having thrown it to the wind, so caution hit me right in the face.
Gotta keep an eye on caution.

A close one

(original found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashok_menon/3274449428/sizes/o/ )

'09

Christmas card

Designed this christmas card; if there's a list, i think i know which side i'm on