Reflecting

As the term break draws to a close, I have just completed a back up of all my images shot in the last two months, 758 mg. I was expecting to shoot more, but sadly a couple of events got in the way. Nik's father is a builder back in her home town of Mildura, he has just built a display home. His sales rep wanted to furnish the house and as Nik's Dad had recently paid a visit to Ikea in Richmond he thought it would be great to house the furniture using their furniture. So we get a phone call.
“ Can you please buy some furniture and bring it up to us by Monday?”
“ Of course” says Nik.
“ We'll fax a list later in the week”
The List arrives — it's three pages LONG!

So we dutifully head off to Ikea on Friday morning, a wise move, Saturdays are a nightmare in that store. It took all of the day to buy everything on the list. Seven trolleys full in total. Don't even get me started on the whole issue of finding someone high enough up the food chain to help us organise the temporary storage of the trolleys as we went in search of a means of transporting the goods to Mildura. We had already spent the morning looking into options and decided we would try and book a Furniture van and tow it behind my Magna, station wagon. We were picking this up on Saturday, around 1:00pm. [Perfect timing to escape the annual event that pre-occupies Melbourne's collective psyche, a time when I try and get a cheap flight out of Melbourne, often easy if there is at least one interstate team playing.]

We spent the best part of Saturday morning getting organised, and then headed off to pick up the Van. A saga develops!

We had tried to book one type of van the company claimed that none were available, so we settled for second best. We arrive at the depot, three of the damn things are sitting there! Back on the phone. It seems that they weren't prepared to give us one as the destination of this one way rental already had too many up there. Back out to the trailers and we spent 45 minutes trying to get the trailer we had booked unlocked. No luck even after several phone calls. Then another long phone call to the company. Finally after a much discussion we got the trailer we had originally wanted. No thanks to the company, we hired it from. The rest of the day involved wheeling trolleys out of Ikea, and loading the van. When we'd finished, things didn't look right and my poor old car wasn't coping too well with the 900kg trailer, plus load.
I decided we needed to re-load the van and re-distribute the weight more evenly.
It took an hour.
Not counting the 20 minutes or so it took me to reverse into our drive!
That night was dinner at Pete and Sue's. I was wrecked and barely made it to 10:00pm.

Sunday was the big day, and surprisingly once on the open road the car trundled along ok. After four hours we stopped at our usual stop in a place called Charlton. Great Hamburgers and steak sandwiches there, at the Mobil on the south end of town! Then on and upward to Mildura, when, somewhere south of Ouyen, it started raining, it didn't stop till we got to Mildura, thank god we had the covered van!

Finally in Mildura we set about unloading, and this time I got some help from Nik's Dad in how to reverse and we unloaded the trailer in no time, off to the depot to finally rid ourselves of that 900kg beast and home for a quiet evening meal and an early night.

The drive home was so different to the drive up, in fact I drove all the way home. We did stop for a short break at one of the many picnic spots that dot the highways of Victoria. Which in itself brought back a whole heap of memories about Sunday drives and picnics. Still I will do it differently next time, perhaps with a small 3 tonne truck.

At least I now know how to reverse a trailer!

So back to my original thought. Whilst backing up my lastest round of images, I scrolled though them all for another look using iView a neat little freeware app for managing photo-libraries and of course after 6 weeks or so I managed to see some images that looked like they were worth a revisit. So this process of dealing with my images served a twoflod purpose. It allowed me the oppurtunity to revisit the images and decide their visual merit, it allowed me to remember what i'd done over the last 6 weeks and where I'd been.

God I love photography.

Time runs out!

Intriguing blog, indeed?

Been a few hectic days around here of late. A return trip to Mildura, pulling a furniture van full of furniture, and a funeral whilst there, thankfully the van stayed behind.

Driving these kinds of distances often allow plenty of thought, from the frivolous to the meaningful. The problem is, you can't jot down your thoughts whilst driving, even accessing gadgets that could help in this process are not easy to engage. So I'll just have to hope that some of them come back to me.

We stayed at a relatives house while in Mildura. It's a house we visit at least one every 18 months or so. I always enjoy spending time in other folks houses as it allows you the luxury of just observing light and how it plays around a space.

With 3 days to go I got nothing achieved that I wanted to this term break. Didn't even shoot as much as I'd hoped. Even flickr seems to be quiet these days?

Art and Activism, is this an oxymoron?

This online game allows you to examine your tags at a site called del.icio.us. [It's a site to store and sort your bookmarks, Location free, browser free and OS free.] It may or may not offer an interesting insight into one's surfing habits and interests. Mine makes me look completely 2 dimensional, ah well.

Changes...

Compared to, here and here.

Flickr's down again today!

Programmer - Photographer

A young programmer who has written a neat app to copy files from your iPod back to another hard drive or device, also has an interest in photography. Some pretty good stuff in there. His general site is very nicely designed too. So if you're in the market for some way to get your music from your iPod back to another iPod or some other storage medium, this is a great option.

Light revisited

White...

Flickr is down : (

Orange Triangles

Twists & Turns!

I've been running Tiger X.4.2 for a while now, I initially really enjoyed the widgets of the dashboard Back, didn't mind the power of spotlight, but had been struggling wildly with my browsers, speed and instability. My ram usage was being heavily affected by the widgets. After spending a couple of days at homesick, I managed to catch up on some of my news feeds [what else do you when flickr is quiet and no-one is online and able to chat]. The news-feeds gave me the answer, someone has written an app that allows you to switch off the widgets completely. So I'm no longer using the widgets but things seem to run faster and smoother, unless I'm on flickr, then things just simply slow to a crawl and eventually I'll switch to Firefox which seems to handle the whole site better.

So now I'm back at work and doing a bit more news-feed reading where I discover this gem about the move forward for the web. This then lead to a wikipedia article on the technology being discussed, which lead to a neat little potted history of the web, from a designer/coders perspective.

“ What's this got to do with the photography?” I hear you ask. Well very little, but the web is where I publish most of my work these days, and recently I have hooked up with 26 like minded individuals from flickr and we are planning an exhibition together sometime in 2006, so stay tuned, excitement plus ahead!

On a slightly un-related note I found an article on the world's longest running war, where no shots were fired

My Chilean Gallery

I'm everywhere!

Family, friends, stereotypes and chocolate?

Sunday saw us both at the movies. We decided to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

If you're after a fun light hearted look at childhood stereotypes with lots of singing oompaloompas, don't bother. In true Tim Burton fashion this is a dark tale of Willy's demons, with Charlie being the catalyst that turns Willy into the prodigal son.

The opening sequence is an amazing piece of CG, and when you see the credits at the end you realise that there was enormous amounts of energy spent on this aspect of the movie alone. However it doesn't detract from the story in any way shape or form. The story, which I have never read by the way, is at one level about the tour of the factory, and the children who are punished for their misdeeds throughout. It is also about the importance of family. Handled in a relatively non-sacchrine way.

This version however focuses primarily on the character of Willy. Willy's success it seems is because he is driven character, with a demon. Dealing with this demon seems to be the only way for Willy to regain his chocolate/lolly empire. Which in true Hollywood fashion he manages to do. Charlie on the other hand finds success from other areas and only goes back to the factory after Wily has decided to allow his family to come along as well.

The cast are all stellar in my opinion and if anything, the support actors kind of steal the show, which is never a bad thing in my mind. The story line has only minor variations on the 1971 film with Gene Wilder, but a slightly different ending.

Overall I enjoyed the movie, but I have issues with several areas, the stereotyping of the children,for one, I felt could have been made more contemporary, i.e. TV Mike could have been sucked into computer game rather than into a TV, although his character was obsesssed with video games. Several parts were direct quotes from the 1971 movie, and having never read the book I'm unclear as to the importance of these quotes to the story. So I'll need to find a copy of the book and find out for myself I guess.

One of my favourite aspects of the movie is that it operates at several levels, have fun looking out for other movie references, I suspect there may even be some TV references in there as well, may need to go back and have another look.

My final verdict at this stage is, if you like Tim Burton's style, you'll like this movie, if you want a bright colourful simple song and dance romp don't bother, this movie is dark, and operates on several levels, some of which I don't think kids should see.

Green Curves White Light

I love my job!

Where else could you be able to stop and marvel at the quality of the light in any given situation, and be encouraged no expected to make an image of what you saw?

Well here is that light. The graceful curves and the shadows all compliment each other, the delicate hue of the green is really calming as well. It took half a dozen goes with composition and exposure to get what I wanted, but I'm pretty happy with this one.

Lurgy?

Currently suffering the annual or sometimes bi-annual Pseudoephedrine frenzy, things could be quiet around here for a few days?

Walking Melbourne?

I often like to wander the streets of Melbourne, [with my camera of course], walking allows a much deeper insight to the culture and feel of places like the CBD, here's a web-site that will help you focus my future walks around Melbourne, hope you both can find some use for it.

Sometimes I only need walk in my backyard.

Spring.

Symbolism?

Recently I wandered off to post a letter, [kind of ironic I know] when I noticed this bag caught in tree. The tree was full of blossom, as were the nearby trees. The wind had been pretty strong for a couple of days, and this bag had lodged there as a consequence no doubt.

I glanced up more interested in the blossom and all it's promise and the gorgeous light that was happening, it was late in the afternoon. When I noticed the bag, stuck in the tree. I was mesmerised for a moment. Then quietly pleased as I had made a point of carrying my camera with me, as always. So I made several exposures, and compositions, resulting in this final choice.

What first struck me though, was, the bag's tenacity in what seems an otherwise futile struggle. A struggle to not get blown away to who knows where. Then there was the tree's will in keeping the bag there, in some kind of deadly embrace, which seemed poetic, or maybe it was more metaphoric? The dark symbolism of the deadly consumer item, trapped and held against it's will by the most powerful symbol of spring itself. Two symbols engaging, or was it a struggle, maybe something more gentle like a tussle?

All of this occurring as the sun was getting low in the sky, after what had been several lovely spring days windy but lovely.

Ah yes indeed, spring IS just around the corner.

Where was THAT shot taken?

On a more positive note, check this article out? Maybe one day someone will investigate where and when I made an image?

Also here's a couple of shots taken on Friday, both are posted on FLickr, but I wanted to tweak them a little more, using as always Photoshop and Lobster. Taken in specific place for a specific reason, based on a small discussion that murmured away for a few days over in the Melbourne pool of flickr.

Am currently experimenting with the higher film sensitivity settings on my camera, pretty pleased with the results so far.

Using this setting is no mean feat for me, I have been using fine grain film and film developer combinations for many years, and have callouses on my hands from lugging around my tripod. So it is kind of refreshing to not get too hung up on the idea of super smooth grain images and just follow my intuition. I've even created a set for it over at flickr.

Who is watching who?

Recently my best friend, returned from London. He was there when the bombings occurred a few weeks back.

As any tourist would do, he carried a backpack with him.

He has dark skin, he tans easily as he lives in the warmer part of our country, and dark curly hair.

What state of mind would I be in if the London authorities adopted a racial profiling approach to security while he was there?

It was bad enough when I heard that bombs had gone off?

My friend DRP over on flick has a thought provoking piece on the whole issue, go read it I made a comment down the bottom.

Four?

I'm a gemini you know?

Photographic Musings

Had the usual tough day at the regular Tuesday gig. Got home at a reasonable hour and started musing, about photography, digital and the internet,[ have one group show in the very very early stages of planning, that has come about because of the internet]. So I'm having to collect my own thoughts about what I'm doing and why I do it. This what I've gotten together so far.

An interest in the changing nature of Photography, and how Photography changes nature, or at least our perceptions of it, has been a major motivating factor in my creative output for almost twenty years now.

It was Frederick Sommer who said,
“...some speak of a return to nature, I wonder where they could have been?”
Indeed where have they been, and what have they got to show for the experience? Images are produced with an ease and grace never before imagined. Who will see these and share them?

What about collective memories and experiences of the places we live inhabit and occupy, how can an individual or a collective of people get together and represent this in a cohesive and creative way, is it even at all possible, is it even worth worrying about? Has digital made it the process of image collection, even more democratic, [not just in the political sense] ?

Is digital an adjunct in the process of image collection as a collective experience, and is it also able to re-awaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment?

Does seeing groups of images, made by separate people occupying the same city, exhibited in the most public of all places the internet change a collective or individual’s understanding of that city?

Part of the process of musing has had me drag out an almost 15 year old exhibition statement from my undergraduate show in 1991. It blows me away now when I read it, that I could have the insight to think of these things then. Here it is, slightly edited for grammar and perception.

“ The Lost City.
Who hasn’t been compelled to peer down dark alleyways,what do they expect to find, why isn’t the cacophony of the city enough to keep people on the main street?
Perhaps it is a search driven by desire or fear, how much then; of a struggle it must be for some, not to take that first tentative step into that arduous journey, destination unknown.”

Spring has sprung.

You know that the weather is on the up and up when the trees start to show some blossom.

And you have to marvel at the tenacity of nature itself.

These shots also serve as a reminder that images are to be made anywhere and everywhere, all it takes often, is the right light, and the right frame of mind, the rest will present itself.

Currently part of a group of Melbourne based serious amateur photographers who have met through flickr and are keen to get some recognition of their work either via an in-the-flesh exhibition, or some sort of organised cyber-show. I must confess that my involvement with flickr along with the purchase of my Nikon Coolpix 5400 camera has re-invigorated my passion for image making. While time is still a major constraint in regards to making the actual images themselves, processing them and presenting them can be done in the comfort of my own home, at my leisure, or whilst watching Television. Flickr allows me to organise them, and create collections of ideas and series that can be continually in flux if I so chose. Many many people look at them and some even leave comments. So creatively I feel as though I'm moving along quite nicely, and am starting to think about how to present images on a screen rather than on a wall.

Poor Interface Design

Gripe!

Poking around the intranet of one of my major employer's today, and found this gem of an interface! The old underline the word coz it's important trick, never mind that on a website this means something else these days! And no it doesn't work as link, don't get me started on the non-existent links that I stumbled on and the continually opening windows everywhere! Sigh maybe in 10 years time this will have disappeared completely?

Spring Begins?

Spring is around the corner. Got inspired this arvo by the rapidly flourishing Melbourne pool over at flickr. Produced these two shots. Sadly my batteries ran out!

s2art & Technorati?

Some weird stuff is going on out in cyber space with my "handle" s2art Technorati lists several entries by Scoottie and one by Swissmiss. Hmmm?

Flickrites Inaugural Melbourne meeting 2005

What a glorious day weather wise for the inaugural meet up of Melbourne Flickrites. Photos galore will no doubt be uploaded. check my flickr sets section to see what eventuates?

As far as I can tell,scootie seems to have been the only one to blog the whole affair.

Online Play and Toys

Flickr has a group of people who make lots' of little toys that hook into the databases there, somethings called API's, this new one is great, it's called delivr and sends a postcard from your own stream or that of the entire database of 1,000,000 members to anyone you care to send one to. On the world of the internet this is nothing new, however, what makes this special is you can source your own images or others and make some weird and whacky popstcards.

Canon G5, 350d versus nikon Coolpix 5400?

Camera test and reports coming soon.

I am testing a Canon G5 this weekend ready for a class next week. Recently I used a Canon 350d for a series of tests, and I own a Nikon Coolpix 5400, so I'm planning on a write up on all 3 cameras from a users perspective. Stay tuned.

Recently found some online news regarding the new breed of Epson Printers on the market. I also recently attended an intense weekend workshop on colour management, that indicates to me the end of the wet darkroom is nigh, what are the ramifications and what does this mean for Photography educators? Stay tuned for this article also.

Insignificant Microbe?

Finally. Finally, spent some time tweaking my blog template to get it more the way I want it to look, only taken 12 months, a solid dose of insomnia helps too? Both of my readers will notice only the smallest of changes and then only if they scroll down the page on the right and look? There is aslo a new addition to the other links there. My TTLB Ecosystem addition. According to their home page, you can have their database scan your blog and see where you fit in the scheme of things, i.e. the blogosphere. No surprises here, (as I write), I'm not much at all, just an insignificant microbe, ah well, maybe that's a good thing?

Perhaps if I could write as well and as frequently as Vitriolica, or Jess, then maybe I'd end up a “ Higher Being” like, Instapundit. And if indeed I could write this well and often what would my photography be like? Would I still be able to teach workshops in Photoshop? One things for sure, I'll never be a Despot in Training!

[A small edit and after thought, if I may, the truthlaidbear seems to list primarily neo-conservative and conservative sites as the top ranking sites. Surely this is not the case. There must be some other left leaning blogs out there getting the traffic, or a more even representation of them. Or are we seeing a cultural backlash to left leaning thinking, and the blogo-sphere is a reflection of that?]

Ages ago I got a little recognition for one of my shots on Flickr by Flickrzen a site that highlights the cream of the crop from flickr itself. A quote from Susan Sontag, prompted by my visit to Flickrzen.

"Naive or commercial or merely utilitarian photography is no different in kind from photography as practiced by the most gifted professionals: there are pictures taken by anonymous amateurs which are just as interesting, as complex formally, as representative of photography's characteristic powers as a Stieglitz or a Walker Evans."

Transport!

Friday night at Transport Bar, Fed Square, colour colour every where.

The colours here are simply as the camera recorded them. My camera was set on daylight colour balance at the time, some levels adjustment and burning in using photoshop have occurred after converting the file to a better colour model using Lobster, the colour management plug-in for Photoshop

Digital RAW files?

Recently went out and about testing a new camera purchased by one of my more regular employers.After shooting away frantically, and enjoying the whole process, I got home and much to my surprise, the raw files I had shot could not be opened by my copy of Adobe Photoshop CS™.
"What the hell" I said
Is this another upgrade scam from software giant Adobe™? A dig around the Adode™ site seemed to indicate the only way to open these files was to use the latest version of their RAW of converter. Not to worry I knew of a demo piece of software, made by Phase One that opens many files and does a much better job than Adobe Photoshop CS™ anyway. As it was a 30 day demo version, I thought I'll include this in the next years computer budget, (assuming I'm still working there). A bit more digging around on the web and I discover that low and behold, Adobe™ has released a FREE tool that is designed to open any and all RAW format presented to it. Indeed it works and works more than adequately for most people's needs. So if you can not afford to purchase the Phase one Software or justify it's price then you can use the new DNG software made by Adobe™

Here's an image made with the Canon 350d and opened using the DNG RAW file converter, then tweaked slightly in Photoshop to enhance sharpness and contrast

Here's some more info on RAW files, as part my regular research for my Part time photography teaching work at PIC photographic imaging college.

Waiting

Winter has some advantages, this sunset occurred last night as I was waiting for my wife to pick me up from work. It was pretty spectacular to watch, sadly both my camera batteries died before I could get much more than a handful of shots off, this is the most dramatic, I cropped out the city skyline in a couple of the other shots but I liked the impact of this one the most.

Photograph, manipulated using Photoshop and the excellent Photoshop colour correction tool Lobster

Podcasts?

It seems it's not enough to blog away madly or even photo-blog, but now podcasts are all the go? Hmm personally I'm not an Aural person? So podcasts aren't on the horizen yet, we'll see, I might give podcasting a go, seeing as my felow flickrite macaddict has given podcasts a go. Time oh time where is it going?

Oil Peak?

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Luxury

Had the luxury recently of spending an afternoon out and about shooting. The light while not consistent, was sporadically beautiful, this shot I hope shows what I mean

I have another version of it in my flickr stream, composed differently, with a different intention in mind

As always, tweaked in Photoshop, and this time using Lobster too.

A Quote

A quote from Dianne Arbus:-

"There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairytale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

Taken from The Age and used here without permission

Concrete as Canvas

Two shots today!

Both taken minutes apart, of the same piece of concrete, who'd have thought that concrete could be made to look so beautiful, as always tweaked using photoshop, and the colour tool for photoshop Lobster. Taken using my little Nikon Coolpix 5400, shot in raw mode, these could well end up as prints in an upcoming show I'm planning on having.

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Our 2004 Holiday Snaps

Both of my readers, if they haven't already fallen asleep, should remember that this time last year Nik and I went for a quick 6 week jaunt around the world. Well, at last I've managed to get all the good holiday snaps on line. They can be seen at flickr.com, as part of my photo-stream.

Choose from either,

• Basic
• Slideshow

I also took some time out to make images yesterday using my own Nikon Coolpix 5400 and the School's Canon 350d. If I can get my act together I'll write a comparison article between the two cameras. they have some features and tools that make the difference between the two interesting. Ultimately, neither is superior to the other, I just some ease of use and practicality type beefs about them both. Cream of the crop will get posted over at flickr, over the coming days.

Willaim Street

Photoshop Workshops Winter 2004

Finished my last photoshop workshop for the winter, here's an image made some time ago and tweaked using Lobster and Photoshop

iPod Flea?

iPod spoof, this may require registration but it's worth it

Daylesford's Winter Light

Over the weekend spent some time in Daylesford, a small country town, west of Melbourne, with a real ‘feel’ that I enjoy every time I visit. Testing the new Canon 350d camera my work has recently purchased, and will publish my review of it compared to my Nikon Coolpix later, here's a shot from Saturday Lunch at Cliffy's. One of the reasons we went up was so I could undertake a colour management course run by Les Walkling, through the Daylesford fotobiennale, also some thoughts coming on all that as well.

The weather was superb, if a little cold, but when the sun came out it was truly gorgeous, ah to do nothing but spend my time shooting and exhibiting?

To buy or not to buy?

I am a big fan of Robert Adams' writing and photography, a book has been recently published that I may consider buying about hope, reflections and journeys.

Obey

On a recent winter's day I retrurned to a point west of the CBD, on the western highway, to make an image of this well known grafitti. At work we have spent a couple of days reveiwing mid year folios. And as always I come away from these exeperiences refreshed and with my mind ticking over about all the possibilites of what photography is and what it offers. Intuition and surrealism is what's ticking over in my head these days. What has this to do wit the image below? Very little but my photostream at flickr has much potential for the expansion of the these ideas, as does the whole ide and approach to making images with a camera.

We will be heading back to Daylesford this weekend for the Daylesford Photobiennale and a seminar on Colour Management. So hopefully there'll be lots more images floating around here and on flickr than there has been in the last couple of months?

Image replaced due to bandwidth theft, by this person.

Stripes

Weekend reflections, here's a shot from a couple of weekends ago, been a bit quiet here this weekend may get out and grab some shots later today.

As usual, I've tweaked it using photoshop and Lobster

Green spots?

Do you have perfect colour vision? Here's a link to a page that will have you blinking in disbelief?

Awesome birthday present!

My belated birthday present saw us in a helicopter flying over Melbourne for 20 minutes. Almost immediately after taking off my battery ran out! Luckily I had a spare and continued to snap away for the remaining 15 minutes or so. The light was awesome and I managed to keep the camera shake to a minimum. I of course have loaded an edited down set on flickr, some of which required a slight levels or curves tweak and some sharpening in Photoshop as do all camera files.

The experience left me speechless for most of the flight, I was either too busy snapping or just soaking up the view! We flew from Southbank, East out toward East Melbourne, skimmed past the MCG, then down towards Brighton. From here we turned around and headed up towards the City via St.Kilda then out to the inner Western Suburbs, where we did a loop over Williamstown, then back along the river in to Southbank. Awesome is the only way I can describe it.

Here's Nik and I just about to take off, seconds later the battery went flat in my camera so I missed grabbing shots of the Eastern end of the CBD and the MCG, etc. None the less Nik, god bless her, managed to fish out my spare battery from my bag in the back and back in business we were.

My secret obsession

The Saturday after my birthday saw me plane spotting, almost until the sun went down.Tweaked in Photoshop of course!

Back in Business

My USB, Cable has arrived, so now I'm able to download from the camera, here's a shot from a local shopping centre, taken in that magic hour of dusk and slightly tweaked in Photoshop.

20,000 plus!

Well even with out a USB cord, I am still getting plenty of visitors to my Flickr-stream, so far over 20,000 in the mere 8 months I've been on the site.

I would have love to have known who the 20,000th visitor was, and personally shaken their hand or for that matter the 10,000th. Ah well, such is cyberspace? Whether or not this does any good for my exposure, as an artist or not I'm not sure? It may or may not be helping my Photoshop Workshops too, I still rank pretty high in the ranking on the three main search engines, so I'm not complaining about things at all.

Peach tree in light

Currently without a USB cord to download the 25 + images currently sitting on my camera, here's one from from my very recent archives, taken about 4 or 5 days ago, of the peach tree, now minus it's leaves. As always tweaked in Photoshop, using the droplet that corrects Photoshop's colour problems Lobster

Fay Godwinn 1931-2005

Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin, who for many years has dominated British landscape photography, died on the 27th of May, having been in hospital since Easter following a stroke and heart problems.

Born 1931 in Berlin where here father was a British diplomat (her mother was an American artist), she settled in London in 1958, and picked up a camera to photograph her own children in the 1960s. Her contacts in publishing led her to photographing writers, and then she embarked on a series of collaborative largely topographical works with well known poets and authors, including several still on my own bookshelves. I first met Fay when we attended a workshop together in Derbyshire in 1979. I've always felt that books such as 'Remains of Elmet (1979) with Ted Hughes (a reworked,version, Elmet, was published in 1994) Romney Marsh (1980) with Richard Ingrams, The Saxon Shore Way(1983) with Alan Sillitoe contained some of her best work, but she resented the fact that both the book cataloguing rules and publishers lists gave priority to the writer rather than the photographer.

Her 1985 'Land', although still retaining an essay by author John Fowles, was the first book to be fully hers, and accompanied a show that toured both in Britain and the US. (It includes one image I watched her making on the workshop we both attended, and on my living room wall is my image of a sleepy lion at Chatsworth that she also found irresistable.) Other works followed, including another of my favourites, The Secret Forest of Dean (1986). Fay was a great walker and a champion of access rights for ramblers - she was president of the Ramblers' Association from 1987-90, and remained a life vice-president. Later works such as Our forbidden land (1990) made her feelings clear on this, both through the images and her own text. More recently, Godwin worked in colour, and in 1999 she self-published a small 'artist's book' Glassworks and Secret Lives. A few pictures from this and other works are on her site, along with a wider selection of her life's work in the book Landmarks which accompanied her major London retrospective in 2001.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Epson Printer?

New Black and White?
Epson's latest printers, including the Epson R2400 which were announced a week or two ago, seem to offer better black and white prints than previous models from Epson or others. It seems as if for the first time, an 'off the shelf' printer using the manufacturer's inks and software may be able to compete with (or even better) the best third party inks and software.

Jeff Schewe was one of Epson's beta testers, and in his Epson R2400 and Ultrachrome K3 Ink Report on the Adobe PhotoshopNews site, he shows the kind of results he can get, concluding "The Epson R2400 is a serious contender to meet or exceed the standards of traditional silver based black and white prints." You can also read a user report on the inks from another beta tester, Joseph Holmes, who says "I have no doubt that this is the best system ever for making color prints."

Used with the right papers, such as Epson Enhanced Matte, the early results from Wilhelm Imaging Research for the Epson 9800 printer suggest permanance display ratings of over 200 years, making the prints likely to last longer than those made by conventional methods. The site also has an interview with Greg Gorman who has been printing both colour and black and white on the Epson Stylus Pro 4800 printer and the new UltraChrome K3 inks.

At the moment I'm still waiting for more detailed reviews from printers, especially those with experience of current high performance black and white printing systems, such as the Cone Editions iQuads and Peizotone inks, and software RIPS such as Roy Harrington's QuadTone RIP or the Bowhaus IJC/OPM used with inks such as the Piezotones or MIS inks. One advantage of the Epson 2400 (and other printers using the new UCK3 inks is the ability to use the same printer for gloss and matte black and white prints as well as colour.

The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 and Stylus Pro 4800 were expected to ship in 'May 2005', though were not available when I last checked. The most recent date I've seen for shipping in the UK is the first week of June. The larger and more expensive Pro 7800 and Pro 9800 are expected Autumn 2005. Epson seem to have responded to earlier criticisms about black and white quality and and permanence, while also improving colour performance. If more extensive reviews confirm the early promise of these printers, then many more professional photographers will be able to get the kind of results they need from inkjet printing without hassle.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Frederick Sommer

The Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation is a non-profit charitable trust founded in 1993 by the Sommers and others, located in Prescott, Arizona. It holds Frederick Sommer’s personal library, a collection of artwork, maintains the Frederick Sommer website and reviews reproduction requests.

Particularly of interest on the site are the special features which look at some of of Sommer's best know images and explains how these were made and the ideas behind them. Currently it shows the double exposure portrait of Max Ernst, 1946 and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John, 1966. This year is the centennial of the birth of Frederick Sommer (American, born Italy, 1905–1999), and to mark the occasion there is an exhibition at the Getty Centerin Los Angeles which opened last week and runs until Sept 4, 2005.

You can also read more about Sommer and his work on About Photography, in the feature Frederick Sommer - Surrealist Master written shortly after his death, which also has links to other sites featuring his work.

Used here without permission from about dot com

Suburban....

...Zeitgesit? Tweaked using Photoshop, and Lobster

Facing East

Once again, captured that lovely late afternoon light that Melbourne is so capable of producing, then of course needed to be emphasised using Lobster and Photoshop, which by the way went swimmingly, thank you to all particpants, I hope you gained something form the whole experience as I know I did, don't be shy keep in touch, and share your images with me and the world at large.

Drive-by shoot

One of my secret hobbies is to do this — dangerous as it is! Sometimes this approach yields interesting results. Even without the Photoshop tweaks, minor as they are.

Elizabeth St. corner Latrobe....

Looking up, resized in Photoshop.

Nick Cave at Festival Hall

Last night saw myself and Nik at the Nick Cave concert, at what was my only Festival Hall concert in 20 odd years. Festival Hall in Melbourne was the place to be seen and the venue of many a sell out sports or entertainment event for decades.Probably best known for staging professional wrestling and boxing matches, many a riot started at The Hall, and some even spilled into the street and parking lot, none last night thank god, but as always a couple of idiots nearly spoiled it for others.
Festival Hall was built by John Wren in 1915. Rebuilt in 1956 after being burnt down the year before, it was the Olympic Games venue for gymnastics and wrestling. In the 1950s and 1960s it became an entertainment centre, with famous appearances including Bill Haley, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles. By the 1990s it had been overtaken by more spectacular venues, but the Wren family remained in ownership. The last time I was there, was to see Billy Joel, probabaly in the early 80's. Lots of things have changed since then, the most obvious being the licensing laws, see the two beers in my hand. (Two because I knew I would never find Nikki again if I wandered off later to get another beer.)

(Teaked in Photoshop of course)

Some of the other less obvious things were the technological ones, and no Nick Cave wasn't using a radio mike. Mobile phones. Yes folks people were snapping away madly at the concert, with their phones, I had a go at one stage, but the light levels were too low and by the time Nick Cave came on I was too taken away by the moment to bother pulling mine out again. Digital cameras were out and about too. I didn't take mine in as I wasn't sure about security, and had no intention of having mine cloaked or being generally hassled by the folks on the doors. At one stage I was convinced that I saw someone videoing a couple of songs with a small digital still camera!

I can't for the life of me, remember the song listing, but I do remember being impressed by the level and quality of sound, you know you're at a Rock 'n Roll gig, when you can feel bass drum in your shins and in the floor - awesome! The crowd didn't seem to me to be THAT up to speed with Nick's repertoire as the crowd reacted the most to some of the earleir stuff, one of which was so old I didn't know at all, Nik my wife who's been a ‘Cave fan’ longer than I've known her, went off with the crowd, but all the other songs I knew and enjoyed. The crowd while it seemed large to me wasn't overwhelming and if I really HAD to I could have found the bar and bought a beer or two. Boy though by the end of the night my feet were killing me!

As we left we caught up with the lovely Ed 'n Cindy, who, even though we knew were going to be at the concert, didn't manage to locate till the end, and as it turns out, were a mere 3 or 4 meters away from us at the front of the stage, the whole time! Nik grabbed a bottle of water at the nearest Kebab van on the way to the cars then it it was off home, I'd come straight from work. Driving home I played the ‘The Lyre of Orpheus’ and when it came to the track ‘O Children’ I had to wave an arm out the car, the way Nikki had been waveing her arms to the song at the concert. All up a great night was had, by all concerned especially my gorgeous wife Nikki!

Blue?

To some the camera has an albeit mistaken belief that it holds some form of objective power, to reveal more than it can hide, if this is the case, what does this image reveal?
A colour one we call blue and a light squiggle in the on the bottom right. Not much else.
The colour is what draws me to this image, and even though it has been tweaked slighhtly in Photoshop, this is pretty much the colour it was when I downloaded from my Nikon Coolpix 5400.

Autumn Light

Despite Autumn's alleged onslaught, we are still having gorgeous days.

Image manipulated with Photoshop and Lobster

Daylesford Fotobiennale 2005

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Daylesford Fotobiennale, running from the 3rd of June to the 3rd of July 2005, in particular I may even add some work to the ‘Little pictures, Big Ideas’, show as well, stay tuned for that one?

The Magic hour

Possibly one of the last times this term/semester I'll get a chance to go out and shoot as my fancy takes me. Thankfully the light was awesome all day, and as I was out and about during the magic hour I captured this shot, hand held I might add.

3~4

Over the weekend managed to capture that beautiful late afternoon light, tweaked in Photoshop of coure, using Lobster as well

New Photography book

I just received my latest Amazon purchase, Frederick Sommers' most recent publication, Photography, Drawing, Collage.

I was fortunate on a recent trip to the United States we stopped in at the CCP in Arizona, they have an extensive collection of his prints there. And I spent a lot of time there looking at his wonderful images that are meticloulsy printed. The reproductions in this book are some of the best I've ever seen, and of course the book is peppered with gems of quotes like this one

“ …The value of a work of art or scientific formulation lies in the precision of positional relationships”
From a talk given at the Art Institute of Chicago, October 1970, revised June 1983

Sunrise 05.05.04

Most mornings, I'm up before the sun comes up, this morning it looked like this

Don't call me a Geek!

Are these guys geeks or what, a software install party!

DILO - a flickr game

Recently participated in a mini DILO (Day in the Life of) over at flickr. Normally these fall on the summer and winter solstices, but the admins of this group decided on a mini DILO as the past couple had occured during a week day. Needless to say it sounded easy at first but by about 4:00pm I was struggling.

My day got off to it's usual start, light breakfast, checked out flickr and off we went for a not so typical brunch with my Mother who just happened to be in town. Brunch was at Southbank and we decided to park in North Melbourne, and walk the 6 or so kilometres there. I shot from the hip on the way, and got a couple of nice surprises but took my time on the way back where I got a couple of good ones too. The saving grace was the couple of junk/antique shops we hit towards the end as well, which in some ways in not THAT different for us on a Sunday.

Here's my favourite image from the day.

All up I shot 180 plus frames, and managed to edit this down to about 36 or so shots for my DILO submission.

As an aside, flickr is real slow this morning, hmmm popularity has it's price?