Colour photos from 1909 Russia

Amazing pictures from a world we’re usually used to seeing in monochrome

In 1909 Russia a photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii embarked on a photographic survey of his homeland and captured hundreds of photos in full, vivid color. His photographic plates were black and white, but he had developed an ingenious photographic technique which allowed him to use them to produce accurate color images by taking multiple shots with red, green and blue filters that could then be comped together on a projector

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Tags:Prokudin-Gorskii

Not-so Merry Go Round

We all hate them...

But someone loves them.

Yes—white plastic chairs. Les horreux! Habitat may be clueless idiotsincapable of selling ex-demo wooden garden furniture to me from their window display, but we'd rather be chairless than have a small flock of these babies out the back. Ah yes - The White Plastic Patio Chair.

Easy to dislike, they remain a design classic of sorts, a marvel of injection-moulded plastic engineering; There are apparently more of these in Europe than people. Or Sheep. So I found today some german fella is taking the time to document their omniprescence and globalised rise on his blog 'Functional Fate'; It's an interesting site:

Functional Fate

Big flood? There's one floating off the levee... Football riot? What better a missile than one off the pile next to the pie caravan!...
Ubiquitous, ugly, hated—yet cheap, available and capable. Everyone needs to sit...

Tags:White Plastic Chairs

Bontempi Radio Köln: Edition 08 | Bubble & Squeak

As in ‘mixed bag of leftovers’

Welcome to edition eight of Bontempi Radio Köln. A relaxing hour in your own personal headphone space I hope. Apologies to fans for the delay; reading earlier posts you may have noticed I was gadabout recently and despite original plans to podcast from the train I was far happier with my nose jammed against the glass of a railway carriage window picking up inspiration than fannying about in Ableton annoying everyone with my endless tinny high-hat loops.

This Bontempi’s a bit of a mixed bag - hence the name, but has some of my all time faves on it including the untouchably great Spooky mixes of 'Water from a vine leaf' from back-in-the-day. There's some nice soundtrack Bambient stuff, some Alvin Lucier (for those who've read 'Words and Music' by Paul Morley) and a healthy slab of silly samples. Let's face it - where else could you get to hear the theme music to ‘Rockliffe’s Babies’ as well as Tom Baker swearing like a fishwife? Where I ask you? ;)

This is a special edition of sorts as it is the first podcast brought to you in Uncle-o-Ramic Sound. Yep - Yesterday morning Baby Ellen was born during a lightning storm and I am now an uncle. I’m *very excited* at the prospect of meeting her along with her fab mum and dad tomorrow. Congrats guys! And this one's for you Ellen!

Listen here or subscribe via iTunes by clicking the post-title or the Podcast link in the right-hand column I've had some feed problems with Blogger so some existing listeners may need to unsubscribe and then resubscribe in iTunes for the new edition to come down the line properly

Those of you without cloth ears may notice a small improvement in sound quality - I've switched to Garageband to do the final mastering and though it's CaptainSLOW at spitting out the final file, it now comes to you in a gloriously crispy 192Kbps AAC format. Which is nice when played loud. So pull up an office chair, sofa, cross trainer, car seat, train seat, bike saddle or whatever it is you sit on to listen to these, jack in your phones and enjoy!

Please mail with requests or ideas for themes or even to lavish your undying love for my aural travails. I'd love to know who you are, what you like and where you listen to the show. I thrive on feedback! (Sorry Ben—I haven't found a suitable spot for your request yet - maybe in the next one yeah?)

Bontempi Radio Köln 08; 23/07/06
Tracklisting:

01 Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Kaneda (Akira Soundtrack)
02 Tom Baker - Equinox Rave Episode [feat the Hartnoll Bros.]
03 Orbital - Equinox (Times Hard)
04 Global Communication - Ob Selon Mimos (LittlePixel windtunnel mix)
05 The Carpenters - Calling All Occupants of Interplanetary Craft [excerpt]
06 Locust - No-one in the world
07 Bola / Alvin Lucier - Forcasa III / I am sitting in a room
08 Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Illusion (Akira Soundtrack)
09 William Orbit & Beth Orton - Water from a Vine Leaf (Spooky Xylem Flow / Acid Bath mixes)
10 TV Theme - Rockliffe's Babies
11 Interlocking brick-play - Wind that back ('06 LittlePixel remaster)
12 The Mitgang Audio - Minor Causes

Good Art Yay!

Interesting Art discovered in Canada

On our trip we discovered two artists of note which I share here; First are the mischievous/cute/sinister little girls painted by Japanese Pop artist Yoshitomo Nara, discovered on the cover of a notebook in 'The Best Paper Shop In The World' (my name) on Toronto's Queen Street West. I love them, and think they look like The Writer in her more minx like moments.

The second being Vancouver's Brian Jungen, seen in Montreal's Museum of Contempory Art. Brian creates amazing works based on indiginous colours and principles, rendering them in leftfield materials such as Nike trainers, and dissected white plastic patio chairs (for the amazing life-size whale skeletons).

A lot better than our own 'Fabulous' BritArt offerings.
Sod off Tracey and Damien - your 'art' is crap!

Tags:Yoshitomo NaraBrian Jungen

Last of the best of the holiday snappix

Image overkill

Yes—In the last post I said that it contained the last of the photos—but this was a blatant lie as there was another big 'ole batch still on the camera which I enclose below. This lot depicts the last leg of the trip on the Amtrak 'California Zephyr' train through California, Sierra Nevada, Colorado and on through the midwest to Chicago, Illinois.

I re-watched 70s classic 'The Silver Streak' last night and afterwards overdosed on IMDB trivia—finding out all sorts of useless info, like the fact that the train shots were all done in Canada and was the very same one we rode on The Canadian trip. This because Amtrak would have nothing to do with crashes and the like. If you haven't seen it - it's a hoot (plot holes and all). Naturally, Richard Pryor totally steals the show.

Anyhoo. Here's the last pix with captions for incidental context...

The awe-inspiring Redwoods at Muir Woods, just north over the Golden Gate Bridge

Sea mist makes for beautiful sunbeams through the leaves

Bark detail. These are the last original trees, some well over a thousand years old and still growing

The atmosphere here was phenomenal. So quiet and uplifting. Fact Fans: This wood is also known as the Forest Moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi...

Museum of Modern Art peeps out of the evening mist

Immaculate restored VW Rabbit; note on window expresses the passer by's love and an offer to buy said sky-blue cutey

More mist outside Indian restaurant. Bit dodgy having camera out here what with all the scary beggars.

Building site reminded me of the monolith excavation in 2001: A Space Odyssey

On the Zephyr Train; Throughout the first afternoon we chased a little fluffy cloud as is slowly grew into a behemoth anvil



Clouds brewing

I love how the pastels came out in this one

Clouds and lightning were at their height here; a wall of grey. Naturally I was manic like a kid on Tartrazine

Just an eighteen-wheel 'Semi' on the horizon

No comment other than my love for decals

We really had our fill of quality sunsets/sunrises on this trip. This, in Nevada

Why do we love seeing our star peep under the horizon so much?

This is dawn, about an hour before reaching Salt Lake City. The Salt Flats seem to stretch for hundreds of miles

Flood plain in full flood

Big industrial complex





'Parachutes' - The name given to these amazing rock formations on the way towards Colorado

View of the Colorado river canyon as taken from our brown 80s-tastic Amtrak observation car







Road and rail weave across the Colorado river. Our conductor informed us of how it doesn't reach the sea any more as the water-hungry Californians bleed it dry with car washes, air-con and irrigation. He was a lot wittier than me though.

Boxcar at Omaha

Gravel hopper at Omaha

Boxcar at Omaha

Oil Tanker at Omaha

Oil Tanker at Omaha

Caboose Loose Aboot this Hoose

Restored Union Station at Omaha; Nice lump of Art Deco



Couple of wrecks round' back of Uncle Jesse's lot

Stormcloud + Sunset = Nuclear Test lookalike

The Scariest Most Unroadworthy Cab In The World™ takes us over the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan in time for our flight home (sob)

View out of the wing on our Virgin 747-400

Wheee! Bye Bye Newark!



Views of Manhattan and the Five Boroughs as we turn about and head for the atlantic

Home James

Well after five weeks away we're home...

Amazing. I'd recommend it to anyone - write to me for info aboot (Canuck gag there) the trip - the Rail Pass we got or whatever. Check out the Amtrak and VIA websites too.

Britain is hot, everything's grown too much and there's a bunch of washing to do but hey. I rode my bike to the UK Apple store today as the Airport card had stopped working. Nice to ride again - I was worried after all the pancakes and Pastrami I'd have a little trouble but it was fine which pleased me greatly. And then the terrific guy at the Apple genius bar basically gave me a brand new wireless card for free. I was like "where do I pay" and he was like "well test yours and if it's still ok we'll use as our test one - so no charge." THAT is service... I heart Apple - even if iPods scratch easily and so have to have horrid third party covers - a design flaw if you ask me. If an Audi came with the most amazing paint that sadly was ruined once a few flies splatted on it do you think they'd continue to make them that way? I want a brushed stainless steel iPod please.

Anyway. Here is the last bunch of photos from Quebec City, Montreal (missed out before) Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, The California Zephyr train and Brooklyn on our trip east. Sorry about the download but you have to see this JPG goodness.

Two bridges on the way to Quebec City



Blurry wagons speed by...

Beware of the Mooses Kids!
Another grain elevator

Quebec station

Taken to take attention away from The Writer as she stumbles for some free open-air WiFi

Our hotel - yards from the castle

View from hotel onto Japanese cruise ship. JTourists were forced to wear numbered badges and follow their flag-holding tour leader like children. How sad!

This Grain elevator is said to have had Le Corbusier in raptures and helped inspire the modernist movement

Big 'ole tanker in Montreal docks

Toronto on our second visit

Vancouver pavements have leaves

I'm so sorry for this one

Jo's 'Twenty minute' haircut

Quick bike ride round Vancouver's Stanley Park on our last day

Tanker passes Lions Gate Bridge

Sulphur piles at the docks. Douglas Coupland claims to have broken in and skied on these in his youth

Stump of original trees



New growth is 200 years old but nothing on what the originals must have been like

Bit of concrete goodness from the SkyTrain overpass as we leave town

Train screeches deafeningly on the tight bends to get onto these bridges

Seattle 'Underground City' tour. Glass is purple with age

Seattle's infamous Monorail

Ferry sets off across the bay

On the ferry to Bremerton

Seagull lives on the docking fenders







Strange Frank Gehry building houses Seattles "Music Experience" and "Sci-Fi" museums

Seattle from the hill

Space Needle at night















Images at sunset on the 'Coastal Starlight' Amtrak train to San Fransisco









On the Double Decker Train at dawn near San Francisco





On the ferry to Alcatraz



Water Tower










Alcatraz interiors

Derelict guardhouse

Sentry box

Taken rom the exercise yard

Cormorants kissing. Or feeding.

Seagull chicks flap their wings on The Rock

The City™ on the return journey







Aquatic captives at the SF Aquarium

Cablecar. These are so much fun!

I love this sign

Transamerica Pyramid

Top of the highest hill

Coit Tower

Cars tiptoe down famous Lombard Street

Remember to park in first gear

Nice apartment, Nice licence-plate. Tarbuck?

Cool breeze at sunset

From Pier 39



WW2 Sub on the piers

Muni Bus logotype

Trolleybus cables

Fresh paint


Many thanks to The Trivia Girl for remembering all the names of things in this post.