Adventures of an Idiot - occasional ramblings of a photography freak

…if anyone else asks me whether I’ve had a good holiday I’d find it very difficult to restrain myself from delivering a resounding slap.

Not really their fault of course.

The person I should really be slapping is the toerag who started spreading nasty rumours that I’d gone on holiday when folk began noticing I wasn’t around.

If living in the middle of a field for a week; getting woken up two or three times a night; taking off damp clothes before turning in then having to put them on again a few hours later; day after day confronting assembled ranks of booted and helmeted thugs whose only desire is to belt the nearest head with a stick; struggling with laptops that don’t do what you want; having no friendly pubs to visit… if all that is someone’s idea of a holiday then all I can say is they need their head examined!

This has all been prompted of course by my recent sojourn in the wilds of northern Kent, at that rather strange event known as Climate Camp. That completely chaotic happening organised by no-one and by everyone that somehow seems to come together in remarkably efficient fashion despite the obstacles put in its way.

Obstacles largely generated by “the State”, that faceless institution which for some bizarre reason resents ordinary folk having opinions that differ from government-approved policy, and further resents them having the guts to do something about it.
Which resentment inevitably crystallises into the invention of increasingly complex laws designed to compel conformity by criminalising dissenters.

But let’s not get me started on some way-out ideological rant. After all, this is supposed to be a photo-related blog. Though cos its mine I s’pose technically I can post whatever I like. Heh heh.

No! Self-discipline, restraint, photography!

The more complete story of my stay at Climate Camp is here. From the photographic angle there isn’t really a great deal to add or expand upon.

Took loads of pics. Spent most of the time since I’ve been back sorting, processing, and uploading them. And now just about reached the end of them. Apart from a small batch that I’ve still done nothing with. Mainly cos somehow they appear to have become mislaid or something. Oh well.

Though I wouldn’t have faced quite such an intensive workload on my return had things gone to plan.
The original intention was to do most of the pic selection, processing and uploading at the Camp, practically in real-time, so that the Climate Camp website could provide to interested parties a fresh batch of pics virtually every day.
There were about a half-dozen or so of us working on this particular scheme but somehow it didn’t really work out as expected. Although all of us managed to get a few pics up the whole idea gradually fell apart as various bottlenecks began to manifest.

Can’t speak for the others, but I’ve brought at least two major lessons away from the experience.
The first is that in any group endeavour like that its a bad idea to have just one person able to do the uploading… particularly if that person isn’t always available.
And the second is that its not really viable to share one computer between a number of photographers.

Which means that with events like this I really should take a laptop of my own with me instead of relying upon the kindness of others.
Which in turn means… hey, wait a mo’… this actually means I’ve now got an excellent justification for going out and getting myself another laptop! Cos of course the ones I’ve presently got are far too big and heavy to carry around with a load of other kit. Oh glee! I sense a new toy on the horizon!

All my 2008 Climate Camp pics are here!