jonnybaker

reel and congrats!

congrats joel on getting a distinction in your art foundation! yay!!!! and here's his reel if you want to get a flavour of the movie stuff. the end piece should be worked up on proost for july we hope!

Reel from cntrst on Vimeo.

jim and mary

congrats jim and mary. yesterday was a great day all round. jim was very emotional before and during the service, and in his speech which was just lovely.

anticipation...

awash

awash from jonny baker on Vimeo.

this is a movie taken with the canon 5d mark ii, my new camera. it has a function to shoot movies in HD. i have been saving, selling photos, doing photo shoots and anything else i can think of in my spare time as it's quite a step up from the entry level canon 350d that i have had for a few years now that i have loved and taken some great photos with. already i have been amazed at the quality of photos particularly in low light - the lack of noise at say ISO 2500 is amazing. well you can also shoot movies in HD on this camera which means filming with canon lenses. it's not why i bought the camera but i was sat in a car wash at the weekend and thought i'd try it out. i cannot believe the quality of the movie - this is it uploaded and compressed so has lost some detail but i think you can still tell.

getting angry about doing the dishes, laundry and cleaning!

ok not my usual blogging subject but this article on chores and how they get shared out or not in relationships between men and women threw up no surprises. every survey i've ever seen always shows up that men do not pull their weight or take responsibility in household chores (cooking, laundry, cleaning, picking kids up etc...) and that's in relationships where both partners work - of course there are plenty of exceptions. why? i have no idea! though this article describes a common pattern of not taking responsibility for the man but of festering anger and not communicating about it on the side of the woman doing the bulk of the chores. i see this played out quite often... there are three pages of comments on the article already which are also worth a read.

i'm not even going to to attempt to hang my dirty washing out in public - you can ask jen about that! but read the article and talk about it with your partner. if you are not in a relationship phew - you can avoid all this - but you just have to do everything!

jenny's cambodia photos

jenny's cambodia photos

worship tricks 1 million - i've been ASBO'd!

i've been ASBO'd

a new blog and a new digital self for a new year...

happy new year! i can't believe it's 2009 - it seems only a few moments ago that we entered a new millenium.

so i have redesigned the blog and here's a few headlines about the new approach

1. presences
i realise we all have different digital habits to manage the flow of information and friendships and hang out in different spaces and places - facebook, twitter, flickr, or whatever. it's partly taste and partly what we have time for and partly where our networks of friends hang out. so i have created a set of presences ( a term i stole from jenny brown who is personally responsible for catalysing these changes by suggesting my blog or blogs in general were a bit 2004!). this is simply a set of icons in the middle column. so if you are in any of those worlds you know how to find me there. and yes i know - first facebook, and now twitter!

2. incarnation and the digital self
ok i admit utterly pretentious title! but here's what i mean. most people do not want to visit my blog even though i have just spent a few days making it look wonderful (please come once and let me know what you think!). why should you come to my world? life's too short. but it should hopefully be easy enough if you want to follow my stream of consciousness for me to flow in your world/sphere/network/set of presences. so click the feed or add me in twitter or facebook or myspace or bloglines or your newsreader and the latest blog posts or titles will appear automatically.

3. categories
typepad which i use to blog and am still a big fan of has categories - i have singled out 5 main areas that i blog under that are the buttons in the navigation section on the right hand side, but all the other categories still exist so if you are interested in a particular category then just click on it and scroll through the posts.

4. recycling
i started blogging in 2002 which is a scary thought in itself. but it means that there is a ton of stuff buried in the archives. now a lot of it was in the moment and is best left buried but actually there is also a ton of stuff that is worth recycling. so there is a section on the home page with 10 recycled items and on the (new) faith, photo, and create (yet to be done) pages is a ton of recycled links . this may be of interest - it's actually pretty useful for me so it's as much for my benefit as yours.

5. upcoming
one of the cool and weird things about writing a blog is that it has definitely connected me with you - readers all round the world which i have loved. and i have been invited by people who have never met me to speak in various places round the world. this has amazed me and i have loved it! i have signed up with upcoming.org (haven't added much to it yet) to post places i am speaking/leading/hanging out and there is an automatic feed of those on the front page right hand column so you can see where i will be.

6. simplified
the front page has less stuff - or at least it's better ordered. if you really liked something that has gone or wonder where it is now let me know... the blog is as ever a work in progress. but two big things were a huge list of blogs and a list of other things. they can be found by clicking on the two icons in the middle column under the title linkage. the other links are now simply going to be my favourites in delicious. i haven't been that up to date with it but intend to improve my habit there.

7. new look
the black look was fun for a year but i have changed to white as a background as in the end it's easier to read and looks cleaner. i have also gone for something colourful as a header and buttons - not sure why - was in a bright mood! if you are a typepad user and wondering about the technical side of it, then i have simply use a 3 column right template but had to add some extra css code to get the central column the size i wanted so i haven't had to go to the advanced template and can work within typepad's design system. happy to share that if anyone is interested - i am really pleased with it anyway.

8. it's all about you
it amazes me still that people read my blog - i should be used to it by now. i am busy so blogging is a habit that i manage to keep going but sometimes don't give enough time to you the readers though i do try and respond to comments. but hey thanks for your interest/friendship/tolerance/fellow travelling/reading/comments. i haven't finshed everything off but that's detail now... hope you enjoy the new approach and see you in some digital presence or other. and thanks jenny brown and bob carlton for kicking my digital backside in 2008 into another gear for 2009!

best love one and all xxx

portrait

i like this portrait shot i took of harry. it was at the volume installation with his face lit up by the led lights...

it's only a game

that's what i am trying to tell myself - absolutely gutted

the long road

we went to see the long road last night, the play commissioned and directed by my sister. it's amazing. go and se it if you get the chance. it's the story of a family trying to deal with the aftermath of the youngest son, 18 years old, being stabbed in a random act of violence. it's very powerful... one shock was that there is a photo on the table of the son which is a photo esther has used of joel. and he is also larger than life in a huge backdrop to the set...

if God is a DJ...

if God is a DJ... joel's latest doodle

the long road - a new play about forgiveness

the forgiveness project is an amazing collection of stories of forgiveness. it has been exhibited as a series of portrait photos with the accompanying stories. i first saw it in london at the oxo tower back in 2004 and it has also been to greenbelt... since then the stories have multiplied. norman kember's is one of the more recent ones.

my sister esther (you may remember me blogging about her film) and her charity synergy theatre have been working with the forgiveness project and she is directing a new play the long road about forgiveness from 19 may to 5 june at soho theatre. i chatted to her today about it and she is really excited. the long road evolved out of stories and research with prisoners with whom she has worked now for over a decade in one way or another. its debut appropriately was in a prison yesterday. esther is the founder and artistic director of synergy.

i'm looking forward to it. if you are in london go and see it...

text exchange

last night of course i was in the pub watching the football with mike, joel and harry. meantime jen was at the grace knitting group - yes  apparently it is the new rock and roll! a selection of our text messages... mine are in italics and i'm sure you'll detect the smallest hint of irony in the replies!

1- 0 chelsea
how exciting!
1-1
oh no!
gone to extra time
wow - we've all stopped knitting and are praying for you
2-1 chelsea
our prayers worked!
3-1 woop woop
at this point a message from kester - torres off? what is the tinker man doing?! see you in moscow!
3-2
we'd better get praying again
victory
phew
at this point a message from a fellow chelsea fan - praise jesus!

i am a happy man - finally we get to see off liverpool in a champions league semi final at the third time of asking... can't wait for may 21 and the texts will be flying no doubt. blue is the colour...

blue fortress

it's been a very strange season for chelsea so far with morinho leaving, injuries, grant and so on... but today beating man united 2-1 is a very sweet result and it sounds like it was deserved. i missed it as i was doing a training day for the diocese of bath and wells but will look forward to match of the day tonight! so level on points but needing man u to drop some points because of goal difference...

following on from the convincing draw with liverpool (well it was about time the luck went the other way ;-) ), it's part two on wednesday night to see if we can also make it to a champions league final which would be amazing...

another semi final against liverpool

so chelsea will play liverpool in the third champions league semi final in four years. chelsea turned it round last night with a 2-0 win - whilst it wasn't the greatest dispaly from the blues it was job done... it was my second visit to stamford bridge this season - i like the big european games. this time round the first leg rather than the second is at anfield which may mean we can break the reds jinx on us in europe!!

agony for arsenal fans last night who with 7 minutes to go were through (ouch)

congrats spurs

congrats spurs on winning the carling cup final and beating chelsea - you must be happy! i have yet to see it as i was watching joel play at the big chill bar but i'll drag myself to watch the highlights later...

birthday drink, sacrifice and warming up for tom middleton

joel winning the open dex heat at the big chill bar gets to play a 2 hour set at the big chill bar (as well as competing in the final in july).

so he is playing from 4-6pm on sunday 24 feb at the big chill bar. the next day is my birthday so i am combining it with celebrating with a birthday drink (as is fellow grace friend paul wainwright for whom it is his actual birthday). so if you around and fancy it, come along and join us.

the sacrifice is that chelsea are playing tottenham in the cup final at the same time!!!! so i will have to watch the highlights later i guess...

joel is fairly excited because one of his DJ heroes and big chill legend tom middleton is DJing his top 100 tunes that evening so i guess joel is his warm up act (scroll down the what's on page)

20 years...

my dad, john baker, died 20 years ago today.

memory is a funny thing.
when someone dies there is a big hole but the gap lessens, it fades over time.
if anything you can feel bad you don't think of the person enough after they have gone.
but today if i think of my dad, words that spring to mind are:
integrity
unafraid to speak the truth
gentle
kind
articulate
intelligent
a love for god and people
acceptance

he gave me so much.

on his grave are written words along the lines of:
john baker awaiting the bodily resurrection of the dead and the renewal of the heavens and the earth

i always thought that was the most amazing thing to have on your grave stone...

he won!

open dex at the big chill bar, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

cntrst [joel] in the open dex contest at the big chill bar last night. he won!!!! this was heat 1 - he will be in a final in july. the winner gets to play at the big chill festival. congrats joel...