This is a short video I made my with Canon Powershot G9. The funny thing is that I hadn’t really planned on making this… I was actually working on another documentary, using other cameras, and just had this along to take photos. While the director of the documentary was reviewing his footage and planning his storyline, I looked back at all of the photos and footage from my G9 and just tried to see what would happen if I put every photo/video in the timeline in the exact order as I had shot them. I was really just killing time and trying to show my director some simple editing tricks. It was an impromptu experiment that turned into a fun project.

Just finished my first day of 2008 and feel pretty good about where things (and people) are going. The day started out with my brother leaving for a nine month journey around the world across four continents… no further detail needed. I’m hoping to meet him in Ghana… It was inspiring, to say the least.

I finished phase 1 of revolutionthevideo.com, screened the video at a Kwanzaa celebration, and gave away 4 more copies of the DVD.

We watched the video once, and then some of the 40+ folks asked if we could play it again so they could take it all in. It was great to discuss my new video with an entire family and their close friends (we hit the age 6-60 range again)… especially since I hadn’t met any of them before. My family only “did” Kwanzaa a handful of times growing up, so it was refreshing to see how the event allowed me to fit in with an entire of family… a family of someone I first met while shooting that video… and I’m invited back for next year. It’s great when your creations can build relationships. Inspiration #2
I expect this year to combine both of those inspirations and allow me to travel even more via my creativity. I’ll stayed focus on that and make sure I have a good travel story at next year’s Imani celebration.

We just finished a great first weekend in London.

We landed on Friday, and since then have gone to a concert, eaten a traditional English breakfast, ridden a double decker bus, attempted a pub crawl, walked along the River Thames, walked around on a rainy afternoon, taken pictures of the Houses of Parliament, stuffed ourselves with chips, visited Buckingham palace, heard the English opinion of San Francisco, visited the Tate Modern, and had a big Indian dinner with 8 Californians.

Needless to say, there’s a lot going on here.

We’ve spent most of our time trying to stay warm and navigate the British pound (save money). Navigating the city itself isn’t all too difficult. There’s no language barrier, and it feels a lot like Philadelphia. I’m finding that this place is strangely familiar… I’ve never been here before, and don’t know much about this place, but the culture schock is less than underwhelming. We’re going to spend the next few days exploring the less touristy places and finding local artists.

 

We set out yesterday to seethe Forbidden City, China’s former Imperial Palace.

We decided to takethe subway for the firsttime, which seemed to be a smaller representation of all of China; busy and crowded. It was nice though to be mixed in with a dense crowd of natives instead of riding around in cabs by ourselves.

The Imperial palace was located directly across the street from Tienamen Square. The entrance to the ForbiddenCity, The Gate To Heavenly Peace, was also a vast open space , so combined with Tienamen Square, it created an overwhelmingly open area in this densely populated city. 

After taking some pictures in front of the gate and the large portrait of Mao Zedong, we crossed the moat and headed towards the towering temples of the Forbidden City. Once we were inside, I started to get a better understanding of the power and influences that the emperors must have had… This place was huge, and incredibly pristine! Again, you have to wonder what it must have been like without all of the tourists.

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