John Ager's Home on the Web!

This is first of a number of my favourite photographs I’ll be showcasing on this site. I really like this one of my daughter that was taken in dark surroundings on a low specification mobile phone camera in 2008, it shows that good results can be achieved without expensive equipment. It was originally a colour photo which I changed to monochrome and then tweaked to give some soft-focus and grainy effects. I hope you like it!

I’ve also set up a Facebook page for my photography – so if you enjoy my photos please check it out and click the [Like] button, John Ager’s Art & Photography.

It’s been a few day since I posted, so I thought I’d share some photos I took today on a beautiful spring afternoon. This is my favourite from the whole photoshoot, but you can see the whole set here! You can use any of these images in accordance with the Creative Commons licence on each photo page, and they can also be licensed through Getty Images.

…continued. An interesting film was about the Bristol Cycle Project. They take old or unused bikes and make them available to people in the community. So many bikes are just in storage in people’s garages, this project gets them back into use. In their workshop they rebuild or service the bikes with the assistance of the people who will benefit from them. They help people to help themselves, involvement with the project and commitment of time and effort means they value the bikes and can contribute something. Asylum seekers are particularly finding the project helpful. There is much misunderstanding about asylum seekers, and the film told some terrible personal stories of refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan. A bike gives freedom and independence, and so becomes a physical metaphor for what these refugees long for.

Freetown is the capital and largest city in Sierra Leone and, over 200 years after the abolition of slavery, the people living in poverty here still see themselves as slaves. The question has to be asked, are these people really free? In a film made up of entirely of people voicing their thoughts and feelings, it became clear that that are still captives to the rich and powerful, both inside and outside their country and to a system which allows it. The women were particularly vocal in expressing how their voices need to be heard. Ironically, one of the streets in Freetown is called Wilberforce Street!

A very colourful and energetic film followed showing a Latin American carnival in Nottingham. What came through very strongly was the importance of the arts for culture and community. We neglect the arts at our peril, for they help to define people’s culture, identity and freedom.

The final film I watched was about Alice Hawkins, a woman who lived most of her life in Leicester. She was a factory worker who became a suffragette and champion for women’s rights. Alice’s story is an inspiring one, and there is a website set up by her family to honour her memory and work.

It was a great festival and plans are in hand for the DocFilm Festival in 2012, but over 3 days instead of 1!

As I mentioned yesterday, the Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media Centre hosted the first DocFilm Festival in Leicester today and, as I write this, it’s still happening until 11.30 pm with live music! It was organised by my friend John Coster and Citizens Eye, and I was pleased to be involved in a very small way – I helped to put up posters! It was an energising day; creatively, culturally, socially and physically (I cycled there and back).

The Phoenix Centre is an excellent venue for events such as this, one large and one medium sized cinemas, a more compact film room and many other user-friendly rooms. A variety of documentary films were on show during the day, from shorts (some less than 10 minutes) through to full-length features. The main film I saw was A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash which presented a stark vision of the world as we run out of cheap oil.

The first short I watched was entitled Leicester Diversity, something I’ve experienced first hand since moving here. Leicester is a wonderful place to live, and a wide range of national statistics back this up. A Zimbabwean political refugee described how he escaped Mugabe’s regime, arrived in London and eventually settled in Leicester. He described it as the quietest (?) and best place he’d lived. Manjula Sood praised Leicester’s diversity and encouraged communities to believe in themselves and celebrate their different cultures.

This was followed by a film that expressed hope for people with a disability through a beautiful song. The basic message was that the main character was born on a different side of life, but he felt the same as anyone else! Stars reach out and tell us there’s always one escape. We made our lives on wasteland, as through the barricades. The film ended with him finding love and fulfilment in life.

A documentary about life on a Leicester estate since 1945 followed. It showed the effects of economic policies and trends on family life over those years, and the focus was particularly on the Thatcher years and the resultant poverty and despair. The next film was more uplifting, and it was good to have the film-makers, fathers and children featured in the audience. It presented very positive role-models for fathers and their children, and I found it refreshing.

To be continued…

On Saturday 22 January 2011 the Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media Centre (Leicester) is hosting the first DocFilm Festival in the city. This is being organised by my friend John Coster and Citizens Eye. If you live in Leicester, maybe you can come along for all or part of the day. It runs from 11:30 to 23:30, and there is live music in the evening. Plans are already in hand for the DocFilm Festival in 2012 over 3 days!

I love writing and communicating! Choosing my words carefully and crafting sentences, paragraphs and completed works. Both writing and public speaking play a major part in my work as a Salvation Army Officer, but I also like to write for leisure. This website is one opportunity for me to do just that!

Recently I came across QuietWrite which provides a writing space without distraction. The website says about itself: Focus is necessary for good writing. And, in order to focus, you need a quiet place to think, to ponder, and to dream. Finding a peaceful place to write online is challenging. Most interfaces are too cluttered and too crammed full of the unnecessary. QuietWrite is different. It’s your peaceful online editor: a place where you can be alone with your words and thoughts. Think of QuietWrite as your online writing workspace. A place where you can do your best writing.

You can publish on QuietWrite itself, but can also export to your WordPress site, and this post is testing out this option. If you are looking for a software alternative to this web-based service you could try FocusWriter, a minimalist multi-platform word processor.

Note: Because QuietWrite is a minimalist word-processor (it’s great strength), it does mean that you have to work on the text later, but the creative work can be done distraction-free. In the case of exporting to WordPress, you have to edit the text in WordPress to categorise, tag and link etc. You can view my original post on QuietWrite by clicking here!

If you just want to make simple notes in your browser, you might like to check out this post!

My friend Chris Hinton has also written about QuietWrite here on Geek-Speak!

The movie Closer originally started out as a stage play, and was adapted by the author Patrick Marber and directed by Mike Nichols. It’s a very powerful, uncompromising and honest drama about modern relationships, and I watched it on DVD this evening. The four actors give very convincing performances of the chance meetings of their characters, their instant attractions and brutal betrayals. The drama is seen by some as a modern and tragic version of Mozart‘s opera Così fan tutte, as there are references to the opera in both the plot and the soundtrack, and one of the key scenes is set in an opera house. You can find out more about the movie at IMDb and (spoiler alert) Wikipedia. One final note of caution though, the movie (and the Wikipedia entry) does contain very strong language and overt sexual references! Not for the easily offended!

It was great to get out on my bike earlier today, for the first time in ages! I had to buy myself a new helmet, some suitable cycling trousers and sort out a few bits and pieces before being able to venture out again. I bought the bike while living in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, and I certainly needed something rugged there! I’ve had many a scary moment riding down winding mountain tracks, some of which are used for WRC events (which I’ll write about on another occasion) and were driven on (and crashed on) by the legendary Colin McRae. You may know (from a previous post) that I’m trying to lose weight and improve my overall fitness, cycling is a wonderful way of doing this. Now to find my way round Leicester, but (after this morning’s ride) I may need a more comfortable saddle!

It seems that Doctor Who has always been with me! Hardly surprising since I watched the first ever episode when I was nine! The Christmas specials are always a tasty treat, and this one didn’t disappoint! It was a wonderful retelling of the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol. Guest stars were Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins. The episode was perfectly realised, with an alien world looking Victorian, yet sufficiently different. The whole special remained true to the spirit of Christmas and Dickens, with some wonderful stylistic touches. It was crafted with love, well done!