Earth Hour | Beijing | China
Last week I posted the first competition for my blog, based on the recent video that I shot to coincide with Earth Hour here in Beijing. If you missed the video, you can watch it here on Vimeo or YouTube.
The challenge was to find me within the video, walking in front of the camera. Sounds easy huh? Yes, except for the fact the that the video is time-lapse and condenses the whole earth hour into one minute, hence making my two appearances very very brief.
[vimeo width="580" height="300"]http://vimeo.com/10718110[/vimeo]
Earlier this week I released a video titled ‘Earth Hour: In One Minute’, a time-lapse video that captured last month’s Earth Hour at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing. I thought it would be fun to use this video as the basis for the first competition that I have run through the blog. Up for grabs is a half-day (3hours) one-on-one workshop with me here in Beijing. Maybe you’d like to brush up on your editing, your night photography, your photoshop skills, your street photography? No problem. We’ll have 3 hours to target anything you want, FREE.
Okay, so how to win? In my time-lapse video I actually appear twice within the video by walking into the foreground. (I was waiting alone in the cold for an hour doing the video, so I had to entertain myself somehow!) The challenge is to tell me the correct second count at which I appear, both times. To clarify, it’s the second count on the YouTube/Vimeo counter NOT the clock in the bottom-right of the screen you see counting down the Earth Hour. You can watch the clip on either YouTube or Vimeo. They are exactly the same. Continue Reading »
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKS4nUsQMxc[/youtube]
Double click window above to watch up to HD 1080p on YouTube
Last weekend, I was sat at home wondering how I could test out my recently purchased Canon 7D. I had been waiting to get this camera for a while as it has video capabilities and comes at a relatively affordable price, compared to most high-end camcorders. I had seen the quality of videos that the camera could produce and I was keen to get my hands on one and to see what it could do.
I was trying to think up ideas when I stumbled on a news piece about Earth Hour that evening. I am sure you are well aware of the concept, however if you’re not, head here to Earth Hour’s site to get more background info. In a nutshell, Earth Hour is a ‘call to action’ against climate change by switching off lights for one hour on a specific date, with millions of people taking part all around the world. This year, the date was Saturday 27th March 2010 from 8:30 pm to 9:30pm.
I was asked recently by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to answer some questions with regards to my reporting on the subject of desertification in China. This is part of their initiative titled ‘Meet the Journalist”, offering viewers a chance to get ‘behind the scenes’ and find out some of the motivations and working practices that go into the reporting by the grantees. I was happy to answer a few questions on my reporting, all of which can be found now on the Pultizer Center’s YouTube channel, which is well worth checking out.
The first of the videos can be found below.
Question 1 “Why did you decide to report on this issue?”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRlOYgJjVkE[/youtube]
Please head here to view answers to the following questions: What was your biggest hurdle reporting on this issue? How is this story related to issues in the US? How has climate change news coverage evolved since you started reporting on these issues, and what could be done better?
It’s a small milestone for the Sean Gallagher Photography Blog today (well, yesterday, technically)…we’ve hit 6 months blogging! I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who has stopped by, read what I’ve had to say and commented on some of the pictures, videos and articles that I’ve posted.
The most popular post over the past 6 weeks has been the video that I shot and produced in North Korea, here. It’s been popular on my YouTube channel too, getting nearly 1000 views, as of today.
The most popular page on the blog has been the WEEKEND WORKSHOPS page, which is getting a lot of interest. We are just about to announce our workshops for January, so please stay tuned, they will be posted any day now!
Thanks again for stopping by. As you know, we’re on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube so stop by and see us there as well. Here’s to the next 6 months…at least!!!
YouTube
I haven’t announced this officially but I now have a YouTube channel! As I have started to produce more video work and multimedia over the past few months, I obviously want to get this work out to as many people as possible and YouTube seems to be the perfect venue as it is possible to upload multimedia content, even without video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN4gKiD9JyY[/youtube]
I currently have 5 entries on the channel; ‘Inside North Korea Parts 1, 2 and 3′, ‘China’s Growing Sands’ for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and ‘China’s 60th Anniversary Preparation in Hangzhou’, for the Globe and Mail. By far the most popular video so far has been Part 1 of Inside North Korea which has nearly 1,000 views. A modest amount.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BHVnG3m7BU[/youtube]
I have embedded a couple of the videos here on this blog entry but please go to the channel here to subscribe and have a look at some of the videos and spread the word to others who you feel may be interested in the work I am doing.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80AR9MzC-rs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The above video is an episode of Foreign Exchange, a weekly American TV show dedicated to covering global current affairs, hosted by journalist Daljit Dhaliwal.
Last week’s episode was devoted entirely to the current global water crisis and featured heavily the work of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and its work on covering the issues surrounding this crisis across the globe.
As many readers of this blog will know, I was fortunate enough to receive a grant from the Pulitzer Center earlier this year to continue my work on desertification in China. In this episode of Foreign Exchange, Jon Sawyer, the director of the Pulitzer Center, presents my work as part of the center’s coverage.
If you have the time, please do watch the entire episode as it is a fascinating insight into the work that the Pulitzer Center is doing across the world. As you watch, look out for John talking about my ‘China’s Growing Sands’ project, just over half the way through the half-hour programme.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxSifGgJsbs[/youtube]
This is the third and final installment of mine and Mark MacKinnon’s short videos from our trip in North Korea.
This third video focuses on the Chinese city of Dandong, which lies on the North Korea/China border and offers a startling contrast between the two sides of the Yalu river. Whilst the city of Dandong thrives, fuelled by the economic boom in many of China’s cities, the North Korean side is devoid of life, except for the odd fishing boat and abandoned building.
I hope you have enjoyed this set of three videos. In case you missed the other two, please find the first one “Inside North Korea” here and the second, “The Arirang Mass Games” here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO1-X3-gNP0[/youtube]
The above video is the second short-video by myself and the Globe & Mail’s Mark Mackinnon from our assignment in North Korea. The topic of this video is the Arirang Mass Games which are held in the May Day stadium in Pyongyang.
In case you don’t know, the Mass Games are a gymnastics, dance and song spectacular that showcase North Korean history and culture. Using hundreds of participants, mostly schoolchildren, the games are an imposing and impressive sight which symbolise the power of the masses working as one in North Korea.
Apart from the huge overtones of propaganda, the show is actually quite breathtaking. My personal favourite part of the event are the hundreds of schoolchildren who provide the backdrop to the whole spectacle. Holding up books containing pages with different colours, they all open and close the books in unison to create the unbelievable moving backdrop.
If you missed the first video, you can view it here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BHVnG3m7BU[/youtube]
As some of you may already know, last week I was on assignment in North Korea. Forgive me for not giving a hint of this exciting assignment beforehand, however myself and Mark MacKinnon from Canada’s Globe & Mail, for whom I was working, wanted to try and keep this as quiet as possible until (a) we made it out safely and (b) the work was first published on the G&M website.
Well, we are now back in Beijing and are happy to show the first of three videos shot from the trip. This is the first video I have ever shot, all done on a very touristy camcorder as not to raise suspicions, but I’m very happy with the results, especially considering the conditions we were working under i.e. being watched at all times by our government minders.
Needless to say, this was the most eye-opening photo-assignment and traveling experience I have ever had and possibly the most nerve-wracking. Fresh off the back of the story of Euna Lee and Laura Lin, American journalists who were caught crossing the China-North Korea border, being sentenced to over 10 years in a labour camp and then subsequently being ‘rescued’ by Bill Clinton, Mark and I were obviously a little nervous about heading into the country. Would Bill come and rescue us too if something went wrong?!
I will be posting plenty more about our trip into North Korea, however please sit and enjoy the first installment of videos from the ‘Hermit Kingdom’. To read Mark’s excellent articles and diary entries from the trip please go here and to see more of my images from the trip, please go here. Scroll through day-by-day to see the images from each day in chronological order.
*Update* 09/09/09 To view video #2 “The Arirang Mass Games”, please go here and the view video #3, “On the North Korea/China border”, please go here.
