Xmas Day

This is an image of my dad taken last xmas day at the family gathering. I used the lens baby on my nikon. Didn't touch the images until two nights ago. I photographed everyone who came to lunch, up against the wall. Surprised they all agreed. Much grimacing and nervous grins. My dad toughed it out for the crowd. Nervous, and who isn't with a camera shoved close to their face, but still relaxed enough to let the feeling of happiness he carried within to escape through his eyes. He's a happy man and it's good to see.

Head On Photo Festival

Sydney’s Head On Photo Festival features over 180 events and includes exhibitions of Australian and international work by established and emerging photographers.

This year I have some images in the Head On photo Festival at the Leichhardt Library Exhibition Space.


Opening on Thursday 3 May


I'm sharing the space with two other photographers


It's an interesting show and a great, great event so support your local image makers and artists and go enjoy their images

Just a Sunday night at the computer. An image I played with a few weeks ago and liked. I came back to it again tonight to have another go. I love the composition and texture of this image.

It's just so incredibly simple, and at the same time so complex...

SkyLine

A trip to Melbourne last year delivered these images. Grateful for the overcast days, my G12 lapped up the silvery slivers between the buildings as I dashed from department store awning to tram shelter and back again through the drizzle. The light glorious and shimmering. The buildings clinging joyously to the sky and watching each other shine.

 

 

  

To be or not to be...

Patterns and shapes fill my world. Watching Mr Elvis Costello interview My James Taylor last night. Some great songs and words. James Taylor said that his songwriting over the years has produced many individual songs but that the themes in his work were few. He continued to return to those ideas that were important to him and write something new from his current position. Perhaps he sang it a little more elegantly. (and what a beautiful voice)

I realise when I review my image making over the years that I also have been returning to the same themes and subjects over and over. The surface, shape, texture, angle, and line within my composition that underpin my thoughts are regular reminders of past images. The materials and subjects within my photographs return with regularity. When I'm out taking photographs I don't take a lot of time framing each image, but I do take a lot of care. I know when the composition is right and when it is not, and there is always the choice of whether to open the shutter or move on.

That particular subjects can represent feelings, thoughts and ideas is very intriguing. Why this angle or that piece of rusty corrugated iron. I sometimes shoot blind random images of textured or patterned surfaces. The choice there comes in the editing. The images I keep and those I delete fit into the familiar. I freely acknowledge the influence of other photographers and other images I have seen. The images I like are those that touch me deep below the surface of the subject. The intrinsic nature of certain images has the power to reach out and connect in a powerful way.

Many years ago a friend of mine and I sat in a bar in Gijon, Spain. My friend sat, feet resting on a second chair. A table between us. We sat and talked and every so often he would look across to a painted cast iron column reaching up to the ceiling. I've always liked that column he said with his eyes fixed. Why, I inquired. I don't know he said, I just do.

Red Beans and Roses

Have been doing a fair bit of imaging of late. The camera always at hand, that sort of thing. Trouble is, you end up with an almighty filing and storage problem with images that range from a passing tattoo to decaying flowers or architectural oddities to a dead lizard on the footpath.
Storage is obviously on the computer, but if your not careful naming and archiving the images how in Bill Brandt's name do you find it again.

So I ended up with some random images of frying beans and of a bunch of roses all in the same folder. The beans were my attempt to make refried beans to go with Tacos one night. Only I happen to like refried beans at home so I thought I'd make my own on this occasion. After the frying (and they were really only fried once) I had to get the potato masher out to work them over and into a state that looked a little similar to the genuine article. They didn't ever look the same, or taste the same. I'll leave it at that.

The roses, a gift. Photographed here while still young and vibrant are, as I write quietly maturing in the bedroom. If ever two subjects were made for each other it is Red Beans and Roses. There is a visual magic between these two unlikely companions. And in a way do they not represent all that we need from the world. Sustenance, companionship and beauty. There is a reason they ended up snuggling close, the way only digital files can, together... in a folder... on my computer.

Caught in the ACT

Another day another journey. This time to the ACT the capital of this great big country of ours. The city festooned with neatness and quiet good order. Where the roads all lead everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Where it is impossible to get a neck strain looking at the skyscrapers. Where you can pass a kangaroo, a cow, and a modern townhouse in a freshly built estate all within a one hundred metre stretch of road. Where the weather is a little more than unpredictable and the glorious sunlight has its brightness control stuck on ten.

These images are a brief collection from our recent trip featuring some of the querkeries of our nations political headquarters. It was a short trip but now I have the taste and have been yearning to return. (Thanks J and T)

 

Finally...

Who would have thought that the Gosford Regional Art Prize would be hanging a photograph of the inside of a Galston toilet. I'm kinda pleased to say that I thought they might.

I took this image pretty much after just leaving the starting gate on the first leg of a road trip that took in Bathurst, Sofala, Hill End and Mudgee. (Not to mention our final stop on the side of the road just outside the Newcastle turnpike before the car was towed to a garage for recuperation and repairs)

This image will be hanging in the Gosford Regional Art Gallery from the 1st October until the 27th November. Please drop in and support the Gosford Regional Art Gallery (and me).

This is the second image I submitted for consideration to be hung in the Art Prize. An image I thought perhaps more likely to be hung than the image above. So pleased that I put 'The Wall' forward as it is more about where I am coming from these days. It's a good feeling that others can appreciate where I'm coming from as well. The image below is called 'Swimmer'.

I'd love to know which image you guys prefer if you'd care to comment.

The quiet landscape

I half expect to see Sean Thornton (John Wayne) come walking down the road to commence his courtship of Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara) in the 1952 film The Quiet Man. Later in the film Sean drags his new wife back down the road to Innisfree to her brothers farm to collect her dowry and where the final confrontation unfolds. The story goes as expected, and in the end we see the 'Duke', duking it out with the brother of the bride.

It's a little bit funny this feeling that a Black and White image now reminds me of the technicolour film above. When recalling the film, which I have only seen once, it comes back as a lusty and rich Black and White, I guess that was the strength of John and Maureen under the guiding hand of Mr John Ford.

No blows were struck on this trip to the mighty Lake St Clair unless you count those that drove the pegs that in turn secured our tent. This is such a beautiful place to visit. The lake a perfect companion and photographic subject in any weather. It's difficult to take your eyes off the lake as the light changes throughout the day creating the effect at times, that time is standing still.

2 Days in the smoke (pt. 2)

Further to my travels in the capital of this state of nsw. Some, as yet, unseen but not neglected images of Sydneysiders at work and at play.

After a thorough viewing of the highs and lows of the Head On photographic exhibitions, some great food and enough walking in circles to confuse a donkey, we usually end up at the cinema to view something that is not artistically palatable to the Newcastle mainstream marketplace. A lovely day and night was had by all by the time we retired to the Arts Hotel in Paddo, our currently favored port of stay when in the smoke.

The images...