Ben on December 9 2009

An Illusionary Speech Night

Apologies for the lack of posts recently.

Last night was Barker’s speech night, and my last speech night.

Speech night has become known for the exhaustive prize list, Year 12 antics during the prize giving, and of course the Headmaster’s (herein referred to as K) speech.

What we have come to love about K’s speech is the length (purported to have been 40 minutes one year, but this year’s was 21 minutes long), the content (has ranged from famous men, to Canadian mountains), and the relevance to Barker ways (interpretations can vary). The evening and the day after speech night the intertubes are abuzz about the choice of subject, the relevancy and overall, whether the speech was good or not!

(For the record, this year’s speech was 21 minutes long which focused on three influential men: Galileo Galilei, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin and their perseverance to reach their goals. The relevance (as interpreted by some people) was questionable.)

Next on the list, Year 12 antics. This year’s Year 12 has been very supportive of each other, as was evident in the various call outs during the prize giving. Most memorable was Willo’s standing ovation, for his magnificent achievements. There were a few others, including the frenzied call out for Jono Chung’s prizes and Jono Mui’s additional handshake.

Now I’ll talk about why I’ve called this an Illusionary Speech Night (for Year 12s).

Firstly, the prize winners are selected on the performance in the school assessments which count for 50% of the final HSC mark. While these people are to be congratulated, and for some will represent what they achieved in the written Board of Studies exams, not everyone who wins on speech night will ‘win’ in their HSC results. To ‘win’ is to win in the relative sense, which means it is different for each person.

The real ‘prize’ will be one’s individual HSC results, which, at time of writing, will be released in one week. Only then will one know whether they have won or not.

Looking down the track, the real ‘prize’ will be the contribution one makes to this changing world. The real ‘prize’ will be the consequences, good or bad, of the path that one takes. The real ‘prize’ will be the satisfaction that you will have gained from making a difference, whether officially recognised or not.

It was good seeing you all again.

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Ben on November 19 2009

This Christmas

In the lead-up to this Christmas, I am bringing back the act of writing Christmas cards, and sending them through the post. I have about 20 or so cards that I need to write, and I thought I’d tell you about one of the recipients of a card.

Christmas is a time where everyone can celebrate close to the end of the year. (Let’s not get into the religious debate). It’s a time to get together with family and friends, perhaps with some that they have not seen for many months. Because of this, my cards are going to people who I know, but have not associated with that much this year.

For one particular person, it is slightly different. During the projects we have worked on in the past few years, things have not gone terribly smoothly. There have been arguments, and conflicts. This person has loathed everything that I have done, almost to the point where it is very discouraging. An example of this is when I gave good wishes before exams. This person has spoken out against my actions, which interestingly led to someone else siding with me in what I have done.

I’m sending a Christmas card to this person, because I think that there is no place for conflicts during this time. I believe there is a saying which goes “Love thy neighbour”. This is a belief that is important for many, and should be upheld during Christmas.

I challenge you to send a Christmas card to someone whom you have not had good relations with this year. Maybe it is someone who doesn’t like you, the boss that fired you, or someone who you haven’t spoken to online or offline for a long time.

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Ben on November 13 2009

Staying together after the HSC

Now that the HSC is over, it’s going to be interesting to see how we all keep in touch. Nowadays it is much easier with the internet and various social networks like Facebook. But I thought I’d suggest a few other networks you might consider.

1. Dopplr (www.dopplr.com)

Screen shot 2009-11-12 at 10.56.30 AM

Dopplr is a travel social network (primarily for business travellers, but still very fun to use) that allows you to share your travel plans with other people. You are able to see where your friends are travelling, and Dopplr will also let you know of any ‘coincidences’, that is, when you and a friend are in the same city at the same time. The Social Atlas has listings of places to stay, see and eat in many cities around the world. As with many Web 2.o applications today, Dopplr links to other social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, which receive updates on when you start and finish trips.

Here is a link to my public profile to see what outsiders will see. I’ve linked my profile to my Flickr photos as well.

A note about ‘friending’: Dopplr uses a two-way friending system. When you share trips with someone else, their trips will not automatically show up on your home page. The other person has to click ‘share trips’ for you too. So make sure you tell your friends to share trips with you.

(click more to see more…)


Read the rest of this entry »

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Ben on November 9 2009

Skins Skined: Setting and Environment

This is the start of a long series of posts about the application of situations in the TV show Skins to normal life. Today, I discuss the impetus of everything I will write about, the environment of Skins.

Skins focuses on a group of coming-of-age teenagers (16-18). Each generation lasts two series, with the characters of that series written out after the end of the second series. We are now half-way through the second generation.

16 to 18 year olds generally begin to taste the freedom of life. So it seems natural for them to experiment with the wonders that have been unavailable to them, such as drugs, alcohol, sex, clubbing, etc… Add to that the frivolity and the diversity of Bristol, and there is half the recipe of what drives Skins.

The other half, is the mix of characters. Let’s take a look at Effy, who we’ve seen across the two generations. When we first see her in Series 1 (Ep. 8) she is already into the drinking, smoking and dangerous behaviour. By the time we get to Series 3, this earns her “queen bee” status (more on this later). She is seen as the one who wants to break the rules (supported by the rather interesting introduction by the teachers in Ep. 1) and rather ‘smart’.

Effy’s ‘best friend’ is Pandora. In Series 3, she wants to experiment with drugs and alcohol, and does so with interesting effects. By placing a ‘smart’ person next to a not so ‘smart’ person, well you understand.

Next time, I’ll discuss the ‘gang’ and the subculture of the ‘queen bee’.

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Ben on November 6 2009

Photo Processes: Camera to Computer

This is the second post about my photo processes. The first one was about where I put my photos. This post is about the work flow from camera to computer.

There are many different methods of getting photos from the camera to the computer, and then to libraries and backup systems. I’m based on the Mac, so this will be slightly different to that on a Windows based computer.

When I finish a shoot, I import all the photos into Aperture. It provides a lot of powerful tools to organise, tag and edit photos. The editing is quite basic, compared to Photoshop. I don’t own Photoshop yet.

Now, before I continue, I’d like to outline my philosophies for choice of software. If the operating system has a functionality that I need to use, I adapt my work flow to the constraints of that program.

All my photos are sorted (filed to delete, keep, export etc.) in Aperture. If there are any photos I want to export to Flickr, I use a plugin to do so. If the photos are “personal”, then the final collection of photos is moved into iPhoto. If the photos are of a concert, or “non-personal” they are exported as JPEGs onto an external hard drive, and the full Aperture project exported onto a separate external hard drive.

My Aperture library is not backed up by Time Machine, my iPhoto library is backed up.

The memory cards are erased by Disk Utility, and used with the next project.

This work flow will change when I get new hardware, which includes a custom built Linux based file server. Currently it works quite well for me, and I haven’t had too many problems with lost data, because I know where everything is at any time.

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Ben on November 4 2009

Normal Service

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, I have finished my HSC exams. It is a great relief.

As such, normal service will resume as soon as possible. There’s another post about my photo work flow, and plans for next year.

One thing, all posts regarding post-HSC stuff will be embargoed until November 13, in respect to those who sit the last exams (French Extension, Textiles, and IT (VET)).

Thank you for continuing to read my blog.

BH

PS: I promise to be more reliable than CityRail.

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Ben on October 10 2009

Photo Processes: Flickr vs. Facebook

I’ve got a few posts lined up explaining my current processes for the post-production and publishing of my photos. This first post is about publishing to web, the next one will be about organization after shooting an event.

I don’t like Facebook’s photo facility. It’s optimised to serve junk. I think that there are so many bad photos there, in terms of quality. Sure, many of them tell stories about people’s musings over the weekends, but thinking about it, it is mainly junk.

Let me give you a quick rundown on how Facebook serves photos. They optimise every photo that comes in for web use, scrubbing out EXIF and other miscellaneous data. Although they claim that “your photos look their best”, for quality freaks like me, it is far from that. The photos are resized and sent out through content delivery networks (CDNs). CDNs have servers all around the world, and requests for files are directed to the servers which is geographically the closest. More info is in this Facebook blog post.

So instead, I upload all my photos to Flickr. Their system is designed for the sharing and presentation of people’s photos (and pro member’s videos). When I upload there, the photos are served their original quality, with all the EXIF and other information. Flickr also allows geotagging, descriptions, tags and the like. In my opinion, it has a far richer experience than that of Facebook.

Now you might say “Hey Ben! Not everyone is on Flickr, but everyone is on Facebook!”. This is true. I completely agree that Facebook is the fastest way to share information with friends. Flickr is great for others to explore your work. I know that when I host photos on Flickr, I don’t get the intimacy of people’s comments/thoughts/feelings of my photos. However, I do get the “rich” experience I want which includes geotags, view statistics, and soon enough, critical appreciation. I am able to link Flickr photos to Facebook, so I can still show my friends.

To me, hosting photos on Flickr makes more sense. Although it seems like I am distancing myself from the social norm (well, at least the status quo), I think this issue will present itself better in the long term.

Any other thoughts?

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Ben on October 5 2009

Two More Pieces of Advice

After writing the last post, I remembered that I had two more things to say.

1. Everyone is saying, “Make sure you thank your teachers for all the hard work they have done for you.” Well, the best way to thank them is to gain the best possible result in the HSC exams. They’ll be happy that their hard work has paid off, and you will be happy that you have a great result.

2. It’s almost a week since that wonderful last day of school. There are probably many thank you messages that you didn’t write on people’s shirts that morning. May I suggest that you hand-write letters to these people. I know I am…

All the best for HSC 2009.

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Ben on October 4 2009

Crucial Last Weeks

At time of writing, there are 17 days until English Paper 1.

As blunt as it sounds, the celebrations are over. The last game has been played, the last hurrah called. It’s time to hit the books, one last time.

I hope everyone isn’t finding it difficult to study. These are the last set of examinations, the most crucial ones. As has been said many times, “Your performance has an effect on other peoples’ performance.” I don’t want to explain how the system works, I think that overused statement is enough.

There are so many great things that will happen after this last set of exams. 4 weeks in retrospect isn’t much effort to ask for.

On the other hand, this is a great opportunity to get back into a normal routine. Simple things life having enough sleep and three meals a day, will make you feel better over the next few weeks. There is no reason to pull an all-nighter to cram; all that’s needed is to re-organise the schedule.

All the best for HSC 2009.

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Ben on October 2 2009

Last Day in Retrospect

This thought has been niggling me for the past day, and I wanted to get this off my chest.

So yesterday was the last day of school. The day began with a meet at Wahroonga Park, then a train ride to Waitara and finally a scooter ride from the station to school.

First off, I’d like to say that it was fantastic photographing you all. There are some great pictures of the most important day this year. It felt great documenting this wonderful day.

Second, I’m rather happy that this year’s celebrations didn’t produce any police cases, lawsuits and major injuries. Thinking about it, it was probably the best type of Year 12 celebration. At least we didn’t vandalise or damage school property or steal a car or something like that.  All we did was disrupt traffic for a very short time, and that’s the best possible outcome.

It’s not often that we get an opportunity to do something like this. So as every old saying goes, “Make the most of it.”

And we did.

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