Firemonkeyphoto

The trail fairies named the new trail as they rolled the last carpet of turf back and joined their work together. It was named Zoom or bust after one of the fairies recent airline experience. Due to fly out on thursday to Whistler to start a trail building and trail management course with the ill-fated Zoom airlines, he was left stranded in Glasgow airport and thus turned up at saturdays fairy session. The trail is’nt complete yet, but it is almost to the stage where it can be ridden and “obstacles to flow” weeded out.

        

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….photographically. In terms of life and fun it was a darn good weekend. Spent two days cycling with friends at Glentress, seeing old routes through fresh eyes. Unfortunately I struck out on the photography. I’m dealing with a subject I have’nt found easy and I’m trying to shoot it in a “new” way. I know I’m going to have some fruitless moments in this situation but it does’nt make coming back with an empty haul easier. It just means next shoot, I’m gonna have to “step up”. In the meantime I’m doing some reading and trying to “freshen” my eye by going through photography books. So forgive the peak picture (which I missed on my first pass and Fraser picked out) and I’ll have something new up as soon as I can.

Saturday with the Glentress trail fairies, clearing new trail for a race, eating jaffa cakes and riding.

 

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If you are walking in Edinburgh tomorrow and notice less determined young Americans on the streets expertly wielding DSLR’s is cos Ohio University Viscom’s students just cleared out  for another year. There is an annual field school run by Terry and Lyntha (pictured above) to give photography students a taste of overseas photojournalism. I got to talk to the students and teachers for a bit last night at their wrap-up dinner. A slideshow of fun-pix was shown, the quality of which indicates that whatever their assignments were, they hit them for six. In thirty two days the students go from knowing next to nothing about Scotland to navigating like natives and digging up interesting stories (people who fish bare-handed, munro-baggers, Benedictine monks, Jewish community, Polish immigrants) that out us locals to shame. One of the ways they do this, that struck me this year, was through social-networking sites like facebook. People can already have contacts (and contacted said contacts) BEFORE getting into the country. Contacts that are listed and grouped by interest, you can see how “up for it” they are, when events are happening and arrange to meet, or in one case, just make an educated guess about where he hangs out. I don’t do these social networking sites, but that is the ONLY reason I can think of to change my mind. To see more Viscom stuff check out Soul of Athens, particularly the beautiful “Simply Sassafras” by Go Takayma.