Advertising Fail – Say NO to Canary Islands

No matter what where you fall on climate change issues, it’s an undeniable truth that polar bears are not surviving the loss of their sea ice habitat. A fact I’m reminded of each time I see this ill-conceived image – so far, one billboard plus these London Underground platform posters.

To the creative/s who came up with this marketing campaign – great job. These are the best global warming propaganda posters I’ve seen yet.

Putting Barcelona on the Schmap!

One of my Barcelona photo’s has just been Schmap’d - it shows one of the many lovely buildings in the Gothic Quarter. I was there volunteering at a summit, working on ways to build rabies awareness. Check out info on rabiesfree.org if you’re in/traveling to a rabies endemic area or click to vaccinate a dog in the Philippines. 1 click = 1 dollar = 1 vaccine. Cheers.

Gothic Quarter, Barcelona

Putting New Zealand on the Schmap

Today this wintery morning snap of New Regent Street, (Christchurch, New Zealand) got selected for local mapping by Schmap via my Flickr.

I was here having breakfast with family, having just stepped off the plane (Aug 07) and it was one of those perfect Canterbury winter days – crispy cold with warm sunshine and clear blue skies.The sun came out for the whole ten days I stayed. When I got back to the London ‘07 late summer there was no sun to be seen…. 

(Disclaimer: Christchurch, NZ  is not always sunny – but it was that year, and London, UK can get very warm and humid over summer. Just not that one!)

Sketchbook Food….

It’s cold here in London so I’m consoling myself with vast quantities of coffee and some lebkuchen I brought back from Munich. I drew a bit of the local food; here’s some chocolate covered gingerbread, (lebkuchen mitt schokolade… I think) and a pretzel.

Fairy Tales and Nightmares

Over Christmas I spent a few days in Munich doing some visual research for my MA. I was lucky enough to get down to Schloss Neuschwanstein (Ludwig’s fairy tale castle) and also went to the medieval town of Dachau. It was closed for holidays, but the Concentration Camp Memorial site remained open. It was cold and bleak. We were full of Christmas breakfast and dressed for the elements, yet it was still freezing.

Dachau was a labour camp for political prisoners in 1933. The blueprint for many other camps, everything happened here in some measure, most notably medical experiments carried out by the SS. That this place remained open for twelve whole years is horrifying. As the war started, and progressed, conditions deteriorated hugely. 

We got the audio tour headsets, but really, there is too much to listen to and read to get through in a day. I flickr’d my photos, which show pretty much what you see around the outside, plus a few peices of artwork and interiors. (On flickr there are a lot of other people’s photos loaded with Photoshop effects, and lots of the bunker and artefacts I didn’t photograph. 

A world apart stands Castle Neuschwanstein, Ludwig’s 19th Century take on medieval times, which includes a faux grotto, complete with running water. No cameras allowed, except to take a few snaps of the view from the castle windows. The incredible fairy tale-like world King Ludwig – the Michael Jackson of his time – is rooted in mythology and fantasy – the castle which influenced Walt Disney’s design for Fantasy Land.

Castles and Concentration camps… world’s apart, yet maybe not so much in the context of fairy tales. Parallels between Hansel & Gretel and the ‘Final Solution’ exist, and the oral tradition of fairy tales originate from hard times. 

My photos are up on flickr along with some snaps of Christmas markets and a few sights around Bavaria and Munich itself.