I have just finished watching 'Bruce Springsteen: The Promise' in it's entirety on DVD and I have to say it is a phenomenal movie. I was absolutely captivated by the story behind last years 'The Promise' album which has found itself a near permanent position on my playlist.

Even though I consider myself a Springsteen fan I had no real knowledge of the story behind this period of his journey - the 'Darkness On The Edge of Town' era.

It is an amazing story of belief, hope, persistence, redemption and ultimate brilliance which intertwines original studio footage with revealing interviews with Springsteen and other members of the band from today.

Of course another aspect of 'The Promise' for me was the brilliant photography which accompanies the film and album - all of which was taken back in the period. The movie covers how some of the images came into being including the photo shoot that was to produce the album cover for Darkness On The Edge of Town.

If you are in search of inspiration and a musical journey back to a time when everything was literally on the line for this band then I certantly recommed seeing this film - amazing stuff.

                            Photo: Nick Risinger

This is an extraordionary photograph made up of over 37,000 exposures stitched together to create the entire night sky in one image - a 360-degree view of the Milky Way, Planets and stars in our Solar System.

Behind the image there is also the extraordionary story in the AP release of the passion, determination and sheer hard work required by Nick Risinger to capture the image. It is a great story which can be found HERE. 

Also there is a dedicated website for the image which is HERE which features further details on it's creation and the ability to zoom right in for a good look etc

                               Photo: U2.com

This is a really cool image taken at a recent U2 concert in Cape Town where most of the 95,000 fans were captured on an incredible 5 billion pixel camera. Use the controls at the bottom to zoom right in - or around the stadium.

A nice touch is the ability for those in the crowd to identify and then tag themselves.

Very cool and gets me thinking how one of these cameras would work in the field...

Link to the site HERE

It is difficult to know what to say about the colossal events that have unfolded so far and are continuing to develop in Japan.

I had almost completed a blog on the imagery captured by the Space Shuttle Discovery on it's final voyage that ended suscessfully last week. That can wait for another day.

Instead here is a link courtesy of the Washington Post to Satellite imagery of Japan before and after the earthquake and tsunami - revealing the scale of sheer devestation across the country.

Ten years ago the final touches were being put to the very first Richard Hume website which went live in early April 2001. I thought it a good time to have a little look back over the sites evolution and realised in doing so it maps this particular period of the Internets evolution too.

Although a fairly simple HTML site it was actually pretty cool with some great innovations for the time. It was launched around the world on a relatively early wave of this new explosion that was going on called the Internet. Back in 2001 we were not long out of the ‘Ask Jeeves’ era and the enormity of Google and social media were not yet in the mix.

There wasn’t quite the ‘array of offerings’ for very high end photography that is around on the Internet today either. Certainly in the Landscape Photographer arena there were the likes of Ken Duncan, Peter Lik, Ric Steininger, Andris Apse etc. Having long admired each of these photographers works I was pleased to join them on the Internet specialising in what has become known as Fine Art Photography (representing the very finest in all aspects of photography).

It has been interesting for me to note that many of the design decisions and features that went into the very first site and subsequent versions through enhancements and upgrades have remained present and consistent through to today’s site.

Those features include but are not limited to:

Black Site/Background - Nothing like a black background to showcase photographs I have always thought, so the site has always been black

Logo - Top left for natural eye flow and both single and tiered

Front-page - Always featured large panoramic's and thumbnails below and information

Framing/Matt Board and Ecommerce Interchange - Although quite common in sites today this was quite 'advanced' back in the early 2000's

Visual Stories (image explanations) - Very few photographers would tell the viewer anything about the image back in 2001. It was easy for me to decide that I wanted to allow for explanations of the images

Fine Art Photography - From the very first site the purpose has been the same as it is today - as a showcase for Fine Art Photography

There were from my recollection approximately five ‘major’ new site/releases as technologies, platforms, capacity, possibilities, marketing etc have all developed getting us to the Internet presence of today.

The Internet itself has of course become a really exciting space with the advent of blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc all of which were figments in the imaginations of those who created them back in 2001.

It has been an exciting first ten years of richardhume.com and I look forward to the nest ten and wonder curiously where the Internet will develop to also.

Lookout next month as the actual anniversary rolls around as we are loking at some unique ways to mark the first decade. 

Photo NZHerald - Photo taken from hills above Christrchurch in moments after earthquake strikes

At 12.51 pm on Tuesday of this week as people were going about their normal lives - as Cafe's bristled with the lunchtime crowds and as streets and workplaces were full - Christchurch was struck by a violent and devestating earthquake.

Slowly throughout the afternoon and evening a small sense of the gravity of the situation started to dawn on us. The nation watched throughout Tuesday night the images on television and the Internet, and slowly the realisation dawned on us that something similar to what we are used to seeing in far-away countries was this time happening to the city and people of Christchurch.

An image that remains in my mind is of the rescue efforts by ordionary Kiwi's in the immediate aftermath of the quake - there are many hero's and amazing stories of courage and bravery by 'ordionary' people. As the evening went on it became clear that many of the Emergency Services people working to help free survivors were themselves effected with lost homes and unknown whereabouts of family and friends. I think someone once said something like 'Extradionary measures call for extradionary people' and I think they were right.

As I write this on Sunday evening the death toll continues to climb with 146 people conformed dead and more than 200 missing. The enormity of this loss of life is just so tragic and words are simply inadequate. I send my heartfelt thoughts to all those who have lost a loved one and those affected by this tragedy.

As the days have passed some truly inspiring stories have filtered through of bravery and heroism beyond normal imagination and we are reminded that the human spirit is strong. Indeed we have seen the very best of humanity displayed before us as the people of Christchurch and New Zealand as awhole have displayed untold examples of willingness to help and comfort our fellow Kiwi's at this time.

Unfortunately a small minority have also displayed the worst aspects of humanity as there have also been lootings, burglaries and people who have purposely wasted authorities time etc

But back to the positive - a website has been set up for the benefit of Christchurch citizens who want to escape the city for a while - it will match those people with the many thousands of people wanting to open their homes across New Zealand. The site is www.quakeescape.org.nz

In terms of what we can do here's the link to donate to the New Zealand Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal: http://www.redcross.org.nz/donate

This is not only a New Zealand disaster but an international one also with people lost from many countries around the world. For example within the CTV building which completely collapsed there was an English teaching school where many international students were attending class when the quake struck.

The response has been international too with dedicated and very welcome specialist search and recovery teams being sent from Australia, USA, UK, Japan, China, Taiwan, Mexico, Singapore etc

There may be a future post on this disaster perhaps looking at this earthquake from the perspective of the heritage that has also been lost - the loss of history is untold and very tragic as can be seen from the before and after photo's of the Christchurch Cathedrial which in many ways represents the heart of this fine city.

Photo's courtesy of the NZ herald

For those unaware it is important to understand that Christchurch was actually struck by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake about five months ago on September 4 2010 at approximately 4am in the morning. Increadibly there was no loss of life which was certantly due to the hour in which it struck. Since then Christchurch has suffered countless aftershocks leading to this weeks mammoth quake.

I want to finish this post with a poem written by entertainer Gary McCormack who penned it after being thrown off his feet when the earthquake struck.

Hat-tip to the New Zealand Herald who reported:

"McCormack was standing outside the More FM building when the 6.3 magnitude quake struck and says he realised the seriousness of it immediately.

"My poem really is a about anger, because I'm still really cross about the whole thing," he said. "I'm cross at no-one in particular; I'm sort of cross at how these things have happened. "So I did white something. Over the last couple of days when I picked myself off the ground in Christchurh the other day and looked around and saw the absolute pandemonium and the misery and destruction."

What the drummer said to the drum

You miserable low life bastard

We saw you on the fourth of September calling into town on your spineless spine, giving us a flick and looking us over.

It was an earthquake then for the yellow pages. Remember the tourch, the bottles of water.

In September you were just the piano player, tinkling the ivories. In moustache. Pretty out there. Eyeing the women on the dancefloor.

Then my o my you waited!

I saw you the other day run up a blind alley full of hatred and dark breath. Black clouds only pity us.

You held us down on the jagged ground. You shook the strfeets and the city buildings. You tore the spire from the cathedrial.

And all those people.

The tourists taking photographs, the babies taken in pairs, the hikers in the hills.

The ones buried beneath us still.

You miserable bastartd of a thing!

The time has come.

Said the drummer to the drum.

When i can make no sense of it.

Music is the latest book by American photographer Andrew Zuckerman and in a number of ways it is quite special.

First and foremost it is a superbly produced coffee table format, photographic portrayal of a vast array of musicians from around the world. Being someone that loves music I was naturally drawn to the simple yet gripping imagery.

I was interested in there being a selection of New Zealand musicians including Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn and Bic Runga as well as a vast collection internationally including Mark Knopfler, Ziggy Marley, Kenny Rogers and even Ravi Shankar.

Towards the back of the book there is a thumbnail section showing many of the studio sessions capturing the images.

However the other special quality of this book is the brilliant fusion of technology and the realisation that Music is probably a very good indication of what photography books may be like in the future. In essence Music also has an application for the iPad, while also being an audio-book and a video-book.

Full details on that side of the book can be found HERE

Further information on the book can be found HERE

Mostly for me however this is a beautifully photographed and produced book of many of the great musicians of today.

I am always keen at this time of year to look back on some of the images that have formed the backdrop to the last twelve months.

I always find images associated with stories or events that i had forgotten about or that i had missed and usually there are a few surprises too.

This year i have taken particular note of TIME magazines 'The best photo's from 2010'. I definately recommend having a look through this collection of thought provoking and often startling images. The link is HERE

Also of note is the Associated Press's collection of best photo's of 2010. Again there are some excellent images which will move and startle you. A link to their collection is HERE

I will take this opportunity to wish you all the best for 2011.

Definitely ranking high on my ‘dream list’ of photographic assignments would be the opportunity to travel to Antarctica and especially have access to photographic the historic huts left by Shackelton and Scott.

So while this remains on my bucket list for now I was delighted to see the release of a wonderful book by Auckland photographer Jane Ussher – Still Life. This is a beautiful book and weighty in it’s presence at 224 pages of glorious images from the frozen continent.

Still Life is made up wonderful images however it is the ones of the interiors of Scott’s and Shackelton’s huts that I truly find memorizing. If you have the opportunity do check out this book.

There is a delightful slideshow of some of the images HERE as well as details of the book HERE.