Bach—As Performed On A Huge Xylophone in the Forest

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011

Check out this terrific Japanese ad for the Touch Wood SH-08C cell phone. Shot in the woods of Kama City, Japan, a massive xylophone-type instrument plays Bach’s Cantata 147 (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring) by means of a single wooden ball and the force of gravity.

The choice of music may be just as interesting as the ad itself, reflecting the Japanese love of Western classical music. In fact, the original maximum capacity of the compact disc (CD), 74 minutes, was dictated by the duration of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Sony wanted the entire composition to fit on a single CD.

Burning Man

Posted on Thursday, Dec 2, 2010

Burning Man is an event that really defies description. It is weeklong art festival; a gathering of adventure seekers; a participatory social experiment; an exercise in survival; an ad hoc community of 50,000 that materializes out of nothing on a playa in the middle of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each year around Labor Day. Vague enough for you? Anyone who has been there will tell you that you have to show up to really grasp it.

To be honest, I’ve never been too interested in grasping it. The occasional pictures that I’ve seen floating around always looked as though they were shot on the set of Mad Max. That’s not exactly a world I wanted to spend a week in. Then I came across these images shot by Trey Ratcliff. Yes, they look like they’re shot on the set of Mad Max but what a starkly beautiful set it is! I would spend a week in this world if I could bring a camera with me. Turns out Burning Man takes place less than 6 hours from my house. I just have to figure out a way to trick…err…convince Darla into going.

If you’d just like to know more about Burning Man, a first timer’s guide is available here. Trey Ratcliff’s original post is here. A bigger collection of images from Neil Girling can be found here.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

Stuck in Customs: The Li River

Posted on Saturday, Oct 16, 2010

As I was putting together the blogroll for YOUMUSTHAVEAREALLYNICECAMERA, Trey Ratcliff’s great travel blog, Stuck in Customs, immediately came to mind.  Trey is a talented photographer and a really entertaining writer who is constantly finding himself in new and fun places.  Following is an excerpt from today’s blog post which can be found here in its entirety.

Want to hear something amazing about these fishermen? You won’t believe it… but maybe others can confirm this! The fishermen use these two trained cormorant birds that have their throats tied. The birds dive into the water, eat a fish, but then can’t swallow it because of the rope. The fisherman rudely pulls the fish from the bird’s throat and drops it into that basket behind him. The bird then goes over to a tiny keyboard and sends out the tweet, “WTF”.

I nearly spit a mouthful of Coke all over my computer screen as I reached the end of this one.

Good Photography is All About the Gear

Posted on Thursday, Oct 14, 2010

If you’re a photographer, you already get it.  For everyone else, the title of this blog is inspired by every photographer’s favorite compliment…