A Summer project to celebrate where you live

by Jamie Rhein on

Using Matt Harding’s concept of dancing as a way to unify the world in his “Where the Hell is Matt?” videos, Jeff Hoskinson highlighted his home state, Iowa in a spoof of sorts.

He kind of looks like Matt, but he’s not Matt. Matt does appear in the video in the “Inspiration” by section. There is a handy reference guide in the YouTube description that lists everywhere featured in the video. As Hoskingson states, this was one way to have a reason to head to all the places he’s heard about since he was a kid.

If you can’t make it to EVERYWHERE in a state or a country, why not just pick your county or province? How about just your city, village or town? Pick a neat song and go for it. All you need is a camera and a person to film you. It’s doable. I’m not doing it yet–but you go for it and let me know if you’ve posted the results on YouTube. I’m enamored with the idea. Whatever you do, just keep dancing.

One thing this video does make me cognizant of is Iowa’s flooding problems. I wonder which of these sites were affected and wish the good folks in Iowa well.

Silk Road in Less than Four Minutes

by Jamie Rhein on

After the 10 rolls of film I took on a trek in Ladakh were overexposed by the professional developer I took them to, and after my camera was stolen out of my apartment in Albuquerque–twice (not the same camera, different cameras on two different occassions) and after leaving one camera in the trunk of a taxi in Hanoi, Vietnam when we were dropped off at the airport, I don’t take pictures all that often anymore. That’s why I am doubly impressed by travel videos. Not only did someone manage to hold onto a video camera long enough to have loads of footage by the end of the trip, the person managed to not get the video camera lifted or forgotten. Then there is the editing afterwards.

Here is a video of a Silk Road tour by Ameriklik that moves at a fast clip through East and Central Asia. I particularly like this one because of the added music, the performances and the photos of the people who were on this trip interspersed with the culture and the scenery. This makes me want to rethink my camera neglect–and head out on a Silk Road journey. There is a lot packed in here in under four minutes.