Liverpool Turnering Heads

Weak puns aside, Liverpool is hosting the Turner Prize Exhibition this year; this is the first time the prize has been hosted outside of London and is meant as a prelude for Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture. I visited it today with Peter and Lisa.

It was interesting; I don't claim to be an expert of modern or installation art, but there was a lot there that was thought provoking. I agree with Peter's summation - and in particular, I did not get Mark Wallinger's work at all.

I'd like to be non-committal and sit on the fence by saying, that although it's not something I can appreciate, I'm sure it has some worth as art, but then I'd be lying through my teeth, so I'll label it as pretentious rubbish masquerading as art instead of hiding behind some polite half platitudes. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if I wanted to watch some bear prance around in a room, I'd watch old episodes of Rainbow.

That being said, I'm sure it has a good chance of winning; after all, it has started the is it art? debate again.

Peter also pointed me in the direction of this little gem.

Unprepared

Barbados was hot. And Sunny. And Humid. And Hot. Did I mention that?

I got quite sunburned, as, living and working in London I've grown apart from that strange ball of fire that hangs in the sky and occasionally graces us in Britain with it's presence, this year especially.

However, the unprepared in the title of this post relates mainly to the camera gear I took with me; I'm still waiting for my 70-300 nikkor zoom to arrive so I had to make do in some instances. I also managed to forget my lens hood, and my polarisation filters.

Knowledge wise, I wasn't prepared for the humidity; carrying the camera from air conditioning to outside often resulted in waiting for minutes for the condensation to dissipate from the lens. I also wasn't expecting the sharply curved horizon when looking out to sea (even though I've read about it I've never really spent enough time looking out to sea to "see"), however, and my 18-55 lens only accentuates this curvature at wide angles.

I learned some, but, despite my plans to the contrary, the beach and pool proved very, very tempting on more than one occasion.

:-)

Post Holiday Blues

I admit it. I want to be somewhere else. Somewhere sunny. Somewhere hotter. Somewhere simpler.

Why?

I just got back from there!

Spent the last 10 days in Barbados on holiday, staying at the Hilton on Needhams Point.

Plenty of swimming, plenty of sightseeing, plenty of rum!

It's certainly a beautiful island, although my viewpoint is skewed as I was only there for 10 days, as a tourist, staying in a 5 star resort; as a quick dig around shows that the island does have it's fair share of problems, mostly economic, as it's main industry, the production of sugar cane, has declined and has been replaced by tourism.

Things don't seem quite as important when the average temperature is 31°C and the skies are mostly blue with perfect clouds.

Took a trip round the island, both by car, and around the island by catamaran, where I got to go snorkelling with turtles.

Had a look round the Mount Gay production facility just outside of Bridgetown, which is the capital of the island (which, incidentally, has a total population of approximately 280,000 across the whole island), and isn't massive, but, shares, with the rest of the island, distinctly British street names and areas (for example, just along from Broad Street is Cheapside!) as a result of the island's colonial past.

Plenty more to write about, and more to post - in particular, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Cliff - certainly the most beautiful restaurant I've ever visited. Eating by the ocean at night, listening to the waves lap across the beach, whilst watching fireflies dancing in the air created a sense of wonder that I find hard to dispel even now.