The End

Source: Matt Baron, Cargo Collective

Time to say goodbye.

This blog has formed part of an important personal journey for me over the last couple of years. I’ve treated The Wheat and the Chaff as a repository for interesting stuff from culture to collect and share amongst a handful of friends – the only people I ever expected to read it other than myself. For years that has been pretty much been the case. This week changed that and made me personally aware for the first time just how quickly things can escalate and spread nowadays.

A post from last year, credited to, but reproduced without permission from another site and author, suddenly generated a shit load of buzz and attention. The buzz and attention was completely warranted – it’s a brilliantly written labour of love on an emotive subject that has struck a chord with many. The recipient of it was not. Interestingly, despite the article being posted nearly a year ago, its sudden second-life illustrates that ‘stock & flow‘ aren’t necessarily exclusive in the internet age.

The author was credited upfront and the site was linked at the end of the piece, but this completely failed to recognise the way that people consume information in the age of the internet. As a result, my blog was credited with the piece rather than the original site. I don’t know how it was discovered on my blog with zero visibility rather than on the original site which has a far bigger readership, but it wouldn’t have happened had I directed people to the original source upfront. For that I’m sorry.

My blog has always been a hobby. But for many others, the content they create on their sites is their livelihood, and it’s unfair when that is potentially impinged upon through the thoughtless behaviour of others.

The content on this blog could only be described as ‘eclectic’, from plenty of bolshy strategic thinking and ad land oddities, to Houston Rap, random tumblrs and British Suburban decay, and for that I’m proud. It’s always been about the stuff that I want to read, which has meant I’ve sometimes played fast and loose with copy and pasting. And I forgot along the way that I’m not just collecting a scrapbook for an audience of one.

So for me, this hobby has run its course.

Cheers

(check out the rest of Matt Barron’s portfolio here)

(and go here, it’s great)

Camera phones and oversharing

Following on from Joe Bishop’s article posted here last week, i-D‘s Milly Abraham has her say on the scurge camera phones at gigs and clubs.

The man who bought Brixton Academy for £1

Simon Parkes has given Vice a fascinating little excerpt from his book, charting his fascinating chronicles as owner of one of London’s most revered live music venues.

Stainless

‘Stainless’ is the work of self-taught photographer Adam Magyar. He combines sophisticated photographic equipment, other retro-fitted hardware, self-written software, and an artist’s eye to unique effect. In this work, speeding subway cars and their passengers (often seemingly lost in their own worlds) are captured in exceptionally high resolution. Part of the project involved filming New Yorkers standing on the platform at Grand Central station with a slow motion camera. It’s strangely gripping.

 

When great technology and great art combine wonderful things happen. This is a great example of that.

Check out this great profile of the man and more of his work on Medium.

(via Only Dead Fish)

Taking selfies in clubs needs to stop

Thump‘s Joe Bishop has a point…

The Wired World in 2014: speed summary

Digital Intelligence Today have produced a handy speed summary of Wired magazine’s latest need-to-know tech trends for 2014: The Wired World in 2014.

Explore Everything

This image, at the Fourth Rail Bridge in Scotland, is from just one out of hundreds of nights Bradley Garrett has spent exploring over the last five years, in places he shouldn’t be. Stunning photos from those nights are part of Garrett’s new book, Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City.

an unused London tube station

The Battersea power station

Castle of Mesen in Lede, Belgium

Durham baths

Embankment pipe subways, London

The Farwell building in Detroit, Michigan.

Gartloch hospital, Scotland

The Legacy Tower, Chicago

The Legacy Tower, Chicago

King’s Reach, South London

Michigan theatre, Detroit, Michigan.

NEO Bankside, London

Ritz Carlton Residences, Chicago

River Effra, South London

River Tyburn, London

The Shard, London

Tour Horizons, Boulogne Billancourt, France.

Walkie Talkie building, London

West Park Asylum, Epsom, Surrey, England

Woodward Avenue Church, Detroit, Michigan

Zeche Hugo, Germany

(via Co.Exist)

Classic photos reimagined as selfies

Here are some cracking print ads for South Africa’s Cape Times newspaper that reimagine famous photographs as that curious modern phenomenon, selfies. The accompanying line,’you can’t get any closer to the news’, is inspired.

 

(via The Inspiration Room)

Houston Rap

Houston Rap, the coffee-table behemoth photographed by Houston native Peter Beste, best known for his black metal photography, written by fellow Texan Lance Scott Walker, is a magnum opus documenting the home of gangster rap, and features some of the finest rap photography ever committed to paper.

It’s available for pre-order here.

Check out Pete’s site here.

(via Noisey)

A bittersweet love letter to the suburbs

Poignant stuff from Clive Martin for Vice. Below is some of the photography by Nicholas Pomeroy, featured in the article.

More of Nicholas Pomeroy’s photography can be found here.