PutPut Pictures, rides again.

Well after posting blogs that could be interpreted a suicide notes I though I better put my dear readers at their ease, Just a change just a re -focusing and that’s a good word. Even my written work is supposed to be visual. But back to the start where did it all begin and I must admit to Photography. Love it, loved it, hated it, despaired of it ,divorced it, died from it, raised from the ashes and railed into the night for the hate of it. Re-invent myself for the love of it and discovered it had not gone anywhere and cared not for my antics. And I will give no credit at all to Tim Starchuck.   But I do love the Solitude and Minimalism, as if someone walked out the room as if there were lonely ghosts . If you were to wander into the frame and pause and for a moment be isolated alone, got me I like it. But its not what I claim to do, well not what I am comfortable doing and yes photographed everything for money being a paid Professional Photographer for a time, and my passion LangScape or should I say Landscapes for thirty years banging them out and I can see my footprint .   So we have Derbyshire, Moray -Scotland the Falkland- South Atlantic, Elk Island, AB. Jasper AB and Robin Hood’s bay. And how do they manage to be all together and mounted well I can thank the good lady wife for buying the camera , # 1 Daughter for negotiating the on line printing and my good sense in outputting them on KODAK glossy paper at 8″ x 10″ and the song remains the same. Can’t guarantee the printer new what he was doing but a bit of judicious pre-proces prep on my end and voila. Time stood still. Of course up until now I did my own printing (Its what I do Yall) but now some  dude at the photo lab not even doing his own sensometric testing but hooked up the the interweb, For all that turned out nice again.     PutPut Pictures that’s the enterprise where I shoe horn images in to mounts and frames. All sorts of printed ephemera from the last 150 years. Photography vintage and original (My stuff), advertising,...

Rise and Dear Demise

So that’s that had enough of this already.                 You may be wondering what it looked like all these years? What did I see? What music were we listening to and what were the big events? What was it like from the inside? Maybe even what did you look like? What ideas were on the Rise and which of my various plans met their Dear Demise along the way. So lets answer a few question, I possibly don’t know what you looked like! But that’s what I looked like, look like. Here is the answer to the second question, I saw Penguins. Listening to well not exactly you get my drift though. And this is what its like from the inside. And this is what ended up happening to all those great ideas they reside on this small piece of shiny cardboard in a box in a draw about as useful as any other idea I had along the way. And there we have it all time views  610 views top page ‘The Funky Nomad’, Top Posts ‘And did those Feet’ and well I had hoped ‘Shades of a Blue Orphanage’ would be up there but not too shabby which leads us to the bottom of the table which I can tell you has most of the posts of the last few months sitting there with may be 4 views of which I probably accidentally viewed twice myself, so weeks and weeks of flat histograms in the stats tool, effort to reward disproportionate. And by now all the way down here I am pretty sure no one is still reading. ( My 8 Subscribers stay subscribbed . Thank You) So no I have not had enough of Me of course not I still profess myself to be very interesting and wiseish Dude, just think it might be time to change directions a bit change the focus. Stuff has happened, stuff happens and stuff is a happening. We are happily dropping photo Albums into Flickr see Home Page we have an instagram account and I have learnt to do them Hash Tags and lo and behold some likes and so far I have only posted 3 photos and quite frankly I am very excited and and and I can steer folks this way...

BBQ Mojo

Well what happened to the BBQ MOJO, it was there and now its gone. Sure I still put on some burgers for the kids cook a few chicken thighs skin on and once in a blue moon do a Steak for my good lady wife. (when I can afford one there may be allegedly no inflation but my wages are not going up and although the same price is on the stuff in the supermarket the boxes packets cuts of meat are smaller, thinner, sadder how long will it be before I can no longer pay for my gas/petrol or the shopping in my trolly.) So why do I have to admit my MOJO has wandered away? Well it became embarrassing it went from that to laughable and on into panic I had held great store by my ability to cook stuff and turn out a half decent party in my yard; and to those friends at work that I have premised/promised a BBQ to after years of having to put up with me describing  the BBQ’s of the past I am sorry. I know its been four years or more but I just can’t do it. I want to but every time I think about it and think I have a menu a solution, fear and inadequacy grip me and well I don’t deliver, I cant deliver (Maybe I take myself too seriously). So how did this BBQ MOJO come and go? (So all my North American buddies understand this I am not talking about good old BBQ, Brisket ribs sauce and stuff I am talking about BBQ Grill as a tool for cooking and cooking other nations influences on it. I am also not talking about Ninja BBQ which I can still do.)   So a long time ago possibly back in 1983 we rustled up some of these newfangled BBQ grills and once we figured out how to light the charcoal BBQD everything in my mums freezer. Can’t tell you if it was any good but we certainly got in deep shit for eating everything. So back in the day we wrestled with the art form of BBQ my best buddy Mark is still a master he has the faith and what a journey . Whole salmon, Spiced  Pork chops, Lushous  Lamb and Whole Chickens, things...

Show the Rod show the Sole

So I know its supposed to be spare the rod spoil the child, and I might have something to say about that but I am not that sort of controversial Blogger. Here in the Canadian Prairies the summer arrives one morning you notice the snow has gone and you leap into the summer and go hell for leather until Labor day which is this weekend. Later today #1 Daughter and myself are off to Elk Island for 2 nights camping and bike riding and buffalo photographing given a chance. It will be all campfire and food and a quick looking forward to the new school year which starts on Wednesday. We are especially looking forward to Steak and Eggs for breakfast and Garlic bread stuffed with herb and garlic cream cheese something we invented on our trip to Jasper to see the Rodeo. ( Not saying we are the first but we have great hopes for it.) So am I trying to make an excuse for my lack of blogging, maybe but I have been busy, my summer blogging schedule  was filled with great intentions, I have stuff on its way, the only problem is that its all beginning to run into the  one year time delay my brain seems to operate. So here is a taster of the fantastic articles to come, now that the summer is grinding to a halt and my big Hawaii  approaches. This is a strange thing I don’t think I look Hawaii on the outside or feel Hawaii  on the inside and as much as I want to be taken seriously I don’t want it to have anything to do with being older. So is Hawaii the new thirty something? Probably! Which leads us to these:- BBQ MOJO :–  The exciting history of the Funky Nomads crazy culinary outside adventure and the loss of the mojo just don’t have the BBQ mojo any more. YESTERDAYS BIRTHDAYS:-    5 O years of reflection. the future self and Premature Immaculation. EURO  83:- The big one and the revelation of the heartless soul. ALL MY WEDNESDAYS :-  A look at the Wednesday club, Sheffield and my complete inability to play football. THINK BIG OR GO HOME:-  A disturbing glimpse into the aftereffects of thinking outside the box. It has not been a completely wasted summer I wielded...

Jasper AB, Canada Day

What? Actually posting the same year  as the trip! I thought you just blogged it takes a year to distill the wisdom etc. Well yes it does but for one reason or another there are certain thing that are time sensitive, this is one of them. Having made a contact or two on my last trip I feel I have to provide the goods. I challenged myself could I still photograph a flag raising a parade etc. So I treated this like an assignment put on my photographers hat ( Yes I really do have one can’t miss it brim and all and a badge ). So I found my spots warned neighboring photographers I was going to go crazy run into the road stand in front of them sit in front of the floats and horses and run around like a headless chicken. It was a very hot day,  I crafted and generally kept going until the fireworks ended at midnight. No I didn’t get punched, yes I like the results and I think I can still do it, I could even do it for the local paper if asked and probably as a full time job. (There are more and different photos on the flickr feed but these are the ones I like the most.               To finish off a firework slide show, there is more Jasper 2014 to come and no doubt it will be something more than a photo fest. The Tribe had a fantastic day come out to Jasper next year for Canada Day, absolutely fantastic, great town,  great people. Every year we discover more and more to bring us back time and time again. (See you all at the RODEO)       THE END    ...

Concrete and Cameras

Why Concrete and Cameras? Sure Cameras you are a photographer after all but I don’t get it what has concrete got to do with it? And it doesn’t but it does at the same time. Let me explain, the feature image you have there is not a camera its a pair of late 1970s roller sport urethane Mini-Stoker  wheels mounted on a slimline ACS-430 truck. My Mini-Stoker wheels and the concrete involved in all this is a Canadian publication ‘Concrete Skateboarding’ So What does Skateboarding and a 200+ lb (not telling you how much but the more I eat healthy the heavier I get and I haven’t had a beer since September unless you count 2 pints of hoppy IPA at a leaving do, but it was sunny and everyone knows beers don’t count in the sunshine or on the patio or a BBQ for that matter.) aging Brit (actually come to think about it beers probably don’t count at all if you are a Brit they are probably compulsory or something. Heard somewhere they were a genetic necessity or you drop dead or become French or something) So what do I have to do with Skateboarding and where do the Cameras come into it? Well if you click on the cover to the left you will be magically carried away to the fantastic pages of said magazine. ( Not yet wait for it, read some more of the article dude) What you are looking for is page 33. ‘WHY ANALOG ?’ Read the article and it goes something along the lines of why would anyone use an older technology? This is one of the places that asked a question that has plagued me all my existence is a new tool better than an old tool? My thinking goes like this. All the tools you have learned how to use, bought, picked up along the way, stolen from your Dad, rescued from your Grandpas things, paid good cash for at a Flee Market or Garage sale, found in a cupboard in an apartment you one rented even that stupid thing you ordered from the shopping channel should be in your tool bag. Then you can bring the whole you to the game and shine, “Shines the name Roger Young.” So this is much more a Pro Photography publication than...

Toast!

So panic has set in, the last few days have been truly miserable, spurred on by the Penguins and some suggestion from various Gurus on the interweb it appears that the whole point of a Blog is to have subscribers (who Knew)  by doing all sorts of clever social media marketing and networking you can get some. So I have ordered 100 shiny business cards ( I guess this is an old school solution)  with the blog address on them and and and………..     I didn’t want a bloody blog in the first place, I was trying to do a WordPress website for my photos, and found this template  and well its front page was a Blog format. It had a Flickr feed so I linked that to my 40K feed (got to have content and that’s the only thing I had digitized and ready to go).  I could not make it do what I wanted (WordPress/template thingy) so the only option left was to give up or do what it wanted. So I have a Blog. So what was I to do with a $9.99 a month 150gb web site? And so was born the Funky Nomad  and riseanddeardemise.ca (because the real me is not that exciting on the outside but a legend on the inside.) And everything would have been fine if my head had not exploded  there were Penguins everywhere (I am blaming Wes & Dan for this.) By the time I had all the penguins stuffed back in their boxes with some complaints apparently they are not that keen on standing on their heads. I had a mission and had no intention of shutting up ever again. (her’s me initially thinking I could get away with a hand full of crappy old photos.) The stuff that was on the inside was now on the outside. The slow calcifying death that was my journey to conformity; something I had never done before was beginning to seriously mess with my mental health now that I was trying it for the first time. (being normal that is) I was like Frodo, stabbed with a Morgal blade slowly slipping into the shadow world. Wes and Dan saved the day, it appears  I was right and everyone else was wrong, Teachers, Parents, Society as a whole, the Universe. There...

Tribe 2014

So here we are again ready to set out on our summer camping adventure and still no signs of photos from 2013. Especially if you were looking for how my Landscape              re- emergance is going. For Landscapes you have three years or twenty nine years  of missing Images depending how you look at these things. Is it time for a retrospective? Yes I think so will it be just yet? Probably not but soon images will creep on to Flickr webecised but probably not high enough res to print. Of the photos I like a bit more I guess I should do a posting  because there has been quite a lot of effort invested. As usual with any passion there are doubts, how good do you have to be to have the arrogance that the world wants to see your photographs especially if you are daft enough to demand a persons soul should shine from the results (Post to come, I have recently found out you can prepare posts ahead of time and schedule their release, so 4 posts lined up and this still here post to let you know I have not been sitting around doing nothing)   Of course you don’t mind me showing you pictures of the Tribe…. Yes I know its Jasper 2013 but It appears my official blog style is think about it for 1 year distill its essence and then post.         #1 Son playing for the Longhorns ( That’s him 6’3″ in the $179 Green Shoes ) and # 1 Daughter playing at the Winspear Centre and the Wife in the back yard. I also thought it might be a good Idea to stick a shot of me here in action hunting down those elusive landscapes. They are so hard to capture with all that shyness and moving about.  ...

The Kitchen Sink

What the heck, 2 posts in one week! whats going on? Well its been a year since the Blog re-launched I have a steady seven Subscribers ( Its that box on the right saying subscribe) and all is well. Major drive to increase my fan base having no success I have told three more people (look at me go). So its time to throw more resources at it, everything including the Kitchen Sink. As you can see I even employed time travel in order to spice up my past and make myself more interesting, only time will tell if this will work. The penguins have devised a very clever marketing strategy and are offering a riseanddeardemise.ca mug to the 25th subscriber, or more accurately raffling a mug when we get to 25 subscribers. (May be an Antique by then.)     I have made my photo content more available and have signed up for a second Flickr account under the fantastic moniker (no not Monica) Funky Nomad, not to be confused with FunkyNomad that’s the me that builds 40k Space Marines. so what have I put on Flickr? Well so far Charlie Don’t Surf, Kings Croft common room (That’s where I went to school 6th form) and First 35mm, the first roll of 35mm film I took; in which the usual suspects appear. The Hare and Hounds, The Devonshire Arms and The Crown  (Pubs in case you were wondering).  Going forward you can just click on the photo to go straight to it ( If its in an Album in my Photostream, some stuff won’t be) or use the funky new menu button  Flickr Photostreamits at the top of the page.     So what else have I done to entice you funky followers? You can see at the top of the Home page a shiny new Logo, and we have a wordle or what ever it is in the side bar, this was made for my by #1 Daughter for Fathers Day 2 years ago and is as far as she is concerned the essence of who I am to her. I am so impressed with myself through her eyes I have been trying to live up to it ever since. By sporty she means Mountain Walking , Biking, Canoeing  and general summer outdoor stuff. Don’t ask me to kick a football the end results will be...

Big Surprise

If you go down in the woods today you are sure of a big surprise! I was, this is TED my teddy bear he has had the same number of birthdays as me and has been living a peaceful retirement at home on the spare bed at my Mum and Dads house. Never being foolish enough to stray and join me on my adventures. It’s a big scarey world out there for teddy bears and no picnic I can tell you. How did I get to own such a fantastic yellow teddy? Well I picked him out, chose him personally and looking back on it now set the tone for everything that would unfold as time went on. Some time in late 1964 or possibly early 1965 I was given the task of picking a teddy, not in a toy store oh no, a home interview. Very serious business this teddy bear selecting lark, Grandpa had brought a hand full of bears of different sizes and temperaments over to the house and they were all sitting politely on the couch awaiting interview, I was let in the room and promptly picked the biggest bright yellow teddy with velvet red feet who at the time was as tall as I was. (Knowing me now I can hear you say not totally unexpected) but my initial choice left some concerns with the the family members in residence. I was lead back out into the hallway and the teddies were musical chaired and I was let in again. Now I might look a bit daft and my reasoning has been proven to be flawed at times but I stand by everything 110%. Even at 1 year old I could tell there was a teddy missing! You guessed it no sign of the big yellow bear, now not easily being defeated and having vast mental powers (or possibly just vastly mental) I used my Peanut and Curly Fu powers of deduction, I had not seen him leave so he must be here somewhere, there sticking out from under the curtain a suspicious yellow leg with red paws aha problem solved and he was mine and the rest is history. So I hear you ask if TED is supposed to be in retirement at my Mum and Dads house how come he is sitting...