Spirit of Baraka

New websites

2008-08-23T11:28:00.002+01:00

I have created some new websites.

Digital Frame Reviewer - compares and reviews digital photo and picture frames. Included are all of the popular makes and models. This website gets and compares the prices from all of the major suppliers, so that you can easily choose the best digital picture frames, and buy from the cheapest supplier.

Travels

2008-07-03T08:39:00.002+01:00

I have just returned from a 7 month trip through India, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. I have created a travel blog about my trip, with lots of photos and daily blogs.

Many of the photographs were taken by Abby. She specialises in photography in Cornwall, and works freelance. Her passion is for portraits and people, but also loves landscapes and just about anything that can be captured on film or memory card.

Camper van website

2007-11-12T23:36:00.001Z

I thought I'd mention that I have a new website about my travels in my camper van. It has lots of information including how to build your own camper van. The information mainly comes from a 9 month trip I took through France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. There is also information about VW camper vans and hiring a camper van.

On the trip I did climb the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and took a photo of the statue which Ron Fricke shoots in Chronos. I also took photos of Stonehenge in England, and Mon-St-Michel in France. Obviously my photographs don't compare the moving images in the film, but I'll show them anyway.

Stonehenge from Chronos

My Photograph

Notre Dame from Chronos

My photograph

And Mont St Michel from Chronos

and my photograph

Web hosting

2007-07-03T08:48:00.000+01:00

This is great website about the best web hosts. All of the leading web hosts are compared so that you can find the best one for your website. The reviews and feature comparisons are particularly good.

There are pages for the best php hosting, best wordpress hosting and the best drupal hosting.

My other blogs

2007-07-03T08:42:00.002+01:00

I have several other blogs which I generally use for promoting other websites. They are here, here, this one, and on WordPress; this, another, and pampy.

Translation and bookmark links added

2007-06-25T15:22:00.000+01:00

I have added links to the header section of the web pages to allow easy translation of the pages. I have also added links to popular social network and bookmark sites, such as Digg and Google.

Blog

2007-06-15T22:00:00.000+01:00

I have a blog over at blogger.com. I generally use it to promote my websites and to talk about things I have done.

Web site moved to new hosting

2007-05-22T14:37:00.001+01:00

Over the last few years the number of visitors to the website has steadily increased. In-turn the amount of bandwidth used by the website has increased greatly. I have just moved the website to a new hosting package, which is much cheaper than the previous setup, and offers much needed email spam protection.

For those who are interested:
Old hosting company: www.cube-media.com (A UK company who I recommend)
New hosting company: www.discountasp.net (Everything going very well so far)
Bandwidth per month: 30GB.
Page views per day: 6,000
Unique visitors per day: 1,000

Interesting sites

2006-07-03T08:53:00.000+01:00

Here are some interesting websites

Pro Travel Directory - travel listings
Business Directory - business listings
Blog Directory - blogging directory
Ascend Directory and Ascend Directory UK

Lucky People Centre International is available on DVD from Amazon.de

2006-06-05T22:37:00.000+01:00

Lucky People Centre International is available on DVD from Amazon.de
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EQ4420/ref=nosim/spiritofbar04-21/

The quality is great, however the film has permanent German subtitles, which cannot turned off. This is a shame. It would have been much better to add the subtitles using the subtitle feature, rather than overlaying them over the film.

Saw Baraka on a big screen

2006-03-16T20:14:00.000Z

I saw Baraka on a big screen at Falmouth University media centre. Luke Laszczak emailed me a few days ago letting me know about the showing. Tash and I went down and watched the film. It was the first time I had seen Baraka on a big screen. Luke and Neil, the head of the film society, are keen to show more films, and I hope to be involved.

Trying to find Lucky People Centre International on VHS or DVD

2006-03-01T21:36:00.000Z

I am trying to find Lucky People Centre International on DVD or VHS. I like the film which is a montage of clips of cultures, peoples and civilisations from around the world. It's very underground, but I like it a lot. I have contacted the official website and the person listed as the UK distributer, but I've had no reply. If you should know how I can get a copy please let me know.

Fascinating Nature images added

2006-02-02T21:16:00.000Z

I have completed the page for the film Fascinating Nature by Gogol Lobmayr. It's a great film. More of a nonverbal landscape documentary, and less spiritual or moving than the other films featured on the site. I have added image for the film, which are beautiful.

New web site design

2006-01-24T00:47:00.000Z

I was not enjoying the black design of the web site anymore so I have created a new fresher look. I have removed some old film logos, and changes just about all of the colours. I have improved the slide show by adding thumbnails for the next and previous image buttons. I've also changed the colours of the forums and the blog to match.

More Google

2006-01-24T00:46:00.000Z

Google has indexed over 17,000 pages now. I expect this to increase the sites position in search engine results which will lead to more visitors. I'm interested to see what changes that will bring to the site.

Slide show change has worked

2006-01-20T08:33:00.000Z

The change I have made to get Google to index the slide show pages has worked. Google reports over 500 pages in its index today, rather than 270 from yesterday. Ultimately I think there are 3,000 + pages, so hopefully Google will index them all eventually. Well, all of those with a description, which most of them now.

Website colours

2006-01-17T15:10:00.000Z

The website has had a black colour scheme since it was first created. This is because the images from the films look better on a black background. However for some time I have wondered if the black puts people off? I think it probably does. After reading this article on the BBC web site I am tempted to change the colour scheme.
Ultimately I want this site as a Drupal powered site. Drupal is a CMS that I have used to create other websites. It is very powerful and allows many features such as forums and polls to be used with very little configuration. I had decided recently to not make any more functionality or structure changes to this web site, instead I would move to Drupal. However I may now change the colour scheme.

Slideshow

2006-01-13T16:53:00.000Z

I've changed the way the slideshow of each films images works. Google doesn't index these pages, which is quite annoying. Hopefully the change will allow Google to index these pages and increase the sites results in search engines, so that more people can be aware of these films.

Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldworthy & Thomas Riedelsheimer

2006-01-06T12:30:00.000Z

I have a copy of Rivers and Tides by Andy Goldworthy & Thomas Riedelsheimer. This film has landscape images, but seems to have a plot and actors. I'll take a better look and post info here.

Fata Morgana by Werner Herzog

2006-01-06T12:28:00.000Z

I have received a rental DVD of Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana. This film has good images of desert landscapes, and is some 10 years older than Koyaanisqatsi. The content is limited though, and does contain dialog. I will take a more in depth look and write more on this blog.

Man With a Movie Camera

2006-01-06T12:26:00.000Z

I have received a rental DVD of Man With a Movie Camera. This film uses techniques found in the nonverbal films, but this film was made in 1929. I will take a look and give more details in the blog.

History of nonverbal films

2005-12-29T11:22:00.000Z

I have added a history of nonverbal films to the website. This page shows the progress of the films and genre since Koyaanisqatsi was first devised in 1972.
This page will be updated as the genre and website grow.

Koyaanisqatsi extras

2005-12-28T19:17:00.000Z

I watched the extras on the Koyaanisqatsi DVD last night. I have decided to add information from these extras as articles on the web site. I believe people will find this information very interesting. It will help to add extra information about each film.

Godfrey Reggio's comments about Ron Fricke and Philip Glass being essential to the creation of Koyaanisqatsi are very interesting. I knew Ron Fricke provided much of the cinematography for Koyaanisqatsi, but it seems that Ron Fricke contributed more than I had thought.

Winged Migration shown on British television

2005-12-28T13:19:00.000Z

I was surprised and delighted to notice that Winged Migration was shown on British television on 27th December 2005. It was shown on a satellite or digital channel (UKTV History I think). Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi have been shown in the past, but only on a few occasions. I am British and live in Cornwall in England. Until recently we have had only a limited choice of TV channels. The introduction of satellite and digital channels has generated many new channels, which are able to show more underground films such as Winged Migration.

I noticed it was on, but was watching television with my house mate. I switched to the channel whilst checking what was on the other channels. I didn't expect my house mate to be very interested in the film. But whilst I was checking the schedules on the other channels my house mate explained 'that filming is crazy' referring to a shot of the camera actually flying amongst the birds, in a near impossible fashion. I explained that the film was one on this website. We watched the film until the end. That was a bit of a treat for me. All of my close friends know about my passion for these films, and most have seen Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi, as these are the most accessible. However only a few friends, who are keen fans of the genre (Al and Tash), have seen the others. Most people would find watching the more specialist films, such as Winged Migration strange.

Hopefully these films will be shown more on television, allowing more people to view them. Winged Migration is a great film.

Images from Atlantis

2005-12-23T16:35:00.000Z

I have added images from the film Atlantis. The images do not give a fair representation of the scenes from the film, but sadly there is not much I can do to help that. Hopefully they images will help to inform people of the film Atlantis.