Want your own widdle Macintosh? Make one then.
It seems other folks are enjoying some of my own obsessions as much as I am, this blog, called, positive fanatics, about Ikea of all things is going to feature my work, shot at the Richmond store in Melbourne, Australia.
Technorati tags:-Mac, Ikea, digital, photograph
Concrete is beautiful and when photographed digitally can reveal a deeper surface altogether.
Hate what George Bush stands for, then watch him fall. Thanks to Trav for finding this one
Technorati Tags:- Concrete, Digital, Photography, Bush
Rant Warning!
This weekend saw me hitting a few galleries on both Friday, and Saturday, not to mention spending some time shooting on Friday. I visited 3 shows on Friday, and 2 on Saturday. In order they were.
The outstanding show for me was the 3rd year Media Arts show, followed by the 1st Year Fine Art show. [Disclaimer, both these shows of student work were by students who had either previously studied at PIC, or were taught by my old lecturers, at RMIT.] So today I'm going to try and hobble together some sort of exhibition review. My energies though are going to focus on the CCP show.
The current brochure for the show at the CCP lists the following Artists
One of these was not on display, and one was a projection which I assume runs at night. So already I'm down by two. Still I've got plenty to say about these remaining 3 shows.
I'll begin with KIJEONG SONG. This person's work was entitled ‘Couples’. The opening sentence of the catalogue reads,
“KIJEONG SONG has been taking photographs of couples since 2001"
Why?
The next sentence then goes on to explain.
“ This series has developed an an interest in the ways in which intimate, domestic relationships problematise simplistic understandings of ethnicity, within today's multicultural society”
Yes I agree that these are issues that are worthy of contemplation, indeed given the erosion of our rights recently these are in fact the ideas that need to be talked about. What is is that makes us Australian, and conversely what is it that makes people ‘Un-Australian’? However for me the only thing I found intriguing about these images was the details of the couple's environments. This idea could have been taken so much further. The couples for example may have well been unrelated as most of the poses looked awkward and uncomfortable. The lighting in each of the shots was simple on-camera direct flash. A technique so well used by the likes of WeeGee, and Dianne Arbus. Here it just looked like… well simple on-camera direct flash. The harshness of the lighting really turned me off these images, combined with the awkward poses, and one image out of focus all together, this smacked of Un-professional work practises, or some one who just isn't able to work well with people and a camera? I did of course find the objects that are referred to in the catalogue as “overlooked”, but sadly this didn't get me thinking about identity in a multicultural sense, only in a personal history kind of way. Ultimately I couldn't get past the bad technique, which I'll sum up as, “Forced 35mm Snapshots”
Gallery 2 at the CCP has a body of work by LEYLA STEVENS, entitled, Pale Worlds. It is a series of large format prints which appear on the surface to be portraits of people holding strange objects in strange environments. And indeed the catalogue blurb tells us that these are depicting… “ precise moments when someone attempts to undermine the structure of the everyday”.
Well I liked these images much more as they were quirky and colourful, Leyla obviously, knows and understands more about the central tenants of photography such as lighting and colour. The orange colour and the fabric running through some of the images were beautiful to look at. Overall the images themselves while not really obvious performance documentation were good examples of attractive art making. The minor technical issues I had with these images, such as the poor quality of the black and less than optimum quantity of digital information, were small and I enjoyed spending some time trying to draw parallels between the object people and locations. In particular the use of the orange onion bag and the roll of twine or string. I don't think I succeeded, and I don't care as good art doesn't ‘need to be understood’.
Jane Burton's work, from the series ‘I did it for you’ was dramatic and cinematic, full of pauses and moments, frightening and comforting all in the one.
Basically a series of black and white images printed again, large, of night scenes in ordinary suburban locations.
Some of the prints had a female figure silhouetted in a window, in different poses, obviously staged. I find this a little troubling especially coming from a female artist. Does photography not have a bad enough reputation for being a ‘voyeur’? A small quibble I know, and as the other images are appear to be commenting urban identity and existence I can understand.
Something I don't understand is why this work is printed on type C paper? Which I assume has been through some form of digital processor. Fortunately it has been printed well so it's no biggie, just curious that's all?
So once again the CCP dishes up a mixed bag, I'd have to say that I regretfully don't make it to the CCP as often as I'd like so I have no real bench mark to compare the overall standard of this show, it also didn't help that there seemed to be two parts of the show missing. Nonetheless, Jane Burton's and Leyla Steven's work were very good examples of what can be achieved with a camera, and the prints were quite luxurious.
The CCP is an austere Melbourne Institution, it has been a focal point for much photo based work in Melbourne now for nearly 20 years. It is a publicly funded art space, with a subscription base of many many artists and photographers. However there never has been an avenue for written discourse and this is one of my biggest beefs of the space. One day perhaps they will have a letter to the editor page, or why not a blog?
The images I've used here are taken without permission.
Normal programming will resume shortly.
All of these shows from all the galleries visited this weekend had one thing in common. They got me thinking about presentation and the final product. Some were highly polished and well considered others were "done on the cheap" all were a relaxing way to spend a few hours.
Technorati tags:- CCP, Art, Photography
This shot from a fellow flicknaut is from The Sofitel in Queenstown, NZ, pretty damn funny if you ask me!
Have just started toying with an application called Graphic Converter. So far, on the surface, it seems like a hard core processing application, designed to process large batches of images quickly and efficiently. It certainly doesn't work in any way shape or form like photoshop, for example, I can't seem to be able to find a way to duplicate layers. It has controls likes levels, but not curves though.
A recent set of images I uploaded to flickr has drawn a fair bit of interest, lot's of comments and a link back from the blog of one of flickr's greats. A heartfelt thankyou to Swissmiss.
“ the darkness is as important as the light” Jared, PIC student
Technorati tags:- suburban, archeology, swissmiss, pic
Well daylight saving is here; thank god I am so over getting woken up at 4:00am! To celebrate, here's a self-portrait, and I confess it's cropped too, bit rare for me, but hey, we're in art school after all, right!
Speaking of flickr, I uploaded a new set on the weekend, a project I have had in the back of my mind for some time now. I've been collecting certain objects for many many years and finally had an idea on how to shoot them recently, in one of those rare but lucid moments that seem to be getting rarer these days.
It's funny ya know, I remember a time when I would spend as much time as I could in the darkroom, now I have to spend an hour or two cleaning dust and cobwebs up before I can even start?
Technorati tags:- darkroom, photography
A funny thing happened as we left the cafe/restaurant last night. We had eaten a very filling and spicy meal at LimeLeaves at QVC[ 13-15 QV Square Red Cape Lane Melbourne 3000 Australia +0396639777. As we stood up to leave we passed two guys who had been sitting on my right. One of the two stood up and asked me, “ Was Stuart Murdoch?”
I could do nothing but answer, “ Yes? But I'm sorry I don't know you?”
The chap them promptly introduced himself, and said he had been looking around for Photoshop workshops online and really liked my site, and my photography. Well blow me down, I was flabbergasted, chuffed and almost speechless!
Speaking of my website, I suspect a facelift this summer holidays, who knows?
Today an image from another pair, a recent decorative purchase that can be found in the sun room, as always, tweaked in Photoshop using Lobster. Tomorrow it's mate.
An article in this month's Macworld has me ‘under the hood’ of Mozilla's great browser FireFox, tweaking a few settings has ramped up the speed of this browser, quite impressvely, looks like I'll use it for a while. Certainly when checking articles from NetNewsWire.
Why I love the web
Well it is Satdee after all? Brazil, anyone?
Technorati tags:- Web, LimeLeaf, cafe, famewhore, photoshop, Lobster
This image, I feel, would pair nicely with yesterday's image, horizontally of course, in a kind of in and out way if you like? Again, heavily tweaked in Photoshop using the “ Lobster” colour correction plug-in
These images are a kind of return to the homeland sort of pair, I've been long interested in the idea that ‘we’ as a culture are reflected in the environment we build and inhabit, an environment that is capable of as much repulsion as it is attraction. Originally I used black and white materials printed very carefully and subtly to get these ideas across, now, I'm using colour, light and composition, dunno if it's working or not, I guess my next "show" will tell me?
Technorati Tags:-photoshop, workshop, digital, photography
As promised, here they come, all are heavily tweaked in photoshop using the Lobster plug-in.
The creative bursts just keep on keepin' on!
From some time spent in a retail store's VM studio, tiny bit of cropping and levels and sharpening in Photoshop, sadly; shot at 400 ISO, but hey you gotta take these opportunities when you can.
Spent a few hours in that place called the darkroom yesterday, fun it was indeed. Pretty pleased with the resulting print, am thinking that I may go back through my archives to get ready for a 20 year show in 2007, we'll see.
Technorati Tags:-photoshop, workshops, digital, photography
Spent the better part of several hours on skype with my good pal Dan, chattin' away as if we were just in the kitchen havin' a yarn over a couple of cold beers.
Ain't technology awesome.
Well a new bowser enters the market, it's called flock, will report back in a day or two - maybe?
Photoshop is considered a necessary tool by many, and it is indeed a powerful tool, I would argue however, it is but one of many available to photographers out there. Such are the vagaries of the commercial world I guess that is risen to market dominance, where to now for this app? It has everything anyone could ever need and more, I doubt I use anymore than about 1/3 of it's features, and yet they keep adding more. The only thing left for them to do is add true 16 bit editing and make it a vector based app like the long dead but still useable and graceful Live Picture, I would then devour it as an application for editing my photographs. I wonder then would backwards compatibility be an issue, well I'm not holding my breath for it to happen? Apple is now another contender in this issue, wonder what their software will be like?
My summer series of photoshop dates are now online, accessible form either, my personal site or my work site
Today's image, from my flickr set, 2005.10.15, no prizes for guessing who has inspired this one.
Technorati tags:-photoshop,workshops,photography
While conducting a little research for the planned Melbourne flickr exhibition application, using the search term photography and the web, I came across this blog, brownglasses.com, very similar in look an feel to, daily dose of imagery. Both fantastic photoblogs. Funnily enough both Daily dose of imagery photographer Sam Javanrouh flickr, and Rachel James of brownglasses.com are on flickr. What I don't like about these kinds of photographers though is they are producing work that, shows how a powerful tool like photoshop is good at creating images that all look the same?
I'll give 'em this much however, uploading an image a day is no mean feat, and effort not to be sneezed at whatsoever,
“ good on 'em I say.”
Technorati Tags:- photobloggers, Photoshop
Have had a productive week or so, am going to upload the mages over the coming days. Here is the first in of several in no particular order.
Inspired by William Eggleston's similar image.
Technorati tags:-art, photography, bbq
So, things are in some ways winding down for the year, one of my contracts ends in 2 weeks, the students at, PIC where I work for the other 3 days, are all focused on getting their final folios completed and gearing up for the annual end of year show. It is at one level, exciting and a real buzz to see the fruits of one's labours so to speak, but on the other hand it is a little saddening, not to mention financially testing. One of the ways I deal with the strain on the finances, is to run weekend workshops in Photoshop.
These are small scenarios, with lots of individual attention. They have proved to be popular over the years, and I am surprised and happy that people continue to want to pick up these kinds of new skills. Photoshop itself is a tool that while it's not the most elegent or forgiving of tools is a powerful one nonetheless. I'm glad to have been given the oppurtunity to learn and teach it. It has proved an invaluable asset in my creative arsenal, and there isn't a week goes by where I don't learn something new about it.
So if you know someone who is interested in learning a little more about Photoshop as a photo editing application, then send them along to my workshops, I'd be more than happy to share some of my knowledge of the application with them.
Technorati tags:- Photoshop, Workshop, Photography
Succinct, evocative and poetic, so says Dr.Paradox about "being human"
"...to be human is to have this intense drive to imagine and create"
With you all the way on that one!
Phew, what a weekend, over 200 shots.
A new set as a consequence, 2005.10.15
Also dug out my Holga and "borrowed" one with a Polaroid™ back. With great light happening at the moment, and one contract winding down, all adding up to a nice creative burst.
Technorati Tags:- Flickr, Digitalphotos, Holga
My current stats on Flickr
What I find interesting is the ability to search and organise your photography and to allow others to search as well.
I'm glad that the sets link is second from the top as this is the driving reason behind my use of flickr.
I love that it's a live 24/7/365 online exhibition space.
I can organise my images in any way I see fit and re-organsie them as often as I want.
If people want t know more about me they can and from there I can link to several other pages or sites that help people build up an idea of who I am and what it is I do.
This weekend has seen me browsing my calender to add shots to eligible pools and tidy up my own searching by adding tags to my images. The first few months I was not clear on the power of these simple tools and now as my online portfolio is over 2000 images I really realise the importance of find the right photo quickly.
Technorati tags:-Flickr, statistics
On Friday arvo, just gone, stumbled on some awesome flickr images made using a Holga Camera. I was inspired to go and get my own Holga camera, I also knew, that PIC, has at least one. So burrowing around in the store I found this one, with a Polaroid back, there was plenty of film as well, so back to my desk to practice and learn. I managed to blast through my 3 film packs by late Saturday morning, and produced this small piece as a consequence.
It seems that the only way to get a reasonable exposure is to wait for some decent quantity of light. Then when you do get it look out for the old light leak that Holga's are famous for. Looking back over the two days, I managed to pair two unrelated shots together and make this rather nice piece. I am now carrying a second camera with me this one is loaded with Kodak Portra 400 VC, so now, I'm back to using film for a while, not that I don't have a backlog of negs of various sizes and formats to scan and do something with? Don't worry the Nikon Coolpix 5400 is still running hot!Technorati Tags:-Holga 120sf,Polaroid,Film,Flickr,Photography
Recently on the Corner of Elizabeth and Hoddle Sts in Richmond, I was approached by three police officers and asked.
“ What are you doing?”
You wanna now what I was doing? What I have been doing for nearly 20 years, taking a photos of our societies' zeitgeist. Images like this.
So I'd heard about the heightened sense of paranoia, that has swept the country of late. But had not really encountered it nor believed it. Well it is happening.
The 3 person foot patrol was out wandering the streets of Richmond, and just happened to walk past as I was taking this photo. The cops kept making wise cracks about justifying their activities to their boss, so their request for my details didn't sink in initially. I continued the banter about cops with coffee and donuts, so forth, and they then point blank asked me for some identification. They confirmed all my details were correct and re-confirmed that I was taking images for my own pleasure.[ I initially responded by talking about some of the features of the image that had drawn me to it, features that I hope need no writing about as the image chosen image shown here sums up my thoughts on the irony and ludicrousness of the image being displayed 20 feet in the air on a public and very busy road!]
Will this stop me from doing this? No. I will certainly not stop wandering the streets of Melbourne capturing the visual details that make up for a pleasing and intriguing scrap book of images describing who I am in relation to this city, what I've seen and where I've been. Will I respond differently to the next approach by police? Yes. How though I'm not really sure?
Enjoy these other images made, in prohibited places.
Or maybe you'd like to see a complete slide show of some of my urban landscapes
I've been blogged at Utata.org, this the second one now since November, 2004, when I first signed onto flickr. The first was at flickrzen.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Currently suffering the annual or sometimes bi-annual Pseudoephedrine frenzy, things could be quiet around here for a few days?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
