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A Rock Crawler and Wildlife Film Making

Byrichard

When Gordon Buchanan was following bears in the United States we watched the resulting documentaries on television. We have seen him a number of times in episodes of countryfile as well. Now he is working on getting footage of wolves in the wild. For this project he is staying out in the wild and following a pack of wolves day after day for weeks. As part of this project he is filming with a broadcast camera and gopro cameras which he fixed on to a “rock crawler”. The Rock crawler is a remote control car with the body removed.

The BBC were working on a documentary about polar bears and for certain shots they created a den for filming purposes. It helped to tell the story but people felt that the purity of that documentary had been tainted. This genre of documentary aims to tell a genuine story with no reconstruction or trickery. Everything has to be genuine.

As we see from the footage above Gordon Buchanan was able to get the camera right up to the den and film the wolf cubs from the mouth of the den. This technology is great for story telling because it provides the camera operator with greater flexibility. He is able to get the camera to where he wants it to be without going there in person. In theory animal behaviour is genuine.

Sensory: BBC Wildlife Director John Downer & the technology of ‘spy-cam’ filmmaking from Getty Images on Vimeo.

With this technology a greater variety of shots can be achieved, from flying with specific birds to traveling under water with penguins and lounging in a pool with tigers. In essence spy creature cameras allow wildlife filmmakers to get genuine animal interactions without relying on luck. They can make their own luck and the natural history documentary genre benefits.

Cycling to Geneva and back

Cycling to Geneva and back

Byrichard

Cycling to Geneva and back is a relatively short route. It is a 60km round trip. Two things make this ride more challenging. The first is the wind if it is blowing against you and the second is the need to cycle uphill. This is true of all cycling in this part of Switzerland. You have to choose whether to cycle upwards at the start or the end of the bike ride. If you start with the uphill then heading back to the starting point can be a pleasure.

I went cycling yesterday because the conditions were perfect. The weather was good, the temperature was low and as I was not rock climbing in the evening I could afford to invest my energy and stamina in this bike ride.

The outward journey is easy. You start at the foot of the Jura and using the route I used you spend a lot of time cycling downhill towards Geneva. Once you are in Geneva you can cycle around the city and enjoy seeing the city as a cyclist rather than pedestrian or car driver. I like cycling in Geneva and other cities because distances become much smaller. Getting around is easy as long as you don’t cycle over glass and you can stop anywhere. On the way back you can cycle along the lake road. It is flat for most of the way. From Nyon you cycle uphill.

I hadn’t noticed that we can see flyby information even when not riding in a group. If I am so inclined I can see who I waved to and find more information about their cycling habits.

By moving the mouse cursor around on the grey graph you can see where and when people overtook you or when you crossed path. You can see when you overtake people and when they overtake you. On the right ride you can see that there is a representation to show how far ahead of or behind people are. I find it comforting to see that with some people the separation was stable for extended periods. This is illustrated by the coloured bars on the graph.

My projects for the coming weeks are to cycle to Lausanne and back and then to cycle around the Lac de Neuchâtel. Lausanne and back should be around 80km and Neuchâtel should be around 96km. The goal after that would be to cycle around the Lac Léman.

The Moléson VF with the Narrative Clip 2
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The Moléson VF with the Narrative Clip 2

Byrichard

The Narrative Clip 2 is a specialist camera that can be programmed to take photos at regular intervals whilst you enjoy activities. This is sometimes referred to as life logging. The idea is that you wear the camera either on clothing or place it somewhere where it can capture the passage of time.

For this event the camera was worn around my neck and took pictures throughout the activity. As you can see from the last image I had the Ricoh Theta S on a monopod and the Sony Xperia Z5 compact for other pictures. You do not see that I had a fourth camera with a 30 times optical zoom.

The camera took over four hundred images during this event and I chose just a few. I avoid sharing images of people unless I have their informed consent. I share the images that best represent the pleasant moments.

If I took the time I could rotate this camera to be horizontal and I could capture daily timelapses. Every time I go for a bike ride or a hike it would capture regular images. The camera has enough battery power and you can keep the camera in your pocket until you want to start logging the event. When the event is finished you can place the camera back in to your pocket and head home for example.

An improvement which I have recently noticed is that when you put the camera to charge it can automatically upload the day’s images to the narrativeapp website and you can then select what you want to share.

As cameras get smaller and more portable and as they become more specialised so we have an opportunity to get different types of images. One is for time lapses, the other has a powerful zoom, the third allows us to capture spherical images and the fourth is practical for sharing to social media.

 

“Why We Voted leave: Voices from Northern England

Byrichard

This short video provides us with voices from Northern England. We hear about the closures and about the strikes that took place decades ago. We hear superficially about migration but the key message is that the North feels abandoned by the South. The North has been fed the message that austerity is the fault of the European Union and that the European Union imposes its will on people rather than provide them with the freedom to choose.

from Guerrera Films on Vimeo.

Although mentioned briefly London has failed rural England. Mines closing down and jobs disappearing is one thing. To have poverty and the sense of hopelessness continue for generations is harder to understand. What about education and regeneration projects?

Parts of the city region experience skills shortages, particularly in key growth sectors and clusters. There are also significant problems of low basic skills levels, which are quite acute within some disadvantaged communities. In parts of the city region, educational performance remains lower than the national average. The city region’s labour market functions below its optimum. It has a higher than average level of worklessness, especially in inner urban and isolated rural areas. Source

If there are skills shortages then couldn’t the local community provide those who are unemployed with vocational training to learn the skills that are required? We see the same problem in Spain. There is unemployment but the source is an educational system that has not kept up with the job market. 
“It’s a paradox,” said Valentin Bote, head of research in Spain at Randstad, a recruitment agency. “The unemployment rate is too high. Yet we’re seeing some tension in the labor market because unemployed people don’t have the skills employers demand.” source. 

 

Caretaker Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the front-runner to lead the next government after posting gains in Sunday’s election, has pledged to add half a million jobs a year, but his campaign focused on posts for the legions of unemployed, rather than producing skilled workers to power the economy. Rajoy’s opponents say his policy of driving down wages and stripping back job protection has mainly created poorly-paid low-skill posts. source

We see that as certain jobs go to where labour is cheaper people are saying “But I want to keep doing my old job.” The European Union allows people to migrate to do the job they want to do. They could move to France, Germany or other countries. Instead they stay home and express nostalgia. Their attitude if they want to stay in England should be “Well, if you take away my current job then train me to do a higher skilled job.” England has a diversity of vocational training schemes at numerous levels, from BTEC to foundation degrees and more. There is no reason not to upskill when there is a shortage of work.

At a European level, Doncaster is part of the Yorkshire and the Humber (European Parliament constituency) constituency and is represented by six MEPs.(source) 

The European constituency of Yorkshire and the Humber is coterminous with the English region. After the European Parliament election in May 2014, Yorkshire and the Humber is represented by three UK Independence Party two Labour and one Conservative MEPs. (source)

Until 2011 Yorkshire Forward was the Regional Development Agency charged with improving the Yorkshire and Humber economy, where some 270,000 businesses contribute to an economy worth in excess of £80 billion. With over 5 million people living in the region it ranks alongside some small countries including Ireland, Greece, Norway and Singapore. Source

According to the Leeds City Region wikipedia page a diversity of jobs are available in a range of professions:

Economic drivers and innovation

City region growth sectors include

• Financial and business services

• Electronics and optical

• Communications

• Health and public services

Niche clusters are

• Digital and media

• Bioscience and medical research

• Advanced niche manufacturing, including defence

• Logistics and distribution[15]

Six universities in the region produce 40,000 graduates a year. Source

Democracy is about the flow of information and we see that people voted without understanding the situation. Every time a person is asked a question we see that they speak in generalities with very few concrete examples. The strongest point is about the protest and the mine closures. Look at the interview in the library. One person was in favour of remain but he was unable to explain how to affect change at an EU level. These people have six MEPs to represent them in Brussels. These are the people they should have been encouraged to bring their concerns to.

I probably spent an hour researching this blog post. I was surprised by how positive the situation looks. With what seem like minor changes the inequalities currently present in Northern England could be rectified.

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Post-fact Britain

Byrichard

I was in the graduating class of 2000 with 99 other students representing more than one hundred countries. As an individual I already have three nationalities and four identities. I am British, Italian, Polish and a foreigner living near Geneva, Switzerland. As a result of this mixture I said, when I was in Tanzania in 1999 that I was European because that was the simplest way to describe my identity. When I first heard about the Brexit Referendum months ago I thought that this was so stupid that I thought it was not a serious project. It did become a serious thing, especially in a post-fact Britain.

Because these narratives typically involve a selective use of facts and lenient dealings with matters of truth, they have given rise to symptoms of a post-factual democracy. A democracy is in a post-factual state when truth and evidence are replaced by robust narratives, opportune political agendas, and impracticable political promises to maximize voter support. source

For months I saw that The Guardian and other newspapers were heavily critical of the European Union. You couldn’t read an article from their website without getting the feeling that Europe was a terrible place. This bias, this message encouraged me to switch to French language media to get a less biased, less anti-European narrative. The Guardian is relatively open compared to the British tabloid press. The British tabloid press lied and misled its readership. Twice The Sun lied about the Queen supporting Brexit. Twice it suffered no consequences.

It is well known that Murdoch is anti-European. Few men have done more to fuel anti-European frenzy than the Australian-American media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, owner of several newspapers and the UK’s most important private television news channel. In his book How Britain Will Leave Europe, former Minister for Europe Denis MacShane describes how former Prime Minister Tony Blair considered holding a referendum on adopting the euro, only to renounce the plan for fear that the “shadowy figure of Rupert Murdoch” would use his media empire to campaign against it. Source

When you control the media it is easy to push your agenda forward. Conspiracy theories are always about how our privacy is being invaded and about how our phone conversations, e-mails and other communications but few of them address the problems of indoctrination or brainwashing. They rarely look at the message that we are being given on a daily message. We have to ask “What is the root message that we are getting?” In the United Kingdom the root message was “Europe is bad”. Imagine if the BBC, The Guardian and other news sources had provided both sides.

The website notes that as an EU tier 1 area, “companies can benefit from the highest level of grant aid in the UK”. Earlier this year the sports car company TVR announced it would build a factory and create 150 jobs there. Will it still come? Will the Circuit of Wales, a multimillion-pound motor racing circuit a private company has been proposing to build on the town’s outskirts creating 6,000 jobs? Will the £1.8bn of EU cash promised to Wales for projects until 2020 still arrive? source

Imagine if the Fourth Estate in the United Kingdom had been used to provide people with clear examples of how the EU was investing in the UK. Imagine if instead of focusing on getting people to vote Leave the British media had provided a complete and unbiased view of the European Union. Wales voted against the EU and yet this article shows that they had a lot to gain by remaining within the EU. Between 2014–2020, Wales will benefit from around £1.8bn European Structural Funds investment. Source . 

In his first public comments since last week’s historic referendum vote, the owner of newspapers including the Times, Sun and Wall Street Journal said leaving the EU was like a “prison break … we’re out”… Source

There was a period when we could read about the imbalance in wealth and investment between Rural England and London. This imbalance was making people uncomfortable and one of the reasons for which the BBC decided to become decentralised was to address this concern. It is interesting that for a number of months the BREXIT campaign has focused all of that dissatisfaction at the EU rather than London. In a 2010 article by the BBC we find this sentence: But even fans of London admit it is too expensive, too dirty and too crowded. And its critics say that it sucks talent, money and opportunities out of the rest of the country. source. Brexit has not resolved this issue. Could this explain why around 7 percent of the British population have emigrated from Great Britain?

According this this article 4.9 million brits emigrated from the United Kingdom to live as migrants in other countries. This figure is from the UN population division. In theory I am British migrant as I live outside the United Kingdom. Brexiters (I will not play their game and call them brexiteers) made such a big song and dance about migrants coming to the UK and yet  British people are the single most mobile population in Europe. In Switzerland you can’t go a day without meeting Brits. Can you imagine the backlash if Europe decided to behave like England did?

I believe that people spent so much time worrying about privacy that they forgot to think about the prominent message in the media. They were groomed to see Europe in a negative light and voted accordingly. By choosing to provide people with the message that they wanted to hear the Leave campaign won. In a Post-fact Britain the checks and balances to hold brexiters to account failed. A campaign was won on lies and instability has resulted. The silver lining for other nations is that pro-european sentiment has risen. They have seen what a farce anti-European movements are.

 

Google Local Guides and I
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Google Local Guides and I

Byrichard

Google Local Guides and I are mutually beneficial. I love to go up to the mountains and document their beauty and Google Local Guides needs images and reviews. I have been sharing images with Google Services for several years but it Google Local Guides is relatively recent. When I was added to the program they had already included several of my contributions.

The images that you see below are from Via Ferrata and hikes in Switzerland. They show the Leman, the Alps, the Jura and other peaks and valleys. In Summer I am among them every single weekend. Recently I have started to document these trips as 360 photographs which I then share with this service.

My goal is to contribute at least 140 more images because I want to get a terabyte of storage for my pictures, to use as an online backup. As I use an android phone it logs the locations that I have been to and when I get home or to a computer I can review my location history and write a short review of the places as well as add images. This is an easy and intuitive process.

The perks that I am currently entitled to are:
Get noticed with your Local Guides badge in Google Maps.
Connect with other Local Guides in our exclusive Google+ Community.
Lead the conversation by moderating Local Guides community channels.
Receive invites to Google-hosted events in select cities.

For now the community travels internationally but it is principally United States cities that are active with Barcelona, Edinburgh, London, Madrid, Paris and Sydney providing the international side of things.

Some would say that Local Guides will challenge other services offering the same features but as Local Guides offer one terabyte of storage for images I am motivated to contribute a further 140 photographs and reviews as the opportunities come up.

 

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Discussing News on Facebook

Byrichard

Discussing News on Facebook is not as interesting as it is on Google Plus. On Facebook publishers and friends tend to share and promote clickbait rather than articles that they have actively looked for and read. Google+ in contrast is a place where people surf the web reading news stories and when they find a good one, link to and share it. For this reason I go to Google+ for news and current affairs if I go to a news aggregator rather than Facebook.

The technical change this time around is that Facebook will favor links shared by your friends and family over links that publishers place directly into the News Feed through their pages. source

The language used is interesting, “favor links shared by your friends and family”, there is no mention of original content, there is no mention of photographs. The focus is on news curation rather than personal content. The unique selling point of facebook is not that we share links but that we are a community of friends and family. If we share news and current affairs then there are dozens of alternatives.

It has two priorities, Mosseri says: to inform and to entertain. Source

When I look at a news feed and when I read headlines I want to be informed and educated. Entertainment is not key for my news consumption habit. I do not want to be told how to feel or how it will change my life. After years of Facebook use I see the social network as superficial. It failed to encourage the right user behaviour.

In many cases, their feeds have been overrun by posts from pages and publishers they follow, some of which post as often as 200 times a day. They may click on and like those posts, but ultimately they don’t want posts from their friends crowded out by all that professionally produced content. Source

That I am blogging about these articles rather than simply sharing them to Facebook shows that the sense of community that helped Facebook grow and thrive over the years has been undone by years of prioritising the wrong content. That decline started with farmville a few years ago and culminated a few weeks ago with me reverting to this blog.

I took a break from writing this post to look at how many personal posts I could see and the answer is very few. Facebook has already damaged the personal relationship that people have with it. People now use it passively, liking and sharing links rather than conversing.

Facebook is no longer the conversational social network that it once was. People have lost the habit of conversing with their friends and Facebook is doing what it can to re-engage an audience that has already found other distractions. With a hot story like BREXIT you can be certain that I wanted to discuss it. Google+ has been an interesting place for these conversations.

 

Via Ferrata with Climbing Shoes
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Via Ferrata with Climbing Shoes

Byrichard


Today I tried a Via Ferrata with Climbing shoes. With a group we went to the Moléson which you see in the picture below. This mountain stands in the middle and has fantastic views on to Neuchatel, the Lac Leman, Bulle and more. The drawback is that this mountain is often in cloud due to its location and height.

If you’re still reading despite the mention of clouds then you will see that this is an enjoyable place to visit. It is located in Gruyère, known for its cheeses and the Giger Museum. I don’t think I have visited either of the two latter options. Climbing is more fun.

Today was different. I took the blue easy route and I wore climbing shoes rather than normal shoes because I wanted to see whether the experience was pleasant. At first it was worthless to have these shoes on because of the mud and humidity. They did become more fun as we climbed. The person in front of me was a novice at Via Ferrata so she was fighting for the courage to move onwards and upwards. This gave me plenty of time to get as much contact with the rock as possible. I focused on using the natural rock as foot holds as much as possible and I even tried to use the rock as hand holds. My reservation about safety meant that I did not want to fall with via ferrata gear.

The rock on this via ferrata is perfectly adapted to rock climbing shoes when it is drier. The rock is friable and this provides justification for climbing shoes. Rather than two or three foot holds that you can use with hiking boots (which I usually use) I used slivers and cracks of rocks. I tried not to “felix the cat” too often. That is a term a climbing instructor used South of the Alps when I took climbing lessons and as I like the term I share it.

I have been practicing via ferrata for five years now and I have explored almost all via ferrata within a two hour drive multiple times. As a result I know that I can do them and I know what to expect. This means that I can be generous and climb last. I can help novices and beginners experience the sport for the first time and through experiments such as climbing shoes on a via ferrata I keep myself entertained. Leukerbad and other such via ferrata would be interesting with climbing shoes because of the rock type. They are not essential and I did this out of good humour. I was perfectly happy using hiking boots for the first five years.

And now for desert, a view from the top.

[vrview img=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/molesontop.jpg” pimg=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/molesontop.jpg” width=”500″ height=”400″ ]

360 photos of Via Ferrata
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360 photos of Via Ferrata

Byrichard

Yesterday I was up above Leysin climbing the Tour D’Aï via Ferrata. It was an opportunity for me to take 360 photos of Via Ferrata. The beauty of panoramic pictures is that they provide you 360° of vision both vertically and horizontally. It means that you can get a sense of size and scale. You can look at the person exploring the via ferrata and how precarious their situation is as easily as you can admire the beauty of the landscape.

[vrview img=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/R0011307_20160701130638.jpg” pimg=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/R0011307_20160701130638.jpg” width=”500″ height=”400″ ]

Another great aspect to 360° photos is that you can show specific bits of via ferrata and show where the challenging bits are. “Here is where the via ferrata is overhanging” so that you can assess whether you have the strength and courage to try that section or “Here is how high up you are” and so you get a sense of whether you would be paralysed with fear or enjoy yourself.

[vrview img=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/R0011321_20160701133926.jpg” pimg=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/R0011321_20160701133926.jpg” width=”500″ height=”400″ ]

Most via ferrata are like the one that you see in these images. You have what I call staples, pedals and occasionally direct contact with the rocks. In other places you have spikes or you have to pull yourself up along the cable. With these images you see how well equipped the via ferrata is and you are not going in to the unknown. This is good when taking less experienced people.

A side effect of 360 pictures is that you capture a self portrait of yourself in situ over and over again. It is by nature of the medium rather than desire.