Who needs Geo Phys when you’ve got Google Earth

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Guthlac

For those of you who are not aware Time Team was a very successful archaeological programme in the UK for over 20 years that has just finished its final run. During that time it has introduced the wonders of archaeology to the masses, myself included. One of the first things that they always do when arriving on sight is to under take a geo physical (geo phys) survey, the idea of this is to try and identify anomalies under the surface that would guide the diggers to where would be the best place to dig. Some times it didn’t work but most of the time it produced spectacular result – a must for good TV. One the things that geo phys is good at identifying are old foundations which enables them to plot out where a building may be.

So imagine my amazement when I came these ariel shots when using Google Earth the other day to look at Saltby Heath Farm. Here before your eyes are the foundations of a series of buildings clearly showing up as crop marks. One of the great things about Google Earth is that you usually can get two or three images spread over the last 14 years. This allows you to see if the image is just an aberration of that year’s farming or something more significant. Clearly this is more significant.

It turns out that these crop marks are the remains of a monastic grange, a farm owned by an abbey, whose produce and profits go back to the abbey. There are numerous examples dotted around the countryside and tend to be some of the most interesting industrial/archaeological sites in medieval world. You see the monks were keen on maximising the returns from their lands so ensured that their granges had the latest equipment.

It really is amazing what you can find on Google Earth when you start to look…perhaps giving all my search information to Google does have some benefits after all…perhaps.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Another KitCam experiment

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Guthlac

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Sketch

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Guthlac
I just felt like making a quick sketch of Al Pacino …not sure why.

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Read the damn instructions

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Guthlac
One day, one day I may just learn but I guess it won’t be anytime soon. You see if you read the instructions about something, in this case how KitCam works, you might just be able make even better use of the damn thing. I am, like many other men I suspect, one of the best reverse engineers in the world. I get something and want to use it straightaway which is fine until it stops. That is when I then sit down and try and work through the instructions and find out things I should have known from day one – if I had read the instructions!

Yesterday I was reading a review of KitCam when I suddenly discovered that I had been going about things the wrong way. It would seem that I could apply many of the effects I liked in production rather than post production of an image. It would also seem that there are a lot of other cool effects available at time of production which aren’t available later, well I think that is the case because I was so excited about what I read that I left the review and started to play around with the app – see I’m hopeless!

So the morale of this tale? Well apart from the obvious one I think it is that I won’t take my own advice. You clearly can’t teach an old dog new tricks!

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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Naked Woman, Naked Women, Naked Women….

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Guthlac
This is a quote from one of the best TV characters ever created – Jeff from Coupling. And so it is with my Flickr account. In the early part of the year I created a series of paintings of nude women, in part for the challenge of doing so but also to see exactly how this would effect the number of hits I would receive. Well in the three months since the first of these paintings was posted on Flickr I have increased the total number of hits by a third.

What does this mean? Well the obvious thing is that sex sells…nothing new there. It also means that my other works getting a chance of being viewed as well, although I think this is a bit of wishful thinking on my part, but you have to live in hope. It could also be argued that the figures don’t actually amount to much at all.

Does it matter that I’ve increased the number of hits? Of course it doesn’t apart from the fact my work is now being seen by more people than they ever would if I had tried to show them at an exhibition. The obvious retort to this would be that Flickr isn’t an exhibition and the quality of the work posted to Flickr is marginal at best so to equate the two would be a gross distortion. All true but as I rarely exhibit my work in the conventional sense this is still something to be interested in – for me at least.

So sex draws in the punters. The ultimate painting I could create would be something like Courbet’s L’Origine du monde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L‘Origine_du_monde) to really push the boat out for hits. Somehow I think that it is going in the wrong direction, not for artistic reasons but probably for moral and good taste reasons. Now there’s a thought…art being controlled by good taste…

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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A really dodgy photo

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Guthlac
End of the first art class of the new session and I’m sort of happy with what I’ve done. I used to get really worked up about what I did and didn’t do in the session as I felt it was a good/bad (usually bad) reflection on me as an artist. Now I’m a lot more sanguine about things. It is what it is and you produce what you produce. I wouldn’t go about things the way I do in the sessions but we have a curriculum of sorts to follow so you just have to make the best of what you can.

So what do I think about the first session? Well the first thing is that I’ve taken some really dodgy photos. Secondly I’m ok about what I made this afternoon which is a really big step forward for me.

Oh hum

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Trending

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Guthlac
Yesterday was one of those special days when domestic British news hits the world. It was fascinating to see the world of twitter light up with the news of the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. Initially it was only trending in Britain, then Europe and then west Africa. But within 10 minutes it was trending in the Persian gulf area and then onto south east Asia. It took a while for the Americas to pick up the trend, they were, after all, still asleep. However within an hour it was trending on the east coast and it chased the sun westwards.

Following these break news trends on twitter really dos show how interconnected we are now. What is news in one country and quickly spread throughout the world.

So to mark the retirement of Sir Alex I have produced this specially commissioned painting, actually I got the idea just before my evening meal and quickly knocked this out. I’m quite pleased with this as I feel it does, in some small way, capture the TV persona of the great man. Now I have no idea what he is like in real life so I can only go with what I have seen from watching all those premiership games on Sky since 1992. My god is it really that long.

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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The first thoughts of the morning

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Guthlac
I’ve just read this blog on the ever interesting DPReview website and it has got me thinking.

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/6528930817/smartphones-of-the-future?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=generic

The whole thrust of the article was hardware based which somewhat misses the point of smartphone photography. It really isn’t about the hardware at all. I know this is a somewhat strange thing to say as the smartphone is a piece of technology but the photography part has always been the least developed. Now many manufacturers will deny this but the truth would seem to me that the amount of money they spend on developing the camera hardware compared to screen technology would probably to be small. Equally, if the new arial arrangement in a phone isn’t optimised then very quickly the phone manufacturer will know about it – think of all the problems Apple got themselves into with with the iPhone 4. The camera has never been a deal breaker.

There is, of course, one reason for this. Photography on a smartphone is not about the hardware but rather the software. Anyone interested in making images on a smartphone will have their own favourite image manipulation software. This is where the real creative genius can be let loose – which of course isn’t much use to a hardware review site such as DPReview. Most people, I believe, buy smartphones for the convenience they bring. The ability to have access to the internet, calendar, phone, camera etc in one place is the key issue. Beyond that you have software delivery loyalty i.e. iTunes/App Store v Google Play/Amazon App Store. Once you have bought into one of these systems you become very reticent to change and so this then defines what upgrade path you can follow. The camera attached to whichever smartphone is almost irrelevant. People make the most of the camera provided by using, yes you guessed it, software.

So it is fine talking about this technology and that technology but in the end people buy a smartphone for many other reasons than the camera it might be packing.

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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The search continues

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Guthlac

Well I’ve been gnawing again. I’ve started to build up a picture from the archaeological records of the probably old road I ‘discovered’ earlier on today – see previous post. It is very early days but there are some very encouraging bits of information that when strung together start to help support the idea of an old road running through the area.

As an extra bonus there is a Roman Road running at almost 90 degrees to this road which might help to support the idea that this road wasn’t a Roman creation after all but was created for other purposes. However, I’ve got a huge amount of work to do before I can actually back this up with facts that hold together. Still it never stopped Time Team from coming up with theories based on little more than guess work!

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Not quite as planned

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Guthlac
So this afternoon I was gong to do a number of things that, well, didn’t happen. Instead I did make a real life sketch in graphite and then I started to watch one of my favourite films S1mone starring Al Pacino. I couldn’t help myself but I picked up my iPad and sketched.

Now I’m not sure of the result but there reaches a point with iPad drawings/paintings that you have to say enough is enough. I guess what happens is that you realise you should have concentrated much earlier because as you work the drawing you see more and more of the faults that were introduced in the early stages. The only way to overcome these would be to start all over again and then this starts to defeat the whole object of iPad painting/drawing. It is supposed to be a bit of fun.

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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