Provide the next Satchel Blue album cover

How would you like to provide the design or photograph for the next Satchel Blue album cover?



Our fifth album, Another Fine Day, is due for release in February and we'd like your ideas for the front cover.

There's no prize as such, but if you've got the perfect cover then we'll credit you in the album sleeve and your work will be available via iTunes for all to see.

The back cover (in the non-iTunes, old skool CD packaging world) might look something like this. Then again, it might not.



Our last album, February, is available to download from iTunes.

Photographs/designs to me by the end of January please.

Get in touch via Twitter, Flickr or Facebook.

My First Book: Canada by James Thornett

Anyone who keeps a watchful eye on my Flickr photostream will have noticed that I recently found the time to trawl through the photographs that made it back from my Canada trip earlier this year and upload over 100 of the best.

I've been wanting to create my own photo book for ages and, with a stack of images at the ready, I looked at the different photobook tools available and settled on using Blurb.

A few long nights later - this book editing game is both time consuming and addictive - I'd sent off my first book to the printers, and just over a week later it arrived through the letterbox.

The final product is really impressive... and I'm not just talking about my photos, honest!

The quality of the printing, paper and binding of the book is far more than I expected to get when paying around £25 for a 65 page 10x8" book of my own work.

You can view every single page of the book on the Blurb website using their excellent full preview functionality... and you can even order your own copy.

Hey, why not, it is Christmas soon after all!

Polaroid coming back in 2010

Following my recent post about my late entry into Polaroid I'm very excited to read that The Impossible Project looks to have succeeded in it's aim to bring instant film technology back to production.

As reported in The Independent, the project will be producing 1 million new films in 2010, with more to follow in later years.

Adventures in Polaroid Photography

Polaroid stopped making their particular brand of instant camera film in June 2008, approximately one year after they halted production of the instant cameras that made the company it's name.

Much has been made of the attempts by The Impossible Project to bring the technology back to life - an attempt to capitalise on that "analogue appeal in a digital age".

To my shame and disappointment I only took my first Polaroid photograph this weekend, after finding Elaine's old Polaroid camera and purchasing some expired Polaroid film on eBay.

Here it is:



The picture taking part wasn't anything overly exciting. A clunky, funny shaped camera with a really awkward hand grip and shutter release.

However, I was completely knocked for six by the resulting photograph.

Maybe it was the very tactile and hands-on appeal of being able to hold the developing print just a few seconds after pressing the shutter, maybe it was watching the image slowly develop in front of my eyes, or maybe it was just the sheer novelty factor of never having taken one before.

Well, yes, all of those are true. But there is also something very special about this brand of instant film photography that cannot be beaten.

I could have taken the same photo using my Nikon D80 but I would have undoubtedly framed, shot, re-framed, shot again, and taken about 20 different photos, before downloading to the PC, analysing, cropping, tweaking and maybe, finally, printing... although in all probability I wouldn't have bothered with the print.

The Polaroid has captured the same scene in a way that truly feels like it captures the moment, it feels more intimate and personal than probably any photo I've taken on my DSLR.

So now I have a host of ideas for Polaroid photography and an increasingly depleted, and therefore expensive, stock of film available to buy on eBay.

At least one of these projects is going to happen next year, I promise...

James Thornett Photography To Buy

Finally got around to setting up a Photobox gallery to sell some of my own prints.

Only a couple up at the moment but will try and work through the back catalogue over the coming weeks.



All the random stuff is still making it onto Flickr of course.

Cake Orchestra

Ever doubted the power of the cake?
Here is, to quote, "A prototype of a musical interface, driven by cakes."

cake orchestra (test) from mook studios on Vimeo.

Birmingham Photospace - Flash Swap Exhibtion

Gutted! I'm away when this is on but I suggest anyone in the Birmingham area on Saturday 21st March should go along and take part.

Basically, take along some of your own prints to be included in the exhibition and, for every one of your own that you are willing to give away, you can take away someone else's print.

Here is the full press release with all the info.

Lego Brick Stick

Isn't this soooo cool?

£17.50 for your 1GB lego stick, and four colours to choose from, green, red, yellow and blue.

Finally... Twitter has 'got' me

It was really only a matter of time and two days ago, on Wednesday 28th January 2009, it happened. I finally 'got' Twitter.

Or Twitter finally 'got' me, I'm not sure which is more correct.

I signed up with a Twitter account some time ago but have never really understood why it was deserving of my time, never feeling that I was getting back anything worth the effort I was putting in.

After further prompting from Cybersoc I pushed myself to explore the world of suitable PC and mobile applications that might change the balance, pushing me over the edge and into the group of regular twitterers.

A couple of less successful attempts later and it was finally the combination of TwitterFox on the PC and Twibble on my N95 that did the trick.

These apps allow me to use twitter, to post tweets and read other people's updates, without having to constantly visit the website on my computer or mobile phone.

They bring Twitter to me, rather than me having to keep going to Twitter and check for updates.

It has only been 48 hours since the revolution but I'm fairly sure that the job is done. I've been converted and this, I think, is why.

Twitter fulfills a number of different conversational requirements that other methods of communication don't do very well.

The Conversation
I know many people that I would like to speak to quite frequently but I generally don't have the time, or am not in a suitable place, for a proper phone conversation, let alone a face to face chat.

Twitter allows a one-to-one conversation to take place over a period of hours, days or longer, with each small piece of the conversation fitting into the small, convenient gaps I have in my day.

Yes, it's true that these 'conversations' can generally be followed by anyone else paying attention to my twitter stream - but if I'm chatting over coffee or talking on the phone in the office or the street then there are just as many random strangers listening in anyway.

There are other tools for this kind of interaction, Facebook and email to name just two, but the 140 character limit on Twitter really keeps each segment short, simple and, above all, convenient.

The Announcement
The Twitter mechanism is equally useful for asking a question, soliciting feedback or making an announcement to multiple people at the same time.

I've long been a fan of Facebook for it's ability to communicate in this way with a large group of 'friends' in the same moment.

Twitter isn't necessarily any better then Facebook for this purpose but, here's the key, by installing the twitter application on my Facebook profile, my Facebook status now updates automatically with my Twitter updates.

So I'm still using Facebook as much as before, but now I'm using Twitter as well, with no extra effort. Two birds, one stone, etc.

The Gossip
This is for those in the "I'd really like to know what everyone else/that person is doing" category. And let's face it, there's a bit of that in all of us.

With Facebook, and other similar social networking sites, you need to obtain a reciprocated 'friend' link with somebody before you can start seeing each others status updates.

With Twitter, if you can find them, you can 'follow' them, and keep an eye on whatever they wish to share with the world.

Along with 90,000+ other Twitter users I am following the well known comic, TV personality and general genius Stephen Fry.

He doesn't know me, we've never met, he doesn't need to accept my friend request or agree to share any web-relationship-status with me.

But I can still tell you that he had a "Lunch of oysters and sole at Quo Vadis" today and obtained a visa for travelling to Mexico yesterday afternoon and, for the small part of me that likes to share gossip and see what other people get up to, this is both interesting and enjoyable.


I can still see why people don't 'get' it, why it seems unnecessary or without obvious benefit.

I, however, now have a different problem to solve.

There are only so many hours in the day.

Take away life's essentials such as sleeping, eating and going to the pub and what's left is an unsatisfactory number of 'web hours' available.

I am already struggling to keep up with my overflowing RSS reader, my neglected blogs in need of a new post, and my Facebook friends waiting for overdue replies to messages. How is Twitter going to help with any of that?

Turning the web into print

Thanks to Matt Locke for pointing me in the direction of this lovely newspaper, created by the Really Interesting Group and featuring web content from 23 friends that they thought would work well in print.

Mine only arrived yesterday (#163 from a print run of 1000) and they are now sold out according to the website so I consider myself doubly fortunate to have a copy.

Three things caught my attention on my first browse through the pages, from back to front of course.

1) I've never really understood why so many people on Flickr take photographs of their food. Turning the page to see a full double page spread of 'food' tagged photos from Flickr user Antimega and it suddenly seemed to make sense. Very cool, and very possibly of some practical use as well.

2) Twitter. I'm a user, occasionally, and I can understand why some people find it useful, particularly when covering live events/conferences and so on. But I still don't quite get it. I've yet to find a killer reason why twitter is a necessary tool in my life. But somehow the four pages taken up entirely with tweets from @marsphoenix makes complete sense... and fascinating reading.

3) Russell and Ben's epilogue on the back page, titled "There May Well Be Mistakes", explains their reasons for collating this work in newspaper form, apologises for any errors that might be present, and ends with my favourite sentence of the year so far. "2009 feels like a year for printing and making real stuff in the real world. It's going to be exciting"

Now I'm going to start from the front page and read every single word.

(image taken from Matt's Flickr photostream)