Walking Merchandise – Child Trafficking and the Snakehead Trade
An interesting documentary about Human trafficing.
We have seen videos of people slacklining and we have seen videos of people mountainbiking but having a video where we see people slacklining on a bike is less common. This video shows us some beautiful landscapes with cycling somewhere in shot before descending the mountain towards a slackline and crossing. Kenny Belaey managed the feat.
The images are impressive and what makes this edit stand out from others is the way in which we can hear the breathing of the athlete. Those of us who often push ourselves towards our fears are familiar with it. I love the moment when he makes it across and can’t believe it. I’ve had moments where I breathed like that after particularly challenging segments on via ferrata.
He trained for 6-7 months to get the experience and skill required to balance. The making of is interesting. Â The video was shot in La Plagne, France. Spot the drone when he is practicing.
In the near future we will find more and more videos like this, where one extreme sport is combined with another. Pro athletes will have to master more than two sports at a time and so the images will be all the more spectacular. We will see them set up longer slacklines and they will make them longer. It’s about the spectacle. As this variant is in it’s infancy we see the use of safety equipment but in future versions this equipment may be gone.
Sharkwater – A documentary worth watching.
If you have one and a half hours of free time I recommend watching this documentary. It discusses the anti-whaling work by the Sea Shepherd, the work it did to combat long lining around the Galapagos and it touches on the shark finning mafia and corruption.
The documentary also looks at the public perception of sharks. It shows that they are not the dangerous animal that they were thought to be until recent history. The film ends with a shot of the narrator free-diving with sharks and being perfectly relaxed. At one point he says “sharks are so sensitive that they can feel your heart beat, if you are calm they will stay but if you panic they will flee”. I paraphrased his exact words.
Another theme that is explored in this documentary is the food chain. He mentions that plankton absorb a lot of Carbon dioxide and that with the overfishing of sharks the ecological balance will be ruined as the apex predators are lost. He pushes strongly for the conservation of shark numbers. We are familiar with the current Save our Sharks movement.
This is an interesting investigative documentary about the economy surrounding shark finning and why it has a negative impact on the food chain. If the documentary was updated it could look at the economic viability of shark tourism that has grown in recent years. Sharks, in some places are more valuable alive than dead. If you don’t have time to watch the entire documentary then I recommend that you watch the last thirty to fourty minutes.
I see Bouldering as an art form. By watching people climb you see that they have learned to use their bodies as well as the environment to get any mechanical advantage they can find. In some cases it requires the use of a leg wedged in to a space. In other situations it involves hanging upside down and in yet another context it requires leaping and hoping to grab the next hand hold.
The video above demonstrates the beauty of bouldering. It would be easy just to show the three seconds when the person completes the move but to keep the exploration available, to show the trial and error provides us with a deep understanding of just what is required to complete certain moves.
You can watch to see where they place their feet to prepare, how they prepare their legs to provide that boost of energy, how they switch from one hand to the other and how they use limbs to get the required mechanical advantage.
You see people arrive at one hold hanging upside down, let go with their feet, swing their body around and then stabilise that position. Imagine the strength and agility required for those moves. Three minutes in to this video you see a French athlete lean his body against the wall and swing his left arm around and up to grab hold of the next hand hold. They demonstrate great skill and mastery.
When I watch these videos my desire to become as good as them increases and it encourages me to experiment more, to take advantage of the lessons that I am being taught by watching these videos. As a climbing friend says “we are all here teaching each other to climb”. This exchange occurs because we have different levels of skill, adrenaline and body size and shape. Climbing is a collaborative effort.
Autumn is here and the leaves are turning. It is a good opportunity to go out and take video and photographs of trees and their red and brown leaves.
This was shot with the Sony Xperia Z3. Image stabilisation was on. The mobile phone is so light, and the resolution so high that hand held shots are unrealistic. A tripod, monopod or other tool is needed to stabilise the camera. Sony has developed new technology which should help with image stabilisation. I look forward to seeing how stable Sony Xperia Z5 compact footage will be.
Over the past twelve months over 28 gigs of data transfer have occured through 400,000 visitors and one and a half million hits.
There have been 746 downloads of the Paddington station video as I write this. On youtube the same video has only had 30 views. This makes me happy because I see that you can make videos high profile from personal webpages and links added in the right place.