Image & Word: Travel

The man who fell 12,000 ft ... and survived | the Mail on Sunday

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:55:32 GMT

One very lucky guy, the video from the UK's Mail is pretty amazing. Dam : )

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The man who fell 12,000 ft ... and survived

Visit www.mailonsunday.co.uk/skydiver from midnight on Monday to watch the incredible world exclusive footage

By STEPHEN D'ANTAL - More by this author » Last updated at 00:02am on 13th February 2007
Comments (2)

Top: Freefalling. Middle: Crash landing. Below : Michael Holmes with girlfriend
It's the most gut-wrenching, mesmerising and shocking clip of video footage imaginable.
Shot from the tiny camera in the helmet of champion skydiver Michael Holmes, it records with chilling clarity what happened when he plummeted 12,000ft to earth.
• World exclusive skydiver video... watch the incredible footage here!

There is the moment when he tugs his ripcord and discovers his parachute won't open. There are the frantic efforts to release it, made as he spins so fast that movement is almost impossible.
• Gallery: Click here for more amazing pictures of Michael's 12,000ft plummet

There is his attempt to release his reserve parachute - and the horror as he realises that, too, has become entangled above him.
Just 550ft above the ground, he waves goodbye to the world and screams a last message into the camera's microphone, resigned to a horrific death. Moments later comes the sound of the sickening impact - and then blackness.

Source: The man who fell 12,000 ft ... and survived | the Mail on Sunday

NPR : Ancient Village Lifts Some of Stonehenge's Mystery

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:15:56 GMT

Many folks know that I love hanging out at Stonehenge and I try and get there as often as I can when I'm in England. A couple of early proof's of shots here and here that actually made an exhibition that I had last year. Today I was listening to NPR and there was an interesting radio expeditions show on some recent discovery of an old village that it believed to be where folks that built this impressive site lived. Details below, thanks to KUOW's NPR site.

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Radio Expeditions
Ancient Village Lifts Some of Stonehenge's Mystery

by Rob Gifford

View Gallery
Chris Steele Perkins/Magnum for National Geographic
Archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and his team have detected a valley full of houses, dating to 2,600 - 2,500 B.C. Pearson believes that the people who lived in the Durrington Walls houses were responsible for building Stonehenge.

Adam Stanford/Aerial-Cam for National Geographic
Archaeologists' trenches reveal clay floors of Neolithic houses at Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge.

Enlarge
Map showing the location of Durrington Walls and Stonehenge in England's Salisbury Plain. National Geographic
Day to Day, January 30, 2007 · One of the most enduring and mysterious monuments in the British Isles is Stonehenge, a circle of some 30 huge stones located 100 miles southwest of London.
Until recently, very little was known about the site, except that it was built about 4,500 years ago, at the time of the Egyptian pyramids. Now, new evidence has made Stonehenge's origins much clearer. Funded by the National Geographic Society, archaeologists have uncovered a nearby ancient settlement that once housed hundreds of people — possibly the builders of Stonehenge.
The houses date to 2,600 - 2,500 B.C., the same period Stonehenge was built.
"In what were houses, we have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards," said archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.
The excavations lend support to a theory that Stonehenge was part of a much larger religious complex used for funerary ritual, including a similar nearby circle, or "henge," called Durrington Walls.
Durrington Walls, the world's largest known henge, consists of concentric rings of huge timber posts, with a bank outside and a ditch inside the rings. An avenue from Durrington Walls leads to a cliff over a river.
"My guess is that they were throwing ashes, human bones and perhaps even whole bodies into the water, a practice seen in other river settings," Pearson said.

Source: NPR : Ancient Village Lifts Some of Stonehenge's Mystery

Technorati tags: NPR, KUOW, Stonehenge, England

Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living - New York Times

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:32:48 GMT

Simply an amazing story, uplifting and sad at the same time from Joe Sharkey, one of the survivors of the accident that occurred at 37,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest. The intro and full text link below.

Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living

Associated Press
The wing and tail of the Embraer Legacy 600 were damaged in what seems to have been a collision with a Boeing 737 in Brazil on Friday.
By JOE SHARKEY
Published: October 3, 2006
SÃO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, Oct. 1 — It had been an uneventful, comfortable flight.

With the window shade drawn, I was relaxing in my leather seat aboard a $25 million corporate jet that was flying 37,000 feet above the vast Amazon rainforest. The 7 of us on board the 13-passenger jet were keeping to ourselves.
Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines.
And then the three words I will never forget. “We’ve been hit,” said Henry Yandle, a fellow passenger standing in the aisle near the cockpit of the Embraer Legacy 600 jet.

Full story and Source: Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living - New York Times

Technorati tags: Travel, Airplane crash, Amazon rainforest

Seattle images merged with maps

Wed, 24 May 2006 07:48:36 GMT

This evening I started to experiment with a new mapping feature and started to create ‘collections’ of various locations that get overlaid on top of maps. Within these collections you have the ability to embed photo URLs and descriptions and attach them to locations that you select. To start I created a Seattle collection and have embedded a few images now and will expand this overtime with either old images or new ones. It’s a pretty interesting overlay on top of maps although could be easier to use. Details below.

My Windows Live Local collection

A small collection of images of Seattle by Phil Holden. Taken over many years these images allow a sneak peak of Seattle by a now local resident. Many of these were taken with my cool Lensbaby lens or various regular lens and my Nikon cameras. All images and musings are copyrighted by Phil Holden ©. Please visit www.phili-photo.com for further images and writings.

Weathervanes

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:14:31 GMT

This morning I was listening to KUOW, our local NPR radio station here in Seattle. There was a very interesting discussion on this morning’s regular Weekend program entitled 'Artist’s Working Aboard'. The premise of the program was all about the inspiration that artists feel when they leave their normal environments and travel, specifically aboard to new cultures that pull them out of their comfort zone’s. As someone that loves to travel, and as noted before typically get more inspiration when I leave Seattle I found the show super interesting.

One of the guests was a gentleman called Don Fels who has been traveling the world, making art about world trade. At one stage in the interview he tried to describe why travel was good for his art, what he said resonated with me. Quoting him with a little paraphrasing got me

“Hard to describe what you get from it (travel) in many ways it’s as simple as just not being here. Artists are in the business of letting their mind being twisted to gain additional ideas and inspiration”. He then goes on to talk about that “in many ways we are like weathervanes, that we are supposed to be up there in the wind being blown around. As soon as you step out of your culture you are venerable to inspiration as you have no idea what is coming. It’s totally invigorating"

I found this pretty interesting and totally related. If you are interested you can listen to the show here http://kuow.org/m3u/weekday-b20060105.m3u

back home

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 01:29:40 GMT

Just getting home from Zambia, via a quick stop off in London town to have dinner with Joel and Amy. Quite the amazing trip, I think my most eventful and interesting in a very long time. After 10 days I shot about 3000 images while in Africa, after deleting what was clearly rubbish I came home with over 1600 images, 30 gig of RAW files that I’m now starting to process. That’s going to take some time I would guess~~

I’ll start posting some of the images tomorrow.

I can't go to Africa right now

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:10:18 GMT

8am flight to Lusaka via JFK and then Johannesburg. Come 1pm we still hadn't left Seattle, totally missing all connections. Call Delta and their next flight they can fly me to Johannesburg leaves Wednesday, not really what I had in mind and would have meant calling the thing off. Travel problems we are all used, but the guy that they call a manager at the gate was so unhelpful and rude. Hey, not our airline buddy! So I guess Delta decided I wasn't going right then.

Called around, called, called and finally get a flight with BA tonight. Not cheap, but maybe it will get me there.

Off to the airport again~

~ quick update, made it as far as London. On the subjects of bad service, T Mobile has seemed to turn off my mobile access again while overseas. Love that ~

back to blighty

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 08:57:31 GMT

Bligh·ty [ bltee ] or bligh·ty [ bltee ]

noun

U.K. Britain: England or Great Britain ( slang dated humorous )

[Early 20th century. < Hindi bilāyatī "foreign, European," originally used by British soldiers in India for "home"]

Today BRF and I are heading to Blighty - often referred to as England. A time for bangers and mash, fish & chips and to relearn the English language. A little driving trip made possible by the fact that I just decided that I best rent a car as we are about to live the US …….onward our travels do go.

Image & Word: Travel

The man who fell 12,000 ft ... and survived | the Mail on Sunday

The man who fell 12,000 ft ... and survived

Visit www.mailonsunday.co.uk/skydiver from midnight on Monday to watch the incredible world exclusive footage