Milestones and Mindsets
In recent months I celebrated two important anniversaries; the day when, as a young child, my family arrived in Australia from Chile and the day when, as an adult, I left Australia, in early 1999, to start a new life in London. While the first of those dates has remained a constant for me, the [...]
OS X Mountain Lion
Apple has unveiled some of the new features of OS X Mountain Lion. As many of us expected, it shows Apple further blurring the distinction between its desktop operating system, now called OS X instead of Mac OS X and the mobile iOS system. More iOS Features On Your Mac Mountain Lion further embeds the [...]
iPhoneography 101
Two years ago I expressed my love for taking photos with the iPhone or, as it has come to be known, iPhoneography. Since then things have exploded. Taking photos on the iPhone (and other smartphones), developing them with in-phone apps and sharing them instantly via email or social media platforms have become a daily habit [...]
Notes From The Road – Penang
This morning I’m packing up and getting ready to fly back to Singapore. It’s been a long and tiring week and I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a photographer this week. Photographing Thaipusam was hard work. On Monday I was up before 5.30am and didn’t get to bed till after 2am the next [...]
Observing Thaipusam
It’s been a long day. Yesterday I was up at 5.30am and didn’t finish the day until 2am. Today I was out shooting just after 10am and didn’t get back to the hotel until nearly 10pm. Almost all of that time has been spent with the same group of people, from a small Hindu temple, [...]
Cut
It’s been a hell of a day. Actually, it’s been a hell of a week – and, it’s only Tuesday! As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a cyst that has been causing me some discomfort. I first suffered with it in Hong Kong, some years back, but it responded to treatment and [...]
Notes From The Road – Summer In Adelaide
I’m in the middle of a short break in Adelaide. Being Chinese New Year, I decided to head away from the oppressive heat of Singapore to enjoy the oppressive heat of Adelaide. And, boy oh boy has it been warm. Yesterday it was over 35 degrees celsius, which felt even hotter sitting in the glorious [...]
Slow Down
I’d like to share with you one of my all-time favourite movie scenes – from the somewhat overlooked 1995 film, Smoke. In this film, Harvey Keitel plays Auggie, the owner of a tobacco shop. Auggie’s pet project is to photograph his tobacco shop. Every day he goes across the street and takes, what is basically [...]
SOPA And The Creative Shift
Right now there is a wave of international protest over legislation being considered by the US government that would, effectively, break the internet. Smarter thinkers than me have tackled this issue and unpacked the detail of what is being considered. If you are an original content creator, or simply enjoy using the internet, then it’s [...]
The Cult Of Collaboration
Susan Cain is the author of an upcoming book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She recently penned an excellent NYT op-ed piece entitled The Rise Of The New Groupthink. I’d encourage you to take a read of the article as it covers a lot of important ground [...]
Living Without TV
For the past six months, we’ve lived without television, at least in the conventional sense. There are two TVs in the house, but neither is connected to a TV service, either free-to-air, or cable. You can’t just turn the TV and watch “something” or “channel surf.” Why Have A TV? It’s a pretty bold countercultural [...]
Singapore Six Months On
Today marks the six month anniversary of my move to Singapore. It’s been a bumpy transition. My mood, my health and my enthusiasm for this town has gone up and down during the weeks and months I’ve been here. Over the weekend I was chatting with a friend who also moved from Hong Kong to [...]
Generation Slash Revisited
Chase Jarvis recently posted a copy of his interview with Juxtapoz magazine. It’s a great read if you are into photography, fine art of just the whole big creative thing. A few lines really stood out for me, “And for what it’s worth, I’ve been told my whole career that being a hyphen, that not [...]
A Better Music Scene In Singapore?
Tomorrow I’ll be attending a music industry forum here in Singapore. It’s exactly the kind of thing I swore I wouldn’t be doing this year. I’m going out of respect for the organisers, the speakers and because I actually believe it could be the start of something good for the local music scene. But, with [...]
Dalí, Subversive Humour And Learning To Be An Artist
My favourite film of 2011 was Midnight in Paris. Among the many memorable scenes there is a wonderful moment when Owen Wilson’s lead character meets Salvador Dalí, played by Adrien Brody. Of course, the real life Dalí was every bit as over the top and amusing to behold as Brody’s portrayal suggests. Yesterday I stumbled [...]
Do You Code
One of the reasons I dislike going to networking events and conferences is my aversion to answering the “so, what do you do” question. I know it must seem odd for a blogger to say that they hate talking about themselves. But, answering the “so, what do you do” question in a concise (i.e., non-boring) [...]
Finding Your Voice (As A Blogger)
I’ve had a number of comments in the past few months, regarding changes on this blog. Am I becoming more professional, chasing readers or in some way changing gears? The short answer is, no, not really. My reasons for blogging haven’t changed much over the years. However, my voice, as a writer has changed. The [...]
Does Your Blog’s About Me Matter?
As I mentioned last month, I was surprised to learn that in 2011, the fourth most read page on this site was the “about me.” I’m not even sure I had an about me page when I relaunched this blog in 2004! Then & Now Back then, blogs tended to have fairly stable readerships. You [...]
Begin Without Disappointments
I love the title of this old ad, for Western Electric radios: Begin Without Disappointments. It’s my motto for January! I’ve already nailed my colours to the mast for 2012. It’s going to be a fascinatingly different year. The changes have already been made and the new routines feel very good indeed. The important thing [...]
A Year Of Blogging Highlights
For the first time since 2006, I’m ending a year feeling good about the state of this blog. My blogging goals for 2011 were simple; double the average daily traffic and put up at least 150 posts (this is the 172nd post of the year). I figured, in the most basic of ways, that more [...]
My Favourite 25 Songs Of 2011
I’m going to wade into murky waters here, by offering up my 25 favourite songs of 2011. Are these the best songs of 2011? Maybe, maybe not. OK, probably not. Truth is I’m not normally a big fan of “best-of” lists. And, listing best songs, as opposed to best albums, always makes it harder to [...]
Merry Christmas
Christmas begins tonight in our household. We share a Christmas dinner, say some prayers, open presents, tell stories, and go to bed way too late. Tomorrow we’ll laze around playing with the new toys, take a swim, write thank you notes, go for a long walk and end the day watching a few Christmas films. [...]
What Christmas Means To Me
I love Christmas – I love the serious, spiritual symbolism and the cheesy, crassly commercial chintz. I’ll take it all, secular and profane, theological and nonsensical. Perhaps most of all, I love that, as the Beach Boys so blatantly put it, “Christmas comes this time each year.” With such an open ended love of the [...]
Don’t bring demos – Bring product
This morning I was reading Eric Beall comment on Berklee’s recent Perfect Pitch music and songwriting event. What Berklee is trying to do (as always) is prepare musicians and songwriters for the realities of the music business they will encounter. In his post Eric made this startlingly honest comment, “In case you didn’t get the [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.