New Nikon camera image, manipulated in photoshop, ever so slightly
17.10.04
Australian snapshots?
During August 2004 while the eyes and ears of the nation were firmly fixed on the Olympic Games, 150 ABC Local Radio listeners ventured into their communities armed with disposable cameras. Their brief? To capture the diversity of sporting, leisure and day to day activities in their region. The result? 3000 photographs illustrating an insiders view of Australian life beyond our big cities.
Top 4 Tom Waits Albums?
My 4 all time favourite Tom Waits albums?
Glad you asked.
And in no particular order.
- Swordfishtombones
- Bone Machine
- Mule Variations
- Real Gone
Sundays?
It's Sunday!
I'm fully recovered!
In the backyard!
Online!
Drinkin' beer!
Listenin' to Tom Waits!
It's sunny and warm as only Melbourne can be at this time of year!
Does it get any better?
15.10.04
Ray Man photography show at the NGV
So here I am sitting at home.
Broadband is set up and now is wireless! And both of us are connected.
Despite feeling ill I managed to drag myself into town today to see the Man Ray photography show at the NGV, which is finishing this weekend. Let me begin by saying how impressed I was! The work is surprisingly interesting. Lots of small intriguing prints(perhaps contact prints), often with marks on them that appear to be ideas for cropping etc. The diversity of the work was excellent as well, I expected lots of solarisation but his work extends well beyond that. Some wonderful portraits, great fashion photography, and some really kooky dadaist images/ideas.
The marks he made, Man Ray, really impressed me. They added to the images in a way that I'm having trouble articulating, and it is of course something that could be easily done using a digital app, such as Photoshop or some other image editing program. The size was just perfect too. I'm sure that they were contact prints. Must buy the catalog, one day.
Something that is running through my mind at the moment is surrealism and digital photography, how would have these guys (the surrealists) handled it all, what kind of images would have they made, or would they have thought it all too easy to just cut and paste and juxtapose using a computer? What was their position on technology and culture? Maybe I'll find out one day, maybe I'll get an oppurtunity to work it all out, who knows but in the meantime, I'm gunna have fun thinking about it I'm sure!
14.10.04
Fuck the Liberals - and Labour too!
This one turned up in my inbox tonight. Bit un-needed really given that the Liberals are going to fuck up anyway!
Am absolutely stoked about the new Tom Waits album, pure Tom Waits ALL the way!
Tom Waits' album purchased - at last
At last yipee, yahoo, I've got the new album by Tom Waits - Real Gone. What can I say it's up there with my other favourite Tom Waits Albums.
Also purchased, Nick Cave and the bad seeds new one, Abbatoir Blues / The Lyres of Orpheus, and Sigur Ros' Music Split sides. Got some listening ahead of me!
13.10.04
CD capacity to reach 1 Terabyte!
According to this article e-mailed to me on a reputable list storage mediums equivalent in size to a contemporary CD will eventually hold a Terabytes worth of data, which for me as a digital photographer is important. My current image collection while not huge is large enough to concern me, and of course will continue to grow. Current number of digital camera files in storage, 12,000 + and growing. While 12,000 2 meg files isn't a huge problem I'm currently using RAW format on my Nikon Coolpix 5400 which results in a 22 meg file, and I'm already at about the 700 to 800 image mark! (I've owned the camera since about July 2004.)
12.10.04
Shared Post election reflections
look I'm no writer and I'm still a seething ball of fury after this weeks election results, that appear to be guided by people's hip pockets, no surprises there!
John over at Dog or higher has rather succintly summed up a whole heap of stuff about the current state of play here in Australian Politics, check it out!!He even talks about how the so called free trade agreement impacts on technology here in Oz!
11.10.04
Post Election Depression?
Post Election depression creeps in! However this little snippet helps me keep perspective.
" Number of bald US presidnts since TV age began: Zero
Bald British Prime ministers Zero
Bald Australian Prime Ministers One!"
Source? John S Croucher, Professor of Statistics, Macquarie "University
Does this say something about us as a nation? Are we capable of seeing through the veneer of television, or has our current, and barely hirsuite PM manipulated things the way he really wants through the media? Part of me feels this is the end, other parts realise that life will generally go on for most of us. It's the bottom end fringe dwellers who are going to suffer the most. The marginilised few who slip through the net. these thousands, will feel the pinch the most. I also fear for our Medicare system and wonder about the national Telco, Telstra. Of course again as a big city dweller with a reasonably consistent and reliable income these things are actually choices for me, what about those who have no choice but to use Telstra, or find a bulk billing doctor in their region? And how will they fare in 5 or 10 years time when Little Johnny is long gone from the scene, and some other party hasn't the balls or vision to try and fix things.
Political commentator/writer I'm not. I've been fortunate over the years, I have managed to hang in there, despite a couple of close brushed with homelessnes, and unemployment. I strongly feel that the fabric of this country is slowly unralvelling, no-one in political power makes decisions based on any moral ideals just what they think that most of the populace want. And sadly history judges these people but history may not be enough for those already staring at a range of diminishing choices.
10.10.04
8.10.04
Blast destroys camera
Blast destroys camera. Smart media card survives. This one has been around for a while now, so I'd thought I'd share it with you both.
7.10.04
Post Holiday reflections
My two recent loaves weren't too bad(both fruit loaves), I was surprised the first one worked at all as I completely got the measurements wrong!
Yet to purchase Tom Wait's new Album.
Have an upcoming exhibtion, the 20th Anniversary show from where I work. We're also publishing a comemorative book to celebrate this auspicious occasion. I'm hoping a copy of which will end up in the State Library of Victoria.
Some quotes from a book I discovered lying around at home
Good teaching is more of giving the right questions than a giving of the right answers.
Josef Albers
4.10.04
Bread baking
Back into bread baking, one of my ambitions to get a loaf that is fluffy, light, that rises high, and with a nice crust. This is my second attempt since restarting, I used to do it often a year or so ago, now with our new stove I am inspired to get back into it.
This one is good, bit heavy on the crust, but light enough for my liking. Could be a bit sweeter maybe, and not sure how to get a real dark crust yet anyway here's a snap of the bread just before I started eating it.
3.10.04
Google results?
Googled s2arts and came up with this site (allconsuming.net) linking to mine, bizzare really?
Richard Avedon dies at 81
Well known photographer Richard Avedon has died. He died after suffering a brain haemorrhage while on assignment for the New Yorker magazine in San Antonio, Texas.
More on the BBC website
The article mentions his brutally honest black and white portraits. These were a source of inspiration for me for many years, his book the American West was truly fascinating, and I have contemplated for several years now making portraits with a 5 x 4 camera just like his!
2.10.04
Picture Australia, resource?
Researching online this morning and I stumbled across this site, Picture Australia, may well be useful in a variety of ways. Might even add it to my sidebar?
"Looking for images of Australiana? PictureAustralia® is the place to start! Search for people, places and events in the collections of libraries, museums, galleries, archives, universities and other cultural agencies, in Australia and abroad - all at the same time. View the originals on the member agency web sites and order quality prints at your leisure."
1.10.04
Who were the Ant Farm?
Funny how you stumble across information on the web, whilst browsing the ICP site, I cam across this info for some early video art,from a group calling themselves Ant Farm.
"...Projects by these media collectives ranged from documentaries and agitprop to novel street theater and performance art. Guerrilla video never fully achieved its utopian goals of returning broadcast power to the people or fostering the free flow of information and images, but the same iconoclastic spirit of skeptical political expression thrives today in new media, independent video, cable television, weblogs, and net art."...
Maybe I can use this in my classes next year, who knows?
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