testmeat photoblog

since the pandemic i started a tradition which combines two of my favourite things, stars and music, as a way to discover new songs while photographing the night sky. i'd begin by downloading pitchfork's top 100 tracks of the year and loading them onto a playlist on my phone. i'd then wait for a clear night sky and set off with my camera while listening to the playlist. sometimes i'll know after a few seconds if it's a song that i actively dislike, and if so i will swiftly delete it and skip onto the next. if i'm not sure i'll persevere and usually give it until around 30 seconds before either deleting or continuing until the end. even with some ruthless deletions it will still take a fair few hours to get through the entire playlist, so i'll occupy this time by setting up my tripod and taking photos of the stars. by the end of the night i'll return with around 33 songs from the playlist still on my phone and some starry photos on my camera. i'd usually do this ritual at the start of each year, however for a few reasons i ended up waiting until may last year to listen to my 2023 playlist. i picked a pretty good spot for it though, looking westward towards nang yuan island from the shores of koh tao.

it would have been appropriate to pick a song from that playlist to soundtrack the video i made of these star trails, but by the time i came to edit it i was listening to graveyard club, who incidentally made one of my favourite albums of 2022