Category Archives: Photos

Iconic Saguaro

Saguaro with the iconic arms

This was one of my better shots of the iconic two armed Saguaro. Turns out taking a photo that doesn’t involve lots of scrubs is extremely difficult.

Saguaro National Park

Spent a couple of days in Tucson Arizona over the holiday as part of a road trip. Which provided an opportunity to briefly explore the two Saguaro National Parks (west and east).

Saguaro National Park West, Tucson, AZ

Saguaro is pronounced “sah-WAH-row” and is native to southern Arizona, a small section of California, and the Mexican state of Sonora.

Many colours of the South Bay

South Bay of Silicon Valley in California consists of all sorts of strange and weird colours. Which are especially noticeable from the air when landing at SFO.

baylands

There’s one area in particular besides the Palo Alto airport that is crimson red.

baylands_plants

Turns out that this area is a salt marsh known as The Baylands. Where Pickleweed gives the area its red-ish colour.

Cypress mountain

A friend was extremely generous and took me on a whirlwind tour of Vancouver over the weekend. First stop was Cypress mountain. Which had just opened for the skiing season.

Cypress mountain, Vancouver, BC Canada

It was somewhat cold…

Winchester Mystery House

Finally got around to having a look through the Winchester Mystery House. A four storey mansion that was under constant construction (24 hours a day) for 38 years. Located in San Jose, California.

winchester_mystery_house_picture
Winchester Mystery House in the Winchester Mystery House

Much much more commercialised than I had expected. I was envisioning an old mansion that you could walk around like a museum with the occasional tour going through. That was immediately dismissed when I passed through the main entrance and found myself in the gift shop. It’s still an old mansion, but the tours are compulsory and appeared to leave every ten minutes or so. Which is just as well as you would potentially miss out on a lot of the history and strange architecture.

Stairs go down, stairs go up
Stairs go down. Oh wait, let's make that up

Definitely a place to check out if you are in the San Jose area.

Wit Licht in the Netherlands

Just spent the last two weeks in the Netherlands helping with the Marco Borsato Wit Licht concert (If you haven’t heard of him I wouldn’t worry – you’re not Dutch).

Marco Borsato - Wit Licht
Marco Borsato - Wit Licht

All of the concerts (eight in all) are being held in a stadium typically used for soccer matches. It took over a hundred people a weeks worth of rigging to get show ready. Lights, smoke, projectors, large semi-transparent LED screen, lasers, and a stage full of LEDs.

My job was to make that stage go.

Behind the curtain - Inside the stage
Behind the curtain - Inside the stage

Each section of the stage is perforated with a large number of equally spaced holes containing Helix P1 pixels. Each pixel consists of a single tri-colour LED and is individually addressable. This means that half way through the show the stage can come alive with colour and display full motion video.

Helix P1
Helix P1 pixel

I’m thinking Christmas trees with full motion video…