the mantelpiece - mark waddington blog

misty morning

can't resist a bit of mist so had to get out of the house this morning. this is from just below beamsley beacon looking towards ilkley.

believe in sheffield

realising wildness

I came across Realising Wildness on Vimeo today. The videos are refreshingly simple and underproduced, but the quality of the photography and the subtle inclusion of movement and sounds makes them very powerful. How often do we think that a video has to have jaunty camera angles, effects and music. In these films you feel transported to the location and connected with the mood of each place. Here's the blurb from the project:

REALISING WILDNESS is a film project hoping to reach and inspire anyone (via the internet) who is perhaps spending too much of their life working on projects, or on the internet.

REALISING WILDNESS is about wandering and wondering.

REALISING WILDNESS is about going outside- going somewhere different, or somewhere familiar- and exploring. It is about taking a really good look around. It is about noticing everything else- everything that is real and everything that is really beautiful. It is about discovering more of your senses, and sensing more and more. It is about finding a place, and a moment, and your self.

And it is really about something so much clearer than all of this...

THAW from REALISING WILDNESS on Vimeo.

streamclip demo

A few people have asked me about converting video files to other types and codecs, and about resizing. It's not a particularly exciting aspect of video production and can be very frustrating so I thought I'd try my hand at making a video demo.  This one is for Mpeg Streamclip, a small piece of free software that has become very valuable. It is simple to use an offers a way of preparing clips for both for editing and for compressing them ready for output to the internet. 

much wealthier than you ever imagined

Having been part of the branding and marketing world I have come to appreciate the way advertising, brand and 'spin' often have very little to do with actual content and much to do with perceived value. I have also been aware many people in advertising see their world as having a close association with art; the changing or challenging of perceptions.

"Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new", "we are perishing for want of wonder not for want of wonders"  These are a couple of GKC quotes picked up by advertising man Rory Sutherland in his TED talk. He has some interesting things to say about the way value is subjective and has some great illustrations from history.

He says that if you live in a world of fewer material goods, intangible value can be a pretty decent substitute. "when you place value on love, health, sex and other things, and learn to place a material value on what you have previously discounted for being intangible - a thing not seen - you realise you are much, much wealthier than you ever imagined".

He says we should spend more time appreciating what already exists and less time agonising over what else we can do.

Watch it here:

on the spot

At the Ilkley Flickr group we have occasionally discussed the way constraints can often lead to creativity.

When you have a free reign originality is often more difficult to find than when there are limitations; somehow a constraint sets us off on a different path and we see things differently.

There's also the idea of using what we have in front of us. Sometimes we feel that we wish we had more than we've got. We might wish for better tools, a better viewpoint and so on. There is something quite refreshing about seeing what is in front of us and making the best of it.

These two thoughts about embracing constraints and looking at that resources we have (rather than those we don't have) can be very constructive.

At the ilkley flickr meet-up in November we have in mind to take photos on a pre-designated spot. The challenge will be to make the best photo we can with the given situation.

The door with no name

Last night we held the first of what we hope will be a monthly alternative worship services in Ilkley (as yet un-named). The theme  was "the door". 

The Door seemed a good place to start as this kind of service represents a new entrance for the church here.  There were some good ideas and we had a very interesting discussion on what worship actually is.

My questions was, using the idea that "less is more" what would be the minimum you could get away with in an act of worship.  We discussed the Quaker silence and whether that really constituted worship, or whether it required something more elaborate.  We also considered whether or not the worship was the starting point - as one said, the life of the church is like a jam dough-nut with Christ encountered in the worship at the centre from which everything else grows.

One particularly good idea to come from Stuart Jenkins was a small cardboard door held open by a rubber band. You could choose whether to keep the door open or to close it - but if you closed it the door could not be opened again. A confession, or something you wanted to close the door on, can be written inside and then you can decide if or when you want to close the door.

This was very pleasing as a gift for everyone to take away and more meaningful as Stuart had made them himself.

The next service will be on Thursday November the 12th at our house. We have the title "ascending-descending" and were going to use the stairwell with the three or four different levels as stations. As yet we have no name for the group.

If you want to follow our progress you can visit the Fresh Expressions section of the Churches Together Ilkley website.  The site itself is new and so a bit sparse at the moment, but I hope will blossom.

Of course you're welcome to join us.

.

Out walking

I'm using the typad application in my iPhone to write this post. I'm still amazed by how easy it is to do all this without being tied to a desk. Here I am on the moortop taking photos and writing to you.

Creative technology used to be something you had to spend years leaning and now anyone can snap away and publish at will - without being restricted by talent, place , time.

I went to see Vic Reeves last night who was talking about his art. I must say I was impressed with his passion for art and enjoyed the illustrations from his new book. One of the pictures he said took him about minute to make - no, less than that, he said. It was a shot of a railway line taken on his iPhone.

Do you think it's all too easy? Perhaps because the technical aspects are easy a whole new set of values come into play where the ideas are more important than the physical creation.

Anyway it's getting cold sitting on this rock and the dog is showing an interest in some sheep, best be off.

crunchy nut clusters

This is an update to tell you what I’m up to in case you're interested.

My main thrust at the moment is to finalise a pitch for some participatory workshops for schools and other educational groups.  This is part of a growing interest in looking at how media production can be more open to genuine participation, locally driven and better connected to life as we know it.   The workshops will give small groups a chance to work together planning and filming video portraits and stories.  The films will be a bi-product of relationship and confidence building rather than an end in themselves.

I suppose this springs from my experience of groups like Mediabox (youth media) and Grace (alternative worship) and ITV Local (citizen journalism).  In these places the emphasis is not so much on controlling the end product but on the way individuals engage with each other to express their individual stories, beliefs and responses. The expression grows out of the life of the community rather than from a vision given to a team whose sole purpose is to deliver that vision. In such teams relationships are often of secondary interest. I’m much more interested in outcomes that can’t be controlled or predicted, but can be much more meaningful.

The media at a national broadcast level is highly controlled and marketed and so working in that environment you have to accept that you are manufacturing a product in much the same way as packet of breakfast cereal – crunchy nut television. By the way, have you seen the ads? customers complained the clusters appeared larger than in real life.

The more local and impoverished you get, the more relevant, free and creative it can become (although with rough edges).  Creative that comes out of small communities of people with passion and independence can be very exciting but not necessarily of mass interest unless a big player supports it.  The challenge, it seems to me, is to help grow a broader interest in these diverse stories and for big organisations of all sorts (not just media) to be brave about where they look for ideas and creative talent.

Anyway the upshot is that I am looking for support to pilot a workshop for vulnerable teenagers. I’m hoping that there’ll be a chance for a pitch for some real funding in the next few weeks. Maybe using some of my knowledge and contacts I can help be a bridge to help get some of the work noticed.

Alongside this I am working with Churches Together in Ilkley to set up a regular alternative worship event which I hope can be creatively liberating. This has thrown up some conversations about the use of visuals in worship. I think that a church community that embraces creativity can give the opportunity for people to grow through working together. Many churches are focus on the worship as an event in much the same way as Kelloggs produces breakfast cereal - as if the box bits is the reason for being there.  I’m hoping that I can pull together some crunchy nut clusters of a different sort.