Hugh Pryor's Web Log

The Bull Pen Iron Pour

2011-12-14T23:19:00.001Z

The Bull Pen Iron Pour, a set on Flickr.

This was at the Bull Pen - a barn near Faringdon, Oxfordshire. The event started off with the furnace being heated up with the moulds ready to pour. Iron and coke were fed into the furnace, the slag was drained off and when enough of it was ready, molten iron was drained into the crucibles which were quickly poured into the moulds. It was a scene somewhere between Dante's Inferno and the Oompa Loompas out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Alison Berman's Web Site

2011-11-14T09:37:00.000Z

Imagine - The Big Book

2011-08-24T10:38:00.000+01:00

"The Big Book" is a traveling installation by Diana Bell where visitors are encouraged to contribute their own writings. The site needed to be like a book, and also to have zoomable graphics so the details of the sheets could be easily viewed.

Cabaret Clandestino April 2011

2011-04-04T19:02:00.002+01:00

Cabaret Clandestino April 2011 , a set on Flickr.

Here are some lovely photos from Saturday 2nd's Cabaret Clandestino at the East Oxford Community Centre.

Slit Scan of Ölfusá River in Selfoss

2011-03-24T21:23:00.003Z

I had arrived in Selfoss with rain and low cloud. What more to do than go down to the river and film it. It was very turbulent with glacier melt pouring down - ideal for a slit scan.

What we see here are these great big bubbles of turbulence rising out of the river - the horizontal lines that looks a bit like a cat's tail in the lower half of the slit scan are the expanding bubbles.
Hopefully the weather's going to be better tomorrow!

Fusion Arts Biennual Report

2011-01-04T11:14:00.000Z

Cabaret Clandestino - The Great Winter Blowout!!!

2010-11-21T01:14:00.003Z

The snowman was drawn on paper and collaged with the original design before being scanned and brought back into the poster.

Slit Scan St Aldates

2010-11-16T15:49:00.005Z

I set up my robotic scan bot on a dustbin in St Aldate's and let the camera scan for 2 revolutions.
People looked on with bemusement and fascination. Is this guy planning a terrorist attack?

When I explained that I was making slit scans I cannot tell you the relief I saw on their faces.
Luckily there weren't any chippy security guards with nothing better to do!

Cluster of pedestrians - they are all facing right to left, although they were in fact walking in both directions. This is because people pass the camera nose first and back last. If you were to walk past the camera backwards then you would appear facing the opposite way.

Another interesting thing about these slit scans is that the slower you walk past the camera the wider you appear, and the faster, the thinner.

This couple appeared a total of four times because they didn't know where they were going so they walked one way, then the other, then back again and then returned.

Viewing from end on we see quite a bit of vertical distortion as they bob up and down during the walk cycle.

We see unshapley manifestations of people parts as a shoulder hovers in the slit and leaves without scanning the full figure. Notice also how the bottoms of the legs become distorted as they are caught in the stationary part of the walk cycle.

A shopper apparently unfazed by being slit scanned.

Samheim Film Night

2010-10-22T01:10:00.000+01:00

Exploding Birthday Cake!

2010-09-06T01:25:00.009+01:00

To make the ultimate birthday cake for Pat's 70th, Roger, Alan and Ped conspired to create a cake with a difference...

Firstly we experimented with bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, lemons, crushed vitamin tablets, citric acid, kitchen knives, expanding foam, chocolate eggs, water bomb balloons, polystyrene, food dye, washing up liquid and a large quantity of icing sugar to find the right materials.

We constructed a cake that would, when cut, burst a balloon inside and release the mixture of vinegar, food dye and washing up liquid over the reactive mixture of bicarbonate of soda, citric acid and crushed vitamin tablets.

The expanding morass of foaming green ectoplasm would rush through a hole underneath the main decoration, which was Paul's rendition of life model perched on top of the cake being painted by a tartan clad artist in front of his easel.

Experimentation and construction:

foaming concoction:

nailing down vinegar filled balloon:

filling cake with bicarb mix:

the "cake":

final touches:

the aftermath:

New Bossaphonik Season!

2010-09-06T01:19:00.002+01:00

Bossaphonik Banners

2010-04-24T14:47:00.004+01:00

These will be at the next Bossaphonik

at the Cellar - keep your eyes out for them!

Oxford Walking Tours and Ghost Tours Flyer

2010-04-24T13:56:00.004+01:00

Everest Nepalese Restaurant Menu Design

2010-04-24T13:41:00.004+01:00

Menu design based on illustration of Mount Everest in the morning light. Really lovely food there - I should know because they've been stuffing me to the gills with it :D

Here's the menu - watch out for the chicken chilli - it's hot hot hot!

See www.everestnepalese.co.uk

Oxford Science! Alleycat Bicycle Treasure Hunt

2010-03-12T15:54:00.000Z

The Goldman Variations - Oxford Fringe

2010-03-12T14:14:00.000Z

Mimas AKA the Death Star in 3D

2010-02-16T19:18:00.009Z

This is an anaglyphic view of Mimas made from the Cassini Space Probe's Narrow Angle Camera on it's multispectral imaging pass of the moon on 13th February 2010.

JPL source

Cabaret Clandestino

2010-01-30T10:56:00.003Z

Panoramas

2010-01-29T11:31:00.005Z

Cave near Durdle Door, Dorset

Jodrell Bank, Chester

Maria Pia Bridge, Oporto

Lake, Hoveton Hall, nr. Norwich

Bossaphonik Web Site

2010-01-29T10:21:00.006Z

At last! I've been working with Dan Ofer to make flyers, posters and a web site for his Bossaphonik night at the Cellar.
Please provide feedback - there were a few browser issues with the flash content so if there are problems please let me know - saying which OS and browser you are using and what the problem is...

Flying Skull - Ant Trails

2010-01-28T23:50:00.002Z

This image was created by applying an ant trail simulation to an image of a momento mori in Chistchurch Cathedral, Oxford.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T23:46:00.000Z

Portraits November 2009

2009-11-28T23:57:00.006Z

Portraits drawn at the Sobell Christmas Gift Fair at Radley College, Oxfordshire.

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-03T17:35:00.002Z

Bossaphonik Poster

2009-09-20T21:55:00.001+01:00

Bossaphonik Flyer

2009-09-20T21:50:00.003+01:00

Working with Dan Ofer to make poster for Bossaphonik night at the Cellar

Pete's Leaving Doi

2009-09-08T07:33:00.003+01:00

Dark Pit on Arsia Mons

2009-09-03T11:00:00.006+01:00

This pit on a volcano on Mars had been described as bottomless because no one has spotted any details in the shadow. Having worked with underexposed photographs it seemed fairly simple to determine if there were any details in the black areas. Some quite unambiguous features emerged after I tweaked the levels and applied a slight blur to reduce the scan line artifacts.

These include an extra shelf below the eastern wall, which may be an overhang or even a tunnel, or more likely rubble that's fallen off the eastern wall.

There's a non uniform gradient which cannot be a camera artifact, and is either caused by a slope at the bottom of the pit or from the light reflecting off the opposite side wall. There also appears to be chunks of rubble at the base of the pit, although this may well be in part noise from the HiRISE camera. See this image to compare how light plays off rubble in the bottom of a pit.

I'm very surprised no one has spotted this before as it had quite widespread media coverage when the image was captured in 2007 and I have been unable to find any other reference to this. Here is the link to the HiRISE source, and the New Scientist article I found out about it in.

Oxford Walking Tours Booking Form

2009-08-27T17:22:00.010+01:00

This form is for the Oxford Walking Tours website. As well as calculating the costs for the types of tours and the numbers of adults and children, the tour guide's timetable is accurately modeled, so that it knows which days the different tour times occur on various dates in the calendar. It also highlights the relevant tour in the timetable.
This is a very clear, effective and user friendly use of javascript.

The Port Meadow Spider

2009-08-16T12:46:00.005+01:00

"I was having a recurrent nightmare about spiders and the spider in this nightmare was particularly big - I was becoming spindled up in thousands of miles of spider silk."

The Wallingford Fish

2009-08-16T11:23:00.003+01:00

The Wallingford Fish was created on a rainy day with a map, a felt tip pen and a GPS receiver and a Rover Metro 1.4Si. This fish spans 13 miles, following a 67 mile journey along the roads around Wallingford.

Oxford Fisheye View

2009-08-16T10:58:00.003+01:00

GPS data from tracks around Oxford over a three year period and projected into a 180° fisheye view. The tangle of lines at the top is a skydiving festival at Weston-on-the-Green drop zone with the Flying Squirrels wingsuit team. The virtual structure spans 10km and reaches an altitude of 12,000ft. The Port meadow spider is also clearly visible.

The world's Biggest "IF"

2009-08-16T10:51:00.003+01:00

This was an attempt to answer the question: "What is the world's biggest 'IF'?"
The letters for the 'IF' are 70 miles tall. The font size for the word is equivalent to approximately 319,334,400 points.
In addition the drawing traces a journey through Iffley in Oxford, the Ifield Road in London, Ifield and Ifold in West Sussex and Iford in East Sussex - all names beginning with the word "IF".

Cutteslowe Park Football Fields GPS Drawing

2009-08-16T10:44:00.003+01:00

This was created by walking around a football pitch in a spiral pattern with a GPS receiver and changing the direction of the walk when I crossed a line in the field, thus marking out the boundaries.

Video Tracking of Boris and Jemma

2009-08-16T10:40:00.002+01:00

This panorama was created by matching up frames of video footage and tracing the tip of Boris' tail and the tennis ball as a blue and yellow line respectively.

Ladybird's wing opening sequence

2009-08-16T10:24:00.004+01:00

I found some high speed footage of a ladybird opening it's wings and realised that it very closely resembled the way in which a self-erecting crane operates. This was used as an integral part of Ladybird Crane's branding.

2009-08-16T10:16:00.002+01:00

I painted this trompe l'euil mural as part of a garden design project.

Shop Signs

2009-08-16T10:06:00.003+01:00

While I was working in a local wine retailer in 1999 I turned my hand to decorating the sign boards, and turned the shop into an impromptu gallery with the chalk pens.
I have now invested in a collection of chalk pens so if you need your blackboards decorated, you now know who to ask...
Space aficionados - notice that I featured the then recently de-orbited Mir space station with the cosmonauts popping in for a crate of beers.

Ant drawing

2009-08-03T16:48:00.005+01:00

I found a colony of ants in a flower pot, and wanted to know if you could make a drawing from the trails of ants. I put a toy car, a ball, a sprinkler, a Hoberman Sphere™ and some stones and let the ants crawl all over them while filming them with a HD camera. The black in this image represents the highest concentration of ants over a half hour period.

Spider Mural

2009-08-03T14:30:00.004+01:00

Nice big friendly spider who was responsible for painting the following mural...

Mural

2009-08-03T14:14:00.006+01:00

Mural for play room featuring the family dog, a duck, a tractor, a helicopter and the cast of Wind In the Willows, all applied with paint pens without getting ~~any~~ too much paint on the carpet..

Brochure Photography

2009-08-03T13:03:00.002+01:00

Photography for the "Give Us a Break" brochure with Jo Ord.

Grandchildren Portraits

2009-08-03T12:41:00.011+01:00

While I was drawing portraits at the Jericho Street Fair I was approached by someone who wanted me to draw her grandchildren. The top two were drawn from life and the other two were drawn from photos - they wouldn't sit still for long enough!

The Giraffe and the Sheep

2009-08-02T15:25:00.001+01:00

Chalk Pastels 23x30cm

Frog Nest

2009-08-02T15:22:00.002+01:00

Chalk Pastels 30x23cm

Cat Fish Bowl

2009-08-02T15:19:00.004+01:00

Chalk Pastel 30x23cm

Recycled Bicycle Alleycats Poster

2009-07-22T16:41:00.000+01:00

Chasing around Oxford after clues and ending up in a pub is something that always does it for me... Here's the "Recycled Bicycle" Alleycats poster.

2009-07-11T10:27:00.001+01:00

Pastel drawing from Ord Hill, North Kessock, Inverness looking towards the mountains.

Roger Perkins - Typewriter Clock

2009-07-10T09:31:00.005+01:00

This clock is made from video of the numbers 0-9 typed on an electric typewriter as part of Roger Perkin's 'Timekeepers' project. These were turned into a clock using Flash and Director. This was an exercise in memory management so that no more than 3 movies were playing simultaneously. In that respect it behaves more like a mechanical clock when the hours, days or years change. Here's the link.
The Corpus Christi Chronophage reminded me of it - note when it changes the hours...

Roger Perkins - An Empty Vessel

2009-07-10T09:06:00.009+01:00

Roger created two casts of human figures out of wax and melted them over a three month period with lightbulbs in the crypt of St Botolph's Church, London. This was filmed by an interactive pan/tilt/zoom camera that was programmed with 8 preset views every 5 seconds. My job was to write a program in Director to automatically separate the 80,000+ images into their constituent views and create time lapsed movies of the views. The difficulty was that the camera wasn't always precisely pointed and the lighting conditions varied, so I had to design a filter that accommodated for these vagaries. Here are the results.

Roger Perkins - Greenham Resort

2009-07-10T07:11:00.007+01:00

Roger Perkins created a museum portraying Greenham Common cruise missile base as it might have been had it been a holiday resort.

This was a fantastically detailed museum showing resort life from the 1950s to the 1970s before cheap flights rendered them redundant.

I helped set up the museum and created an interactive record on Roger Perkin's web site.

You had to pinch yourself to realise it wasn't real!

City Snail

2009-06-30T14:55:00.005+01:00

I've never found snails very scary until I encountered this one.

Jazz at Pearl's flyers

2009-06-29T19:03:00.003+01:00

Kim Nalley Post Cards

2009-06-29T15:39:00.003+01:00

Boris and Jemma

2009-06-29T15:20:00.003+01:00

Models of Boris and Jemma as they appeared on Vicky and Tony Cooper's wedding cake.

Miniature drawings

2009-06-26T09:01:00.002+01:00

32x32 pixel pictures drawn on mobile phone

Portraits at the Jericho Street Fair

2009-06-25T20:10:00.007+01:00

I set up a stand at the Jericho Street Fair with a sign offering portraits for sale. Parents wanted their children drawn and if they didn't move around too much I captured some resemblance. It was all good practice!

Rail Map and Road Map for Oxford Airport

2009-06-25T13:59:00.006+01:00

Søren Jensen "Line Art"

2009-06-25T13:28:00.006+01:00

These images, used for branding Søren Jensen branding and their web site, were generated by modifying software used to simulate a roof designed to open and close like a camera iris.

Maps for Søren Jensen Web Site

2009-06-25T12:27:00.007+01:00

Pete The Temp

2009-06-25T10:49:00.003+01:00

Album Cover for Pete the Temp's Buena Vista Socialism release.

Holywell Bed and Breakfast

2009-06-14T08:12:00.008+01:00

Drawing of Holywell Bed and Breakfast, Oxford.

MedStamp Alien

2009-06-13T19:51:00.011+01:00

This 'alien' was made by turning CAT and PET scan data of a human into a movie and distorting it in AfterEffects. It was subsequently recombined into a dataset so it could be viewed in MedStamp's 3-d imaging software.

Carousel and Twister Slit Scan

2009-06-12T13:16:00.002+01:00

This is a slit scan the Carousel with horses in the background and the twister in the foreground. The time is projected from the top to the bottom.

St Giles' Fair Slit Scan - Rotating thingummyjug

2009-06-12T12:49:00.007+01:00

This shows the progression of the ride with time along the horizontal axis from the beginning to the end of the ride. Each vertical stripe is a rotating arm of the ride passing by, and the rotating arms are lifted up and down on a hydraulic jack.

Yolande Nye's Web Site

2009-06-11T11:20:00.007+01:00

Animated gifs made from video of Yolande Nye's kinetic sculptures.

Alan Franklin's Web Site

2009-06-11T09:37:00.007+01:00

I've just completed Alan's web site - second one in a week! Very interesting work - particularly the outdoors pieces in the sculpture trails.

Steve Hurst's Web Site

2009-06-03T09:14:00.006+01:00

Stephen Hurst is a sculptor and historian who's work reflects futile nature of war. Here's his web site which I've very nearly finished.

Cowley Road Slit Scan

2009-06-03T01:35:00.003+01:00

Slit Scan of the Cowley Road Carnival featuring myself in reflected in a wobbly fairground mirror.

Oxford Stunt Factory

2009-06-03T00:18:00.006+01:00

This represents my experience of Bungee Jumping. You have to hurl yourself off a 150 foot high crane with an elastic umbilical chord and undergo a trauma similar to birth. 3.5 billion years of evolution hasn't prepared you for this activity, as neither me, nor my ancestral amoeba would be here if throwing oneself off heights greater than a chair was natural.

Jodrell Bank Slit Scan

2009-06-02T18:55:00.000+01:00

Lovell Telescope Vertical Slit Scan from Hugh Pryor on Vimeo.

Here is a video I made using digital slit scan techniques. You can hear binary pulsars buzzing away in the background.

Oxford Engravers

2009-06-02T18:31:00.001+01:00

Refining designs for the for the cutter at The Oxford Engravers in the Covered Market. This is the Stewart family crest I designed for a signet ring.

Pub Quiz at the Fir Tree

2009-06-02T17:54:00.002+01:00

Here's the poster for the Fir Tree Quiz Night - I think I have cornered the market in posters for events at the Fir Tree...
If you look closely you'll see lots of things which would be highly relevant to solving pub quizzes, including Floj, Laughing Dave and a map of Italy labelled "Spain"

Space Shuttle Launch Movie

2009-06-02T10:37:00.001+01:00

I was fascinated by the fact that they now put six cameras on the booster rockets to spot any potential damage to the shuttle from falling debris. I've always liked the idea of composing simultaneous camera shots and NASA provides us with some amazing synchronised footage.
There's a certain element of Michael Figgis' film Time Code here.

Iridium Flare • 05 May 04:01:26 • -9 • 58° 271° (W ) • 2.2 km (E) • -9 • Iridium 94

2009-05-05T04:04:00.005+01:00

I set my alarm for 3.55 am in anticipation of seeing an Iridium Flare for the first time. This one was a particularly spectacular magnitude -9 (higher negative=brighter) and even though it was slightly overcast I saw a little dot which by the time my eye had tracked it, it had grown considerably brighter to the point where it was illuminating the clouds. And then it vanished. I was just just agawp going "wow!!!"
An Iridium Flare is the reflection of sunlight off the solar panels of the Iridium constellation of satellites, which act a bit like disco mirror balls in the sky. As they are precisely pointed the timing and positions of the flares can be accurately predicted. Go to heavensabove.com and enter your home location (easiest using Google Maps link), and then click on Satellites -> Iridium Flares -> next 7 days. You'll see a list of all the bright flares in your location and how far the brightest part is near to you.
It's something you won't be able to witness for too much longer as the satellites will eventually be decommissioned or smash into eachother, so boogie on down to the celestial disco while the show lasts!

Paul Amey's Web Site

2009-03-20T11:58:00.000Z

Another crazy sculptor - very interesting work. See his web site here.

Kay Sentance Web Site

2009-02-24T13:14:00.000Z

Kay's web site was a lot of fun to make - we turned each page into a collage and photographed it. Quite experimental, but I think it works!

The Firry Mic

2009-02-11T17:50:00.001Z

My Poster for the Open Mic and Poetry night at the Fir Tree, Oxford

Watercolours

2008-10-12T21:00:00.000+01:00

Cumnor Hill, Oxford

Inverness

Taplow Church

Houses in Oxford

2008-10-12T19:30:00.000+01:00

Warnborough Road

Charlbury Road

Hayfield Road

Welcome to Hugh Pryor's Web Log

2008-05-26T05:35:00.001+01:00

I thought a blog would be an excellent starting point for my web site because it would help me categorise and evaluate my work, and is also simple to update. It may seem odd as a web designer not to have a proper web site but it makes perfect sense. I'll be getting round to making a fully fledged web site soon, to which I will integrate this blog and transfer some of the content and add more material.