My initial problem was finding an iPad portfolio program that worked smoothly, was easily customisable and didn’t require the intellect of a particle physicist. After a bit of searching I found Foliobook. What I really liked was that it has a pretty easy interface and a whole load of instructional videos. It took several hours of working out what I wanted and uploading images with iTunes to get something I was happy with. I created a simple jpg image for the front page that imitated my website design and overlaid that above a template structure in the program. The results are below as screen grabs. Once your images are in folders its very easy to change orders and set slideshows. I particularly like the ability to email an image directly from the slideshow.

Over the last few years, I’ve had Plastic Sandwich make me several print folios so I was very pleased to see that they’ve made a rather lovely one for the iPad as well. Just like my print books, they’ve embossed my name on the front and the whole thing slips into a very sturdy slip case.

So far, it looks like a very valuable addition to a range of ways to show work.

The title page uploaded as a jpg and laid over a Foliobook template

A page showing an image and a contact sheet view

Drop down menu with slideshow settings

A library of images for one of the galleries

Details of the slideshow controls

A very useful ability to email any of the images in the presentation

The iPad in a custom case from Plastic Sandwich

The Plastic Sandwich case and slip cover

Those nice people at Wonderful Machine have refreshed my images on their site. Looks great.

Another Delhi food story again soon…

In addition I’ve updated the Destinations section with some new images.

Here’s a screen grab. Click the image to go to the site

I visited the Dickens exhibition at the Museum of London yesterday – a really powerful evocation of the writer and his times.

What always struck me about Dickens was his ability to convey the despair and misery that the city around him housed: no stranger to debt, his past was marked by the fear of slipping back into poverty. I think that the exhibition gave me a very apt adjective to describe the dark underside of a city that I have worked in so much, namely Delhi. Perhaps all societies lurching through such painful Capitalist development are like this – but certainly Delhi is Dickensian in its mercilessness and its cruelty. The lack of a safety net and not-so-subtle machinations of caste mean that the people who produce the city’s wealth by selling their labour are completely at the mercy of the vagaries of the Market and the violence of the street. In a similar fashion to Dickens’ time they must struggle against a whole moral code that tells them they are nothing if they have no status. I’ve mentioned here before a slim volume of reportage and writing from those at the bottom of the dark underbelly of this metropolis called Trickster City and the more that I looked at the exhibition yesterday, the more I thought of Delhi.

Dickens’ “slime and ooze of the Thames” is the realm of the boy who picks bits of detritus out of the poisoned Yamuna River on a pathetic raft of polystyrene and rags. Budi Lal, pouring through other people’s filth and rubbish and ignored by all except the snarling dogs and his debtors is Boffin, the Rag Picker from Our Mutual Friend. The men burning plastic bags could be from the slum in Bleak House; Tom-All-Alone’s.

All of them would recognise Victorian London.

India - New Delhi - A young scavenger on a raft, beneath the road bridge across the Yamuna River by the Kudsia Ghat, New Delhi. Scavengers trawl the filth of the river to find objects to sell. The river is so polluted that it can no longer support life, however a community still live and work on it's banks.

India - New Delhi - Buddhi Lal, 30 works before dawn collecting refuse to recycle and resell. Known as 'rag-picking' he can make perhaps Rs150-200 a day and is often chased and attacked by stray dogs because of the smell of his work

India - Delhi - Destitute men gather around a fire made from refuse and plastic bags to try and keep warm. It is estimated that around 100000 people are homeless in the city

The direct link is here.

UK - London - Eels in a barrel in the yard at Cooke's Eel and Pie shop in Hoxton

UK - Cambridge - Professor Stephen Hawking in his office at Cambridge University

Sunday is Stephen Hawking’s seventieth birthday so I thought I’d feature a portrait I made of him a few years ago.

Of course I taught him everything he knows but he never lets on …