Not so long ago I was contacted through my Flickr account by someone wondering whether I would be willing to allow one of my photographs being used as part of a magazine. I get similar emails from time to time, usually merely asking if they can use my photo for their recent blog entry, but the sender of this message explained what the magazine was about, and what my photograph would be used to accompany- a stark contrast to the numerous thousand tales on the internet of image stealing and copyright infringement I worry about too often. But I was still a little surprised to say the least.

According to their website, A Public Space 'is a new independent magazine of literature and culture'. I'll be honest, i'd never heard of the publication before, but I was told my photograph was going to be used to accompany a piece of prose that the image was relevant to, with the appropriate credit for the image and a copy sent to myself. My copy arrived today.

I've only glanced at the rest of the magazine but I intend to read a lot of it over this coming weekend, as well as showing all interested relatives and family members. For me photography will probably always be a mere interest and time-spender, but still, i've got to say, i'm immensely pleased about this recent development. I guess it's encouraging for the future.

 The actual photo can be found here in my Flickr gallery, but i'll get it into the photo-gallery here on my next update as well.

With the DVD released on Monday, and currently with some time off work at the moment, today I was allowed the pleasure of watching Pixar's Ratatouille.

I'm a huge fan of the Pixar movies, and their ideologies and 'a-film-for-all' way of thinking usually ensure you'll be watching more than just standard-family fare. Oh, and their pioneers in CG animation too apparently. But I love the Pixar films all the same, and they're exactly that kind natural evolution from all the Disney animation I grew up watching with my sister, and yet, they're still a lot more pivotal than all the other contemporary movie fluff released for both adults and children as separate markets.

Ratatouille as has already been well promoted is a film about a rat in Paris with aspirations of becoming a chef. As a public enemy and social pest being a rat ensures his dreams are soon put on hold, but with the befriending of a hapless kitchen assistant it's not long before the completion of his goals begin to manifest. Theoretically it's a pretty surreal concept, but as with previous Pixar movies (talking cars, the concept of monsters, superheroes et al) this is soon forgotten as both characters and story is well-realised and developed. But once again it's these characters and this story that is the most appealing part of the film. There's no denying the appeal and draw of the visual fireworks (which are nice btw) and the humour, but the story is exciting, interesting, and to use a word perhaps better-suited to traditional Disney, enchanting.

Embarrassingly, Finding Nemo is one of my all-time favourite films, and while personally Ratatouille is good, it's still not my favourite Pixar film. But i'm the minority, and such references to it's predecessors are entirely unnecessary because of the overall quality that Ratatouille exudes and the quality that it brings not just to the CG animation genre but to films and story-telling in general. It was fun, and while it's still a bit too early to re-watch it, it is one of those films like Toy Story or Nemo that I can imagine re-watching countless time over the next few years.