Growing arts audiences

Maybe we could show this 3-minute advertisement ahead of films in cinemas, and during peak-time commercial breaks on TV.

Surfers’ hymns

Unofficial(?) video created by M ss ng P eces for Panda Bear's lovely song, Surfer's Hymn.

Cheating at smartphone photography

The other day Keren asked me what camera I used to take the photos I put in my first AMA blog post. She was surprised that it was just my phone's camera.

The thing is, you can easily take 'good' photos with a phone, given the right light, a steady hand, and some sneaky photo-editing trickery. It also helps if your phone has a good camera, which is certainly true of the newer Samsungs and iPhones. I was in the market for a new phone and a new camera last year, and decided to combine the two and get a Samsung Galaxy S2, something I haven't regretted (despite having to get it replaced twice, but that's another story.)

So here is the simple process by which I make my phone-taken photos look a bit nicer. I'm sure that professional photographers would quickly figure out that the results are not the product of an expensive camera, but they'll do for day-to-day, low-res web purposes. Let's get faking. The changes made at each step may be a little subtle, but you can click on any of the photos here to see them in greater detail.