Towers of Learning Lean on the World

I'm interested in old books, I'm interested in Photography, I'm interested in Still Life, I'm interested in Light, I'm interested in Words.

Red - Symbols

Technorati tags:-Red, digital photograph

More thoughts on Tom Waits

As I said the other day I'm reading a collection of interviews of Tom Waits, here's a classic quote by him, about music and popular acceptance of previously ‘forbidden’ or distasteful music.

“ Jazz developed nylon socks, it was out by the pool eventually"

This comes from a section where there is an ‘overheard’ discussion between himself and Elvis Costello,“ Summit Talk: Eavesdropping on Elvis Costello and Tom Waits” profound funny and intriguing, love this one the most so far![Although the Playboy Interview is pretty funny and full of quotable gems too] I'm starting to get the impression that Tom Waits is a musician's musician, one though that is able to bridge the divide between popularity and art. Now I know why I have enjoyed him and his music for so long.

On that note I'm off to a music festival today, so who knows what gems I'll bring back, photographically and sonically?

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Tom Waits

Currently reading “ The Tom Waits Reader. Innocent When You Dream”, Edited by Mac Montandon. It's a great read and I'm really enjoying being reminded about all of Tom Wait's music and prose. Much to my delight he lists several literary influences, that I too admire, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Bukowski, and Lenny Bruce, to name but a few. One influence that piqued my interest, is someone called Lord Buckley? It's also nice to know that I'm only missing two albums from his entire discography, Frank's Wild Years [on vinyl not CD] best stay out of the record shops today eh, and The Early Years Volume Two! With an entire chronological discography at my fingertips, I'll be able to set up a playlist on my iPod that will take me on an amazing journey.

Here is the article using my image on the Ikea Blog! Thanks to all at flickr - [ikea lovers] and positive fanatics.com, it's nice to know there are others out there who are as passionate about their work as myself.

And need to make another MAC, perhaps the classic wasn't enough of a current machine for you? Well here's a page where you can make just about any MAC you like.

Technorati Tags:- Ikea, Tom Waits, MAC, Origami

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

Wandering about

Normal Programing Resumes

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

Art as Object?

All Kultured Out!

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.

1. A show at Fresh in Brunswick St, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
2. ‘First Capture’, an Exhibition by First Year Fine Art Photography students, at Dantes
3. The Current show at CCP in Fitzroy.[This will move off the front of the site eventually]
4. “ Kiss my Gamut” The 3rd year graduate show at ‘The Foundry’ in Fitzroy.
5. Natural Rhythm, Large Format Photography by David Roberts, 80 Gold St Collingwood.

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

• KIJEONG SONG
• LEYLA STEVENS
• JANE BURTON
• MART LEBEDEV, ROCKET and THUY VY
• STEVEN SIEWART

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

Sense of humour required

This shot from a fellow flicknaut is from The Sofitel in Queenstown, NZ, pretty damn funny if you ask me!

originally uploaded by Kerryn from NZ.

Graphic Converter

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.

Winding Up

The end of the year is always is an exciting time. Teaching at two schools just doubles the fun. One of the groups of students I teach are having an off campus and on campus graduation show and have already uploaded a web site commemorating the event. The others are also having a show, and some of them have uploaded their photographic folios to the web as well.

Suburban Archeology on Flickr

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

Narcissism!

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.

Technorati tags:- fuck-work, photoshop, flickr

Darkroom Redux!

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

More....

Chance encounter?

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

Two of Two?

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

Photoshopped creativity

As promised, here they come, all are heavily tweaked in photoshop using the Lobster plug-in.

End of a burst?

Creativity comes in bursts, more on it's way I'm sure.

condition - human?

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