A Lost Moment Found at Last

A Lost Moment, Found

This is a photograph I have been looking for in my archives for ages. It's titled Tinny Ripple Sunrise and it is of Sunrise over The Whitsunday Isles. I was staying on a yacht in the middle of an incredible azure sea and we all slept on deck, as it was stifling in our luxury cabins. Later that day, we were going to Mackerel Bay for the snorkeling trip of a lifetime on part of the extended Great Barrier Reef, which is another post entirely.

The Captain had got up early to go for a spin in the tinny; a ship to shore craft with a small outboard motor. I woke up as he was leaving and as we shared a passion for photography, he beckoned for me to join him. I quckly grabbed my camera, quietly stepped in and as we motored off, the rest of the passengers began to awake, wondering what was going on. It was about 5am. It felt like we had escaped.

Australia provided many photo opportunities

Incredible lansdcapes, amazing nature and indigenous art in ancient caves. I still think this is my favourite shot. We quietly cruised around the rocky coastline of a small uninhabited island. I watched transfixed as seabirds dive bombed a baitball and was surprised by a Tuna jumping six foot straight up out of the water near the boat. I wondered what had alarmed such a big fish. I was in a primeval world, one never truly dominated by human hand. It was epic, humbling and memorable.

Incidentally this shot was taken with an early Fuji Finepix 3mp digital camera which used a software trick to double the res to 6mp. Just goes to show it's not always the pixel count that's the final word. they printed lovely at 8 x 6inches

Tidying Up

This morning, I was rearranging one of the bedrooms at home so that our young daughter could sleep in it on her own. I had to tidy up some bookshelves first and sort out a few of the many boxes stashed in the corner. I came across a box of old cables and thought, I can probably throw this one away now. Then I saw the massive drive just sitting there, asleep with it's power cable, masking taped on to it and a USB cable next to it. I put it to one side. After spending this afternoon grappling with the finer points of building a cot bed from instructions with no words, just pictures (my favourites), I thought I'd plug it in and have a look what was on it. It's a pity this platform doesn't support swf flash files (who does these days?). There's some beautifully weird swf stuff in there, including string based colour cycling animations which were stage design ideas for the Kronos Quartet. Here's a frame grab. you really have to see it moving !

The Genie's Lamp

Like the proverbial, I gave it a rub and plugged it in. It's an old, clunky Maxtor, mains powered hard drive in a case. It's got a nice green light and still has 150gb free of 300gb on it somehow. I think I must have bought a smaller USB2 travel drive afterwards and it was obviously easier to carry around drawing auxillary power from the computer. This drive was my main support drive for ages though, and on it there are some wonderful things apart from the Flash animations I had forgotten about, 1,000s of photos of my life from 2002-2010 (ish), projects I had worked on, all kinds of documents, music I had written and a million other wonders just waiting to be rediscovered.

Digital Album of Your Life

All of my friends looking young (and cheerful, healthy, without frown lines). A few boozy weddings, lots of parties and barbeques, picnics in London Fields. Everyday pictures of the studio, the animators at work and play, and quite a few photos of the babies born in our community who are now growing up ever so fast. It was a nostalgic look back through time. One can't help wanting to reach back in and grab some of those moments and hold onto them for a while. A tinge of sadness brushed my shoulder for the friends who I don't see so much these days. They move house, job, city and move on and a few, who are no longer with us, but equally many smiles looking back at me through time and the simple joy of recapturing the essence of all my strange artwork, music and photography that I had kept on this ubiquitous obelisk of memory.

• Lollipop the cat. No longer with us. She reached a grand old age of 16 and was one of my best friends. She was also know as Stinky & Pippy the Ratcatcher, our mascot. Missed but not forgotten. This cat could say ham which she loved and once actually said let me out while sitting near the back door. She was a stray who had been left in a box on a doorstep and when she first came to stay with us about six months old, she looked like she was constructed from black pipe cleaners. She was very timid and sat in a box for about a week. Over time, she became the friendliest and most affectionate cat ever.

Will it won't It ?

I wasn't sure the drive was even going to boot up. It is worth backing up onto on of my smaller & newer Western Digital 1tb / 2tb drives. I think I have (backups of backups) and on this drive, I do indeed have a previous pc's entire backup. I once read somewhere that you need to back stuff up every few years cos' drives won't last more than 5 or 10 years. Well, we've all had our share of drive failure haven't we. It's painful. I will back this one up (again). I'm so pleased to have found this golden image and this one of Butterfly eggs, which I highlighted in Photoshop. ever the tinker