Today I'm not doing a Guest Photographer, but a Guest Video instead!
I've never posted a video before but this one is worth it. A totally gorgeous little doc by Rupert Murray and the Inspired by Iceland group. I think you'll really enjoy the show : )
(Btw, I just noticed that the video isn't loading on my iPad, so if it isn't working for you, just check out the second link, to the Inspired by Iceland site, to watch the video ; )
Skate
The fun started, for me at least, when I googled Ingólfstorg. I got a cool article about the plaza's history (sorry, its in Icelandic, but with lots of b/w photos...and I don't have the time to translate it), its international renown as a skate spot (see here - it's got a funbox!- and here - "NO problem with the police...there is a 8 step stairs, where you can grind the steps, and the steps are a little gap!!") and the fact that 68 submissions have been received by the City for its redesign (unfortunately also only in Icelandic, but you can download - or read in Google Docs - the PDF of the Redesign Competition guidelines.)
Though pretty much everyone agrees that the plaza is a total design failure as far as enticing humans to enjoy it (and other wildlife as well!) I'm sure skaters will be super unhappy to see it turned into something new, because we all know without having to ask that out of those 68 submissions, not one incorporates room for any kind of bling or flair by boarders. I'll go ahead and link this video of some locals doing the torg for posterity's sake, and also so you can hear how well young Icelanders swear in English...they've hardly even got an accent! : )
The winners of the first round of the design competition will be announced next week, on Leap Day, and I, for one, am really interested in seeing the results.
Calm
After the smá útrás, or little bit of venting I did in the last post (and by the way, thank you to all of you who took part in the discussion. I shared your comments around - they were very astute, thought-provoking and much appreciated!) I thought I'd chill things out a bit with a nice, calming view.
This photo is consistently chosen by readers as one of their favorites, and here's the text that accompanied its original posting:
This view is found on the little island of Grótta, just outside of the town of Seltjarnarnes (Seal Pond Point) which is a tight-knit and slightly snobby community at the very tip of the peninsula that Reykjavik sits on. It's a nature reserve and bird sanctuary that is connected to the mainland by a thin spit of land that exposes at low tide. There's a golf course out there, a nature center, old war bunkers and a very wonderful stretch of beach that reminds me of a typical Northern California strand, with cold-water waves crashing against the sands and rocky outcrops. It's a lovely place for a walk, especially as winter fades away and the days lengthen once more.
Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )
Viewpoint
The glamour/adventure construct that our PR men and women have spun in the past decade has paid off in tons more tourism and happily so, because that's where the money lay, right? I don't disagree at all, and find the average visitor to be a polite and friendly type, willing to help the natives see their homeland for all the glory it has to offer via their curiosity and cash. No cynicism intended: the traveler brings with them a new view and if they open their wallets, it's to share some of what they've got in return for local goods and experiences. Win win for sure! I hope we maintain an ethical, eco-friendly bent in the further development of our tourist industry, because that's why people come here, and not to get what they can get in any other Euro city, and probably for less.
Before we start pandering to Others and their dollars, though, we need to take care of our Own. Though a shiny new hotel might lure a thousand more weekenders into the city, it does little for the morale of the local who can barely maintain the roof over her and her children's heads. It may bring in summertime cash and create a few jobs, but it doesn't solve the problem of once-reasonable and seemingly practical student loan debts, taken by people who honestly wanted to better themselves and their society, that have now doubled since the crash with no discussion on the table of doing anything about it. A new hotel might make us feel superficially proud and even rich as a nation but does nothing for that overwhelming deep-seated feeling that we've completely lost our way and are wandering, ethically compromised, into strange unknowns, missing in our cultural hearts something we can't quite seem to name...
We can welcome our visitors with all the stuff and buildings and ads and magazines and luxuries we think they will need and enjoy, but when traveling nothing ever really surpasses a warm and contented smile from a local, does it? Let's not twist the faces of our single, hard-working mothers and ammas and grandfathers and men into hard-scrabble grimaces because they are just barely scraping by. There's a offended,indignant tone, a bitter swallowed anger that is stuck in the throats of so many Icelanders these days for the ever-mounting evidence of swindle, corruption, greed, violence, and social breakdown happening here, on our beloved wonder of an island. There is no glory in suffering, and there is no glory in wealth if it's at the expense of a distant relative, or the woman who scans groceries. At the expense of one's own people, born here or not.
Something has to give.
Moss
Retro-post from February 2010, originally titled Life: Tiny moss in macro ~.~ One of my favorite photos, from the early days of my fascination with macro.
I love how tenacious life is, especially the life we barely see here in colder climes. It's humbling to consider that something as small as this moss, just barely bigger than the snow it's holding, has the power, over time, past seasons and through sheer will of growth, to destroy all that we've constructed.
While humans scramble and fret, love and hate and build and tear down, regret and hope and try to keep faith, this plant lives. It may die in time, but will eventually emerge again in a new set of cells, driven by the same compelling desire to lift and rise and expand downwards as well as towards the sky. It clings and survives, and forces willing, thrives, a simple and beautiful symbol of eternal life.
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